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Who speaks for the riot? Youth agency and the contest over protest narratives
Magazine article   Open access

Who speaks for the riot? Youth agency and the contest over protest narratives

Ian Douglas Wilson
Indonesia at Melbourne
05/09/2025
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Abstract

Indonesian politics urban social movements political agency political violence democracy protest Government and politics of Asia and the Pacific
The figure of the ‘penyusup’—shadowy provocateur who incites unrest and pushes protest beyond the bounds of legitimate political action—has become deeply entrenched in Indonesia’s interpretive repertoire for understanding episodes of mass mobilisation. This trope functions not only as a rhetorical device but as a durable framework through which both state and segments of civil society narrate the transformation of peaceful protest into violence. It is argued that it also operates to obscure the political agency of marginal political actors, many of whom were at the forefront of recent protests.

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