TERROR AND THE COLONIAL IMAGINATION AT WORK IN THE TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE SPACES OF JAKARTA, INDONESIA

Abstract

This article examines the role of the imagination in the construction of meaningful places out of economically defined and organized spaces. It seeks to understand the processes through which a colonial imagery is deployed in the negotiation of a complex and continually transforming transnational corporate order. This article is based on research conducted while working as a cross-cultural trainer within a transnational corporate office space in Jakarta, Indonesia. I discuss cross-cultural training as a space within which a colonial discourse based on terror and uncertainty persists, producing an ambivalent understanding of foreign overseas labor. I argue that a colonial approach to the social relations that take place within trans-national spaces persists for both Western-born and Indonesian members of the transnational capitalist class and is central to their perspective on capitalist expansion.