Project Overview
This is the first major project to address nation-building processes along the Singaporean-Indonesian borderlands by looking at the material and socio-cultural practices that inform the construction of national identity. Our project has two objectives:
- To examine the forces that shape on-going constructions of the 'nation' and the construction of national identity amongst those who live and work in Insular Riau; and
- To examine what happens to an individual's sense of national identity when confronted with transnational conditions in a particular context.
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| Insular Riau is an important case study for analysis of cross-border interaction in Southeast Asia. Although the association of citizenship and nationality with territory has always been tenuous in the region, during the last decade two significant events have further challenged this relationship: 1) the creation of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle (IMS-GT) in 1990, and 2) the implementation of regional autonomy in Indonesia from 1999. The Singapore-Indonesian component of the IMS-GT, which centres on the islands of Riau, is the most active part of the growth triangle and forms part of the Singapore government's regionalisation drive. |
Bintan Lagoon Resort
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Batam Golf Course
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At the same time that Singapore's sphere of influence has spread (i.e. its borders have 'grown'), Riau islanders have simultaneously been engaged in marking out the boundaries of their new provincial territory. Having opposed Mainland Riau's transitory separatist movement, they successfully broke away from mainland Riau (centred around the city of Pekanbaru in Sumatra) and proclaimed a separate province of Kepri in September 2002. The process of delineating the boundaries of the new province and
establishing a provincial government has only recently been finalised. The
division of Riau is not only geographical, but also ethnic and cultural. This latter issues points to the need to consider the impact of 'bottom-up' activities in addition to these 'top-down' trans/national processes.
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Tanjung Balai Lokalisasi
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| Importantly, notions of citizenship and nationality are complicated by the presence in the islands of significant numbers of transnational subjects. These consist of commuters who travel regularly across the Singapore-Riau border to work; tourists, including Singaporeans who visit Batam every month for sex; and migrant workers, including so-called 'illegal' transmigrants and overseas migrant workers who transit in Riau on their way elsewhere. Singaporean travel agents promote the luxury resorts on Bintan and Batam as local, rather than international, holiday destinations. Indonesians living in the islands have more ready access to Singaporean products than commodities from Java, and are not permitted to take electronic products bought in Batam or Bintan to other parts of Indonesia. Many choose to watch Singaporean or Malaysian television over the poor-quality broadcasts from Jakarta. Our project, In the Shadow of Singapore, will explore the everyday practices of these groups as well as the slippages between the economic, social and political borders of the Singaporean nation-state, and the tensions between the core and the periphery within Indonesia and Riau. |
Bintan Bonded Zone
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Batam Shop Houses
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Batam Ruli
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