The currency of Indonesian regional textiles: Aesthetic politics in local, transnational, and international emblems

Indonesian regional textiles that formerly circulated locally for practical and ritual purposes were identified by New Order government authorities for wider marketing to serve the purposes of economic and national development. This article, based primarily on data from a 1996 Indonesian government-...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnos 1999-01, Vol.64 (2), p.151-169
Main Author: Aragon, Lorraine V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Cloth making, dying, embroidery
Commodification
Economic development
Emblems
Ethnology
Indonesia
Local areas
Local communities
Local Culture
Marketing
Markets
Morphological source materials
National identity
nationalism
Politics
Production technics, tools
Promotion
Regions
Ritual
Surveys
Symbolism
Technology
Textile Industry
Textiles
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Indonesian regional textiles that formerly circulated locally for practical and ritual purposes were identified by New Order government authorities for wider marketing to serve the purposes of economic and national development. This article, based primarily on data from a 1996 Indonesian government-sponsored textile symposium, explores the transformation and representation of particular regional textile genres, as well as the equation by Indonesian developers of idealist aesthetics and marketing success through national guidance. With examples of textiles from Jambi, Sumatra and highland Central Sulawesi, I argue that some Indonesian developers and fashion designers formulated a hierarchical code of aesthetics that was based on commercial markets and homogenizing nationalist goals. In certain respects, this code of aesthetics runs contrary to the financial and symbolic interests of local textile producers and foreign specialists who are offended by what they consider the denigration and pirating of local cultural arts.
ISSN:0014-1844
1469-588X
DOI:10.1080/00141844.1999.9981596