Young Indonesian musicians: making the transition to adulthood through entrepreneurial activities and mobility

This thesis broadly explores the experiences of youth transition in the context of urban life in contemporary Indonesia. Specifically, the subject of this study is represented by young creative musicians who occupy a middle position between spectacular and ordinary young people. Located in Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Bali, this study applied qualitative methods, specifically using participant observation and in-depth interviews as strategies to collect data. In order to address the key questions of this study, the theoretical perspectives of four social theorists: Karl Mannheim, Pierre Bourdieu, John Urry and Ulrich Beck were selected. Mannheim’s theory of the generations is useful for this study because the young musicians are located as a distinct generation in the post-reform era in Indonesia where the socio-cultural and political conditions are distinctive compared to the youth generations prior to 1998. Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts are useful as tools to investigate the specific fields in which the practices of young musicians unfold, the habitus they manifest within those fields, and their strategies in those fields. Bourdieu’s work is also useful for understanding the valuable forms of capital that young musicians have to accumulate in order to struggle and achieve a successful career. An important form of symbolic capital in the context of the network society is what Urry described as network capital. Finally, the work of Ulrich Beck is useful. The changing socioeconomic context in the post-reform era means that young musicians have to deal with the shift into neo-liberalism as Indonesia becomes ever more closely aligned with the structural and cultural forces of globalization. These conditions make the concept of risk society and the individualization thesis of Beck seem relevant. Young musicians have to deal with new kinds of risk and they also have to actively negotiate as individuals in order to successfully make the transition to adulthood.