Citizenship, identity and difference in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia has long been struggling with ways to conceptualise the 'parts' of the nation in relation to the whole. The nationalist movement took this as a serious challenge and devised a new political vocabulary for the task of building the diverse nation. Their program was challenged by the political vocabulary deployed by Suharto's New Order, but the leaders of Reformasi and now the newly-elected President Joko Widodo are revisiting political language to develop the sense of belonging to the nation and respect for its diverse parts.