In-Person Panel PS3.2

Cultural Heritage and Identity Politics: Governance and Memory in Asia

Commandos, Criados and Commemoration: Conflict (as) heritage in Timor-Leste 

Natali Pearson 

Between late 1941 and early 1943, Australian Sparrow Force commandos lived and fought across the island of Timor. Their attempts to repel and disrupt the Japanese invasion led to some of the fiercest and most effective guerrilla fighting of World War II. The commandos were supported by, and formed strong bonds with, local Timorese—some as young as nine years old—known as criados. But the presence of the commandos on the island also exposed the criados and their families to great risk, and dragged Timor—particularly Portuguese Timor, at that time ostensibly neutral—into a global conflict it was entirely unprepared for.  

Despite this paradox and the complicated legacy it has given rise to, there has been virtually no scholarly analysis of how these events have been memorialised and commemorated. This paper addresses that gap, examining how Australia’s role in Timor during WWII is remembered and commemorated today. Using historical sources, site visits and oral histories, it situates these commemorative efforts within the broader context of the Australia–Timor-Leste relationship. As it argues, commemoration has the potential to valorise historical relationships, but can also serve to elide contemporary geopolitical realities.

Heritage-making among Chinese and Indian migrants in Parramatta 

Denis Byrne, Emma Waterton

When do migrants begin to have heritage in Australia? This is a question posed in research being carried out in Parramatta, Sydney, among recent migrants from China and India, specifically in relation to place-based heritage. We find that because recent migrants primarily utilise existing building stock rather than building for themselves, their lives tend to be sedimented into these buildings, some of which are up to a century old, in ways that have no visibility in the heritage stakes. In the process of heritage listing, old buildings are identified mainly according to their architectural style and age. They default, as it were, to their original Anglo-Australian character, shrugging off their subsequent non-Anglo social history. And yet it emerges from interviews with Chinese and Indian migrants in Parramatta that rather than being a mere audience for the area’s existing heritage buildings, some of which are the oldest in Australia, they are actively resignifying them. India migrants, for example, identify the colonial-era bungalows not as ‘Australian’ heritage but as the familiar generic architecture of the British colonial sphere which of which India and Australia were both part. In such ways, they are in fact beginning to have heritage in Australia.

Cultural Governance with Chinese Characteristics: Charting in the Course of Maritime Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding 

Yu Tao

This presentation delves into China’s distinctive state-centric governance model through the lens of maritime intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding, which has become a critical endeavour in China and across Asia. It reveals how various state agencies in China advance their agendas in maritime ICH safeguarding through a complex array of legislative, administrative, mobilising, and advocacy practices. Starting from a systematic review of China’s national ICH inventories, this presentation provides a comprehensive overview of major maritime ICH safeguarding projects in China. Subsequent analysis of typical cases illuminates the subtle workings of China’s state-centric governance approach within the sphere of culture. It demonstrates that the state is not the only actor who controls every aspect of maritime ICH safeguarding in contemporary China despite its dominant roles. Instead, it utilises multiple policy tools to mobilise the involvement of various non-state actors, ranging from social groups to businesses and individual experts.

Memories of Unbelonging: Ethnic Chinese Identity Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia 

Charlotte Setijadi 

Under the pretext of ‘naturalizing’ them, throughout Suharto’s New Order regime (from 1966-1998), Chinese Indonesians were subjected to a targeted assimilation policy where Chinese languages, cultural expression, schools, media, and organizations were banned. This assimilation policy was only abolished in 1998 following the political riots and anti-Chinese attacks that led to the fall of the New Order. In the post-Suharto era, Chinese Indonesians are finally free to ‘be Chinese’ again. However, how does one recover from the trauma of assimilation and try to ‘recover’ a lost Chinese identity?  

In this paper, I examine the significance of trauma narratives in contemporary Chinese Indonesian identity politics. Based on ethnographic data collected since 2007, I discuss how different generations of Chinese Indonesians construct narratives about their history, identity, and belonging as adaptive strategies to survive and maximize the momentum of democratization in the post-Suharto era. This emphasis on group agency marks a strong departure from structural analyses of Chinese Indonesians that mostly highlight their disempowerment as an oppressed minority. Furthermore, I argue that the rise of China in the 21st Century have prompted many Chinese Indonesians to re-evaluate their sense of ethnic and national belonging.