Hip-Hop and Marginality in Eastern Indonesia

Abstract

This study examines how hip-hop in Eastern Indonesia represents marginality, challenges dominant narratives, and functions as a site of meaning-making. Using critical discourse analysis of three songs—"Koruptor" by HHLF, "Mama" by Majelis Lidah Berduri, and "#SavePapua" by Ecko Show—the study draws on Foucault's biopolitics and Baudrillard's hyperreality. The findings reveal three distinct discursive strategies. First, the metaphor of "rats" exposes corruption as biopolitical extraction (HHLF). Second, maternal resistance and ecological imagery challenge neocolonial extractivism (Majelis Lidah Berduri). Third, hyperreal deconstruction and hashtag activism contest racial discrimination and conditional belonging (Ecko Show). This study demonstrates how global cultural forms such as hip-hop are localized as counter-discursive practices that contest power, representation, and identity in marginalized communities, contributing to a nuanced understanding of hip-hop not merely as resistance but as an active site of discursive production.