Pulang Kampung (Returning Home): Curcuits of Mobility from a Chinese Town in Indonesia

This dissertation explains some common cultural logics underpinning widespread mobility out of Singkawang, West Kalimantan, a majority Chinese Indonesian town in Indonesian Borneo. I focus on the primary domestic and international migrations taking place, and describe the concepts used to make sense of these sojourns. I study the mobilities of this Hakka Chinese Indonesian population in a context of current post-Suharto era politics, as well as the “diasporic” status of this community in relation to the discourses and developments of “rising China” and overseas Chinese transnationalism. Members of this community are influenced by these broader trends as they draw from their unique cultural resources in order to chart pathways into both real and imagined futures of prosperity. In Singkawang, the mobilities of the Chinese community are framed in terms of economic necessity and social mobility, which are talked about using the language of “becoming one’s own boss” and “looking for a better life”. These aspirations are constructed as the most important life goals, to the extent that other occupational possibilities become practically unimaginable. Private business ownership has become a hegemonic aspiration and is best understood not merely as a form of livelihood, but also as a kind of quintessential adulthood subjectivity intimately linked to one’s ability to attain social status within the community. Some people entertain fantasies of becoming cosmopolitan transnational citizens, but experience practical limitations in transforming these fantasies into realities overseas. In relation to these limitations, and in relation to the powerful draw of home (Ind. kampung halaman), sojourns ultimately reinforce a connection to the city of Singkawang. The desire to return is as strong as the compulsion to leave, because of strong affective bonds with the hometown. This dissertation describes the process by which people make and remake themselves in relation to space and place in a context of mobility. I argue that migrants must continually reevaluate their concepts of home and away, by coming to terms with the fact that the ways they have changed as people during the migration process have also changed the contents of their categorizations of home and away.Ph.D