Whither Nationalist Urbanism? Public Life in Governor Sutiyoso's Jakarta

Abstract

This paper shows how Jakarta has been engaged in an unprecedented politics of memory since the collapse of Suharto's regime. It argues that the nationalist discourses of the city dressed in the ideology of 'nationalist urbanism' no longer appear to hold the influence that they once did in the face of the changing regime. This situation has given rise to a sense of 'looseness' at the centre, which in turn has encouraged both the government and the citizens to safeguard their space in the city by ways of remembering and forgetting the past as well as the present.