Jakarta yuppie

: a study of the lifestyle and values of Jakarta's young professionals

Abstract

This is a study of the values and lifestyles of a new social group in Jakarta as represented in their magazines. The group is the privileged elite of young urban professionals, or yuppies, whose wealthy subculture has flourished in Jakarta from the 1980s. Men make up the overwhelming majority of this group (88 per cent according to Raillon, 1991-1992: 108). They include senior ranking executives in multinational and major Indonesian companies based in Jakarta, corporate lawyers and large-and middlesized entrepreneurs. The study concentrates on the period of 1995-1997 when the yuppie subculture reached its zenith before the Rupiah crisis of the latter part of 1997. The sudden transformation of Indonesia's economic and political climate has affected the group at the centre of this study. It has also changed the media culture within which their lifestyle was portrayed. This is a study of the yuppie subculture reflected in Jakarta's media on the very eve of these dramatic changes. The study will identify any recognisable Indonesian characteristics in the cosmopolitan subculture of Jakarta's yuppies. The Javanese elite traditionally moved easily in a syncretic culture (Hanifah, 1972: 17). Today's yuppies also move easily in a culture which blends cosmopolitan and Indonesian elements.

Date of Award	Aug 1998
Original language	English
Supervisor	Dennis Shoesmith (Supervisor)