Session 1: Reconceptualizing Ethnic Minorities in Asia

Organizer and Chair: Alexius A. Pereira, National University of Singapore

Discussant: Sara L. M. Davis, Columbia University

This panel aims to reconceptualize ethnic minorities in Asia from a multidisciplinary perspective. The most common perspectives on ethnic minorities focus on identity management and identity politics. However, these issues become ever more complex with contemporary processes of postcoloniality and cultural globalization. A classic approach to ethnic minorities would view them as being ‘strangers’ in society, where their identities often are distinct from the mainstream or majority identity. Hence, ‘difference’ is a political tool, which may be utilized by the minority group itself (to assert distinctiveness) or by the majority group (for purposes of discrimination, for example). However, in a postcolonial world, where even majority identities are unstable, and in a situation of rapid cultural globalization, the notion of ‘difference’ is now much more dynamic and fluid. Indeed, minority groups might not only be ‘different’ from the majority group, but might be ‘different’ from their homeland identity, if they were a diasporic group. Also, minority groups may find that there are ‘differences’ within their own groups, based on class or religious issues. Therefore, the key to reconceptualizing ethnic identity is to go beyond examining a single source of ‘difference’ and to understand multiple sources of ‘difference.’ Hence, contemporary minority ethnic groups actually face double or multiple marginalizations in society.

This panel offers four papers from different disciplines that examine how ethnic minorities manage ‘difference.’ There are two papers that examine sub-minority groups within Chinese ethnic minority in Indonesia. The Chinese are already socially marginalized for their race and ethnicity in Indonesia, which is culturally Malay and Muslim. Yet, the Chinese Muslims in Indonesia, studied by Susan Giblin, face a second level of marginalization from within their own community for their religious beliefs and practices. Similarly, poor Chinese in Indonesia, studied by Vidhyandika Perkasa, are also marginalized by the wealthier Chinese in Indonesia.

The third paper focuses on Koreans in Uzbekistan. This group again faces double marginality, as they are ‘different’ from the local Uzbeks, regardless of how culturally assimilated they might have been, and also marginalized from Koreans from Korea because they have lost touch with Korean culture.

The final paper focuses on the Eurasians in Singapore. Initially marginalized by Singapore’s ‘multiracial’ ethnic policies, the Eurasians have recently been given ‘official recognition’ by the state—culturally, politically and economically. However, because of this recognition, the community faces identity problems as it is forced to artificially essentialize ‘Eurasian’ identity. As such, it is now facing issues of internal marginalization, as some members of the community cannot identify with the essentialized identity. At the same time, Eurasians have become more Eurasian and less ‘Singaporean,’ which is another source of marginalization.

Ethnic, National and Religious Identities: Being Chinese and Muslim in Indonesia

Susan Giblin, University of Leeds

Through analyses of interviews, as well as materials published by Chinese Muslim groups, such as the Indonesian Association of Ethnic Chinese Muslims (Persatuan Islam Tionghoa Indonesia) and the H. Karim Oei Foundation (Yayasan H. Karim Oei), this paper will investigate how Chinese Muslims in Indonesia articulate their ethnic, national, and religious identities.

The primary question which drives this analysis is how minority groups within the nation-state engage with identity discourses. During Ph.D. research which investigated ethnic Chinese civil society groups in Indonesia, I found that a number of paradoxes emerged which ensured that although these groups are keen to assert both their Chinese and their Indonesian identities, the language and concepts of identity in Indonesia do not allow them to take up a position within the discourses. This paper will explore whether it is less difficult for Chinese Muslims in Indonesia to express Chinese as well as Indonesian identities, whether Chinese Muslims wish to engage with their Chinese heritage at all, and how they envisage themselves fitting into national discourses.

The paper is based on fieldwork carried out in West Java, East Java and Central Java, which according to the population census of 2000 have the highest populations of Muslims, constituting more than half (55.53%) of the total Muslim population of the country.

Diaspora and Ethnic Identity: The Case of Korean Uzbeks

Hee Young Kwon, Academy Korean Studies

It is a common idea that an ethnic group can be identified by objective criteria. Especially in the former Soviet Union, many national autonomous territories were constructed by this principle. But if we observe the history of the Korean diaspora in CIS, we could conclude that it is not an easy thing to define an ethnic group. The Korean diaspora in Uzbekistan are Korean by blood, but there was a repression of their ethnic identity for a long time. Repressed by communist ideology and dispersed in Central Asia by force, they now feel uncomfortable in their own country because Uzbekization is now in process. They know that they are Koreans by blood but they can not speak Korean. They are accustomed to Russian culture but they live in Uzbekistan where nationalization in every field is in process. In this situation, with which ethnic group do they identify? We again need to introduce a subjective principle of identity. My paper will underline this necessity by analyzing the attitudes of Korean Uzbeks in Uzbekistan.

Rethinking Ethnic Minority in Indonesia: A View From a Poor Chinese Community

Vidhyandika Perkasa, Monash University

Among approximately 1,000 ethnic groups in Indonesia, 85% of which are considered ‘ethnic minority groups,’ the Chinese of Indonesia attract most attention both nationally and internationally. Unlike Chinese minorities elsewhere, as Wang Gungwu pointed out, nowhere else are relations between the indigenous people and ethnic Chinese so brittle or prone to violent outbreak. There are many reasons behind this hatred of the Chinese, ranging from myths about their economic domination, weak national identity, link with communism, and the fact that they prefer living exclusively.

This study will debate this "myth of economic domination" since in reality not all Chinese are wealthy. In fact a large amount of them are poor. This may be seen as an ‘unusual case’—an under-explored and misrepresented dimension in the anthropological discourse on the Chinese in Indonesia. As such, the Chinese, both wealthy and poor, are an ethnic minority group facing a wide range of discrimination and frequently are relegated to relatively low positions in society—inferior, vulnerable, and subordinate. Minority is about having limited "power" to realize goals and interests. It is about being "different" and experiencing human inequality.

This study emphasizes a rethinking on ethnic minorities from the perspective of the poor Chinese in Indonesia. In anthropological terms, it is an emic view of minority. How do they perceive themselves as being a minority? How do they perceive their identity? How do they survive? How severely are they being discriminated?

Reconceptualizing Ethnic Minorities: The "Post-Marginalization" of Singapore Eurasians

Alexius A. Pereira, National University of Singapore

Many ethnic minorities suffer from state neglect, marginalization, or discrimination—both intentional or otherwise. However, what happens to a group when it becomes officially recognized and supported by the state? The Eurasians of Singapore provide an interesting case to reconceptualize ethnic minorities. After many years of marginalization, at the beginning of the new millennium, Eurasians have not only been officially recognized by the Singapore state, they have also been given state support—including economic, political and social—within the state’s policy of "multiracialism." This paper has several objectives: it will begin by examining the logic behind the state’s recognition of the community. It will then outline the consequences of this official state recognition, particularly focusing on identity construction and maintenance, both from within and outside the Eurasian community. It finds that ‘mainstreaming’—the theoretical opposite of ‘marginalization’—also generates social consequences, which in turn raises new identity problems for the minority.