The Politics of Heritage in Indonesia

Presents a new approach to heritage formation in Asia, conveying the power of the material remains of the past.

This study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, through the lens of colonial and post-colonial Indonesia. It focuses on the mobility of heritage as a multi-sited phenomenon that engages with, and goes beyond, the interests of states.This study offers a new approach to the history of sites, archaeology, and heritage formation in Asia, at both the local and the trans-regional levels. Starting at Hindu-Buddhist, Chinese, Islamic, colonial, and prehistoric heritage sites in Indonesia, the focus is on people's encounters and the knowledge exchange taking place across colonial and post-colonial regimes. Objects are followed as they move from their site of origin to other locations, such as the Buddhist statues from Borobudur temple, that were gifted to King Chulalongkorn of Siam. The ways in which the meaning of these objects transformed as they moved away to other sites reveal their role in parallel processes of heritage formation outside Indonesia. Calling attention to the power of the material remains of the past, Marieke Bloembergen and Martijn Eickhoff explore questions of knowledge production, the relationship between heritage and violence, and the role of sites and objects in the creation of national histories.