Digital Branding in the City of a Thousand Temples

Abstract: Social media is transforming "out of the way" – that is, socially, geographically and economically peripheral – places by providing platforms for digital place-making. As a form of territorialisation, in which people transform space into place by giving it specific meanings, placemaking becomes extended into the digital environment through the generation and circulation of representations on social media, which contribute to specific kinds of city-branding. Through engagements with social media, urban residents are making places known to themselves and to others, assigning new meanings and making them relevant beyond narrow geographical confines. In order to elaborate this phenomenon, this paper presents the case of the city of Singkawang, West Kalimantan, which is known throughout Indonesia as the kota seribu klenteng (city of a thousand temples) in recognition of its density of Chinese religion and culture. Focusing on the recent advent of social media accounts of Chinese associations, temples, and spirit-medium cults this paper considers how these representations and discourses on social media are helping to rebrand Singkawang as a harmonious multi-ethnic and multi-religious place, and yet one which is defined by its majority Chinese Indonesian identity. In this process, Singkawang, is shaped into a heritage city for religious tourism, and as the kota tertoleran (most tolerant city) in Indonesia, shifting its position within the national and local imaginary. These social media posts contribute to the ongoing politics of minority ethnic and religious identities in Indonesia, both pushing representational boundaries and reinforcing cultural sensitivity norms. One of the ways this takes place is through the circulating of sanitized, aspirational and celebratory images of the city which highlight positive aspects of the place while obscuring existing tensions, and controversies that arise in the multireligious urban context.