Beyond Survival Guides: Memory Transmissions in Post Reformasi-born Chinese-Indonesian in Pontianak, West Borneo

In communities with histories of violence and racial tensions caused and aggravated by colonialism, difficult conversations are essential to engender decoloniality. However, challenging others and being challenged can be uncomfortable, hindering reconciliation. My participatory and autoethnographic research project conducted with 10 participants, ‘Survival Guide for Chinese-Indonesians’, explores how the post-Reformasi generation in Pontianak, West Borneo, navigates their identity and transmitted memories, and engages with racial dynamics through the utilization of prompt cards, photography reading, and scrapbooking. Humor, code-switching, and personal experiences become tools to traverse insider/outsider boundaries and foster empathy. In Pontianak, having Chinese-Indonesians as a major demographic poses different dynamics in confronting the discrimination, alienation, and non-belonging reproduced in post-colonial Indonesia. With race being central to social experience, Chinese nationalism becomes a manifestation of a collective sense of longing for belonging. Inherited fear and distrust perpetuate isolation as a survival mechanism. In this context, questioning long-held beliefs are often perceived as threats to group identity and solidarity, while age and gender-related power relations complicate dialogues. To move beyond survival tactics that maintain the status-quo, spaces of exchange focused on collective liberation are essential. The pedagogical tools I propose aim to dismantle survival methods perpetuating colonial frameworks that lead to bitterness, and open pathways for changes.