Zomia, Weapons of the Week, La société contre l'État or What?: A Consideration of Kolektiv, Kampong, Kota and Nua.

This presentation deals with how people can live cooperatively, collaboratively, and autonomously without depending on not only the nation-state system but also the modern-West political ideologies such as 'democracy', 'equality', 'egalitarianism', 'anarchism', ‘the right of resistance’ and so on.

Let me compare the social movements by art-collectives in Indonesia since the fall of President Suharto in 1998 and the worldwide 'Occupy movements' in the 2010s. While they both have disagreed with global neoliberal capitalism and sought better lives in the future, the former has been developing gradually and steadily involving other collectives globally, especially in Global South, as well as in Indonesia but the latter declined quickly in spite of the excitement at the early stage.  The fact that they both have made use of wide ranges of artistic activities as media means that not only the Indonesian collectives but the Occupiers have been in the age of ‘art’ which started after the end of the cold war which triggered the decline of the general expectation toward the communist ideology, political ideology and even the logos. Even in this historical background, the Occupy movements depended on the modern-West political ideologies such as direct-democracy and anarchism, while the Indonesian collectives have used concepts such as nongkrong (Indonesian word: hanging around and spending time together without any particular purpose)   for common understanding.

This presentation will explore the local social relationships in Indonesia realized in kolectiv, kampong, kota and nua after examining some anthropological theories by J. Scott, P.    Clastres and so on.