Rifle reports a story of Indonesian independence

• Main Author: Steedly, Mary Margaret
• Format: eBook Book
• Language: English
• Published: Berkeley University of California Press 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Subjects: anthropologists; Anthropology; asia scholars; asian studies; Cultural; cultural memory; decolonization; dutch colonialism; ethnographers; ethnographic history; gender issues; gendered history; historians; History; HISTORY / Asia / General; independence; Indonesia; Indonesia > History > Revolution, 1945-1949 > Personal narratives, Indonesian; indonesian independence; karo batak; Karo-Batak (Indonesian people); Karo-Batak (Indonesian people) > History; local histories; men and women; nation formation; nationalism; nonfiction; north sumatra; personal histories; Personal narratives, Indonesian; postcolonialism; postwar era; Revolution, 1945–1949; SOCIAL SCIENCE; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social; sovereignty; storytelling; Sumatera Utara (Indonesia); Sumatera Utara (Indonesia) > History; veterans; villagers; wartime experiences; veterans; storytelling; dutch colonialism; local histories; independence; indonesian independence; gendered history; anthropologists; karo batak; sovereignty; nation formation; nationalism; postcolonialism; ethnographic history; historians; decolonization; anthropology; ethnographers; men and women; nonfiction; indonesia; wartime experiences; cultural memory; postwar era; north sumatra; personal histories; photographs; asian studies; villagers; asia scholars; gender issues
• ISBN: 9780520955288; 9780520274877; 0520274865; 9780520274860; 0520955285; 0520274873
• DOI: 10.1525/9780520955288

On August 17, 1945, Indonesia proclaimed its independence from Dutch colonial rule. Five years later, the Republic of Indonesia was recognized as a unified, sovereign state. The period in between was a time of aspiration, mobilization, and violence, in which nationalists fought to expel the Dutch while also trying to come to grips with the meaning of "independence." Rifle Reports is an ethnographic history of this extraordinary time as it was experienced on the outskirts of the nation among Karo Batak villagers in the rural highlands of North Sumatra. Based on extensive interviews and conversations with Karo veterans, Rifle Reports interweaves personal and family memories, songs and stories, memoirs and local histories, photographs and monuments, to trace the variously tangled and perhaps incompletely understood ways that Karo women and men contributed to the founding of the Indonesian nation. The routes they followed are divergent, difficult, sometimes wavering, and rarely obvious, but they are clearly marked with the signs of gender. This innovative historical study of nationalism and decolonization is an anthropological exploration of the gendering of wartime experience, as well as an inquiry into the work of storytelling as memory practice and ethnographic genre.