Bali Tolak Reklamasi: The local adoption of global protest

Abstract

Diverted by the virality of social media and the powerful visibility of contemporary global protest, social movement research started to loose sight of the invisible and silent aspects of mobilization and underlying collective identities. Looking at a Balinese protest movement against land reclamation whose anti-capitalist and performative character remind of recent transnational protest, this article refocuses on collective identity and examines the local adoption of global protest. It analyses the evolving actor landscape and the negotiation processes between different cultures, ecologies, generations, media and networking strategies that prominently shape the Bali movement. The article conceptualizes the movement as an emerging information ecology and tracks its entanglements with local identity, national power politics and global activism through a culture and transmedia approach. It thus analyses the loud and the silent side of the protest and the movement’s decision-making strategies that involve human and non-human agency, an aspect that is largely missing in current social movement debates. Going beyond simplified notions of strong leadership or leaderless networks, it tracks the difficult balancing acts between openness and closedness, between an ideally consensual and inclusive movement and the necessity to make strategic decisions in a specific local, national and transnational setting.

Coastal reclamation and Balinese identity

“…Environmental advocates, whom Bräuchler (2020, p. 626) calls the “loud” opposition, were perhaps the most prominent opponents of reclamation. They included not only Balinese NGOs dedicated to environmental conservation, like Walhi Bali, but also student groups, musicians, artists, and democracy activists who shared their concern for the environment.…”

Facilitating resonance: Brokerage in indigenous activism

“…To cater for different media skills and access, a broad range of media was used, including traditional mainstream media, social media and more performative outlets such as theatre, poetry and life painting, being informed by both contemporary global protest aesthetics and local culture (e.g. Bräuchler, 2020). Trained journalists like Rudy, Mike and Yos wrote for printed newspapers, but also used online news platforms and social media and became important information brokers in the SaveAru movement.…”

“…Reaching out for as many people as possible, across the generations, social groupings and cultural backgrounds, also required the convergence of a broad variety of media (Jenkins, 2006), including arts, traditional rituals and social media (cf. Bräuchler, 2020). As one of the activists put it 'media engagement has to move the way people are moving' (Dobo, 3 January 2016) -a 'procedural discovery' as Bierschenk et al (2002: 19) put it.…”

Global or local solidarity? That’s the wrong question: relationality, aspiration and the in-between of feminist activism in Southeast Asia

“…6 In this context, SP was able to mobilize a specifically Indonesian experience within the transnational solidarity campaign and hence to contribute beyond the cosmopolitan idea of everyone contributing equally to a transnational discourse. Bräuchler (2018) has shown how Bali as a place is particularly well-suited for such a relational approach. The negative effects of international tourism with water shortages and rampant capitalization of 'traditional culture' have spurred increasing mobilization by local activists who highlight the entanglements of international institutions with local identity and national power politics, contesting the politics of place vis a vis the local and national government while making use of the repertoires of 'Occupy' and hence identifying with a wave of 'global protest' (Gerbaudo, 2017).…”