Between Integration and Cultural Boundaries: Arab-Hadrami Responses to Sundanese Cultural Policy in Purwakarta, 2015–2020

Abstract

This article examines Arab-Hadrami responses to the institutionalization of Sundanese culture by the Purwakarta Regency government between 2015 and 2020. It approaches these responses through the history of a locally rooted diaspora rather than a binary of acceptance and rejection. Following the historical method, the analysis distinguishes the documentary record of policy and public controversy from subsequent recollections by residents, religious officials, and educators. Regulations, planning documents, contemporary reports, regional histories, and institutional accounts establish the setting in which cultural policy developed. The interviews illuminate how particular actors later remembered and interpreted that encounter. Festival accounts distinguish support for cultural preservation from objections to religious symbolism and public expenditure. Debates over wayang statues concern theology, historical representation, and political purpose. School testimony describes the incorporation of local themes into literacy, environmental care, charity, and worship. These accounts suggest that participation in local society could coexist with criticism of particular governmental representations of culture. Policy continuity after the 2018 leadership transition provides a further context for examining accommodation, although the record does not establish that dialogue alone prevented communal conflict. The article develops selective integration as an interpretation of these differentiated responses: Islamic commitments informed the boundaries of participation without necessarily requiring withdrawal from shared civic life. The extent and timing of acceptance remain subject to the distinction between documented practice and retrospective testimony.