Resurgence and Dissolution; Political Practices of Indigeneity and the Post-colonial Cases of Ireland and Indonesia.

This paper develops a theory of indigeneity not as a blanket identity but rather as a political strategy of resistance that articulates an alternative to ideologies like nationalism which centre the state and capital accumulation. It does so by building on theories of resurgence and indigenous resistance and extending the geographic contexts in which indigeneity can be theoretically useful. To illustrate this theory of indigeneity, I compare two post-colonial texts created in the wake of national independence struggles which explore what I term dissolved indigeneity. I examine the 1954 Indonesian film noir Lewat Djam Malam (After the Curfew), directed by Umar Ismail, and the 1939 Irish meta-novel by Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds. The cases of Lewat Djam Malam and At Swim-Two-Birds, each created in the wake of bloody national independence struggles, highlight the complexity of indigeneity and its nature as a political programme rather than an identity by exploring indigeneity’s dissolution through nationalism. At the core of these works is a contemplation of alienation and dissolution, modernity and tradition which criticizes nationalism’s essentialism and highlights anti-hierarchical social and land relationships. As revealed in these cases meaningful and durable indigeneity must be fluid and political, not ossified into an essentialist identity. The English and Dutch failed to eliminate the language or connections to the land held by Javanese and Irish people. However, indigenous relations and values were reorganized and dissolved by nationalist political programmes after independence which sought to create an “authentic” national identity and to participate in state and capital building projects. This finding does not seek to minimize the genocides of empire but rather to highlight resistance and agency from below. Indigenous resistance and indigeneity cannot be understood as immanent and permanent identities (whether universal or particular). Instead, indigeneity must be conceptualized as a framework of self-conscious political strategies and relationships which have survived and continue to resist usurpation by ravenous statism and capitalism.