Missing Policy for Supporting Cultural Heritage Preservation of Batik Industry Clusters in Barlingmascakeb Region, Indonesia

Abstract

The emergence of ‘new’ batik industry clusters in the Java mainland in the early 2000s has raised inquiries towards the interplay between indigenous business formation and government intervention. Following the historical trajectories, the batik industry has performed an intergenerational family business model by forwarding long-standing local genius in local development. However, top-down government intervention has also taken a key role in driving the local batik industry. Batik industry clusters in Barlingmascakeb Region may perform differently. This study focuses on scrutinizing how their persistence may contribute to local development where either the tradition root or policy support is missing. A mixed-method approach with sequential strategy was used by conducting case study analysis of the key informants and statistical analysis on the development of batik industry clusters in situ. The results show that their persistence is mostly encouraged by opportunistic trading businesses with little multiplier effects to local development. The local government policy merely serves a program matching instead of promoting the so-called cultural heritage preservation. As a result, the localized cultural identity brought by the batik industry clusters is unrecognizable and leaving profit-taking of the batik trading at the place.