Here Comes the Style: Cultural Modernity in Chinese Indonesian Weddings

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-058-9_13How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Chinese Indonesians; weddings; identity; cultural modernity; social media

Abstract

Wedding is an important rite of passage in various ethnic groups and cultures. It marks a milestone in individuals’ lives. Because of its significance in life, its ceremony and rituals are very elaborate, complex, and full of meanings. Yet, cultural and social factors influence how wedding is conducted. This makes wedding not only a passage of rite, but also a reflection of social and cultural changes in a society. One of the visible changes in wedding is the commodification of its ceremony, which is heavily propelled by social media. In this article, through an ethnographic study of Chinese Indonesians living in Surabaya, I analyze how their wedding ceremonies expose the negotiation of their ethnic, social, and cultural identities. Primary data, gathered from interviews, are analyzed using affect theory. The findings show that because of the historical trajectory in which Chinese tradition and culture were banned when the New Order regime was in power and revived after the fall of the regime, as well as the increasing popularity of social media in which consumption in weddings is pictured, their wedding ceremony and rituals are in a cultural nexus where the ceremony and rituals are still influenced by traditions, yet at the same time they undergo changes because of growing new cultures. The social media that portray ideal weddings increase the intensity of the affective elements of wedding ceremonies, which jump from one individual to another. Their wedding ceremonies are awash with elements suffused with their projected ethnic, social, and cultural identities.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Setefanus Suprajitno
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/05/29
TI  - Here Comes the Style: Cultural Modernity in Chinese Indonesian Weddings
BT  - Proceedings of the fourth Asia-Pacific Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Arts and Humanities Stream (AHS-APRISH 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 144
EP  - 157
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-058-9_13
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-058-9_13
ID  - Suprajitno2023
ER  -