Politik rakat: regional politics of the marginalised Indonesian domestic migrants

There has been a rise in research on rap and hip hop as tools to unite and empower marginalised groups and communities in recent years. To contribute to this growing discourse, this paper draws from my fieldwork with Bali-based Eastern Indonesian rap group Mukarakat to explore the use of rap and hip hop as tools to unite and empower marginalised Eastern Indonesian domestic migrants in Western Indonesia. By framing my analysis through the notions of ethnic language rap as “grammar of the unpolitics,” I identify three key political features: provincial, regional prejudice and cultural preservation. My research shows that these rappers, who are displaced from their hometowns, attempt to re-imagine their Indonesian identities while promoting the decentralisation of power and governance in Indonesia. To do so, these rappers, and others who follow them, have used ethnic languages as the focal point of their politics. By using ethnic languages from Eastern Indonesia that are rare in modern usage and unfamiliar to most Indonesians, the group links the topic of decentralisation of governance and cultural preservation to national prejudice and racism. They seek to influence changes while introducing these issues into the country’s popular discourse in an increasingly segregated Indonesia.