State of Fear: Policing a Postcolonial City

In State of Fear, Joshua Barker reckons with how fear and violence are produced and reproduced through everyday practices of rule and control. Examining the ethnographic and historical genealogies of Indonesian policing, Barker focuses on the city of Bandung, which is permeated by anxieties about security, in spite of the fact that it’s a relatively safe city according to the data. Drawing from his fieldwork there during the latter years of the authoritarian New Order regime, Barker traces the complex relationship between the state and vigilante groups like neighborhood watch patrols and street gangs. Through interviews with police officers, vigilantes, and street-level toughs, he uncovers a struggle between two visions of social control that continues to animate policing in Indonesia: the modern, bureaucratic approach favored by the state, and a territorial approach that divides the city into fiefdoms overseen by charismatic individuals of authority. Synthesizing insights from in-depth ethnographic, historical, and theoretical work, Barker reveals how authoritarianism can take root not just from the top down but also from the bottom up.

Joshua Barker is an Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Vice-Provost of Graduate Research & Education, University of Toronto. He is also an Asian Institute affiliated faculty member and former Director of the Asian Institute. He received his B.A. from Trent University, his M.A. from SOAS at the University of London, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has taught and conducted research at the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia and has been a post doctoral fellow at Twente University, the Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), and the Department of Anthropology at Stockholm University (with support from the Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies). His research focuses on Indonesia, where he has examined various themes relating to his three main topics of interest: urban studies, crime and security, and new technologies. Barker is currently conducting a multi-year research project funded by SSHRC and the Connaught Foundation. The project is entitled “Engineers and Political Dreams: Indonesia’s Internet in Cultural Perspective.”