'Finding Myself in Someone Else's Land'

392 Pages·2016·2.96 MB·English

„Finding Myself in Someone Else‟s Land‟
Stories by Teachers of Literatures in English in Padang:
A Postcolonial Framework

by

Desvalini Anwar

Bachelor of Arts, Padjadjaran University
Master of Humanities, University of Indonesia

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

Deakin University
June 2016

I
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
ACCESS TO THESIS -A
I am the author of the thesis entitled:

‘Finding Myself in Someone Else’s Land’
Stories by Teachers of Literatures in English in Padang:
A Postcolonial Framework

submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis may be made available for consultation, loan and limited copying in
accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.

'I certify that I am the student named below and that the information provided inthe form
is correct'

Full Name: Desvalini Anwar
Signed :

Date : June 18, 2016

II
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY

CANDIDATE DECLARATION

I certify the following about the thesis entitled:

„Finding Myself in Someone Else‟s Land‟
Stories by Teachers of Literatures in English in Padang:
A Postcolonial Framework
submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
I am the creator of all or part of the whole work(s) (including content and layout) and
that where reference is made to the work of others, due acknowledgment is given.

a. The work(s) are not in any way a violation or infringement of any copyright,
trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person.

b. That if the work(s) have been commissioned, sponsored or supported by any
organization, I have fulfilled all of the obligations required by such contract or
agreement.

c. That any material in the thesis, which has been accepted, for a degree or diploma
by any university or institution is identified in the text.

d. All research integrity requirements have been complied with.

'I certify that I am the student named below and that the information provided inthe form
is correct'

Full Name: Desvalini Anwar
Signed :

Date: June 18, 2016

III
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alhamdulillahirrabilaalamiin!
All praise and thankfulness are due to Allah the Almighty for giving me the ability and
possibilities to finish my PhD thesis. Without His blessings, I would not have been able
to get through this challenging journey.

A host of people have supported and assisted me directly and indirectly in many ways.
To all of them, I owe my sense of deep gratitude and indebtedness.

First and foremost, I wish to thank you Professor Brenton Doecke for your willingness
to take over the role of Principal Supervisor during my early candidature. I am glad that
you introduced me to storytelling and taught me how to construct my ‗autobiography of
the question‘ in order to better understand the impulse behind my study and the aim I
wanted to achieve in this endeavor. I have learned a great deal from your invaluable and
constructive feedback and discussions, especially in finding my own voice as a
researcher of this project. Despite your retirement, you kept giving me your scholarly
guidance, advice, commitment and caring until the completion of my PhD journey. I
thank you as well for all those many books you passed down to me.

I would also like to express my immense gratitude to you Dr. Hossein Shohouki and Dr.
Rod Neilsen for your generosity and kindness. I highly appreciate your kind efforts to
proof read my final draft and provide me with valuable comments so I can have the final
shape of my thesis ready for submission. Thank you very much.

This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of my dosen research
participants who teach English Literature in universities in Padang. I thank you for the
stories you have shared with me in the three sessions of open-ended interviews that I had
with each of you. I realize that my words cannot and can never thoroughly express my
deep gratitude to you all.
IV
I sincerely thank DIKTI, the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education, for the
scholarship grant you made available to me. Likewise, my gratitude also goes to The
State University of Padang (UNP) for granting me study leave during my doctoral
program in Deakin University Australia. I thank you Robyn Ficsnersky, Dr. Andrea
Gallant, Sarah Buckler and Robert Macmahon for your care and great support and
Deakin International Advisors: Isabelle Drouler, Jennifer Hsu, Nick Ko and Simon Goh
for all your kind assistance in making some of the rough roads I travelled a lot easier.

Special thanks and gratefulness are due to my loving husband Chairul (Harry) Azmi for
your unremitting support and love. You have given the best care and love for our
children during the thousands of hours I had spent working on my thesis in my office.
Yes, thousands of hours, for thousands of words. For Putri and Faras, thank you Nak for
all the warm support and love. Thank you for believing in me and for putting up with my
persistence, worries and anxiety. To both of you, I dedicate my PhD thesis.

I am indebted to my parents and my parents in laws whose love, encouragement,
patience and unlasting prayers were the source of spirit and confidence to pursue my
dream. I also thank my brothers Aan and Dody for your warm support from afar.

I also want to express my gratitude to the Kealey‘s family in New Zealand whose
contribution in enriching my life stories is evident in this dissertation. My thanks also go
to a host of friends and fellow colleagues: Bella Illesca, a friend in need, a friend in
deed. Gracias Bella! Dewi Mulia, my housemate and her family, thank you for the great
companionship we had throughout our PhD journeys. Yeny Prastiwi, no more late bus
trips to Clayton, Nyeh! To Icik, Ni Yet, Ying-Ying Guo, Diane & Ming, I wish you all
the best. Mba Misita, Syarifah, Aima & Seli, it was great to get to know you all. My
appreciation also goes to you my dear teman, Katrina Teske, for our long beautiful
friendship. At the State University of Padang, my colleagues had to bear an extra load of
teaching during my absence. To you all, I extend my deep appreciation and gratitude.
Terima kasih semuanya!
V
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Thesis title ………………………………………………………………. I
Access to thesis ………………………………………………………………. II
Candidate declaration ……………………………………………………………….III
Acknowledments …………………………………………………………….....IV
Table of contents ……………………………………………………………….VI
Abstract ……………………………………………………………….IX
Preamble: White forms, colourful contents…………………………………. 1

CHAPTER 1 ……………………………………………………………….. 2
Introduction: ‗Finding myself in someone else‘s land ..……………………….2
1.1. The wordliness of my story ……………………………………………….. 2
1.2. The autobiography of the question ……………………………………… 10
1.2.1. My polyglot world ……………………………………………………… 10
1.2.2. Early encounters with English ……………………………………… 17
1.2.3. Engaging with formal English education ……………………………… 22
1.2.4. Going ‗West‘ …………………………………………………………… 23
1.2.5. Reading English literature ……...……………………………………… 28
1.2.6. Science versus Language ........................................................................ 30
1.2.7. Engaging with the Western canon ……………………………………… 32
1.2.8. Lessons from my professional life ……………………………………… 34
1.3. Teaching English Literature in Indonesia: an overview ……………………… 38
1.4. The question that motivates my study ……………………………………… 47
1.5. Chapters outlines ……………………………………………………………… 52

CHAPTER 2 ……………………………………………………………………… 57
Reimagining Indonesia: an ongoing project? ……………………………………… 57
2.1. The inescapability of nationalism ……………………………………… 57
2.2. Benedict Anderson‘s concept of an ‗imagined community‘ ……………… 58
2.3. Distinguishing between ‗nation and state‘ ……………………………… 66
2.4. From Malay to Bahasa Indonesia: national unification for independence……. 72
2.5. The politics of imagining postcolonial Indonesia during the New Order …….. 86

CHAPTER 3 ……………………………………………………………………...102
Storytelling: a knowing practice …………………………………………….. 102
3.1. Situating ‗self‘ in context …………………………………………….. 104
3.2. The value of storytelling for research within a postcolonial framework …….. 112
3.3. Qualitative research …………………………………………………….. 117
3.4. Case studies of the teachers of literatures in English in Padang …………….. 119
3.5. Recruitment of research participants and data collection …………….. 120
3.6. Open-ended interviews …………………………………………………….. 122
3.7. Data interpretation and analysis …………………………………………….. 125
3.8. Ethical consideration …………………………………………………….. 127

VI
CHAPTER 4 …………………………………………………………………….. 129
The interviewees and the research setting …………………………………….. 129
4.1. Overview of the research setting …………………………………………….. 129
4.1.1. The Minang communities: their land, religion and tradition …………….. 129
4.1.2. Marantau: leaving kampung for life betterment …………………….. 134
4.1.3. Hajj: a journey to join the Islamic ‗imagined community‘ …………….. 138
4.1.4. The Minang local‘s language ecologies …………………………….. 142
4.2. Introducing my participants and their tertiary affiliations …………….. 143
4.2.1. Universitas Negeri Padang …………………………………………….. 143
4.2.2. Universitas Andalas …………………………………………………….. 146

CHAPTER 5 …………………………………………………………………….. 148
English at the crossroads …………………………………………………….. 148
5.1. Giring: ―I learned English through western popular cultures‖ …………….. 153
5.2. Ahmad: ―English is a means of dakwah‖ …………………………….. 170
5.3. Deli: The strangeness of English: ―I finally managed to learn ‗to be‘‖ …….. 187

CHAPTER 6 …………………………………………………………………….. 196
Literary imagination within the policy restraints of the New Order …………….. 196
6.1. Giring: ―I chose the school library to escape‖ …………………………….. 201
6.2. Deli: ―My literature lesson was like a ghost‖ …………………………….. 213
6.3. Ahmad: ―I liked to join competitions‖ …………………………………….. 221

CHAPTER 7 …………………………………………………………………….. 232
Defining and negotiating identities within social spaces …………………….. 232
7.1. Giring: ―This is my habitat, Buk‖ …………………………………….. 234
7.2. Deli: ―Literature brings me to another time dimension where I can
contemplate and be free‖ …………………………………………………….. 246
7.3. Ahmad: ―I joined Forum Lingkar Pena and Bengkel Sastra
in my campus‖ ……………………………………………………………. 250

CHAPTER 8 ……………………………………………………………………. 256
The worliness of teaching literatures in English in Padang ……………………. 256
8.1. Giring: ―Reading was not that important for Suharto…Hey! We are
building a country‖ …………………………………………………… 259
8.2. Deli: ―I don‘t think it was wrong to include Indonesian literature‖ ……. 275
8.3. Ahmad: ―Being beautiful does not mean to be white Pak, or to be slim
or to be blonde ……………………………………………………………. 286

CHAPTER 9 ……………………………………………………………………. 301
Conclusion: ‗Finding myself in someone else‘s land‘-the journey continues … 301
9.1. My autobiography of the question …………………………………….. 301
9.1.1. Becoming engaged with Postcolonial Studies …………………………….. 302
9.1.2. Getting immersed in Indonesian literature in English translation …….. 305
9.1.3. Engaging with an autobiographical novel Laskar Pelangi
(The Rainbow Troops) …………………………………………………….. 313
VII
9.1.3.1. Tresspasing over the border …………………………………………….. 315
9.1.3.2. Laskar Pelangi: a window to reimagine Indonesia …………………..... 317
9.1.3.3. Reflecting on Laskar Pelangi ……………………………………. 323
9.2. Lessons learned from our stories ……………………………………………. 325

REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………. 332

APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………. 359

VIII
ABSTRACT

This thesis is an interpretive work which involves different protocols than ‗scientific‘
inquiry of the kind that Hamilton (2005, p. 288) critiques, when questions are posed
and answers sought, as though I can simply stand outside the field of the inquiry
without engaging in it. This is why I use storytelling because it matches the content
of my research, writing stories about my education, upbringing and professional work
and then soliciting further stories from my three interviewees, who like me, are also
teachers of literatures in English who work in universities in Padang, Indonesia. I use
the stories I solicited from them to explore deeply the ways they situate themselves
within the multiple contexts in which they operate, their immediate institutional
setting, the policy context that mediates this setting and the history of Indonesia as a
postcolonial society. This is in order to answer the main question that my study asks:
―What does it mean to be a teacher of literatures in English in a postcolonial society
like Indonesia?‖

I apply storytelling in this study as not only a way of ‗speaking back‘ to the
hierarchical structure of power perpetuated in English (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin,
1989; Parr, 2010) but also as a way of giving more sense of ‗home‘ to my national
language Bahasa Indonesia (Foulcher & Day, 2002). Storytelling provides a vehicle
for people in postcolonial societies (like me and my interviewees) to construct
meanings and understand our experiences (Anderson, 1991). The three rounds of
open-ended interviews that I had conducted with each of my interviewees enabled me
to recognize how our identities have significantly been shaped by a colonial history
IX
of Indonesia. My country was originally colonized by the Dutch and its struggle for
independence involved unification through Bahasa Indonesia in tension with the
minor community languages in the archipelago. Indonesia lends itself to scrutiny
with respect to the way language affects culture and shapes national identity,
including recognition of the intensely felt personal struggles that people experience in
order to give meaning to their lives while grappling with a society that is indifferent
to their fates.

The conversations that I had with my interviewees prompted me to engage with our
‗plurality of consciousness‘ (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 6) which is a means to challenge the
‗truth‘ claims made by conventional forms of research, thus resisting how we, people
from Asian cultures, have been constructed by the ‗West‘. Our stories are not simply
told in response to the ‗imagined community‘ of Indonesia as it shapes the struggles
of those who fought for independence from Dutch rule, but in conflict with the New
Order attempts to impose an ‗official nationalism (Anderson, 1991, p. 83) on
Indonesians at the expense of any recognition of their regional languages, dialects
and cultures.

The stories that my interviewees and I had shared with one another provide not only
insights into how we have been or are located and shaped by the ideologies that both
inhere within and exist outside ‗us‘ but more importantly our struggle to speak back
on our own terms ‗consciously within and against accepted forms‘ (Miller, 1995, pp.
25-26). Switching between English, Bahasa Indonesia and Minang and drawing on
X