Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:59:04.613Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Bali Bombings Monument: Ceremonial Cosmopolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Get access

Abstract

In 2003 a monument was erected at the site of the 2002 Islamist militant attacks in Kuta, Bali. Government and other official discourses, including the design brief, represent the monument as an integrated and culturally harmonious public testimony to the victims. However, the monument is also a discordant association of ideas, meanings, and political claims. While originally designed to subdue insecurity, the Bali bombings monument, in fact, constitutes a site of powerful “language wars” around its rendering of memory and its presence in Bali's integration into the globalizing economy of pleasure. This paper examines the ways in which the monument is being articulated and “consumed” as a social and cultural marker for the island's tourism geography. The paper pays particular attention to the increasing diversity of Bali's visitors and the ways in which a precarious “cosmopolization” of the Kuta-Legian area is being experienced and expressed at the monument site.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Allen, Pamela, and Palemo, Carmencita. 2005. “Ajeg Bali: Multiple Meanings and Diverse Agendas.” Indonesia and the Malay World 33(97):239–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asmara, Ledang. 2002. Cited in “Monumen di Lokasi Ledakan: Jangan Ada Kesan Dipaksakan” [Monument at the blast location: Do not make a forced impression]. Bali Post. October 19.Google Scholar
Bali Post. 2002. “Monumen di Lokasi Ledakan Ingatkan Masyarakat Bali selalu Introspeksi”[Monument at the blast location reminds balinese to always be introspective]. October 18.Google Scholar
Bali Provincial Government. 2009. Statistik Pariwisata: “Direct Foreign Tourist Arrivals to Bali by Month.” www.baliprov.go.id/index.php?page=statistik_pariwisata (accessed October 20, 2010).Google Scholar
Barton, Greg. 2004. Indonesia's Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam. Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar
Barton, Greg. 2010. “Indonesia: Legitimacy, Secular Democracy and Islam.” Politics and Policy 38(3):471–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bataille, Georges. [1957] 2001. Literature and Evil. Translated by Hamilton, Alastair. London: Marion Boyers Publishing.Google Scholar
BBC News. 2007. “Bali Bans Movie About Bomb Attack.” February 22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6387721.stm (accessed October 20, 2010).Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. [1940] 2005. “On the Concept of History.” Translated by Redmond, Dennis. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm (accessed September 20, 2012).Google Scholar
de Certeau, Michel. 1988. The Writing of History. Translated by Conley, Tom. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Eliraz, Giora. 2007. Islam and Polity in Indonesia: An Intriguing Case Study. Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute.Google Scholar
Family Health International. 2005. “Participant Observation” in Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector's Field Guide. http://www.fhi360.org/NR/rdonlyres/emgox4xpcoyrysqspsgy5ww6mq7v4e44etd6toiejyxalhbmk5sdnef7fqlr3q6hlwa2ttj5524xbn/datacollectorguideenrh.pdf (accessed September 20, 2012).Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977a. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prisons. Translated by Alan, Sheridan.New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977b. Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Translated by Bouchard, Donald and Simon, Sherry. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Hassan, Muhammad. 2006. “Key Considerations in Counterideological Work against Terrorist Ideology.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29(6):531–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchcock, Michael, and Putra, Darma. 2007. Tourism, Development and Terrorism in Bali. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Howe, Leo. 2005. The Changing World of Bali: Religion, Society and Tourism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
ICG (International Crisis Group). 2003. “The Perils of Private Security in Indonesia: Guards and Militias on Bali and Lombok.” Asia Report 67. Jakarta and Brussels.Google Scholar
ICG (International Crisis Group). 2004. “Why Salafism and Terrorism Mostly Don't Mix.” Asia Report 83. Jakarta and Brussels.Google Scholar
Intan, Benyamin. 2006. Public Religion and the Pancasila-based State of Indonesia: An Ethical and Sociological Analysis. New York: Peter Lang Publications.Google Scholar
Kostof, Spiro. 1987. America by Design. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Nicholson-Smith, Donald. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, Jeff. 2005. Language Wars: The Role of Media and Culture in Global Terror and Political Violence. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Lewis, Jeff. 2006. “Paradise Defiled: The Bali Bombings and the Terror of National Identity.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 16:223–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Jeff, and Lewis, Belinda. 2009a. Bali's Silent Crisis: Desire, Tragedy and Transition. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Lewis, Jeff, and Lewis, Belinda. 2009b. “Recovery: Taming the rwa bhineda after the Bali Bombings.” In Rethinking Insecurity, War and Violence, eds. Grenfell, Damian and James, Paul, 194207. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lewis, Jeff, and Lewis, Belinda. 2010. “Transactions in Desire: Media Imaginings of Narcotics and Terrorism in Indonesia.” Cultural Studies Review 12(2):140–58.Google Scholar
Liamputtong, Pranee. 2007. Researching the Vulnerable: a Guide to Sensitive Research Methods. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logan, William, and Reeves, Keir. 2009. Places of Pain and Shame: Dealing with Difficult Heritage. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mare, Estelle. 2002. “The Aesthetics of Ideology: The Vicissitudes of Monuments.” South African Journal of Cultural History 16(11):1524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordholt, Henk. 2007. Bali an Open Fortress, 1995–2005: Regional Autonomy, Electoral Democracy and Entrenched Identities. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Pambudi, Djauhari, McCaughey, Nathalie, and Smyth, Russell. 2009. “Computable General Equilibrium Estimates of the Impact of the Bali Bombing on the Indonesian Economy.” Tourism Management 30(2):1524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramakrishna, Kumar, and Tan, See Seng, eds. 2003. After Bali: The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Geoffrey. 1995. The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sidel, John. 2006. Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidel, John. 2008. “The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: Much Ado About Nothing?Asian Affairs 16(3):339–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turmakin, Maria. 2005. Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing.Google Scholar
UNDP (United Nations Development Program). 2003. “Bali Beyond the Tragedy: Impact and Challenges for Tourism-Led Development in Indonesia.” Denpasar: Consultative Group Indonesia UNDP-World Bank.Google Scholar
van Liere, Lucien. 2009. “Gestures of the Evil Mind: Interpreting Religion-Related Violence in Indonesia after 9/11.” Exchange 38(3):244–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, Margaret. 1994. Visible and Invisible Realities: Power, Magic and Colonial Conquest in Bali. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar