Gotong royong as social citizenship in Indonesia, 1940s to 1990s

Abstract

This article examines gotong royong as social citizenship in the second half of the twentieth century in Indonesia. Gotong royong was traditionally understood as a collective spirit among neighbours to strengthen economic and social resilience. However, the institutionalisation of the system through massive development programmes since the 1940s has influenced the common people's perception and practice of it. This article argues that the co-option of gotong royong as part of the discourse of nation-state building transformed the popular view of labour and capital mobilisation from an openly critical stance to apparent submission. Gotong royong became a means of social engineering and an ingenious linguistic strategy by which state elites orchestrated control over the making of citizens. Still, Indonesians have remained vigilant of their participation in gotong royong, and about the potential for its misuse by corrupt officials.