Bandung Lautan Hardcore: territorialisation and deterritorialisation in an Indonesian hardcore punk scene
Sean MARTIN-IVERSON
Abstract This article explores the entangled and contradictory process of territorialisation and deterritorialisation that have shaped the hardcore punk scene in Bandung, Indonesia, while questioning the binary model of globalisation and localisation. The formation of the Bandung scene has certainly involved processes of local adaptation, translation, and territorialisation, but these cannot be disentangled from the global styles, orientations, and networks associated with hardcore punk. Through their active participation in global hardcore, Bandung’s punks adopt a standpoint of underground cosmopolitanism which goes beyond a merely mimetic relationship to Western scenes. Their valorisation of local “Do It Yourself” production and performance reflects the value practices of global hardcore punk, and the social relationships that constitute the local scene extend beyond any straightforwardly spatial definition of the “local.” At the same time, this global orientation takes on particular locally-inflected meanings in the specific cultural and political environment of Bandung, Indonesia.
Keywords:globalisation; localisation; territorialisation; deterritorialisation; translocal spatiality; cosmopolitanism; hardcore punk; music scene; Indonesia
Author’s biography
Sean Martin-Iverson currently teaches Anthropology and Sociology as an Assistant Professor at The University of Western Australia. This paper is drawn from his doctoral research project on “The politics of cultural production in the DIY hardcore scene in Bandung, Indonesia,” for which he carried out fieldwork in Bandung in 2004 and 2005. His research interests are in the politics of creative labour, global underground music, transnational social movements, and urban Indonesia.