Teuku Reza Fadeli

Thesis

Thesis

Shopping in Colonial Southeast Asia: Modernity and the Emergence of Consumer Culture in Singapore, Penang, and Surabaya 1920s – 1930s

Research

Research

My study investigates the practice of shopping and the emergence of consumer culture in late colonial Singapore, Penang, and Surabaya. The study asks how were the urbanites middle classes articulate modernity through shopping, and how has consumer culture emerged? I argue that shopping was a pivotal practice, which helped to create cosmopolitan, consumer society, and the consumers were the active proponents of popular modernity. This research argues further with much of the current historical scholarship that paid little attention to shopping in the colonial period and largely ignored the agency of consumer and often focused on the political aspect of the middle classes. By tracing the social and cultural histories in Singapore, Penang, and Surabaya, this research attempts to recount the story of shopping through common urbanites' perspective. Relying on historical works with newspapers, magazines, advertisements, product review letters, household manuals, work of fictions, travel accounts, and colonial archives, this research will reveal how the practice of shopping shaped new identities, expression of modernity, and define cultural and social trajectories in the colonial societies.

Papers and Publications

Papers and Publications

"The Forgotten Role of Ethnicity in Indonesian History". The Jakarta Post. (2019)

Sukarno dan Politik Nuklir Indonesia 1958-1967 (Sukarno and Indonesian Nuclear Politics 1958-1967). Tangerang: Marjin Kiri. (in Bahasa Indonesia, forthcoming) [Book]

“Colonialism and Segregation: An Analysis of Colonial Policies in The Strait of Melaka 1795-1825”, Cultural Dynamics in a Globalized World: Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Leiden: CRC Press/Balkema. (2017) [Article]

“The Leaves of the Same Tree: Trade and Ethnicity in the Strait of Melaka”. Jejak Nusantara (2016). (In Bahasa Indonesia) [Book Review]

External Activities

I am a part of the humanities section editorial team of MALINDO Journal of Malaysian and Indonesian Studies published by the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Before pursuing my PhD, I work as a researcher at Universitas Indonesia while working on several research projects such as Mapping Project for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region managed by International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region; and also British in Indonesia 1945 – 1962 research project.