Chinese cemeteries in Indonesian colonial and post-colonial urban areas: Resistance, urban expansion, nationalistic aspiration, and post-colonial governmentality
Chinese quarters played a significant role in numerous Southeast Asian port cities, with Chinese trading communities thriving for hundreds of years. The proof of the importance of these communities is evident in the presence of Chinatowns and Chinese cemeteries, serving as places for both living and death, in several coastal cities in Southeast Asia. This study investigates Chinese cemeteries in Semarang’s spatial city structure during the colonial period and the gradual transformation of these cemeteries in post-colonial Indonesia amidst turbulent urban development and political conditions. In post-colonial Southeast Asia, city development serves as a platform for nationalistic aspirations. This article explores the roles of Chinese cemeteries as an act of subversion against colonial laws and their gradual disappearance due to city expansion in post-colonial Indonesia. The exploration through the colonial policies concerning land and the placement of the Chinese community, followed by post-colonial policies and urban governmentality on city development and real urban growth practices, provides an opportunity to discuss the roles of Chinese cemeteries for the Indonesian Chinese community in Semarang and their fate in post-colonial urban areas of Indonesia.
Akhyat, A. (2006). The ideology of Kampung: A preliminary research on coastal city semarang. Humaniora, 18:15-26. https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.v18i1.859
Akpedonu, E. (2016). The Manila Chinese cemetery: A Repository of tsinoy culture and identity. Archipel, 92:111-153. https://doi.org/10.4000/archipel.288
Arifin, E. N., Hasbullah, M. S., & Pramono, A. (2017). Chinese Indonesians: How many, who and where? Asian Ethnicity, 18(3):310-329. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2016.1227236
Atlas of Mutual Heritage. (2014). Atlas of Mutual Heritage. Available from: https://www.atlasofmutualheritage.nl/ en/page/10150/semarang-verdedigingswerken-van [Last accessed: 2024 Feb 21].
Carey, P. (2014). In: M Karim (ed.). Takdir: Riwayat Pangeran Diponegoro (1785-1855) [Fate: The History of Prince Diponegoro]. B Murtianto (Trans.). Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas.
Colombijn, F. (2014). Under construction: The politics of urban space and housing during the decolonization of Indonesia, 1930-1960. In: Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde. Vol. 246. Netherlands: Brill.
Dean, M. M. (2010). Governmentality, Power and Rule in Modern Society. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, p. 304
Foucault, M. (2000a). The subject and power. In M Foucault and JD Faubion (eds.). Power. New York: The New Press, pp. 326-348.
Foucault, M. (2000b). Space, knowledge, and power. In M Foucault and JD Faubion (eds.). Power. New York: The New Press, p. 349-364.
Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collége de France 1977-78. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Groot, J. J. M. (1897). The Religious System of China. Vol. III. Leyden: E. J. Brill.
Husain, S. B. (2015). Chinese cemeteries as a symbol of sacred space control, conflict, and negotiation in Surabaya, Indonesia. In: Cars, Conduits, and Kampongs the Modernization of the Indonesian City, 1920-1960, Series: Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. Vol. 295. Netherlands: Brill, pp. 323-340. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004280724_014
Keputusan Presiden Nomor 240 Tahun 1967 tentang Kebidjaksanaan Pokok jang Menjangkut Warga Negara Indonesia Keturunan Asing Diarsipkan 2021-02-01 di Wayback Machine. Available from: https://www.peraturan. bkpm.go.id [Last accessed on 2024 Feb 22].
Legg, S. (2005). Foucault’s population geographies: Classifications, biopolitics and governmental spaces. Population, Space and Place, 11:137-156. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.357
Li, M. (2003). A portrait of Batavia’s Chinese society based on the Tanjung cemetery archives. In: The Archives of the Kong Koan of Batavia. Netherlands: Brill, pp. 80-105. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004488557_008
Li, T. M. (1999). Compromising power: Development, culture and rule in Indonesia. Cultural Anthropology, 14(3):295-322. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1999.14.3.295
Li, T. M. (2007). The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Liem, T. J. (2004). Riwayat Semarang [The History of Semarang]. Jogjakarta: Hasta Wahana.
Luengo, P. (2023). Architecture in Eighteenth-Century East and Southeast Asia Chinese quarters. Journal of Urban History, 49(4):745-766. https://doi.org/10.1177/00961442211029249
Nugroho, M. L. E. (2016). Pergeseran Kebijakan Penataan Ruang Kota Semarang, dari RIK 1975-2000, Sampai RTRW 2011- 2031 [Shifts in Semarang City Spatial Planning Policies from RIK 1975-2000 to RTRW 2011-2031]. Semarang: Diponegoro University.
Onwuzuruigbo, I. (2014). Space of power and power of space: Islam and conflict over cemetery space in colonial Ibadan. Journal of Urban History, 40(2):301-317. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144213508621
Overbeek, J. V. (2002). De VOCsite. Available from: https:// www.vocsite.nl/geschiedenis/handelsposten/javano [Last accessed: 2024 Feb 21].
Padawangi, R. (2022). Urban Development in Southeast Asia, Series: Elements in Politics and Society in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108669108
Van Der Chijs, J.A., (1885). Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, 1602—1811. Published by the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences with the cooperation of the Dutch-Indian Government.
Pratiwo, (1996). The Transformation of Traditional Chinese Architecture: A Way to Interpret Issues On Modernization and Urban Development on The North - Eastern Coast of Central Java - Indonesia. Aachen: Technizen Hochschulen Aachen.
Purcell, V. (1951). The Chinese in Southeast Asia. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 86(2):262. https://doi.org/10.2307/596469
Rush, J. (1991). Placing the Chinese in Java on the Eve of the Twentieth Century. In: The Role of the Indonesian Chinese in Shaping Modern Indonesian Life. United States: Cornell University, pp. 13-24. https://doi.org/10.2307/3351252
Rush, J. R. (1983). Social Control and Influence in Nineteenth Century Indonesia: Opium Farms and the Chinese of Java. Indonesia: Cornell University Press; Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University, pp. 53-64. https://doi.org/10.2307/3350865
Sack, R. D. (1980). Conceptions of space in social thought: A geographic perspective. Progress in Human Geography, 4(3):313-345. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913258000400301
Salmon, C. (2016a). Ancient Chinese cemeteries of indonesia as vanishing landmarks of the past (17th-20th c.). Archipel (En Ligne), 92:23-61. https://doi.org/10.4000/archipel.282
Salmon, C. (2016b). From cemeteries to luxurious memorial parks, with special reference to Malaysia and Indonesia. Archipel (En Ligne), 92:177-212. https://doi.org/10.4000/archipel.320
Salmon, C. (2021). The contribution of archipel to the knowledge of Insulindian Chinese (1971-2020)-Some key topics. Archipel [En ligne], 101:57-84. https://doi.org/10.4000/archipel.2395
Tempo. (2004). Setelah Enam Belas Abad - Laporan Khusus [After Sixteen Centuries - Special Report].
Tsai, Y. L. (2011). Spaces of exclusion, walls of intimacy: Rethinking “Chinese exclusivity” in Indonesia. Indonesia, 2011:125-155. https://doi.org/10.5728/indonesia.92.0125
Wahid, A. (2012). Revenue farming and imperial transition: An economic dimension of early colonial State formation in Java, c 1800s-1820s. Humaniora, 24(3):255-268. https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.1368
Watson, J. L. (1988). The structure of Chinese funerary rites: Elementary forms, ritual sequence, and the primacy of performance. In: JL Watson and ES Rawski (eds.). Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 3-19.
Weber, R., Kreisel, W., & Faust, H. (2003). Colonial interventions on the cultural landscape of central Sulawesi by “ethical policy”: The impact of the dutch rule in Palu and Kulawi Valley, 1905-1942. Asian Journal of Social Science, 31:398-434. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853103322895324
Wertheim, W. F. (1999). Masyarakat Indonesia Dalam Transisi: Studi Perubahan Sosial [Indonesian Society in Transition: Social Change Study]. Yogyakarta: Tiara Wacana Yogya.
Wickberg, E. (1964). The Chinese Mestizo in Philipines history. Journal of Southeast Asian History, 5(1):62-100.
Wijono, R. S. (2015). Public housing in Semarang and the modernization of Kampongs, 1930-1960. In: Cars, Conduits, and Kampongs. Netherlands: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004280724_008
Willmott, D. E. (1960). The Chinese of Semarang: A Changing Minority Community in Indonesia. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Winardi, U. N. (2020). Gotong Royong and the transformation of Kampung Ledok Code, Yogyakarta. City and Society, 32(2):375-386. https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12291
Yeoh, B. S. A. (1996). Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore. Oxford: Oxford University Press.