Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on government-organized relocations of street vendors in Indonesia, Shadow Play carefully exposes the reasons why conflicts over urban planning are fought through information politics.
Anthropologist Sheri Lynn Gibbings shows that information politics are the principal avenues through which the municipal government of Yogyakarta city seeks to implement its urban projects. Information politics are also the primary means through which street vendors, activists, and NGOs can challenge these plans. Through extensive interviews and lengthy participant observation in Yogyakarta, Gibbings shows that both state and non-state actors engage in transparency, rumours, conspiracies, and surveillance practices.
Gibbings reveals that these entangled information practices create suspicion and fear, form new solidarities, and dissolve relationships. Shadow Play is a compelling study explaining how we cannot understand urban projects in post-Suharto Indonesia and
Table of Contents
Figures Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Politics of Containment 3. Dialogue, Documents, and Distrust 4. Democratizing Surveillance 5. Press Releases and Silent Critiques 6. The Talk of Violence 7. Coinspiratorial Knowledge, Allah, and State Power 8. Agents and Brothers 9. Marketplace Relations 10. Conclusion List of Protagonists Glossary of Indonesian Terms and Abbreviations Notes
