Hein Steinhauer & Hendrik D.R. Gomang, Kamus Blagar-Indonesia-Inggris. Penerbit Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia; KITLV-Jakarta, Jakarta. xxvi, 304 p.
Kamus dwibahasa yang melibatkan tiga bahasa ini (Blagar, Indonesia, Inggris) memperkenalkan bahasa Blagar, salah satu bahasa “non-Austronesia” yang termasuk rumpun bahasa Timor-Alor-Pantar.
Bahasa Blagar ini sebenarnya merupakan suatu kelompok “dialek” yang kini jumlah penuturnya tidak melebihi 10.000 penutur. Dasar kamus ini adalah varietas bahasa Blagar yang digunakan di Pulau Pura, di antara Pulau Alor dan Pantar, khususnya dialek Pura Barat-Daya.
J.Keuning, Sejarah Ambon Sampai Akhir Abad Ke-17. Penerbit Ombak Yogyakarta; KITLV-Jakarta, Jakarta. x, 87 pp. This book is a translation of Dr J. Keunings article ‘Ambonnezen, Portugezen en Nederlanders. Ambon’s geschiedenis tot het einde van de zeventiende eeuw.’
The Indonesian edition of the author’s Culture, Power, and Authoritarianism in the Indonesian State (Brill, 2013) is a critical history of Indonesian cultural policy in the tumultuous twentieth century. It charts the influence of momentous political changes on the cultural policies of successive states, including colonial government, Japanese occupation, the killing and repression of the left and their affiliates, and the return of representative government, and examines broader social changes like nationalism and consumer culture.
Gerry van Klinken dan Ward Berenschot (editors), In search of Middle Indonesia. Kelas menengah di kota-kota Indonesia. Jakarta: KITLV-Jakarta; Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia, xi, 319 pp.
The post-1998 surge in local politics has moved the provincial town back to centre stage. This book examines the Indonesian middle class up close in the place where its members are most at home: the town. Middle Indonesia generates national political forces, yet it is neither particularly rich nor geographically central. This is an overwhelmingly lower middle class, a conservative petty bourgeoisie barely out of poverty and tied to the state. Middle Indonesia rather resists than welcomes globalized, open markets. Politically, it enjoys democracy but uses its political skills and clientelistic networks to make the system work to its advantage, which is not necessarily that of either the national elites or the poor.
Bart Barendregt and Els Bogaerts (editors), Merenungkan Gema. Perjumpaan Musikal Indonesia-Belanda. Jakarta: KITLV-Jakarta, Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia, xv, 403 pp.
Over time Dutch and Indonesian composers, performers and music scholars have inspired each other and they continue to do so. The presence of the Dutch in the Netherlands East-Indies and Indonesia, but also the existence of large diasporic communities in the Netherlands have contributed to a mutual exchange in musical terms: from military brass bands, classical and liturgical music to jazz, Indo rock and more recently world music. Yet, such musical interactions have often been shaped by unequal power balances, and very divergent motifs to start with. Recollecting Resonances offers musicological, historical and anthropological explorations into those musical encounters that have been shaped in both the past and present. The resulting mutual heritage can still be listened to today.
Gert Oostindie, Serdadu Belanda di Indonesia 1945-1950. Kesaksian Perang pada Sisi Sejarah yang Salah. Jakarta: KITLV-Jakarta, Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia, xxvi, 369 pp.
Between 1945 and 1950 more than 200,000 Dutch soldiers were deployed in a war that would be judged as ‘wrong’ afterwards. Seventy years later, the biggest Dutch military operation ever is still an open nerve – forgotten, suppressed, and never fully investigated. There have been indications about war crimes during this period, but how systematic this was remains unclear. This book explores how the soldiers themselves wrote about the violence in letters, diaries and memoires. The examination of all known published personal documents, some seven hundred, yielded even more insights. The tension between faith in the Dutch mission and the unruly realities on the ground; about fear and shame; about frustrations with the military political leadership; about boredom, and anger over lost years; about the encounter of ‘polder’ boys with an exotic world; about understanding and misunderstanding for Indonesians and nationalism; about displacement in Indonesia, and subsequently at home. This publication gives voice to the soldiers, embedded in a broader analysis of the decolonization war and its processing in the Netherlands.