TEACHINGA World-Systems INDONESIA Perspective By Barney Warf
ew countries are as poorly understood as Indonesia, especially in the United States. The largest Muslim and fourth most populous nation in the world, with a population of 210 million, Indonesia is not well represented by large expatriate communities living overseas, nor has it figured prominently in international affairs. Given this situation, teaching about Indonesia is particularly challenging: while students may have some familiarity about China or Japan, they are likely to have no basis with which to approach Southeast Asia’s giant. This article argues for the use of world-systems theory to reveal Indonesia’s historical construction in a manner that is likely to capture students’ interest. The world-systems perspective argues that Indonesia can only be understood by embedding it within the dynamics of an international system. Although this point is abundantly evident with regardF to the long Dutch colonization, Indonesia’s external ties long precede the Dutch colonial occupation. Indonesia today is a palimpsest reflecting the imprints of many cultures over a long period of time, and it can only be under- stood meaningfully in those terms. This article first briefly summarizes a pedagogy revolving around world-systems theory. Second, it traces the con- tours of the long period of Indonesia’s history prior to colonialism. Third, it focuses on the impacts of Indonesia’s incor- poration into the capitalist world system under Dutch rule. Fourth, it offers some observations about the nation’s con- temporary status, particularly its growing prominence among the “new tigers” of southeast Asia. While the notion that external linkages are important determinants of the events within a particular place is not new, it has been given sub- stantial theoretical rigor through its formalization in terms of world-systems theory.
WORLD-SYSTEMS AS HEURISTIC TOOL
he world-systems perspective holds viability of capitalism assumes capital’s stein’s early theoretical model of a trilogy that places can only be analyzed ability to cross national borders and pit of global core, periphery, and semi- through their interactions with the places against one another. The steady periphery. Recent modifications include remainderT of the world, that all regions are expansion of capitalism—its inherent attempts to reconcile the world-systems interconnected and never exist in isolation drive to incorporate places within com- with theories of human consciousness and of one another. First articulated by Waller- modity production—is driven by the the critical roles of culture and ideology,5 stein,1 this view has been highly influen- search for profits. In the twentieth century, providing antidotes to the economic deter- tial in the social sciences.2 It holds that the global system of nations and markets minism that plagued earlier conceptions. individual places can only be fruitfully has tied places together to an unprecedent- Geographers have been attracted to world- analyzed with reference to their ties to the ed degree, including international net- systems theory because of its sensitivity to world economy, that exogenous sources of works of trade, investment, subcontract- spatial differences in historical experience, change are as important as endogenous ing, and consumption.3 In light of the and the ways in which it allows regions to ones, and that the global economic and steady spread of multinational firms, be contextualized within a global setting.6 political context is of enormous impor- financial firms, and nongovernmental Dixon approached southeast Asia within tance in shaping the fortunes of regions organizations since World War II, it is the broad parameters sketched here, but over time. Unlike earlier world empires, impossible to understand any regional or paid little attention to the precolonial where a single political structure dominat- national economy without examining its period.7 ed to appropriate the surplus value pro- foreign linkages. The remainder of this article illus- duced by places on the periphery (e.g., the Unlike earlier dependency views, trates how Indonesia’s historical geogra- Roman Empire), in a true world-system which took a uniformly negative view of phy can be understood using a world-sys- there are multiple political centers. the impacts of capitalism on less devel- tems view. Its purpose is not simply to In the context of capitalism, the fun- oped regions, the world-systems perspec- recapitulate the nation’s history, but damental political structure is the interstate tive allows for both upward and down- to show how its global linkages continu- system (not the nation-state), meaning that ward mobility within the global economy.4 ally reverberated across the archipelago there is no effective way to control global There have been substantial revisions and in profoundly important ways. markets. Indeed, the very flexibility and modifications to this view since Waller-
17 EARLY INDONESIA AND THE PRE-CAPITALIST WORLD-SYSTEM
ituated near the great culture realms Sung and Ming dynasty China, Mughal from Gujarat and the Malabar and Coro- of China and India, the 13,000 India, Srivijaya Indonesia, Mamluk mandel coasts of India.16 An active divi- islands that comprise Indonesia Egypt, and feudal Europe, all of which sion of labor among the islands generated haveS long been subject to cultural influ- were sutured together by trade routes a vibrant trade that included Javanese ences from both.8 Much of the islands’ overland (the Silk Road) and over water, batiks, Sulawesi cloves, Sumatran pep- earliest history borrowed greatly from primarily the Indian Ocean.12 Abu- per, Timorese sandalwood, and Moluc- India, from which Indonesia acquired the Lughod attributes the Srivijayans’ signif- can nutmeg, all of which testify to a Hindu/Buddhist culture that dominated icance entirely to their domination over thriving regional exchange system.17 for a millennium until the Muslim arrival the Malacca Strait, linking their rise to an The collapse of Srivijaya reflected in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. eighth-century upswing in trade and their three concurrent factors in the thirteenth- The Hinduization of Java, starting in the collapse with the thirteenth-century disin- century world-system. First, a series of fourth century, was initiated by waves of tegration of Sung Dynasty China from conflicts occurred with the Chola king- Indian traders traveling by sea.9 the Mongol invasion, which annihilated doms in India, including Chola raids From the seventh to the thirteenth the eastern terminus of that trading sys- against Malacca as the two struggled for centuries, the western islands of Indone- tem.13 She argues (p. 303) that “If the control over trade in the eastern Indian sia flourished under the powerful Srivi- political definition of dependency is that Ocean.18 Second, the Mongol conquest jaya Empire, the most important in its externally generated decisions have an of China and Burma created vast turmoil history. At its apex under the Buddhist inordinate effect on internal events that a throughout Asia, including Kublai Sailendra dynasty, Srivijaya’s influence country is powerless to withstand, then Khan’s attempted invasion of Java using extended across southeast Asia to include the Strait area must be conceptualized, at Chinese mercenaries in 1293, only to be southern Vietnam.10 Coedes notes that least in part and in the preceding cen- defeated by the Javanese navy and malar- the opening for this kingdom was made turies, as a dependency of China.” ia. Third, the Thai conquest of the Malay possible by the collapse of Funan in While her view emphasizes the role peninsula robbed Srivijaya of northern Indochina, which had dominated the of the world-system, it reduces Indonesia control of the Straits.19 region’s seas for the preceding five cen- to a mere entrepot function, one that min- Externally, Srivijaya’s collapse facili- turies.11 A common explanation of Srivi- imizes the significance of the local pro- tated the emergence of the Khmer king- jaya’s success centers upon control over duction and exchange systems that flour- dom in Cambodia as Indochina was liber- the strategic Malacca Strait and the grow- ished there, such as batik textiles, bam- ated from Indonesian control.20 Internally, ing trade network between China and boo artifacts, stone carvings, and peppers it set the stage for the ascendancy of the India. and spices.14 Javanese rice exports pro- Javanese Majapahit Empire (1300–1478) Abu-Lughod describes in detail a vided that island with the basis of its over the Sumatran-based Srivijaya. Coedes world system not under the domination political power,15 in return for Chinese notes that “the simultaneous, if not com- of Europe, linking cultures as diverse as silks, Bengali opium, and iron and cotton bined, action of the Javanese and the Thai