Constituting the Minangkabau

This account of culture and society in the villages of West Sumatra, Indonesia, during the period of Dutch colonialism is based on materials collected from the colonial archives, local Indonesian newspapers and recent fieldwork in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Contents: The Interpretation of Minangkabau Culture: Traditions of Modernity of Modernist Traditions? - Peasantization and Class Formation in Minangkabau Villages - The Constitution of Minangkabau in Colonial Discourse - Nationalism, Modernism, and Neotraditionalism: Discursive Transformation in Twentieth - Century Minangkabau Culture - Images of Tradition: the Selective Constitution of Minangkabau Culture - State Formation in Colonial Indonesia: Bureaucratization and Land Alienation and the Constitution of Minangkabau's Southern Frontier in the 1920s - The Hypertrophic Modern State, Culture and the Peasantry in Colonial Indonesia.1993 314pp.