CONCLUSION

Summary

Public events involving musical performance at Yogyakarta's state institutions in 2001 tended to produce discernible combinations of struggles for statist capital with practices I have described as grounded and cosmopolitan. At the Regional Parliament on Malioboro Street, cosmopolitanism and political practice were manifest in articulations of themes of nation and unity on the one hand, and the localisation of outside influence on the other. The capital of physical force dominated the Armed Forces examples that incorporated, respectively, campursari and jalanan musics. By contrast, musical performances at universities produced unique combinations of national ideals and standardisations on one hand, and playful experimentation on the other.

The realities of the bureaucratic field were never far removed. Political, business, and religious leaders used the music and associated promotions and speeches to curry favour with those who came to listen, and music enthusiasts in turn exercised influence in Yogyakarta's bureaucratic field. In some cases, such as the street musicians' ethnically diverse and politically oppositional performance at the Air Force Academy, performers were to some degree able to steer the agenda away from an exclusivist, homogenising, Javacentric, and nationalist one. I have also suggested that viewing music performance and social relations at state institutions solely in terms of a contest for statist capital is insufficient. A major domain in which scholars and others have long sought meaning beyond quests for power is ‘the sacred’ (Shils 1982): the above chapters have offered grounded cosmopolitanism as an alternative domain, a consideration to be further discussed below, in the Conclusion to this monograph.

In the midst of the intense political, economic and religio-ethnic quests for dominance in Indonesia over this period, it is easy to overlook or dismiss how street-level grounded cosmopolitan practices could help to temper intergroup enmities. A good example of this was the interactions between people of diverse occupation, religion, and cultural orientation at angkringan snack stalls along Malioboro Street.