Identity, Language and Social Cohesion: Car Plate Number Preference Among Indonesian Diaspora

DOI

10.2991/icse-15.2016.4How to use a DOI?

Keywords

social identification and cohesion, Indonesian diaspora, car license number

Abstract

Social identification and cohesion are deemed important, particularly among group-oriented ethnic minorities like Indonesians overseas. This identification can be, in some other ways, expressed by car license numbers, to show their social belonging and affiliation. This qualitative study explores how a small number of Indonesians who live permanently in Australia and the United States, through their selection of unique car license numbers written in Bahasa Indonesia, show their social identity and cohesion as members of ethnic minority. Applying the language representation of Hall (1997), and social cohesion indicators (Reskeens et al., wy) to analyse various car license numbers and the underlying reasons of their owners’ uses as evidenced from the results of semi-structured interviews, the study reveals various categories of social identification that this preference of certain car license numbers can disclose. Extending the results of previous studies, they include aspects of personal, ethnic, religious, professional, and childhood memory considered necessary for their social cohesion. The car plate numbers written in Bahasa Indonesia bond their sense of belonging to Indonesia. Meanwhile, these different social categories show who or what they are in relation to others in the community. Given that research on Indonesian diaspora is limited, this finding interestingly shows the participants’ social cohesion and positive contribution to their country of origin while living away.

Copyright

© 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ahmad Bukhori Muslim
PY  - 2016/04
DA  - 2016/04
TI  - Identity, Language and Social Cohesion: Car Plate Number Preference Among Indonesian Diaspora
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st UPI International Conference on Sociology Education (UPI ICSE 2015)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 11
EP  - 16
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icse-15.2016.4
DO  - 10.2991/icse-15.2016.4
ID  - Muslim2016/04
ER  -