Chair: Paul Hutchcroft, University of Wisconsin, Madison

This paper presents a series of conversations in which rural Sasak peasants use personal memories to negotiate and explain national historical events. More often than not, the facts they establish are incompatible with actual historical dates and personages. The last thirty years in anthropology have established culture as constructed and constantly in flux. In examining the processes through which these "facts" are locally established, the paper explores why some aspects of culture, specifically certain memories and interpretations, resist correction and change. In short, why do Indonesia’s national historical facts matter and matter deeply to those whom the state considers among its least significant citizens?

Cathryn M. Houghton, Yale University

The massive bloodshed that underwrote the New Order Regime in ‘65 still haunts the memories of many Indonesians who—in the name of democratic reform—are now desperate to predict and chose the "right" (i.e. winning) side. In the shadow of more than thirty years of New Order politics, for many, Reformasi means little more than a shift in the hands of power with political "choice" a matter of surviving the transition. What does it now mean to have and express an individual opinion, one that counts and is accounted for in determining the political future of the nation? This paper explores local attitudes and meanings associated with political participation in a rural, primarily agrarian area of Sumatra not unlike much of Indonesia. As national politics are realized in local interests and power struggles, the effects of fear and intimidation on political choice are further complicated by the cultural politics of patron loyalty and who speaks for whom within extended local networks. The ongoing story of local reform takes some surprising twists and turns that direct us to question Western assumptions about political participation that often take for granted a long history of public organization and liberal individualism.

Kathleen Weekley, Swinburne University of Technology

The paper analyses the character of the Philippine government under President Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada, who campaigned with the slogan ‘Erap para sa mahirap’ (for the poor). Such rhetoric and political style have endeared Estrada to millions of poor Filipinos and highlighted the cultural divide between them and the middle and upper classes. Estrada’s declaration that the fruits of economic production would now be shared more fairly, especially with those poor people working in the agricultural sector, also made his political positions attractive to a significant number of progressives, including former communists. Others are skeptical that such promises can be kept, given both the magnitude of systemic sociopolitical problems of the Philippines and the fact that Estrada still offers no detailed alternative strategies with which to tackle them. Debates about the government’s performance thus far have not included consideration of the possible long-term implications of Estrada’s form of populism. Analysis seems divided between the extent to which his ascendancy indicates a weakening of the traditional elite hold on democratic representation in the Philippines and empirical assessments of whether or not vague government promises can be kept. More important questions, however, are why vague populist promises cannot be kept and whether the rise of a popular ‘common sense’ view of politics encourages or threatens the further development of the Philippines’ fragile formal democracy. This paper seeks to answer those questions with reference to current theories and critiques of political populism.

Gavin Shatkin, Rutgers University