Materiality, Loss and Redemptive Hope in the Indonesian Leftist Diaspora

Abstract

This article explores how notions of loss and absence are constituted through Indonesian eksil (exile) life narratives including their development of private collections of leftist literature, personal diaries, obituaries and personal documents, in order to explore the inter-relational aspects of materiality, acts of mourning and their place in the memorialisation of the left in diaspora. I suggest that both the acts of collecting and the individual narratives of failure, loss and absence have unifying effects and act as different agentic modalities that work towards redemptive hope for the future. © 2012 Copyright Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World.