Beyond Separatism: The Governance of Symbolic Meaning and Nation-Building in Postcolonial Maluku
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22225/politicos.6.2.2026.205-220Keywords:
Nation-Building; Symbolic Governance; Securitization; Sovereignty; Maluku.Abstract
Research on nation-building has primarily examined how states consolidate sovereignty through territorial integration, institutional development, and national identity formation, while securitization theory explains how particular issues become constructed as security threats. However, less attention has been paid to how securitized political meanings become institutionalized as part of nation-building. Addressing this gap, this article examines how the Indonesian state transformed the political meaning of the Moluccan cultural expression Mena-Muria through institutional securitization practices. The study employs interpretive process tracing, combining historical analysis, semi-structured interviews with 15 purposively selected participants, court decisions, police testimonies, and documentary evidence to reconstruct this process. The findings show that Mena-Muria was institutionally reinterpreted as an indicator of political threat, whereas other Moluccan cultural symbols, including Nunusaku and Siwalima, continued to be recognized as cultural heritage rather than security concerns. These findings demonstrate that sovereignty is reproduced not through the suppression of cultural identity but through the selective regulation of symbolic meaning. To explain this process, the article proposes symbolic governance as a middle-range theoretical framework describing how states institutionalize, stabilize, and regulate the political meanings of cultural symbols. By bridging the literatures on nation-building and securitization, the article argues that nation-building in postcolonial states also operates through the selective governance of symbolic meaning.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Christian Herman Johan de Fretes, Shary Charlotte H Pattipeilhy, Adrianus Bintang Hanto Nugroho
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