Audiopolitics and Social Movements: Popular Music in Indonesia’s Corrupted Reform Era

This article observes popular music practices and social movement ideals in Indonesia between 2019-2024. It is an interrogation into traits of popular music through the framework of audiopolitics that underlines the political dimension of music practice. In the backdrop of the Corrupted Reform protest in 2019 as the period understudy, this article focusses on a cultural domain where neoliberal practices of popular music intersect with democratic practices that make up a social movement culture. In looking into this entanglement, this article takes a close study of songs, music performances, and extra-musical practices by musicians of the independent music scene in Indonesia with emphasis on their political meanings through culture-in-action.