Neighborhood Fears, Vigilantism, and Street Toughs

This chapter examines how neighborhood communities in Bandung characterize and respond to various kinds of territorial threats and fears. Drawing on ethnographic fieldnotes, Sundanese short stories, and local studies of Indonesian crime and gang culture, the chapter analyzes three kinds of threat to neighborhood identity, represented by the figures of the thief, the phantom state, and the street tough. Whereas the thief challenges the very basis of territorial community, the phantom state represents the risk that the territorial community will be subordinated to an outside authority, and the street tough cuts an ambivalent figure, subordinating the territorial community from within while claiming to protect it from outsiders. The chapter argues that to understand Indonesian vigilantism, it is necessary to situate it within the context of these fears and the forms of territorial authority that animate them.