The contemporary youth-led movements and protests in the Global North and South have rekindled the popular image of youths as agents of change. Indonesia is no exception, as Indonesian millennials have taken the initiative to push progressive agendas, especially after the fall of the authoritarian regime in 1998. This development has been tracked meticulously by various scholars whose works have raised hopes that the involvement of Indonesian millennials in politics will have positive impacts. Contrary to their views, however, we argue that Indonesian millennials need a stronger organizational foundation to play the role of driver of progressive agendas. Based on an online survey involving 206 progressive youth organizations in Indonesia and 82 semi-structured interviews, we found that although some of these organizations have managed to establish basic organizational mechanisms (statutes, annual plans, evaluation mechanisms), they are still not well connected to potential social bases, especially in university campuses and in provinces other than those where they are based. The absence of a broad social base potentially undermines their social justice agendas since an agenda without strong social support comes across to political elites and policymakers as mere empty bluster. We contend that our study contributes to conversations on the role of Indonesian youth in politics and the Indonesian youth social movement in the post-authoritarian era.

INDONESIAN YOUTHS AS AGENTS OF CHANGE

History often portrays youths as agents of change. Such an image stems from their involvement in critical moments such as large-scale protests, regime changes or revolutions. As youths have been at the centre stage of these moments throughout historical periods, every generation tends to produce its own narratives of how heroic youths spark social change.

The millennial generation is not an exception. Born between the early 1980s and late 1990s, the millennial generation witnessed pivotal social disruptions in which they carried on the struggle for gender equality, civil liberty, environmental justice and racial justice, reproducing the popular narrative of youths as agents of change. As they grow into adolescence and consume information through multiple social media platforms, they realize that when their freedom and basic rights are undermined, they must take up the baton for transforming their society. Combined with wanting to redress society's economic grievances, millennials seek transformations of the existing political and social order that they find repressive and impeding their hopes for a better future.

Millennials or Generation Y—those born between 1981 and 1996—represent the population cohort who are moving into the prime of their careers and lives. It is this generation that is being groomed to take up leadership roles in various sectors of society. How millennials mature and develop, the values they hold and the capabilities they acquire will be crucial determinants of the outlook for a nation going forward. Millennials may not be digital natives, but they have grown up amid what is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution—the current era where virtually every industry is being transformed by the exponential pace of technological change and digitalization. Unprecedented technological changes and what is known as hyper-globalization have caused disruptions to cultural and societal norms. The values and work ethics of millennials are shaped by their exposure to digital social media (Smith and Nichols 2015; Tulgan 2016). These characteristics—their exposure to technology and their world views, among others—place a huge gap between millennials and previous generations. As Hoffman (2017) and Tulgan (2016) have noted, millennials are the most misunderstood among the generations, particularly by their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, the Generation X and baby boomers.

In Indonesia, those from the millennial generation are slated to take up positions as leaders in various important spheres of society—from the political, economic and business spheres to the education, arts and culture sectors. Experiencing the prime of their lives amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the COVID-19 pandemic, millennials have acutely experienced disruptions to their family and working lives as well as ways of doing business.

Indonesia's demographic changes call for understanding the intergenerational gap that is at the core of the so-called millennial disruptions. The gap is a complex one—it exists not only between different generations but also between the millennials living in rural areas and those living in urban areas, as well as between rich and poor millennials. Several phenomena might indicate where to look in order to understand what has changed and how such change has disrupted our lives. Firstly, technology has created closer relationships between those separated by distance while making strangers of those living in close proximity to one another. Consequently, family and people-to-people relations have changed to the extent that the well-known solidarity of the Indonesian people, gotong-royong, has been completely redefined by the millennials. Millennials use different tools to empower and help each other.

From the positive youth development perspective, Indonesian millennials are in a transitional phase to adulthood, vulnerable to identity crises. Pressures from social and cultural constructs present various challenges to their well-being during this transitional phase. This chapter explores the religious identity of millennials drawing upon several concepts from youth studies. Data was collected at Karangdjati Monastery in the student city of Yogyakarta from 2020 to 2022 amid the pandemic. The data collection method involved participatory observation of a purposive sample of ten informants. A narrative model was used to analyse their life histories. The main finding was that the informants were interested in Buddhism because of its universal appeal and inclusive nature regardless of one's faith, the absence of formal conversion orders, and its Ehipassiko principle of critical thinking. The main argument in this paper is that Indonesia's state power, which requires that every citizen should have a religion that should be stated on their national identity card and that they should practise its teachings, causes a sense of exclusion for Indonesian millennials who practise religious teachings flexibly. To overcome the spiritual disruption they experience, some millennials negotiate their identity by converting or reconstructing a hybrid identity as a process of self-discovery.

BACKGROUND

During the very long spiritual journey of the visudhi, I cried when I heard Venerable Pannavaro say, “There is no conversion order in the Tipitaka.” So, visudhi is interpreted as a lifestyle conversion from behaviour that was tainted with defilements (Kilesa) to behaviour that is in tune with the Buddhist lifestyle in coping with suffering and being happy. (Carini [female, b. 1996], May 2022).

Carini, the Buddhist name given by Venerable Sri Pannavaro Mahathera of the Vihara Mendut on Saturday, 7 May 2022, was one of twenty-seven youths at a formal Buddhist procession that day at the vihara (monastery). The vihara in Magelang, Central Java, was founded in 1977 and is one of the pioneers of the Indonesian Theravada movement. The majority at the procession that day were millennials and Generation Zs from Karangdjati Vihara, Yogyakarta. Throughout the procession, Carini burst into tears. She had endured long-term bullying from her friends of the Abrahamic faiths, who threatened her for her conversion after she had graduated from her master's studies in the United Kingdom. In addition, her parents were bullied in her neighbourhood for allowing their children to convert from Islam to Buddhism.

Indonesia's population increasingly comprises younger age groups. This segment of the population is currently exposed to and becoming the target consumer market for the rapid development of multiple new financial products in the past decade or so, a consequence of the digital revolution and relentless technological innovation. One question that arises amid this development is: are Indonesia's younger generations financially illiterate or are they so literate that they become less risk-averse in managing their portfolios? This study involved conducting a survey of 142 participants, mostly students at the University of Indonesia. It distinguishes financial awareness from financial ownership and associates these two variables with different age groups. The study finds that there are differences in awareness (or literacy) and ownership of financial products among different age groups. Those from Generation Y have higher awareness about most financial products, including the high-risk asset types such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, than the Generation X, but they tend to buy the less risky asset types, except insurance products. Although higher financial awareness is associated with higher financial ownership, this study also shows a significantly weaker relationship between awareness and the level of ownership of financial products for Gen Z compared with Gen X. It indicates that Gen Z youths, despite being generally more knowledgeable of various financial products, do not necessarily own more of these products.

INTRODUCTION

Based on the population census of 2020, Indonesia's population is dominated by those from Generation Z. Applying the categorization of generational cohorts used by the Pew Research Center (2019), about 74.93 million or 27.94 per cent of Indonesia's population represent Generation Z; 69.38 million or 25.87 per cent represent Generation Y (millennials) and 58.65 million or 21.88 per cent represent Generation X (BPS 2020). As young generations dominate the population, it bears raising the question of how they perceive financial products that have become intrinsically intertwined with technology and digitalization today.

Financial inclusion has generally been more pervasive among the younger generations, namely Gen Y and Gen Z. Indonesia's Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (Financial Service Authority, or OJK) has developed the Financial Literacy Index, which gauges financial understanding and literacy among Indonesians. OJK's 2019 survey shows that Indonesia's younger population achieved a score of 44–47 per cent—a higher score compared with the score of 38.03 per cent for all age groups on average (OJK 2020).

The art industry has been influenced in recent times by the emergence of the phenomenon of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), that is, unique objects validated by digital encryption technology. Indonesian millennials have been quick to harness the potential of NFT technology as a means of showcasing and marketing their artistic creations. However, research on the impact of NFTs on the Indonesian art ecosystem is limited. This chapter aims to fill that gap. Applying a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach, the researchers examined how millennial artists engaged with the NFT world. The study showed that access to the NFT digital art market and the NFT community has advantages for artists such as obviating the need to use intermediaries, allowing freedom of expression, fostering networking with their fellow artists and collectors, and even providing an inclusive space for female artists. Conversely, digital artists also face certain shortcomings, such as regulatory uncertainties surrounding NFTs, the volatile nature of cryptocurrency rates, the inherent risk of cybercrime and the potential for digital art theft. Nevertheless, the NFT trend epitomizes the zeitgeist of the digital era, where millennials actively seek validation and recognition from their digital communities.

INTRODUCTION

A non-fungible token (NFT) is defined as a one-of-a-kind digital object validated and protected using blockchain technology (Terry and Fortnow 2021). This technology is widely used to claim asset ownership, particularly in the form of creative works known as NFT art. Popkova (2022) adds that blockchain offers authentication of ownership, rarity and immutability of related objects. NFT art includes videos, images, games, audio, books, texts and photography. Even though the NFT market is highly volatile, the artwork becomes valuable when it is a unique collection (Frye 2021).

The NFT phenomenon is growing due to technological advancements and the ability of artists to monetize their artwork. However, new challenges emerge, such as concerns about the legal protection of these assets. Irrespective of this challenge, artists or creative industry players can monetize their digital assets to create new revenue streams (Ante 2021). This phenomenon has altered the buying and selling of digital artwork worldwide, which was initially distinct from the conventional art market. According to Horky, Rachel, and Fidrmuc (2022), when the conventional art market failed to transition to digital platforms, NFTs became a global phenomenon. Initially, the conventional art market made it difficult for digital artists to be a part of its ecosystem. Currently, owing to NFTs, digital artists have the same opportunity to monetize their artwork as established conventional artists do.

Indonesian participatory art discourse has not caught up with the development of its practices over the last twenty years, especially those by millennial artists. The discourse also tends to be Eurocentric and fails to notice participatory phenomena in Indonesia rooted in the heteronomous spirit of Indonesian art and other factors. The forms of participatory art in Indonesia have begun to emerge concretely in the art practices of a few young artists’ work as an output of resistance or antagonism towards restrictive homogenization and paternalistic culture in art schools due to the depoliticization of art during the New Order era. These expressions manifested in the form of practices that violate conventional norms of art medium and invite the participation of marginalized populations affected by the New Order's centralistic pembangunan (development) policies. This chapter specifically examines the art practice of a Yogyakarta-based millennial artist, Anang Saptoto, as an example of post-Reformasi participatory art that differs from participatory art practices during the New Order era. As a millennial artist, Saptoto, whose participatory work responds to local agrarian problems, inherits the distinctive artistic spirit of Reformasi, which departs from the spirit of decentralization and localization of information technology to achieve the desired goals. Saptoto's participatory art practice is marked by a rupture from the antagonistic nature of young artists during the New Order era. The non-antagonistic temperament manifests in Saptoto's flexibility in encountering more complicated challenges: the neoliberal economy and education regime, and a commercialized and depoliticized art sphere, among others.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses participatory art by millennials, which differs from that by previous generations. Millennial artists who practise participatory art cannot be subsumed under one rigid ideological category. They focus more on pursuing strategic solutions to achieve concrete results for marginalized communities. These artists who engage in activism unavoidably encounter more complicated challenges: the neoliberal economy and education regime, a commercialized and depoliticized art sphere, and regional feudalism, among others.

Participatory art substantially deconstructs the artist's role in creating art. Artists no longer monopolize the authorship of artwork; instead, they initiate cooperative authorship with the audience. The expanded role of the audience potentially cultivates their emancipation. This chapter aims to scrutinize the contemporary participatory art discourse and practice in Indonesia, especially by millennials. It argues that millennials develop participatory art practices while taking cues from an existing tradition that has emerged organically in Indonesia.