Starting from her doctoral dissertation at the University of Indonesia’s Graduate Program in Communication Sciences, Dr. Rieke Diah Pitaloka was inspired to publish a book entitled “State Symbolic Violence: Recolonialization Policy”. The launch of this book was held on Wednesday, November 22, 2023 at the Communication Auditorium, Communication Building FISIP UI, Depok.
In addition to Dr. Rieke Diah Pitaloka as the author, the book launch event involved Dr. Hendriyani as the Head of the Department of Communication Science FISIP UI as a commentator on the overall content of the book.
The background to the writing of this book is the discrepancy between the data presented by the government and the actual conditions in the field, which is also known as pseudo data. This data mismatch is very common, especially in rural areas in Indonesia. Moreover, pseudo data is widely used as the basis for policy making in Indonesia.
The book tells the story that the data presented by the government comes from top-down data collection, which is believed to be the only correct way of collecting data. This reality ultimately shows that there is symbolic state violence applied in various public policy formulations.
In criticizing this, this book reveals that accurate data collection is bottom-up data collection by taking an approach that directly involves the village community, seeing the actual conditions in the field, using real instruments such as drones to map the village situation. The data collection methods in this book have been applied in the One Data Indonesia concept, which has been adopted by several villages across Indonesia.
In her book, Dr. Rieke also shared that the data collection methodology she researched can be useful and can reach down to the smallest scope, namely households. “The colonization of villages, not only geographically but also for the villagers, they are always used as objects, for example in the Musrenbang, even though the Musrenbang has been determined from the center and the budget has been equalized. Where the data used in eradicating poverty is aggregate data. Villages should be the subject, not just involved in development, said Dr. Rieke when answering a question from one of the questioners at her book launch event.
“As a promoter, I am very surprised and appreciate Ms. Rieke who can present very complete and comprehensive data. So it’s not wrong that the book is this thick”, said Dr. Hendriyani while inviting participants to read and open several pages to show important quotes from the contents of the book.
At the end of the event, Dr. Rieke invited the students to continue their research, because this research still opens a wide space for students who are interested in improving rural pseudo data in Indonesia. So that the concept of one data Indonesia can be implemented more widely, even reaching small villages throughout Indonesia.
Furthermore, Dr. Rieke plans to conduct book review sessions at other universities in Indonesia. Then the book launch event was closed with an entertainment session, music, and book signing. DLN.
