Subaltern Agency and the Political Economy of Rural Social Change

Subaltern Agency and the Political Economy of Rural Social Change
Rebecca Meckelburg

Summary

Twenty years after the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, most political studies of Indonesia’s post-New Order democratic ‘transition’ have left the ideas, forms of organisation, strategies and impacts of lower class struggles largely unexamined. Scholarly works that address the dynamics of social and political change have largely focussed on the mixed outcomes of decentralisation and democratisation of state power for elite actors since Reformasi, providing little or no framework for conceptualising popular political action in the context of this institutional restructuring. Drawing on propositions from critical political economy and Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, this thesis develops analytical approaches for investigating the dynamics of rural subaltern agency in post-New Order Indonesia, focussing on how rural subaltern actors ‘do politics’. The approach applied here extends the analysis of political studies beyond the state, its institutions and hegemonic practices by focussing on the persistent, albeit often fragmented, popular struggles of subalterns to secure control of resources and shift social relations of power in their favour. Further, the study shows how the ideas and political beliefs of ordinary people both reflect and shape the social-movement strategies rural people pursue. Using qualitative data from extensive fieldwork in Central Java, the thesis demonstrates that legacies of subaltern struggles over power and land as a resource are reflected in villagers’ contemporary relations with state institutions and other forms of social organisation. They organise across multiple scales, and employ diverse tactics including shifting alliances with other social actors to further their interests. Their political claims are strongly informed by cultures and ideologies that have their roots in previous periods of collective action, which are reproduced or transformed though their experiences in contemporary social struggles.

Author

Rebecca Meckelburg

PhD defended at

Murdoch University, Global Studies, Asia Research Centre

Specialisation

Social Sciences

Region

Southeast Asia
Indonesia

Theme

International Relations and Politics
Urban / Rural
Society