Developing Social Resilience and Building a Culture of Nationalism in the City of Batam, Indonesia

Abstract

International ports serve and expedited interaction between nations. Building a modern international port city and advanced society dwellers within it heavily depends on socially sustainable development, and on the level of social resilience of its residents. The rapid development of an international port city cannot disregard many foreign interests in the City’s decision making; therefore, the lack of a culture of nationalism is investigated. This paper tries to portray that building social resilience is hand-in-hand with building a culture of nationalism, and it exists in the international port city setting such as the City of Batam. A mixed method analysis is used to get determinants of social resilience and nationalism. It is used a systematic review of peer-reviewed academic journal articles published between 2013 and 2018 to scope and synthesize assessment criteria; then it is compared with the quality of socio-cultural life condition from the survey and in-depth interview. The analysis results show a correlation between economic and political powers and building the local identity and culture of nationalism. In the context of being local, being national, and being "other" in the regional area, this study also shows that building a culture of nationalism is related to socially sustainable development, and nationalism is not correlated with the place of living but to the efforts of citizen participation in sustainable development. Therefore, building social resilience is also building a culture of nationalism, and it makes an international port city distinctly unique despite its internationalism characteristic.