Lost in Mall: An Ethnography of Middle-Class Jakarta in the 1990s

Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde #255

by Lizzy van Leeuwen

In the 1980s, sensational stories about an 'emerging new middle class' popped up simultaneously in the streets of Jakarta and at conferences of hopeful Indonesia watchers. Businesspeople and professionals had profited from President Suharto's rapid economic success, and were allegedly eager to not only to show off their new wealth, but to boost democratization processes as well. They and their families were the vanguard of a category of Jakartans who regarded themselves boldly as the 'normal, modern, educated middle class' of Indonesia--against the background of a profound and state-induced depoliticization. Apart from fostering a new consumer culture, the new middle class was at the root of the expansion of the conurbation Jabotabek, housing hundreds of thousands of newly arrived middle-class members. Meanwhile, a new and huge gap between rich and poor became conspicuously visible in Jakarta. During the 1990s, the increasing political instability of the New Order government and the Asian monetary crisis led to the dramatic resignation of President Suharto in May 1998.
In this study, based on extensive anthropological fieldwork throughout the 1990s, this new middle class is examined as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Despite a global orientation and a taste for democracy, its members seemed to have internalized the New Order along with some lingering late-colonial notions as their guidelines for life. How 'new' was the new middle class anyway? Lifestyle and material culture practices in the suburb of Bintaro Raya--in public space as well as in the intimacy of living rooms--illustrate the everyday ambiguity of people who appear to be trapped in their imagined they were 'lost in mall'.

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Elisabeth Margaretha (Lizzy) van Leeuwen is een Nederlands bestuurskundige, cultureel antropoloog en publicist. Ze schrijft onder andere voor De Groene Amsterdammer. Van Leeuwen, zelf Indisch, is deskundig op het gebied van de positie van Indische Nederlanders in het postkoloniale tijdperk.

Tot 2008 was ze werkzaam bij het Meertens Instituut waar ze met de historicus Gert Oostindie het project "Bringing history home" als postdoc historisch en etnologisch onderzoeker werkte. Ze deed onderzoek naar de wisselwerking tussen de naoorlogse identiteitspolitiek onder postkoloniale migranten in Nederland en de Nederlandse samenleving.

Bij de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen van 2021 stond ze op de 8ste plek van de kieslijst van Splinter.

Reviews

[Ritvik Chatani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book, because I never thought it would have existed. I will say though there are two main chapters I thought were great, the rest were ok (but it still talked about Jakarta so I was still excited).

One of the chapters talked about urban design in terms of exclusivity. Most homes in Jakarta have a servant's quarters , where some don't have modern toilets or fans, since these items were "not yet within their reach"."When I remarked that they were all furnished with air conditioning, she replied that it was ‘of course’ impossible to sleep or even live without AC on the new floor.
In saying this, she did not take into account the closet-like quarters where her servants spent the night, without AC, a fan or even an indoor window or ventilation hole. She presumed that her servants lived in a different climate, one that did not require any adjustments."

Then, there is the exclusivity of cars. You need a vehicle in Jakarta to get around, but not everyone can afford a car. Lizzy talks about how being in a car really shields you from the outside world: you can lock your door, be in the AC and you actually have a physical screen that separates you. Finally, the last example is exclusivity in malls. There are hardly public parks in Jakarta , even the biggest one Monas has a high fence to keep out street vendors and traffic. So, malls were a way to filter out the lower class and provide a safe, AC walking space for people in the upper class. I would liken them to all inclusive hotels in Jamaica and how they act as an exclusive space for tourists and upper class. In fact, Lizzy describes it best here: "Malls are a privatization of what in theory acts as a public space".

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for anthropology class, but would've been worth reading for fun. It resonated so much with what I had observed when visiting and staying with a family in Jakarta myself last summer.

[Simone Kerrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful description of middle-class culture and Jakarta. Not to mention, absolutely hilarious.

[Sohy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the funniest book on Indonesia I've ever read. Witty and sharp! Hati-hati if you're a part of the Jakarta middle class.