Indonesia’s social groupings: Suku bangsa reevaluation and race and ethnicity recontextualization

Abstract

Considering the challenge of capturing the tensions and dynamics of the social division in non-Western contexts using solely Western views of race and ethnicity, this study examined Indonesia’s “local” conception of suku bangsa and recontextualized “global” constructs of race and ethnicity to provide a nuanced understanding of how issues around social groupings in the context should be understood. Employing critical discourse analysis to investigate Indonesia’s laws and ethnic groups’ ancient texts, I argue that suku bangsa and ethnicity do not refer to the same concept, and both carry different ideological tensions and implications for hundreds of Indonesia’s social groups. I also contend that although postcolonial Indonesia demographically consists of people of color, the invention of suku bangsa and the adoption of race and ethnicity concepts accentuate the ethnoracial markedness of some marginalized groups, adding to other factors emphasizing differences between groups, such as economic and political competition as well as contestation in the context. Finally, I call for cautious use of the term suku bangsa (vis-à-vis race and ethnicity) in academic discourse when referring to Indonesia’s social groups because it has its own ideological and political implications in the context.