scholarly journals "What’s the matter with being Indonesian?” A Social Representation Approach to Unravel Indonesian National Identity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizqy Amelia Zein

Having announced its independence in 1945, Indonesia is still “a state in search of a nation.” Consisted of more than 300 ethnic tribes and around 600 local languages and dialects, ruthless religious, ethnic, ideology, region conflicts, and civil war have even been intensified after the New Order regime collapsed in 1998. By using Social Representation theory, online survey research involving 114 Indonesians living in the United Kingdom is used to explore these points; how Indonesian negotiate their ethnic, religious, and national identity, the historical theme and important figures in Indonesia’s history, and the connection between ethnic, religious, and national identity and attitudes towards the New Order. Research findings suggest that national and ethnic identity, as well as ethnic and religious identity, is consensual, while the relation between religious and national identity is emancipated. Independence theme is dominant in Indonesia’s history as the Declaration of Independence and Soekarno–Hatta are the prominent event and figures. The experience being under the rule of Soeharto is positively correlated with religious identity, indicates that Soeharto’s anti-communism project is remarked as an important accomplishment from a religious community standpoint. The research also found that people are not completely happy with the regime’s achievements, but do not strongly have contempt for the regime’s policies at the same time.

Zutot ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-17
Author(s):  
Yael Shenker

This article addresses Israeli novelist Haim Beʾer’s relation to national-religious identity and the rifts and the pain it causes him, as can be discerned from his fiction and journalism, and certainly from interviews with him. His relation to national-religious identity also reflects a sort of mirror image, at times inverted, of the relationship between religious and national identities. Beʾer’s movement between religious community and nation criticizes on the one hand prevalent conceptions of secularization and national identity in Zionist discourse, and, on the other hand, conceptions of redemption in religious discourse.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-27
Author(s):  
Abdulloh Fuadi

This paper discusses the discourse about the complexity of ethnic and religious identity monism in Mataram Lombok West Nusa Tenggara; Sasak ethnic is Islam, while Balinese ethnic is Hindu. The question is then does religious conversion also include ethnic conversion? Methodologically, this paper is library research. Several notes related to this discourse are as follows: (1) Increasing conflict escalation occurs during the Reformation era. Identity politics emerge and strengthen. In several conflicts at Mataram, the ethnic and religious identity is thickening. (2) There is a complexity between democracy and diversity. Democracy demands unity, while multiculturalism emphasizes particularity. Balancing them is easy in theory but difficult in practice. (3) It must be distinguished between politics and politicization. In the case of Indonesia, ethnic and religious issues are often politicized by some people to achieve their own group goals. (4) Relying on ethnicity is a natural instinct in self-defense and affirming identity. This is not necessary to be troubled and blamed. (5) These problems are like a Pandora's box, a box full of diseases. It was the reform era that opened the box which had been closed or covered by the New Order. What happened in the Reformation Era is the emergence of various ethnic and religious problems which were not recognized during the New Order era.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ringo Ringvee

The article focuses on the relations between the state , mainstream religions and new religious movements in Estonia from the early 1990s until today. Estonia has been known as one of highly secular and religiously liberal countries. During the last twenty years Estonian religious scene has become considerably more pluralist, and there are many different religious traditions represented in Estonia. The governmental attitude toward new religious movements has been rather neutral, and the practice of multi-tier recognition of religious associations has not been introduced. As Estonia has been following neoliberal governance also in the field of religion, the idea that the religious market should regulate itself has been considered valid. Despite of the occasional conflicts between the parties in the early 1990s when the religious market was created the tensions did decrease in the following years. The article argues that one of the fundamental reasons for the liberal attitude towards different religious associations by the state and neutral coexistence of different traditions in society is that Estonian national identity does not overlap with any particular religious identity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2013 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalerante Evagelia

AbstractThe present paper is involved with the Pedagogical faculties’ students’ critique on the current educational system as it has been altered after 1981. The research was carried out utilizing both quantitative and qualitative tools. Students-voters participated in the interviews whereas active voters were difficult to be located to meet the research requirements. The dynamics of the specific political party is based on a popular profile in terms of standpoints related to economic, social and political issues. The research findings depict the students’ strong wish for a change of the curricula and a turn towards History and Religion as well as an elevation of the Greek historic events, as the History books that have been written and taught at schools over the past years contributed to the downgrading of the Greek national and cultural identity. There is also a students’ strong belief that globalization and the immigrants’ presence in Greece have functioned in a negative way against the Greek ideal. Therefore, an overall change of the educational content could open the path towards the reconstruction of the moral values and the Greek national identity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.


Penamas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Tiwi - Etika

This article is the result of a research on the Kaharingan problematic issues of religious identity after being integrated into Hindu Dharma. During the ‘New Order’ (President Soeharto's government) Kaharingan religion was not included in one of the religions served by the state. The issue of state recognition and the ease of obtaining civil services for Kaharingan adherents are strong reasons for Kaharingan religious leaders to integrate Kaharingan as part of Hinduism. The research raises the issues: (1) how is the process of integrating Kaharingan religion into Hindu Dharma? (2) what are the implications of such integration? and, (3) how is the existence of Kaharingan religious identity as the original ‘Dayak tribe religion’ after integration into Hindu Dharma in the future? This study aims to portray the existence of Kaharingan religion during integration into Hindu Dharma. This type of research is qualitative-descriptive with the method of collecting data through observation and interviews with religious leaders and administrators of religious institutions namely the Hindu Kaharingan Grand Council (MB-AHK), as well as an analysis of documents related to the object of research. Theories used in this research are integration theory, identity theory and locality theory. The integration process has implications for various fields, ranging from education, social, religious, economic, political upto cultural identity. The future challenges of Kaharingan are: internal conflict, a dilemma of distortion from third parties and stigmatization as one of the Hindu Dharma sects.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002205742110259
Author(s):  
Chetan Sinha

The present paper critically examined the available research on role of family and school contribution in academic achievement and explored their social representations. People adaptation with the prevalent notions and thinking beyond the boundary of common sense is required to explain multidimensional picture of any attribute. Previous research applied social representation theory to understand educability, intelligence, academic achievement and failure, and teachership. This article showed a polysemic understanding of family and school contribution where roles and identity matters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susilo Wibisono ◽  
Winnifred Louis ◽  
Jolanda Jetten

Indonesia has seen recent expansions of fundamentalist movements mobilising members in support a change to the current constitution. Against this background, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, we explored the intersection of religious and national identity among Indonesian Muslims quantitatively, and in Study 2, we qualitatively examined religious and national identification among members of moderate and fundamentalist religious organisations. Specifically, Study 1 (N= 178) assessed whether the association of religious and national identity was moderated by religious fundamentalism. Results showed that strength of religious identification was positively associated with strength of national identification for both those high and low in fundamentalism. Using structured interviews and focus group discussions, Study 2 (N =35) examined the way that self-alignment with religious and national groups develops among activists of religious movements in Indonesia. We found that while more fundamentalist activists attached greater importance to their religious identity than to any other identity (e.g., national and ethnic), more moderate activists represented their religious and national identities as more integrated and compatible. We conclude that for Indonesian Muslims higher in religious fundamentalism, religious and national identities appear to be less integrated and this is consequential for the way in which collective agendas are pursued.


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