Table of Contents

Introduction: A Problematic Identity; Approaches to Accommodating Chineseness; Historical Constructions of Chinese Identity; Chinese "Culture" and Self-Identity; Heterogeneity and Internal Dynamics of Chinese Politics; Re-Emergence of the Chinese Press; "Race", Class and Stereotyping: Pribumi Perceptions of Chineseness; Preserving Ethnicity: Negotiating Boundary Maintenance and Border-Crossing; Conclusion: Reconceptualising Chineseness.

About the Author

Chang-Yau Hoon is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalama, Visiting Senior Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. He chairs the Academic Board of the Brunei Research Institute at the College of ASEAN Studies, Guangxi University for Nationalities, China. He specializes in the Chinese diaspora, identity politics, multiculturalism, and religious and cultural diversity in contemporary Southeast Asia. His latest books are: Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia (with YK Chan, 2021, Springer); Christianity and the Chinese in Indonesia: Ethnicity, Education and Enterprise (2023, Liverpool University Press); Southeast Asia in China: Historical Entanglements and Contemporary Engagements (with YK Chan, 2023, Lexington Press); and Stability, Growth and Sustainability: Catalysts for Socio-economic Development in Brunei Darussalam (with A. Ananta and M. Hamdan, 2023, ISEAS Publishing).

Reviews

"It takes a linguistically gifted and culturally cosmopolitan, diasporic Chinese - born in Malaysia, raised in Brunei, educated in Western Australia - with finely-tuned insider-outsider sensibilities, to lift the veil on the long suppressed Chinese community of Jakarta, Indonesia. It is a revelation to follow C.Y. Hoon as he skillfully navigates the treacherous waters of post-Suharto (1998) ethnic politics in Jakarta. After decades of being rendered near voiceless and faceless, Chinese-Indonesians are reclaiming their cultural and citizenship rights, and reconceptualizing their identity in the face of persistent stereotypes and essentialist constructions. ... Well trained in scientific participant-observer ethnographic methods, Hoon demonstrates convincingly that identity is mutually constituted in constantly changing and unfolding relationships between migrant and host. This engrossing study heralds a new generation of Chinese diaspora scholarship." --Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Director of Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America; Professor of History and Ethnic Studies, Brown University

"May 1998 saw both the student movement that toppled Suharto and some of the worst anti-Chinese violence in Indonesian history, explains Hoon, and Chinese residents responded by organizing to become more visible and legal. He looks at the situation a decade later, asking how Chinese-Indonesians self-identify, how important it is to recognize the potential for Chinese identity to transform and change, and other questions." --Reference & Research Book News

"This is an important and thoughtful book on the identity of the Chinese in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto. It makes an important contribution not only to Indonesian studies but also to studies of the 'overseas Chinese' elsewhere and of ethnic minorities generally. It is theoretically sophisticated: it problematizes Chinese identity and uses theories of identity, multiculturalism and hybridity to make sense of Chinese identities in Indonesia. At the same time, it takes into account the history and particular situation of the Chinese in Indonesia. The representation of Chinese and 'pribumi' subjectivities and the analysis of the ways stereotypes function in real life in the constitution of identities are particularly engaging. Best of all, the book presents sophisticated concepts and complex processes in a clear and readable way." --Lyn Parker, author of From Subjects to Citizens: Balinese Villagers in the Indonesian Nation-State (2003), and editor of The Agency of Women in Asia (2005) and Women and Work in Indonesia (2007)

"This theoretically sophisticated, informative and highly readable book is the best thing I have read on what it means to be 'Chinese' in Indonesia since the fall of President Suharto in 1998." --Charles A. Coppel, author of Indonesian Chinese in Crisis (1983), and Studying Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia (2002)