Overview

In Activist Archives Doreen Lee tells the origins, experiences, and legacy of the radical Indonesian student movement that helped end the thirty-two-year dictatorship in May 1998. Lee situates the revolt as the most recent manifestation of student activists claiming a political and historical inheritance passed down by earlier generations of politicized youth. Combining historical and ethnographic analysis of ""Generation 98,"" Lee offers rich depictions of the generational structures, nationalist sentiments, and organizational and private spaces that bound these activists together. She examines the ways the movement shaped new and youthful ways of looking, seeing, and being-found in archival documents from the 1980s and 1990s; the connections between politics and place; narratives of state violence; activists' experimental lifestyles; and the uneven development of democratic politics on and off the street. Lee illuminates how the interaction between official history, collective memory, and performance came to define youth citizenship and resistance in Indonesia's transition to the post-Suharto present.

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9780822361718

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Reviews

Activist Archives can be called a definitive work that will be prized as perhaps the best `biography' of a generation of Indonesian urban activism. -- Abidin Kusno * Pacific Affairs * ... the main strength of Activist Archives is that it raises important questions by not providing all the answers. In this way, it invites frequent re-reading, creating a richer understanding of the micropolitics of student activism upon each re-read. -- Yatun Sastramidjaja * Contemporary Southeast Asia * Following the students through the city's streets, highways, dormitories, cafes, and other city spaces, Doreen Lee brings Jakarta to life, and what she tells us is truly enlightening. Activist Archives makes a significant contribution to Indonesian studies and to the study of youth activism in the world generally. -- Rudolf Mrazek, author of * A Certain Age: Colonial Jakarta through the Memories of Its Intellectuals * Elegantly written, rich with ethnographic and archival material, and bursting with theoretical insights, Activist Archives offers novel analysis of one of the most important subjects of contemporary Indonesia. In Doreen Lee's sensitive ethnography the student activist emerges expressing a mix of fiery passion, intellectual idealism, irreverent playfulness, hipster self-consciousness, nostalgia, rivalry, and disillusionment. Artfully tacking between theory and the activists' everyday experiences, Lee shows how 'generation 98' has both sustained its identity and faded in relevance. Activist Archives will be a classic. -- Karen Strassler, author of * Refracted Visions: Popular Photography and National Modernity in Java *

Following the students through the city's streets, highways, dormitories, cafes, and other city spaces, Doreen Lee brings Jakarta to life, and what she tells us is truly enlightening. Activist Archives makes a significant contribution to Indonesian studies and to the study of youth activism in the world generally. --Rudolf Mrazek, author of A Certain Age: Colonial Jakarta through the Memories of Its Intellectuals

Elegantly written, rich with ethnographic and archival material, and bursting with theoretical insights, Activist Archives offers novel analysis of one of the most important subjects of contemporary Indonesia. In Doreen Lee's sensitive ethnography the student activist emerges expressing a mix of fiery passion, intellectual idealism, irreverent playfulness, hipster self-consciousness, nostalgia, rivalry, and disillusionment. Artfully tacking between theory and the activists' everyday experiences, Lee shows how 'generation 98' has both sustained its identity and faded in relevance. Activist Archives will be a classic. --Karen Strassler, author of Refracted Visions: Popular Photography and National Modernity in Java

Elegantly written, rich with ethnographic and archival material, and bursting with theoretical insights, Activist Archives offers novel analysis of one of the most important subjects of contemporary Indonesia. In Doreen Lee's sensitive ethnography the student activist emerges expressing a mix of fiery passion, intellectual idealism, irreverent playfulness, hipster self-consciousness, nostalgia, rivalry, and disillusionment. Artfully tacking between theory and the activists' everyday experiences, Lee shows how 'generation 98' has both sustained its identity and faded in relevance. Activist Archives will be a classic. -- Karen Strassler, author of Refracted Visions: Popular Photography and National Modernity in Java Following the students through the city's streets, highways, dormitories, cafes, and other city spaces, Doreen Lee brings Jakarta to life, and what she tells us is truly enlightening. Activist Archives makes a significant contribution to Indonesian studies and to the study of youth activism in the world generally. -- Rudolf Mrazek, author of A Certain Age: Colonial Jakarta through the Memories of Its Intellectuals ... the main strength of Activist Archives is that it raises important questions by not providing all the answers. In this way, it invites frequent re-reading, creating a richer understanding of the micropolitics of student activism upon each re-read. -- Yatun Sastramidjaja Contemporary Southeast Asia

... the main strength of Activist Archives is that it raises important questions by not providing all the answers. In this way, it invites frequent re-reading, creating a richer understanding of the micropolitics of student activism upon each re-read. -- Yatun Sastramidjaja * Contemporary Southeast Asia * Activist Archives can be called a definitive work that will be prized as perhaps the best 'biography' of a generation of Indonesian urban activism. -- Abidin Kusno * Pacific Affairs * Activist Archives is an important exploration of the 1998 Indonesian student movement and its ongoing influence, adding greatly to our knowledge of student movements and democratization in postcolonial settings. -- Rachel Rinaldo * International Journal of Urban and Regional Research * Activist Archives undoubtedly offers us a new approach to the analysis of Reformasi, student and youth politics in the recent history of Indonesia. It provides new insights, enriched via an extensive use of fieldwork and archival material. -- John G. Taylor * Asian Affairs * Activist Archives is undoubtedly a significant contribution to the anthropological analysis of youths and political culture in modern Indonesian history. -- Farabi Fakih * Journal of Southeast Asian Studies * A valuable expansion. Activist Archives should be of interest to students and other scholars from a range of disciplines concerned with the ephemerality and endurance of democratic transitions. -- Mary E. McCoy * Journal of Asian Studies *

Author Information

Doreen Lee is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northeastern University.

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