Kampung, Islam and State in Urban Java PDF
Kampung, Islam and State in Urban Java PDF
To cite this article: Michelle Ann Miller (2012) Kampung, Islam and State in Urban Java, The Asia
Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 13:1, 95-97, DOI: 10.1080/14442213.2012.645793
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2012.645793
which geographical and subjective borderlessness emerge together (p. 105). Although
the author notes that his respondents were reluctant to talk about their lives in
Singapore, greater exploration of these issues is essential if we are to accept the claims
made about the central role that Batam plays in the lives of Singaporean Malay
working-class men.
Overall, I was disappointed that Lindquist was unable to move beyond the narrow
focus of his doctoral work and situate this study in its historical and ethnographic
context. As a study of one group of marginalised working-class migrants in
Indonesia, the book is insightful and well-written. As a study of migration and
tourism in the Indonesian borderlands it lacks sufficient attention to the complex
interplay of local and global forces that shape life in the Riau Islands.
LENORE LYONS
University of Western Australia
# 2012, Lenore Lyons
Kampung, Islam and State in Urban Java
PATRICK GUINNESS
Singapore, NUS Press, 2009
vii, 275pp., ill., bibliography, index, ISBN: 978-9971-69-470-8, S$38.00 (paperback)
There are many strands to this curiously titled book, which would be more aptly
named Community and State in Urban Kampung Java. Focusing on the lived
realities and changing built environment of an off-street neighbourhood called Ledok
in the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, it is firmly located in the urban rather than
in traditional understandings of kampung (villages) in rural areas. Yet distinctions
between urban, peri-urban and rural kampung are not explored in any depth in
Kampung, Islam and the State in Urban Java. Islam, too, is only given cursory
treatment, being mainly discussed in relation to youth and the importance of the
Javanese Muslim ritual feast of kendhuren to Ledok community life.
Notwithstanding its somewhat misleading title, the book provides rich insights
into everyday life in urban kampung Java. Patrick Guinness draws from
ethnographic observation and historical research conducted since 1975 to provide
an intricately detailed account of urban and generational transformation spanning
three decades. Departing from the plethora of alternately romanticised and
disparaging accounts of kampung*which tend to portray kampung life as either
utopian or uncivilised, poor, uneducated, backward, and lacking initiative
(p. 225)*Guinness avoids such narrow absolutisms. Instead, he offers a nuanced
and grounded representation of various dimensions of urban kampung vis-a`-vis the
Indonesian state and through the eyes of their residents who struggle to
accommodate the formal within alternative informal mechanisms and strategies
to make their lives possible (p. 85).
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