This talk is jointly organised with Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

REGISTRATION via https://ari.nus.edu.sg/events/friederike-trotier/

CHAIRPERSON
Dr Stefan Huebner, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

In 1962, Indonesia celebrated its national rebirth, modernity and international arrival by hosting the 4th Asian Games in Jakarta. Since then, Indonesia has hosted several other major multi-sport events. But the return to Indonesia in 2018 of the 18th Asian Games was significant: for the first time in the history of the Games, they were co-hosted: Palembang, capital of South Sumatra, staged the event together with Jakarta. These arrangements—and their success—reflected a new reality in Indonesia; the Jakarta-centric, one-nation autocracy of the New Order regime has been replaced by regional autonomy, local agency, and evolving center-periphery relationships. With heightened inter-city rivalry, greater attention is paid to marketing cities and regions than ever before.

Palembang exemplifies this civic transformation. A once industrial city with a negative image has become an attractive regular fixture in the international sporting calendar. In part this has been achieved by urban renewal and targeted construction projects but equally important has been a strategy adopted by local leaders and officials to promote Palembang as Indonesia’s sports city and make it not just a prime sporting venue but also a sports tourism destination.

This presentation scrutinizes the role of sports events in relation to national and local politics and links them to the increase in city marketing, local agency and inter-city competition in post-Suharto Indonesia. A key argument is that sports events reflect the country’s development in the past two decades from being nation-centric—where Jakarta had a dominant place—to being far more decentralized; here, in the new structure of regional autonomy, cities have a heightened role as arenas of representation and local agency.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Friederike Trotier is Assistant Professor in Comparative Development and Cultural Studies (Southeast Asia) at the University of Passau. She holds a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies and her research interest concentrates on sports, urban geography and mobilities. Although her focus of language study and research has been on Indonesia, her interest is in the whole region and the relation of Southeast Asia with other (Asian) countries and regions. Friederike Trotier’s first monograph “Nation, City, Arena: Sports Events, Nation-Building and City Politics in Indonesia” was published with NIAS Press in 2021. She is building a solid publication record in the area of Southeast Asian Studies, sports studies and urban geography with articles in the journals TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, International Journal of the History of Sport and Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science and a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Sport in Asia. She is the co-editor of the book “Sport and Body Cultures in East and Southeast Asia” published by Routledge. Since 2019, she is an editorial board member of the Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture.