Aceh Chinese Negotiated Belonging : Memory, Place, and Identity

This dissertation focuses on Aceh Chinese’s lived experiences in Aceh, an Indonesian province marked by repeated violence and major social changes. These include the 1965–1966 anti-communist mass killings, the protracted conflict between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian state, the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, and the implementation of Shariʿa law. It addresses how the community remembers those events, how those memories are reflected in places and rituals performed by the community, and how they shape place, identity and belonging within both Aceh and Indonesia. Central to this study is an analysis of how memory, identity, and belonging are negotiated through everyday practices. The dissertation argues that, despite political and religious constraints, Aceh Chinese find ways to reinterpret and resist pressures from political authority, legal structures, and social hierarchies. Through everyday acts of negotiation and resistance, they assert their rightful presence and reshape their social position, even as these efforts face continuous challenges.