Growing Up in Transit

The Politics of Belonging at an International School

Danau Tanu

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785334092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

"[R]ecommended to anyone interested in multiculturalism and migration….[and] food for thought also for scholars studying migration in less privileged contexts."— Social Anthropology

In this compelling study of the children of serial migrants, Danau Tanu argues that the international schools they attend promote an ideology of being "international" that is Eurocentric. Despite the cosmopolitan rhetoric, hierarchies of race, culture and class shape popularity, friendships, and romance on campus.

By going back to high school for a year, Tanu befriended transnational youth, often called "Third Culture Kids", to present their struggles with identity, belonging and internalized racism in their own words. The result is the first engaging, anthropological critique of the way Western-style cosmopolitanism is institutionalized as cultural capital to reproduce global socio-cultural inequalities.

From the introduction:
When I first went back to high school at thirty-something, I wanted to write a book about people who live in multiple countries as children and grow up into adults addicted to migrating. I wanted to write about people like Anne-Sophie Bolon who are popularly referred to as "Third Culture Kids" or "global nomads." … I wanted to probe the contradiction between the celebrated image of "global citizens" and the economic privilege that makes their mobile lifestyle possible. From a personal angle, I was interested in exploring the voices among this population that had yet to be heard (particularly the voices of those of Asian descent) by documenting the persistence of culture, race, and language in defining social relations even among self-proclaimed cosmopolitan youth.

CHAPTER 1

Being International

“I am a citizen of the world,” was a common answer given by international school students to my question, “Where do you consider home,” or “What do you say when asked, ‘Where are you from?’” This was not surprising, given that many of them would have lived in three or more countries by the time they graduate from high school. Other versions of the answer were, “I am international,” “I am a global citizen,” or “I am at home everywhere.” More often than not, though, these answers were said with a sense of being “ahead of the pack” compared to those who adhered to more localized identities, as though rootlessness was the ultimate way to be. It reflects the way in which the international schools attended by many of those I interviewed idealized the notion of being “international.” This is encapsulated in the inclusion of the word “international” in their school names and the terms “global citizen” or “world citizen” on their school websites. Yet it must not be lost on us that international schools are embedded within a globalizing marketplace and transnational class structures.

The website Living in Indonesia: A Site for Expatriates lists sixty-nine “international schools” in Indonesia, though the definition used appears nebulous (Expat Web Site Association 2017). Most of them cater to the children of affluent, jet-setting families from expatriate communities, as well as local, upper classes, and are located in the bustling metropolis of Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Among these schools, “The International School” (TIS), where I conducted this research, prides itself on being a “true” international school. TIS sets itself apart from local schools in many important ways: its original purpose, curricula, student and staff body, architecture, resources, and landscaping. TIS has a diverse student body in terms of nationality and the cultural background of the students and actively promotes the notion of being international. But there are inherent contradictions between TIS’s mission to overcome boundaries of nation, race, culture, and class and its practices, which reinscribe these boundaries in constructing idealized ways of being international. TIS’s case shows that the notion of being international is, in fact, constructed by and dependent upon colonial and capitalist discourses of national, racial, cultural, and class differences.

This chapter provides an overview of the main field site, TIS, with a focus on the way being international is officially constructed at TIS by the school’s administrators, marketing materials, and United Nations Day program. It contextualizes TIS’s efforts of promoting the notion of being international within national and global trends toward the internationalization of education. The chapter also maps the most conspicuous social cliques among students as they form the starting point for the analytical discussions in subsequent chapters.

The International School and Jakarta

The International School is a coeducational school that was initially established by foreign foundations to service the children of the United Nations and diplomatic staff stationed in Jakarta.1 It is currently run as a not-for-profit organization that is overseen by a board of trustees. Until 2003, TIS accepted students of all nationalities except Indonesian nationals due to Indonesian government regulations that prevented its citizens from enrolling in international schools. Indonesian students used to attend the school in its early days but later the government prohibited its citizens from enrolling in international schools to ensure they were educated as Indonesians in Indonesian schools. A school DVD on TIS’s history suggests that the government’s prohibition at the time was “a major upheaval for everyone because the culture was then removed from us and the school took on a different tone after that.”

TIS has survived several sociopolitical upheavals in Indonesia and continues to thrive in their aftermath. The latest occurred on the heel of the Asian financial crisis when riots swept through Jakarta and other major cities and triggered the end of Suharto’s 32-year rule in May 1998. Foreign nationals, as well as many Chinese Indonesians who could afford to, fled the country. According to a teacher who was present at the time, TIS was “locked down” as staff and students tried to make their way home and to the airport.2 Indonesians who were ethnically Chinese were targeted during the riots due to their status as a conspicuous ethnic minority that has historically been used as scapegoats during times of crises. Many of the Chinese Indonesian students who were at TIS during my fieldwork explained that they were enrolled in local elementary schools at the time of the riots. Many spent the few years immediately after the riots living overseas, mainly in Singapore. The following academic year saw TIS’s student body reduced by about a quarter because many foreign expatriate workers and their families who had fled Indonesia did not return, or returned but left their families behind in their home countries.

Around this time, changes in patterns of education for the Indonesian middle and upper classes began to reflect the global trend toward the internationalization of education. In the 1990s, the then Indonesian Department of Education and Culture opened opportunities for schools to develop an international standard of education. At the time of research, Ag Kustulasari (2009: 95) listed over sixty “international schools” across Indonesia, thirty-two of which were established in the 1990s.3 These range from schools that use a national curriculum from overseas (e.g., the Japanese curriculum) to English-medium schools that use internationally recognized curricula (e.g., International Baccalaureate).4 Private “national plus” schools that claimed to have an “international” dimension to their curricula were also established during this time and grew in number, though this category of schools later disappeared in 2014 as the laws changed (Mayall 2010).5 At the time, these national plus schools generally offered a national curriculum supplemented by a focus on English and/or Mandarin language development, and/or used English as a medium of instruction in some or all subjects.6

The end of Suharto’s centralized New Order regime was followed by an era of reformasi (reformation) that saw a move toward the decentralization of many aspects of state governance, including education. In 2003 the Ministry of National Education (MONE, previously the Department of Education and Culture) issued a law commonly referred to as the “National Education Policy,”7 which stated the importance of English-language education for “pergaulan global” (global interaction).8 This has been cited as the impetus for the growth of national plus and international schools (ibid.; Kustulasari 2009). The government also relaxed the restrictions it had placed on Indonesian nationals enrolling in international schools.

From 2003, the number of Indonesian nationals from the local elite and upper-class families who enrolled at TIS rapidly increased. The large number of Indonesian students altered the student demographic and the school’s social dynamics. “Indonesia” became more present on campus. At the same time, Indonesian students were of concern to the school as they were perceived as failing to be international and were stereotyped as privileged children who were not committed to achieving academically. These perceptions highlight the tension between the Eurocentric construction of the school’s ideology of being international and the students’ diverse ways of engaging with this ideology.

The law governing international schools changed again in 2014. The Ministerial Decree 31/2014 on Education that was issued in April redefined the concept of international schools in Indonesia.9 Currently, the categories of schools allowed to operate in Indonesia are national schools, which offer the national curriculum, embassy schools, which offer foreign curricula and are only accessible to foreign nationals, and Satuan Pendidikan Kerjasama (SPK)10 schools, which offer overseas programs such as the International Baccalaureate and admit both foreign and Indonesian nationals. From December 2014, all schools that wanted to continue enrolling Indonesian nationals were required to apply to become an SPK school by entering into a Cooperation Agreement with a foreign education institution. TIS fell under this category of schools. These schools were also required to stop using the term “international” in their school names and offer mandatory Indonesian language, literature, civics, and religion courses as well as national examinations to Indonesian students. Many international schools changed their names during this time.

However, TIS students did not feel the impact of the legislation in the first year after it came into effect. According to alumni who graduated from TIS in June 2016, the school dynamics had not changed because most of the Indonesian students had managed to avoid attending the new classes, which were being offered as part of the extracurricular program, by obtaining a waiver from the Ministry of Education. By 2017, however, Indonesian students were no longer able to apply for exemptions. Yet, despite changes like these, the school’s ideological paradigm and its impact on the core social dynamics on the campus has remained stubbornly consistent over the years as determined from interviews with past and recent alumni, direct observations during fieldwork, and information obtained from those involved with TIS in 2017 when this book went to print.

At the time of fieldwork, TIS had over eight hundred high school students representing fifty or so nationalities, with the majority being from South Korea (approximately 25 percent), Indonesia (approximately 20 percent), the United States (approximately 15 percent), Australia, and Canada. The high number of Korean nationals reflects the rapid growth of Korean communities (both permanent and temporary/expatriate migrants) in Indonesia and elsewhere since the 1990s. The number of students from Anglophone countries had declined around the time of the 1998 riots. Most students, including Indonesians, spend some or all of their time growing up outside their passport country (or countries, for those who have more than one citizenship), and often they live in several countries before completing high school. Most were of Asian descent, though many were also of mixed descent.

The high school administrators and teaching staff represented about twenty nationalities, though they were predominantly from white-dominant Anglophone countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The teaching assistants, administrative support staff, and other support staff (e.g., cleaners, gardeners, and security guards) were almost all Indonesian.11 But they tended to be invisible in the students’ social world, except to the Indonesian students, who had an easygoing relationship with many of the security guards.

In Indonesia, TIS was perceived as a Western educational institution, which had implications for its sense of security in a largely Muslim country, especially since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2002, suicide bombers linked to Jemaah Islamiyah bombed two nightclubs in Bali, killing 202 people, most of whom were Westerners. Since then, Indonesia has experienced similar attacks in Jakarta and Bali that often targeted Western interests, though most of the victims were Indonesians.12 Two of these bombings occurred during my fieldwork, while the most recent bomb attacks occurred at a Starbucks café in the central business district of Jakarta in January 2016 and at a bus terminal in East Jakarta in May 2017. Security checks (though mostly superficial) at entrances have long become a permanent fixture at major hotels, malls, business skyscrapers, and apartment buildings in Jakarta and other major cities.

In November 2003 newspapers reported that international schools were allegedly included in a terrorist target list. This prompted TIS (and other international schools) to upgrade its security, such that the entrance looks imposing both in terms of the physical structure as well as the ten or so guards who secured the entrance. Then, in July 2009 and midway through my fieldwork, two luxury hotels in Jakarta’s business district of Mega Kuningan were attacked by suicide bombers. Six of the seven victims were Westerners. The attacks occurred during TIS’s two-and-a-half-month “summer” break. In the ensuing months, a bright orange police car13 was continually parked at the front gates of TIS’s high school campus. Both before and after the Mega Kuningan bombings, only cars with permits or those whose registration numbers were listed on the clipboard carried by one of the security guards were allowed through at any time. Other visitors had to enter the campus through pedestrian gates. Those who had a TIS identity card could walk through freely, while others had to register their details and exchange an identity card with a visitor pass—a standard procedure at many elite residential and office buildings—before being allowed through the gates secured by guards.

While the police car and imposing security gates were installed based on real security threats, they were also symbolic markers of the school’s separateness from its local environment in terms of class and culture. Located in an affluent neighborhood, TIS is an enclave for the privileged, as are many other international schools in Indonesia. Every weekday morning and afternoon, the narrow street in front of TIS was jammed with traffic created mainly by the chauffeured private cars and the large busses that dropped off and picked up students. Private traffic spilled over onto the public road as the guards supposedly directed traffic, giving priority to the upscale busses contracted by TIS for its students.

Inside the gates lies a well-maintained, green, oasis-like campus that belies the bustle and smog that characterize Jakarta. Some of the school’s impressive facilities, such as the multiple gyms, pools, and sports grounds, compared favorably with those of elite universities in developed countries. Every high school classroom was air-conditioned, carpeted, and fitted with electronic boards. Like other international schools, TIS was often featured in local English-language magazines and newspapers catering to Jakarta’s expatriate and upper-class population as a celebrated symbol of high-quality education and a “cosmopolitan” lifestyle.

Lianne, an alumnus, remarked of TIS, “It was like a completely independent country or something” that created “an immediate bond” among fellow students and alumni based on a shared experience of the world within the gates. Lianne felt this way even though she had graduated from TIS in the mid-1990s before the sophisticated security structures were installed. In fact, Marie Sander’s (2014) study of expatriate children in Shanghai and the highly secured international schools they attend shows that the exclusivity of international schools and their role in creating a sense of belonging among transnational youth is not unique to TIS or Indonesia. At TIS, the sense of being international was enhanced through imagining a community that was seen as separate from the local.

Articulating Internationalism

TIS is a school that offers high-quality education (at a cost), providing its students with opportunities to study at leading universities in the world. Among the class of 2009, 98 percent entered college or university, with 55 percent of them in the United States, followed by Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Korea, and Japan. TIS is also a school that proclaims noble, cosmopolitan intentions of educating students so they can serve the world as best they can. The school’s sense of connection to the global, its sense of being international, and its celebration of diversity permeated everyday life. The ideology of being international was a driving force for the school. Mission statements, symbols, rituals, and curricula that supported this ideology were present both physically and discursively together with the contradictions inherent in these.

Mission: Educating “Responsible World Citizens”

TIS’s 2009 promotional documents reflected its long-time visions. These documents stated that TIS was committed to nurturing “life skills which define our international community and global perspective.” Among TIS’s many educational goals was that of educating “responsible world citizens” who respect cultural diversity, engage with the host nations, serve the community, are caring, and can speak another language, among many other things. This goal is promoted by many other schools that similarly market themselves as international. The term “responsible world citizens” appeared in several documents, as did terms like “international mindedness” and the notion of educating students regarding “issues of global significance” and “world issues.” These emphases are common to international schools (Hayden 2011; Hayden and Thompson 1995). TIS purposed to instill a sense of “pride” in their students regarding their own cultural backgrounds while complementing this with the ability to consider “multiple perspectives.” In other words, one of TIS’s central aims was to nurture in their students the ability to engage peaceably across difference.

To this end, TIS claimed to offer learning experiences that are “international in their design and highlight the commonalities of the human experience.” These learning experiences are gained through the international curriculum as well as immersion in a diverse transnational space. One of TIS’s more recent 2013 documents stated, “The school helps you realize that the only way to really become a ‘responsible world citizen’ is through immersion. Your teachers will offer perspectives from twenty nationalities and your friends, from sixty.” The staff member in charge of public relations said she believed that TIS was the “true” international school. More recently, TIS’s online promotional materials from 2016 have been stripped of the word “international” and more emphasis has been placed on the fact that its students are being educated while living in Indonesia. Nevertheless, they have maintained the notion of educating students to become people who contribute more to the world.

Accordingly, it was important for the school administrators that students mixed with each other in ways that reflected a sense of internationalism and openness to difference. The school administrators were concerned that some students appeared to self-segregate into groups based on nationality.

Curriculum: The International Baccalaureate Program

TIS uses English as the main language of instruction and draws on international curriculum as well as others from English-speaking countries, offering the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma in addition to the regular TIS diploma. The IB curriculum in particular is highly sought after by parents because it offers strong academic training and the qualification necessary to apply to world-ranking universities. National as well as international schools are increasingly adopting the IB curriculum as the internationalization of education continues (International Baccalaureate Organization 2013b). The International Baccalaureate Organization was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1968 and its program was initially designed to prepare internationally mobile students for university. The program seeks “to provide students with a truly international education” (International Baccalaureate Organization 2013a). The IB miss...