Collective Identity and Protest Tactics in Yogyakarta Under The Post-Suharto Regime

David Efendi (Lecturer at the Department of Government Affairs and Administration Studies at the Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

Jurnal Studi Pemerintahan
Vol 6, No 2 (2015): August 2015

In response to an uncertain political situation, since 1998, Yoyakartans have engaged in resistance through groups called indigenous organizations. Such groups reproduce existing cultural resources as part of a broader movement to oppose democra-tization reforms that have been raised by the central government. Based on interviews, fieldwork and newspaper reports, this study finds that: (1) collec-tive identity can be understood in different ways from political and cultural perspectives, and indigenous groups are part of the “deep cultural resources” that establish collective identity; (2) such organizations use cultural resources in ways that conform to social movement theory; and (3) the existence of indig-enous groups contributes to shaping and reshaping the activities of the movements in which they participate.