Adieyatna Fajri
2023

The demolition of the Banten royal palace by the colonial government in 1808, de facto, marked the end of the long-respected Islamic suzerainty in Banten. This demolition, while exposing the insidious nature of the colonial project, has profound ramifications for community resilience, heritage, and cultural identity formation. The significance of the Banten pusaka confiscated by colonial regimes and the ruins of the kraton continues to inspire the ongoing debate over the cultural identity of the newly formed autonomous Banten province.

Through the lens of post-colonial analysis, the research aims to disentangle the argument concerning the persistent influence of the colonial gaze. It seeks to identify the resourcefulness and narrative production of the colonial past, highlighting the Bantenese people’s ability to resist and reject colonial narratives. In this research, three distinct layers of analysis—historical, archaeological, and ethnographic—are independently conducted yet closely intertwined. The aim is to explore the dynamics of time and the mobility of the objects, archaeological remains, and the narratives associated with them. In this regard, the values and significance attributed to objects and archaeological remains have played a fundamental role in sustaining the imagination and re-invention of present-day Bantenese cultural identity.

Adieyatna Fajri is a PhD researcher at NIOD Institute of War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies and the Groningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen. He conducted his research within the framework of the Pressing Matter project, addressing the issues of values and ownership of colonial objects. After receiving his master’s degree in global and colonial history from Leiden University in 2013, he joined as teaching staff in the Archaeology Department of Universitas Gadjah Mada in 2016. His primary research interests lie in the fields of colonial archaeology, Islamic archaeology, and the politics of heritage in Indonesia.