Dr Sean Martin-Iverson

Drawing on my research into the hardcore punk scene in Bandung, Indonesia, I argue for the conceptual and social significance of 'the underground' as a form of radical social imagination that continues to creatively reshape urban life in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia. I adopt a politics of value approach to understand the underground as a cultural terrain across which multiple struggles over value take place, as well as the role of hardcore punk and other underground scenes in the transformation of creative work, urban space, cultural identities, and political movements. These underground scenes can be understood as sites of precarious, creative autonomy won through struggles over value, in the context of wider processes of class recomposition, urbanization, and generational change. Such scenes constitute shifting communities of creative workers, political activists and urban youth struggling for autonomy. Underground scenes also both contribute to and contest neoliberal forms of urban development, as in the conflicts and compromises associated with the implementation of 'Creative City' policies in Bandung. In doing so, these scenes draw on practices from global underground networks and local informal economies to develop new ways of organizing cultural production. Thus, I argue that the evidence from Bandung demonstrates that there remains significant value in the concept of 'the underground' for understanding the interfaces of cultural production, spatial organization, and political struggle in urban Southeast Asia.

C. O’Hara describes do-it-yourself (DIY) punk as an anti-authoritarian philosophy of independence and self-expression, and this corresponds closely with the DIY value of autonomy as understood by the anak DIY in Bandung. The etika DIY of autonomy and community constitutes an emergent value system enacted through the practices and social relations of DIY production. This chapter examines the value politics of anak DIY hardcore in the Indonesian scene, describing their attempts to realize the DIY punk values of autonomy and community through the social organization of DIY production, while critically assessing the political significance of DIY hardcore in the context of the Indonesian scene. While the organizational structure of Indonesian DIY hardcore is quite fluid, for much of the 2000s the DIY community in Bandung was based around BalKot, named after its regular meeting place on a flight of steps in front of Bandung’s City Hall.

In this article I examine the contested and equivocal role of ‘straight edge’ as a subcultural identity and lifestyle practice within the Indonesian DIY hardcore punk scene. Associated with a personal commitment to abstain from alcohol and drug use, straight edge was also understood by many in the Indonesian scene as a ‘positive punk’ movement for both self-transformation and progressive social change, reclaiming an authentic punk philosophy of autonomy and community from the ‘negative’ performance of transgressive rebellion. However, as the scene became entangled in both neo-liberal processes of commercialization and a resurgence of Islamic conservatism, many of those committed to positive punk began to question the role of straight edge and its relationship to DIY production as an anti-capitalist creative practice. Through a critical assessment of the lifestyle politics of straight edge in the Indonesian scene, I explore the potentials and limits of subcultural identity practices for emancipatory politics. Entangled in contradictory discourses and practices of collective identity, personal choice, subcultural authenticity, and anti-capitalist activism, straight edge both helped to cohere a distinct anti-capitalist DIY hardcore current within the Indonesian punk scene and constrained the political potential of DIY practices within a framework of subcultural identity and lifestyle. I situate this specific history of straight edge in the Indonesian scene within a broader analysis of the contradiction within DIY punk between building positive personal and social alternatives and critically negating existing modes of identification and sociality.

The city of Bandung, Indonesia is home to a substantial hardcore punk scene; within this scene, a small but assertive DIY hardcore current strives to build a creative community that operates according to anti-capitalist DIY principles. Drawing on ethnographic research in the Bandung scene, I explore the value practices and social organisation of this community, focusing especially on three specific DIY projects: the Kolektif Balai Kota (City Hall Collective), an open, consensus-based collective that organises non-profit hardcore shows; the Endless DIY Store, a local independent distributor of DIY records, zines, and other products; and Inkoherent DIY Nutritionist, a record label that releases localised, affordable versions of albums by international DIY bands. Through such projects, and the social relations in which they are embedded, the ‘DIY kids’ (anak DIY) are building a cultural commons of shared means, knowledge and value as an alternative to the alienating logic of the capitalist market. While the autonomy of this DIY community remains partial, precarious and contested, the values they express and realise point towards alternative ways of organising cultural production and social life. Such practices of radical social creativity are an important part of the continuing political significance of punk in Indonesia and elsewhere.

The Pasupati flyover (Pasteur-Surapati) connecting Bandung to Jakarta has become a new symbol for the city. Recent policy has made the space located under the bridge, transformed from ‘dead space’ into a socially-significant urban space for marginal people governed by many stakeholders and consequently a contestation of multiple and conflicting interests including the governmental and corporate interests. The community interests are only one amongst many who invested in this space. This paper draws on a participatory research method to explore the lived experiences and creative activities held under the bridge, with a particular focus on the urban activism of Komunitas Taman Kota (Urban Park Community) and their collaborative work with local communities. In this paper we argue that through reclaiming the ‘flyover’ under space, community activists are asserting rights of the local community and the wider interests of the people of Bandung, against domination of state or neoliberal privatization.

Challenging the dichotomy of collective tradition versus individual creativity, the papers in this special issue explore the dynamics of creative intersubjectivity in diverse performance contexts from Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific. In this Introduction, we situate these contributions within the wider discussion of the social meaning, location, and organisation of the creative process, arguing for an anthropological approach that affirms the vital role of intersubjective relationships among performers, their audiences, and the wider socio-cultural context of performance. Furthermore, we emphasise the embodied as well as the discursive dimension of this creative intersubjectivity, an approach also affirmed by the papers that follow. By bringing together research into a range of music and dance forms from the Asia-Pacific, including modern, hybrid and more traditional performance styles, we aim to provide a distinct regional perspective on the creative process and its role in the reconfiguration of social relationships and social values.

The city of Bandung, Indonesia is home to a significant hardcore punk scene; within this scene, a small community strives to uphold anti-commercial 'Do It Yourself' (DIY) principles, organising independent hardcore shows 'by the kids, for the kids'. Inspired by global DIY hardcore practices, but grounded in the local scene, these shows are organised and experienced as displays of community solidarity and autonomy from the capitalist market. In this paper, I argue that the DIY values of autonomy (kemandirian) and community (komunitas) are expressed and realised through the intersubjective relationships established through the organisation and performance of hardcore music. DIY hardcore performances are collectively organised and participatory events that explicitly challenge the divide between performer and audience. Their values of autonomy and community are symbolised by the circle pit, a form of punk dancing that expresses both social cohesion and playful disorder. In seeking to establish such a synthesis, DIY hardcore performances reflect the anti-capitalist politics of the 'DIY kids' (anak DIY) and their desires for another way of life. Rather than simply gesturing towards such a social alternative, the DIY show demonstrates that musical performance is an intersubjective act of social creativity, producing new forms of value and new models for social organisation. At the same time, the social creativity of DIY hardcore is limited by its aestheticisation as a set of performance styles that remain entangled in the contradictions of the commodity form.