Quotidian institutions and identity formation: Explaining patterns of identity salience in Maluku, Indonesia

Abstract

AbstractAlthough Maluku's Ambonese people have been included and excluded on the basis of religion and ethnicity by the Indonesian state, it is religious identity that is politically salient. Despite the best efforts of Maluku's elites to cultivate ethnic solidarities, Ambonese identity not become politically relevant. Why is this the case? I argue that Ambonese ethnic identity did not become politically salient because the quotidian institutions and practices that mediate the lived experience of ordinary Ambonese reinforced attachments to religious communities, rather than ethnic ones. For this reason, Ambonese have weak attachments to ethnic categories. This article therefore highlights that 1) looking at the state yields only a partial account of identity formation, and 2) focusing on the quotidian processes of identity formation helps explain both the depths of emotional attachment to particular identities and the precise mechanisms enabling the continuity of these identities.