TERROR AND THE COLONIAL IMAGINATION AT WORK IN THE TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE SPACES OF JAKARTA, INDONESIA

Abstract

This article examines the role of the imagination in the construction of meaningful places out of economically defined and organized spaces. It seeks to understand the processes through which a colonial imagery is deployed in the negotiation of a complex and continually transforming transnational corporate order. This article is based on research conducted while working as a cross-cultural trainer within a transnational corporate office space in Jakarta, Indonesia. I discuss cross-cultural training as a space within which a colonial discourse based on terror and uncertainty persists, producing an ambivalent understanding of foreign overseas labor. I argue that a colonial approach to the social relations that take place within trans-national spaces persists for both Western-born and Indonesian members of the transnational capitalist class and is central to their perspective on capitalist expansion.

Key Words:

• transnationalism
• colonialism
• cross-cultural training
• terror
• colonial imagination

Notes

The expatriate population is without a doubt too complex to be categorized as a singularity. In this article, I focus on this somewhat more precisely drawn population of expatriates, though even here differences and contradictions could easily be highlighted. Nevertheless, the individuals I came to know were conscious of, and, to a degree, embraced an “expat” identity that is explored throughout this article.

Research took place between 1997 and 2000. The employment figures listed do not indicate the great fluctuation in employment that took place during the Asian economic crisis that devastated Indonesia's economy starting in 1998. However, BCB, because it is primarily an export manufacturing concern, did not feel the effects of the crisis to the degree of other domestically focused industries. In fact, BCB probably benefited from the weak Rupiah (resulting in cheaper inputs) and increased labor pool.

I have been intentionally vague about the organizational structure and operations of BCB in order to protect those who participated in this project as well as to help insure my continued acceptance within the offices of BCB. While there are definite (negative) consequences—in terms of ethnographic detail that would benefit the reader—I believe the long-term research project warrants this approach.

In short, from a structural perspective, the colonial imagination marks the “expatriate” as masculine and adult to the feminine and child-like “national.” These distinctions will become clearer throughout this article. For an examination into the gendered implications of national identity in a postcolonial society, see Kandiyoti (1991).

One exception to this generalization was the generally congenial relationships that developed between expatriates and their Indonesian-born female secretaries. Though this relationship is not the concern of this article, it points to an interesting intersection between national and gendered identities within the categories “expat” and “national” under discussion.

See Freeman (2000) for an ethnographic discussion of the open office in disciplining and surveying the worker.

For an examination of the image of children in colonial rule—and its correspondence to femininity and domesticity—see Stoler (1996).

The site of present-day Jakarta has known human settlement since prehistoric times. By the twelfth century, there is evidence of a port town called Sunda Kalapa, supposedly a harbor for the Hindu-Javanese kingdom of Pajajaran. Later, after the rise of Islam, and in relation to the waning power of the Portuguese in Malacca, the port city was renamed Jayakarta by the Muslim commander, Fathillah, from the Sultanate of Banten. The name means Victorious and Prosperous and refers to the army's success in repelling the Portuguese fleet. For a good overview of the history of Jakarta, see Abeyasekere (1987).

A census count of the time included in its ranks Netherlanders, Eurasians, Chinese, Mardijkers, Moors, Javanese, Malayans, Balinese, and Slaves (originally imported from South Asia but later taken from the outer islands of the archipelago) (Abeyasekere 1987: 19–21).

When the Chinese merchant class and other small-scale traders were included in the picture, a more complete language of “plural economy” was used (Geertz 1956: 9). In general, however, a dual-economy description has prevailed. Geertz writes, “In the export sector, there was administrative capitalism: a system in which the holders of capital, the Dutch, regulated selling prices and wages, controlled output, and even dictated the processes of production. In the domestic sector there was family-unit agriculture, a little home industry, and some petty internal trade” (1963: 48–49).

In 1673, the population of Batavia, the name the Dutch gave to Jayakarta (what was eventually to become Jakarta) was 27,068. By 1790, a suburban sprawl of sorts was already under way with the old town having little more than 12,000 inhabitants but the outer environs holding more than 160,000 people. By 1900, the town proper was on the rebound with about 115,000 inhabitants. By 1930, it had grown to 435,000 and by 1990, Jakarta was home to 11.5 million (Abeyasekere 1987; Frederick and Worden 1993).

Kampung is most often translated as “village.” This translation is inappropriate for the urban context of Jakarta where the kampung is often considered closer to a “slum.” However, this translation, as well, fails to capture the variety of residential areas included. We might consider the kampung of Jakarta to include a variety of “small neighborhoods”; many quite impoverished, others less so.

After independence in 1949, the division between local proletariat and foreign bourgeoisie was made a local affair as a new class of local elite slipped into the top rungs of power and wealth no longer held by the Dutch. The isolationist policies of Sukarno's Guided Democracy (1957–1965), intended to stem the tide of Western cultural influence, kept Indonesia largely out of the global economic order and kept foreign interests out of the seats of power and wealth. But, once again, global linkages were established during Suharto's New Order (1956–1998).

Kretek is a tobacco cigarette that also contains chopped cloves. The kretek has traditionally been the preferred smoke of Indonesian men.

Bule is most often defined as a derogatory term for “white person.” It falls into that category of markers for European and American whites that includes the term farang in Thailand and mat saleh in Malaysia.

Ayam is a more complicated category than the term “prostitute” can capture. For one thing, ayam generally refers to those women who are “attracted” to Western expatriates. The relationship between expatriate and ayam involves more than simply money for sex, for it can often be (relatively) long-term. Any analysis of the category must therefore take into account issues of status and desire, and the prestige related to expatriates. Similar issues are discussed in relation to factory work by Ong (1987).

I should note that as a corporate consultant I occupied a position below this top echelon, as I was making a United States dollar salary generally more generous than the Rupiah equivalent of my Indonesian peers but less than the superiors of Yanis and Elinda. After sales commissions and with very little tax (you can make up to $70,000 overseas without having to pay United States taxes), I was probably earning around U.S. $3,000 a month. While not an enormous amount of money, because it was in United States dollars, it went far in helping me maintain what my friends and I referred to as an “expat” lifestyle. For me this meant spending between $400 and $500 a month on a furnished apartment with a provided cleaning service. It meant that, though I did not have a car and driver, I was able to take taxis anywhere I needed to go. I joined a health club. I ate out on a regular basis. I was able to afford a cellular phone to stay in contact with friends and family overseas. And I often took weekend trips to Singapore or Bali. And because it was so much money for me, coming out of a life of graduate student salaries, it quickly slipped out of my hands and into the Indonesian economy.

These numbers are based on personal communication with the Director of Personnel at BCB. There were, in fact, no Indonesian Directors at BCB.

This is due to the fact that the Indonesian government has placed restrictions on the number of expatriates allowed titled positions within a representative office. These restrictions are designed to encourage foreign interests to set up joint ventures that more directly provide profits and jobs for the host nation. In reality, however, it was easy for foreign investors to sidestep these restrictions and many companies with a substantial presence in Indonesia were, on paper, little more than representative offices. This was particularly true of manufacturing corporations that commonly outsource their production to locally owned (or Taiwanese- or Hong Kong-owned) factories. Yet most of these representative offices were generally well staffed with expatriates. The companies generally escape government restrictions by attributing no job title to their expatriate employees or simply calling them consultants. It is not uncommon for such employees to travel into and out of Indonesia on a Tourist Visa instead of the more regulated extended-stay Business Visa.

This perspective on expatriate workers was most visible when discussing the global flows of expatriates in and out of the Jakarta offices—movements often understood through processes of sexual predation. The stories collected, while not central to this article, focused on rumors of sexual misconduct by expatriate coworkers. In a forthcoming article I examine this perspective on expatriates as sexualized objects through the literature on colonial sexuality, modernity, and the power of the state. I take these stories as attempts to cope with the uncertainty inherent in the global flows of transnational employees into and out of the workspace. I call for a reversal of the sexualized lens often utilized in postcolonial theory, turning it instead upon the dominant social group to better understand how global processes of mobility are understood within a local terrain historically subject to external sources of power and domination.

While in this article the focus is on the expatriate population, I do take up the competing Indonesian perspectives on this shared workspace in a forthcoming article.

James Siegel's thorough ethnography, Solo in the New Order (1986) examines, for example, the importance of hierarchy within a historically specific Solo Javanese culture as demonstrated through languages of status. With social encounter a Javanese speaker must determine whether to use Ngoko or “Low Javanese” that is spoken to inferiors, or Kromo or “High Javanese,” which is spoken to superiors. As King and Wilder (2003) summarize, “All Javanese learn Ngoko . . .as children but it is the mark of the ‘civilized, poised, refined (alus)’ person to have learned Kromo” (2003: 301). The cultural specifics of Javanese culture to which Siegel is attuned, however, are actively erased/reduced to something more pan-Asian—such as a respect for hierarchy—within the national framework of New Order Indonesia and, subsequently, within the transnational framework of the corporate office.

Fuel prices were increased by between 25 and 71 percent and electricity tariffs by 20 percent in an effort to reduce subsidies and curb the state budget deficit ( The Jakarta Post, 5 May 1998).

Eyewitness reports said that rioting and looting began in Glodok and Mangga Dua before 8:00 A.M. “When I came here at eight o'clock, looting had already started. At first I just watched, but I joined in when I saw security forces were doing nothing to stop them,” recalled Yanto ( The Jakarta Post, 15 May 1998).

The implication being that for the army to have shown up, someone of import—possibly an army official or a friend or relative of the President—must own the shopping center.

By as early as October of 1997, more than 80,000 hectares in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Irian Jaya had burnt causing a “haze” to fall over much of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Most of the fires were though to be set by owners of oil-palm plantations, expanding to meet international demand for their product (see Cohen and Hiebert 1997).

During the military coup of 1965, when Suharto seized power, ethnic Chinese, along with members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), were a primary target of violence (McVey and Anderson 1971). Throughout 1966 and 1967, in districts of Aceh and Kalimantan, tens of thousands of Chinese were driven from their homes.

When the streets finally calmed on 17 May 1998, there were a reported 499 dead in the wake of the rioting. This is a conservative estimate. Human Rights Watch reported that more than 1,200 people were killed during the riots (United States Congress 1999).

Jakarta Post, The. 5 May 1998. Volume 16, No. 10, Govt raises fuel, electricity prices

Jakarta Post, The. 15 May 1998. Volume 16, No. 19, Riots, looting rock Jakarta