Beginning to Remember: The Past in the Indonesian Present

Mary S. Zurbuchen

As Indonesia emerges from authoritarian rule, public intellectuals have begun to question the way the country's past has been remembered, memorialized and inscribed. Mary Zurbuchen's edited collection of essays addresses the many ways in which Indonesians have dealt with memory, its formation and its manipulation.

The authors consider how narratives of the past have taken shape local, national, group and individual levels in Indonesia, exploring the reasons why various understandings of issues such as national solidarity, citizenship, power, ethnic identity, religious belief and regional loyalty appeal to different elements in modern Indonesian society. They focus in particular on how Indonesia remembers trauma and violence. This diverse group of Indonesian and international scholars and commentators develop an understanding of the issues that most concern Indonesians as they reinterpret their recent history and the society it has shaped.

Mary S. ZURBUCHEN is the Director of Asia/Russia program at Ford Foundation Fellowship Program in New York, USA.

Contributors to this volume include Tristuti Rachmadi, Goenawan Mohamad, Laurie J Sears, Hendrik Maier, Andi F. Bakti, Fadjar I Thufail, Anthony Reid, Daniel Lev, Katherine McGregor, Gerry van Klinken, Klaus H Schreiner, Karen Strassler, Degung Santikarma and Paul van Zyl.

[This book is part of the Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies series.]

publication year: 2005
394 pages
ISBN: 978-9971-69-303-9  Paperback  US$30.00  S$38.00

A co-publication with University of Washington Press.
Our edition is available in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.