This paper compares different conceptualizations of administrative space in the late colonial period and the New Order and attempts to understand the significance of this difference. Specifically, it compares the listing order of the provinces or their colonial equivalents in such government documents as Regeeringsalmanak, Statistical Pocketbook of Indonesia, and Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia. First, the paper reviews indigenous conceptualization of space in pre-colonial Sumatra and then discusses changes in the ordering of Sumatran residencies between the early 1930s and after 1939. During the 1930s, the Sumatran residencies seem to have been listed in the order in which they had come under direct Dutch control. From 1939, they began to be listed from the northern to the southern end of the island.
The “provinces” of the colony as a whole were listed more or less in clockwise order during the late colonial period, starting from “Java and Madura,” moving to Sumatra, then to Borneo, Celebes, Manado, Molukken, Timor, “Bali and Lombok” and implicitly ending back at “Java and Madura,” thereby closing the imaginary circle of listing. The clockwise, circular listing of provinces highlights the central importance of Java in the Netherlands Indies.
The post-independence listing of provinces during the 1950s and 1960s resembles the colonial one. A major and critical difference, however, is observed in eastern Indonesia. The post-independence listing of provinces in this area does not follow the clockwise movement. Rather, it runs from Bali to Nusa Tunggara, and from Maluku to New Guinea, thus highlighting the eastern border areas, the areas of contention after independence.
A completely different mode of listing of provinces was established by the late 1970s. It can been seen in Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia 1976 published in 1978. Interestingly, 1976 is the year when the geographical expanse of the Republic of Indonesia was finally bounded according to the wishes of Indonesian political and military leaders, as East Timor was formally incorporated into the republic in this year. We may also assume that after putting its house in order, so to speak, in Java in the late 1960s and during the first Five Year Plan, the Suharto regime turned its attention increasingly to the whole of Indonesia from the mid-1970s, for which it supposedly needed a well-organized view of the entire country.
In the new mode of listing, which is here called the bird's-eye view of Indonesia, the provinces are basically listed in two strokes from west to east : the first from Sumatra to Java, Bali, Nusa Tunggara and East Timor: the second from Kalimantan to Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya. The bird's-eye view projects an image of a homogenenous Indonesian space which consists of twenty-seven provinces of presumably equal political standing.
The paper further examines some of the New Order's cultural and educational policies during the 1970s and 1980s and concludes that the provinces are now filled with their respective regional cultures (kebudayaan daerah), regional histories of independence struggle (sejarah perjuangan daerah), and so on. The provinces are no longer simply administrative spaces on the map. They can be experienced, studied, identified and identified with, and even emulated in the case of regional architectural styles and wedding costumes. As the provinces are considered politically equal in the homogeneous space of Indonesia, the regional cultures and regional ethnic groups which represent the provinces are also considered equal. For example, they are treated “equally” in the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah or “Beautiful Indonesia” in-Miniature Park.
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