Discrimination, sport and nation building among Indonesian Chinese in the 1950s

This article examines the attempts to promote sport among Indonesian athletes during the 1950s. Drawing on archival and secondary sources from the period immediately after Independence, the article analyses the processes and practices through which ethnic Chinese athletes in Indonesia were positioned in opposition to the Indigenous athletes and progressively marginalised from competitive sport on the national and international stage. The article argues that some of the attempts to counter these practices through affirmative action policies and strategies imposed by the new Indonesian government led to forms of boundary-making or discrimination that were enforced to better promote the achievements of Indigenous athletes at a time when its ethnic Chinese citizens were visibly dominant in some sporting arenas. The study of ethnic discrimination by the Indonesian government of the time provides a compelling example of the ways in which dominant and historical discourses of nationalism may be contested by challenges to the legitimacy of athletic identities.