Cultural tolerance and Nusantara Ethnoscape in Southeast Asian cinema

ABSTRACT

It is a common strategy to analyse Southeast Asian films from a nationalistic perspective limited to a constructed understanding of the nation’s culture and social structure. I argue that social and human movements are critical to understanding Southeast Asian and Nusantara cinematic characters because they are inextricably linked to the region’s current conceptions of national space. The distinctive regional mode of human mobility known as merantau (to sojourn) makes it possible to conceptualise Nusantara as a migration space or, to use Arjun Appadurai’s terminology, an ‘ethnoscape’. The concepts of ‘sedar/sadar’, which roughly translates to ‘self-realisation’, are used to formulate indicators that will become apparent during the examination of Sri Mersing [Beauty from Mersing] (Salleh Ghani, 1961: Malaysia/Singapore) and Tabula Rasa (Adriyanto Dewo, 2014: Indonesia). These regional narratives of migration practise a sense of personal and societal belonging, and cultural identities are critical for contemporary Nusantara nation-states’ national societal development and nation-building processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Malaysian cinema
• Indonesian cinema
• identity
• representation
• transnational cinema
• cultural mobility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The word ‘Nusantara’ has various meanings throughout Southeast Asian history, but according to the dictionary, it means ‘Indonesia’ in Indonesia and ‘Malay World’ in Malaysia (Evers 2016).

2. Cross-community migration, according to Manning (2006), refers to ‘individuals and groups [who] move to join an existing community, learning its language and customs’ (p. 28). For him, such migration is about the division of labour and experience among various communities.

3. According to Butt (2013), ‘[t]he undocumented migration stream between Indonesia and Malaysia […] is the world’s second-largest (after the United States/Mexico), with at least 400,000 known undocumented migrants in Malaysia, more than three times the number of legal migrants’ (p. 7).

4. Clifford and Bhabha in Lawson (2000, 174).

5. The word ‘musafir’, which means ‘traveller’, has Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu roots.

6. This pantun is also found in Indonesian literature (Agus Priyanto 2014, 83–4).

7. My deduction is based on judgements from two studies. First, a study by Mohd Noor Mat Yazid (2014) and an analysis by Brackman as reviewed in Praeger (1966, 410–11).

8. It is still being determined where fish head curry originated. However, it is safe to say that the dish is unique to this region.

9. This formulation comes from Sobchack (1998, 151).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohd Erman Maharam

Mohd Erman Maharam is the Head of Digital and Imaging Arts at the College of Creative Arts, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam Campus, Selangor, Malaysia. He is a cinematographer and independent film producer who enjoys reading about Southeast Asian cinema studies.