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Production of Fear: The Visual Analysis of Local Lockdown Warning Signs

  • SUVANNABHUMI
  • Abbr : SVN
  • 2022, 14(2), pp.89-116
  • DOI : 10.22801/svn.2022.14.2.89
  • Publisher : Korea Institute for ASEAN Studies
  • Research Area : Social Science > Area Studies > Southeast Asia
  • Received : November 17, 2021
  • Accepted : June 30, 2022
  • Published : July 31, 2022

Wiman Rizkidarajat 1 Aidatul Chusna 2

1Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Political Science, Jenderal Soedirman University, Indonesia.
2English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Jenderal Soedirman University, Indonesia.

Accredited

ABSTRACT

During the Covid-19 pandemic’s first term of April–June 2020, the general public throughout Indonesia became familiar with the slang term “local lockdown.” This term emerged in response to disorderly implementation of the half-hearted government policy called Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar (PSBB). In villages around the country, people started to build portals to restrict “strangers” or “outsiders” from entering their village areas. These portals were also meant to publicly signal the villagers’ fear of the spread of the virus. This paper will discuss two things: first, how fear was produced, using frameworks drawn from Giorgio Agamben’s notable works State of Exception and Homo Sacer, and how governance reproduces it; and second, how people come to accept the state of emergency and then publicly express their acceptance of the situation. Critical discourse analysis is applied to read government policy and its reception. The research took place at Rempoah, Kedungmalang, and Pabuwaran villages in Banyumas, the southern regency of Central Java, Indonesia. The villagers’ responses to the government’s policy are visually represented through written warning signs.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.