[Anthropgrad] Anthropology Seminar, Wednesday October 22

[Melinda Hinkson]

Anthropology Seminar, 9.30 am Wednesday 22 October, Coombs Seminar Room
A


Jennifer Alexander, Visiting Fellow, Anthropology, Research School of
Pacific and Asian Studies

'Hybrid economy, hybrid culture? Jepara, Indonesia in the 1990s.'

This paper adopts a hybridization model to investigate the development
of an export oriented economy in a region with a long tradition of
producing wood handicrafts and furniture for local and international
markets. The local actors, Javanese and Indonesian Chinese later joined
by international representatives from, Australasia, America, Asia and
Europe, a not insignificant number of whom resided in the region in the
1990s, are being transformed into a hybrid community involved in the
production and sale of wooden commodities. I outline the nature of the
engagement between foreign entrepreneurs, mainly male, with local
agents, both female and male (artisans, would-be entrepreneurs and
established businessmen), to assess the proposition of hybridity. I go
onto focus on production. I examine the interrelationship between global
and local economic forces and how local artisans and entrepreneurs have
influenced these structures. By selecting examples from the colonial
literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as my own
research materials I look at the goods themselves and the process of
hybridization. A final note refers to the impact of the expansion of the
industry on local consumption patterns, also of hybrid form. Overall the
paper highlights transnational links in economic and cultural processes
between global cities and Indonesian towns and villages while probing
the 'murky waters of hybridity'.

All welcome.
____________________________________
Melinda Hinkson
School of Archaeology & Anthropology
A.D. Hope Building
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

T: +61 2 6125 8246
F: +61 2 6125 2711
W: http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/

Information about the Master of Visual Culture Research
is available at: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/vcr.php