ARI Working Paper Series

In Indonesia, the rapid emergence of early childhood programming aimed at the empowered self-directed learner seems to be just the kind of phenomenon described by assemblage. Emergent networks of care appear to represent something new and innovative, including center and circle time and optimal brain development. Yet, their delivery simultaneously intensifies longstanding modes of social welfare as the “community” is reproduced in post-authoritarian, neoliberal, democratizing Indonesia. The newly empowered child relies on durable social forms and a retrenchment of community and culture as local resources. Does the durability of community as a technology of rule and as a social form challenge assemblage as a conceptual tool? Ultimately, this analysis shows the empowered child to be the re-circulation of an interrelated set of romantic ideas about the child, community, and culture and their relationship to government. The question remains whether assemblage – and governmentality – offer the best frame for understanding this.

Full text is not available, this working paper is withdrawn, as it has now been published in the Journal of Asian Studies.