10.47313 Residents Mobility and Its Political Consequences: Case Study From Batam City, Kepulauan Riau Province

Residents Mobility and Its Political Consequences: Case Study From Batam City, Kepulauan Riau Province

Abstract

This qualitative case study explores the relations between high residents’
mobility with the socio-cultural politics phenomenon occurring in an administrative
entity. Employing Bruner’s dominant cultural theory in an urban setting, the
study analyzed social demographic of Batam city and its implication towards the
practice of politics in the municipality, particularly during the election. Batam city
is a city that benefits from a strategic geographic condition, as it is located in the
international trade routes, next to Singapore and Malaysia who are deemed strong
economic players, and also identified as part of the Indonesia’s Special Economic
Zones. As an industrial city and as part of the Indonesia’s special economic zones,
the residents of Batam city comparatively have higher mobility than residents in
other Indonesian cities. Despites the high mobility, Batam municipal government
has provided administrative recognition for all its residents, even for those who
resides temporarily. These residents are entitled to have citizens identity card
and family identity card. This citizenship policy may be viewed as a way to
stimulate higher economic interactions; however this policy may have unintended
consequences towards Batam’s social demographic and political process.
The characteristics of Batam’s social demographic is an urban community
with high heterogeneity of social economic status and ethnicity – not just
ethnicities from Indonesia, but also from neighboring countries (Suparlan,
1986a: 118 – 119). Batam’s social demographic can be categorized as plural
society (Furnival, 1948; Smith, 1974). The study inferred that there is no single
dominating ethnicity in Batam’s social demography, resulting in the absence of an - 33 -
established local culture as well as locus of power among its community. These
conditions, in accordance to Bruner, has categorized Batam as a city with absent
dominant culture. It is argued that the citizenship policy where even temporary
residents are entitled to certain citizenship privilege, has further cemented Batam
as a city with no dominant culture.
The underlying premises is that a city with no dominant culture may have
created a highly competitive climate for its residents - particularly in their process
of obtaining, acquiring, and maintaining available resource. The opportunity
for residents to obtain these resource through work is deemed not comparable
with the availability of the resources itself, and highly reliant with the available
opportunity of work in the labor market (Southall, 1973). It is inferred that
Batam’s residents experienced the above condition, and that they responded to
this challenging work-life situation by organizing themselves into interest groups,
formally as well as informally (Cohen, 1974: xvi-xviii). The form of interactions
occurring amongst these groups in Batam’s social demography can be viewed
as ethnicity fenomena, that were built by psychological, economic and political
variables (Cohen, 1974). Ethnicity becomes one of the contributing variables, and
as it is closely correlated with other variables, it can also be observed through a
political study where the relation between ethnicity with economic, social and
politics are apparent.
For a heterogenous community such as Batam, ethnicity is an important
cultural property to maintain the residents’ identity, and thus existence, by
preserving practices and tradition in the urban setting. This practice does not only
functions as a cultural defense mechanism, but also to articulate their presence
when they are forming social-cultural groups (Cohen, 1974: xviii). The hypothesis
posed in this study is that that forming social-culture groups is a way for Batam’s
residents to strengthen its presence through ethnicity amidst a community with no
dominant culture. This hypothesis is supported by the study finding that there are
currently 27 socialcultural groups in Batam, (data Kesbangbol kota Batam, 2021).
The study also found that amongst the 27 social cultural groups, are also included
social-cultural groups of Melayu local community. This inferred that the needs to
maintain cultural identity and existence within a community with no dominant
culture, is not only recognized by immigrant residents, such as those coming from
Padang, Jawa, Flores, Batak, Aceh, but also by the Melayu community who are
deemed as the local and indigenous community of Batam city.