Knowledge and Power in Indonesian Traditional Music: A Genealogical Approach on the Transformation of the Meaning of Karawitan

The term Karawitan is generally known to mean gamelan music, more specifically Javanese, Balinese, and Sundanese gamelan music tuned to slendro and pelog scales. However, the term is discursive and has meaning in wider contexts as well. The term karawitan first appeared during the colonial period in royal courts on Java to indicate Javanese gamelan music. However, through its nation-wide university karawitan programs, the Indonesian government and art academics use the term to refer to all Indonesian traditional music practices ( Musik Nusantara ). This article gives a postcolonial account of the discourse surrounding the term karawitan to trace the transformation of its meaning. It employs Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse and genealogical research methods to explore colonial-era and post-colonial literature using the term karawitan . By reviewing various discourses about karawitan , authors provide a more nuanced understanding about how power operates in the context of traditional music in Indonesia. We illustrate how the meaning of “ karawitan ” has been re-defined and contested through discursive practices. In general, these transformations demonstrate a shift from colonial power to national power.


INTRODUCTION
The traditional Indonesian music of karawitan has been widely used, but its meaning is not clear for many people, Prior to Japanese rule, it was a diverse region called the Dutch East Indies, where various ethnic groups were unified under Dutch colonial rule.Therefore, we assume the meaning of karawitan expanded through national power, particularly centered around Indonesia's national arts institutions.This points to a discourse surrounding karawitan that emerged during the post-colonial period.
According to Foucault, discourses are systems of power that shape the way we perceive, think, and act in society (Foucault, 1980).He related Nietzsche's concept of power with knowledge.Knowledge and power are a complexity that interact, and modern knowledge creates concepts of rationality and stationarity (Foucault 1995).
Using this concept, he analyzed how history has been formed through discourse analysis, how power has operated within it, and how history has transformed into power.He revealed how marginalized discourses, such as those of the mentally ill and criminal population, have been included, excluded, and reduced from the order of discourse.

Foucault emphasized that discourse is based
on what is already said rather than what is not said in every moment of discourse in its sudden irruption in history (Foucault 1989: 27).

DISCUSSION
The Origin of The Term Karawitan According to much literature about karawitan, the term originates from the adjective rawit in the Javanese language.With the prefix 'ke-' or 'ka-' and suffix '-an' (ke/ ka+rawit+an), rawit then becomes the noun karawitan (Palgunadi 2002: 6-7).Generally, the prefix ke-is used in the Indonesian language and ka-in the Javanese language, therefore we can determine that the term karawitan originates from Java.The meaning of the root rawit is expressed differently by various scholars, as seen below: According to these data, the lexical root of the term karawitan is rawit, which includes several meanings.Sumarsam (1995) proposed Serat Gulang Yarya (1870) by Tondhakusuma as evidence that the term karawitan was already used in the late nineteenth century (Sumarsam 1995: 125).An older manuscript using the In Table 3, we observe that ( 1

Karawitan as Fine Art
It was earlier mentioned that the term karawitan arose out of the relationship between the Dutch colonists and Javanese elites during the colonial era.We can see this effect from the derivation "rawit" from karawitan.Observing Table 1 again, it emerges that the meaning of rawit is very similar to the meaning of "fine".In the Cambridge Dictionary, fine means as data in Table 4: Table 4.

Grammar Meaning
After verb Good, healthy, well.

Adjective (thin)
Thin, in very small pieces or drops.

Adjective (Exact)
Very exact, delicate, need to be done, treated, considered very carefully.

Good, Excellent Lembut
Meaning of "Fine" Meaning of "Rawit" in Indonesian Language  2011: 312).From these, we may infer that the concept of fine art is related to high culture.
Clowney also states its relationship to class structure:  The data in Table 6 is entirely discursive.
The concept of gamelan music remains the most dominant definition today.Notable here is indeed that karawitan is formalized through concepts of art and traditional music.
The meaning not only represents Javanese gamelan music, but other gamelan music such as Balinese gamelan, even expanding to include artistic music.On the other hand, modernization has also naturally contributed to the formalization of karawitan as traditional music.Some definitions of karawitan (see Table 6) imply that concepts of traditionalism are conjoined with music.Sumarsam mentions that concepts of tradition have been used in karawitan because karawitan has been developing for more than one hundred years (Sumarsam 1995: 125).However, this concept of "traditional music" dominates not only the identity of karawitan but also language.In Bahasa Indonesia "musik" and "tradisional" are As we saw in data from colonial-era literature (See Table 2), the term karawitan obviously appeared in Javanese courts, and the concept of traditional appeared in contrast with the concept of modern (See Table 6).
This means the concept of traditional did not develop from karawitan itself.Therefore, we argue that the concept of traditional music is a modern concept resulting from specific phenomena.It is an ideology from the hegemony of modern knowledge and music classification from the West.

Questions about the term Gamelan
As we see above, the most dominant A noteworthy point here is the definition by Supanggah (2002), who said that the meaning of karawitan is gradually expanding.
This brings into question the definition of gamelan.Generally, we associate it with a set of different bronze instruments and possibly some other ensembles in Indonesia.
However, these other ensembles are not always referred to as gamelan.In Bali, they may be called other names such as gong, gambelan, barungan or other specific ensemble designations.This term gamelan is also quite vague like the term karawitan because the signifiers and signified are not stable.Currently, even talempong is also referred to as gamelan Minangkabau.Becker (1993) argues that the term gamelan refers to the full modern court ensemble in Central Java which includes singing and stringed instruments, and dates no further back than the early nineteenth century (Becker 1993: 31).She also refers to Kunst's idea that the gamelan ensembles of Central Java did not exist until the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.The object of signification of the term gamelan has changed.
From Table 3, we can infer that the term gamelan had been used in 12 Century.However, we do not know whether the term gamelan designates modern gamelan ensemble forms.
This suggests the term gamelan had been used in Java before the Majapahit kingdom and also used in Bali during the Majapahit era.The appearance of the term gamelan in Bali might have been through the influence of the Majapahit kingdom that extended its power to the island of Bali.This cumulative evidence shows that the signifier "gamelan" and various signified ensembles in Java and Bali acted as symbol pairs during the precolonial period.However, the signification of gamelan in the post-colonial era is also quite different from before the colonial period.
Table 7 shows some current definitions of gamelan from several scholars:

Definition of Gamelan
(In English) Miller & Liberman (1999: 146) Orchestra: an ensemble comprising primarily pitched percussion.An orchestra consisting of various instruments that made by stone, wood, bamboo, iron, bronze, leather, and others, using pelog and slendro scales.
A set of different types and forms of instruments that combined in one.
The definitions here represent our general concepts of gamelan.Some definitions point to specific gamelan types because they are from specific books about Javanese gamelan or Balinese gamelan.The definitions of gamelan above are also discursive as definitions of karawitan in Table 6.Some and developed it within their system (Becker 1980a: 25).Hill (2001) also mentions how the influence of musical notation is the most significant change in the practice of gamelan (Hill 2001: 25).This is just one aspect of the many influences of Western culture in Java.
However, it is significant because Western musical influence directly changed the Javanese music paradigm, especially in the royal court.
We refer Dewantara's statement quoted in Sumarsam's book (1995): At this period, it is very important that cultural experts pay attention to the instruction in gamelan for youth…because the form of Javanese gendhing is indeed beautiful and dignified, appropriate to be the apparel of a superior nation.Besides this, the feeling of having an art which is adi luhur may create study and pure national feelings (Sumarsam 1995: 117).
In this statement, we learn that (1) the term karawitan is not only used for the Javanese especially outside Java and Bali.It is in contrast with the term gamelan which almost all Indonesian people know.The ambiguity of the meaning of the term karawitan is obvious for two reasons.First, outside academic fields, people use karawitan to refer to Javanese gamelan music or gamelan music in general such as Balinese or Sundanese gamelan music; second, especially within academic institutions and art communities in Indonesia, this term is used to mean gamelan music or Indonesian traditional music.Its most notable usage occurs at national arts institutions, which go by the name Indonesian Music Institute or Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI).Karawitan programs at ISI campuses mainly teach gamelan repertoires and performance practices.However, they also teach non-gamelan music and instrumental performance from places other than Java and Bali, such as Makassar and Minangkabau.Through such curricula ISI campuses use the term karawitan to mean not only gamelan music but also other Indonesian traditional musics.In the case of ISI Padangpanjang, the performing arts faculty uses the designation Seni Karawitan to distinguish between Indonesian and Western music focuses.However, unlike other ISI campuses, the Seni Karawitan program at ISI Padangpanjang focuses primarily on Sumatran traditional music, with supplemental courses on Javanese, Balinese, and Sundanese gamelan music.These courses are taught by experts from each region.Although the program focuses on Sumatran music, the use of the term karawitan shows that its meaning has extended beyond the gamelan music in Java, Bali, and Sunda.Why is this term used to represent non-gamelan Indonesian traditional music practices in arts institutions in Indonesia?Indonesia as a nation formed in 1945 after liberating itself from Japanese colonization.
Discourses are born with exclusion, and this exclusion is driven by power, resulting in the suppression of other discourses to the margins of history.Foucault elucidated how this process of exclusion occurred, revealing the forces at play in shaping the current state of existence.In essence, Foucault delved into what kinds of suppressed histories lie beneath the surface of invisible history, developing genealogical methods akin to archaeology.He likened his method to archaeologists digging into the ground to unearth unconscious discourses buried deep within.Foucault thought that history is not continuous but rather fragmented.Therefore, without excavating its underlying aspects, history remains elusive.By using Foucault's discourse theory to analyze the use of the term karawitan, we can provide a more nuanced understanding about how power operates in the context of traditional music in Indonesia.For instance, the way the term karawitan is used in academic settings reinforces the authority of institutions such as ISI in defining what constitutes Indonesian traditional music.Moreover, this dominant discourse may be perpetuated through various power structures such as academic institutions, cultural organizations, and government policies.This notion of power is not just repressive, but also productive.Using Foucault's theory, the authors assume that the term karawitan, which extends from the commonly accepted meaning of gamelan music to encompass other Indonesian traditional music, also underwent formation and transformation at a specific historical point.It embraces genealogy as a research method to analyze how specific assumptions have been rooted in specific political and social agendas.Saukko (2003) suggested two approaches of genealogy: (1) a historical approach and (2) analyzing the connections between different discourses (Saukko 2003: 133-134).Therefore, this article focuses on describing discourses of the term karawitan in historical contexts to understand how the use of the term karawitan contributes to the production and maintenance of a dominant discourse surrounding traditional music in Indonesia.Using the genealogical method, this study will initially analyze the origins of the term karawitan, which first appeared during the colonial era, to uncover the inherent meanings within its origins and the discourse surrounding it.Additionally, the authors will analyze the meaning of karawitan as defined by contemporary researchers to discern the transitions and connections within karawitan discourses.
) the term gamelan existed in Java and Bali before the colonial era whereas the term karawitan did not exist; (2) the term karawitan first appeared during the colonial period in the Javanese court (Mataram kingdom); (3) the term karawitan had been used to represent gamelan music in the Mataram court.This allows us to analyze colonial and postcolonial contexts, including how the term karawitan suddenly appeared during the colonial era and its meaning has expanded in Indonesia since.
…the social interests of the rising middle class.It served their interests and their need for "distinction" from the working classes on the one hand, and the "luxurious" aristocracy on the other(Clowney 2011: 315).He argues that the problem of taste lies within one's class or status.This is the ideology of economic and class structures of modern society.In this context, he mentions the emergence of fine art development of the institutions, practices, and structures of the modern system of the arts(Clowney   2011: 312).In addition, Taruskin (2015) also mentions that fine arts are always connected to elite patronage.Here, we emphasize that the concept of fine art music derives from the West, and that highly artistic music relates to high culture in contrast with folk music.Karawitan can be considered a form of fine art because it originated in the royal courts of Java, where it was developed and refined over centuries as a form of courtly entertainment and cultural expression.The Javanese court tradition emphasized the importance of refined artistic expression in all aspects of life, and music was no exception.The court musicians and dancers were highly trained and skilled in their craft, and their performances were intended to showcase the aesthetic sensibilities and cultural sophistication of the court under Dutch colonial patronage.Current Definitions of KarawitanAccording to the data above, we observe that karawitan was synonymous with Javanese gamelan music, especially in the Javanese court, and connoted fine art or high art.However, the more recent meaning of karawitan seems quite different from the old meaning of karawitan.These are current definitions of karawitan: karawitan as seni raras, translated it into English as "musical art" and "music," based on pelog and slendro scales(Koesoemadinata   1969: 3-5).In this text, the meaning of seni raras is ambiguous because it is karawitan and art music.However, Koesoemadinata represents Western music with the term "musik barat" (western music).This illustrates the formalization of karawitan as musical art.In other words, karawitan becomes an object of musicology.This transition draws a connection between the term karawitan and a Western musicological concept.Sumarsam (1991) argues that the influence of Western music in Indonesia has occurred through education.He said perhaps it is the result of the more vigorous introduction of Western music through schools, private courses, and music for films, especially among Javanese students and scholars in big cities.This shows that music is an art object in Indonesian society.For instance, music programs are called "seni musik (musical art)" in public schools.These courses teach music from the Indonesian archipelago alongside Western music.This represents the formalization of ethnic music traditions in Indonesia, including karawitan.
from English.This means the definition of karawitan is constructed with language concepts from the West.The term "music" represents Western music or generally all other music in the world, therefore karawitan is classified as Indonesian traditional music.It manufactures an image of karawitan as classic or old.Harnish (2005) provides the example that the Balinese language also does not have the terms as musik (music), seni (art), or tradisional (traditional) (Harnish 2005: 108-109).He argues that modernization created the concept of tradisional (Harnish 2005: 120).
points are limited to slendro and pelog scales or have more open definitions like the use of karawitan instruments.The meanings of karawitan and gamelan are more parallel in current definitions.HS and Merta in their book Peta dan Arkeologi Gamelan Nusantara (2018), problematized the general use of the term gamelan.They mentioned gamelan is not only Javanese, Balinese and Sundanese anymore, but archaeologically categorize some instrument sets such as those from Flores, Makassar, Banjar, Riau, Banyumas, and Sragen.They also provide the example of Festival Gamelan Yogyakarta, where not only Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese gamelan appear, but also other traditional instruments from Indonesia (HS and Merta 2018: XII-XIII).We argue this phenomenon has resulted from the establishment of the post-colonial nation which needed to establish a new identity for all its traditional music and instruments.Colonial and Postcolonial Agendas' Impact on Discourses of the term Karawitan In the book Gamelan: cultural interaction and musical development in central Java (1995), Sumarsam accounts for the postcolonial discourse about karawitan and the nationalistic power relationships in Indonesia by analyzing literature and his own experiences.He provided valuable data and analysis about the formalization and homogenization of karawitan within the power of the West, the symbolic power of Javanese nationalists in Indonesia, and the power of Lanjutan tabel 7 academic institutions in Indonesia in the transformation of karawitan's definition.The Mataram Sultanate was officially divided into Mangkubumi and Pakubuwono through the Treaty of Giyanti in 1755 under Dutch power (Kartomi 1990: 17).During colonial times in Java, Dutch colonizers, sultans, and aristocrats kept close relationships and dominated Java.At this time the Dutch influenced the development of art, education, and the performing arts.Also, this interaction between the Dutch and Javanese influenced the theory of gamelan music (Sumarsam 1995: 11).One example of Western music influence is the development of a notation system.The oral tradition of Javanese gamelan has transformed into a notated tradition that has been handed down until now.This notation was influenced by the development of music European history, and Javanese musicians accepted it . It was only used in Javanese courts, which means this term was used as part of high-class culture.The Dutch and Dutch-educated Javanese elites considered gamelan as a high art(Sumarsam   1995: 120).This implication was constructed in the interaction between the Dutch and the Javanese court and represents their relationship during the colonial period.As Rizzo (2020) mentioned, these Javanese elites were also exposed to European classical music during colonial times(Rizzo 2020:   6).According to this relationship between Dutch and Javanese elites, cultural exchange was inevitable, and Javanese elites accepted the Western classical music concept as a high art or fine art.Karawitan was formalized through the musical art concept in Western music by colonialism.Sumarsam also explains some cases of Javanese nationalists' agendas of karawitan.Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo (1886-1943) who was a political mentor of Soekarno, used wayang as a political medium, and affected the ideas and activities of the nationalists.Dewantara (1889-1959), who established Taman Siswa in Yogyakarta in 1922, stimulated nationalist sentiments in resistance to Dutch colonial powers and strove to keep the function of gamelan and dance for society in court but for the public; (2) karawitan was regarded as a medium for cultural resistance the homogenization of these music styles as representative of the entire country.After KOKAR, the names of institutions continued to represent the formalization of art.ASKI Surakarta, ASKI Padang Panjang, ASTI Denpasar, KORI Bandung were homogenized as STSI; and ASRI, AMI, ASTI in Yogyakarta were homogenized as ISI.After that three STSI in Surakarta, Padangpanjang and Denpasar were integrated as ISI, and STSI Bandung was integrated as ISBI Bandung.Therefore, we see that the subjectivity of karawitan is no longer an individual identity marker but a formalized art form that homogenized other gamelans or other ethnic music in Indonesia.These institutions were then homogenized under the nationalist power of the Indonesian government.ISIs are synthetic art institutions which follow the form of western art institutions and use general classifications such as music, dance, theater, media art, and fine art, for their education programs.Karawitan programs show the conspicuous influence of the anthropology of art, sociology of art, performing arts management, the communication of art, acoustics, organology, and research methods.These processes of homogenization and formalization of art institutions is symbolic because it decontextualizes art practices from all over Indonesia and formalizes and homogenizes them again as karawitan.For instance, the music from Minangkabau does not use/have gamelan instruments, and its musical structure does not resemble the slendro/pelog gamelan music in Java or Bali.ISI Padangpanjang teaches the music of Minangkabau in its karawitan program.Some people even refer to talempong as Minangkabau gamelan.This is another level of homogenization of karawitan because talempong or other instruments of Minangkabau and their music do not fit with general definitions of gamelan or older meanings of karawitan.CONCLUSION This article illustrates changes in the meaning of the term karawitan through discursive research using some pre-colonial and colonial-era literature, and literature from academic institutions.The meaning of the term karawitan has not been fixed but has been re-produced and contested through discursive practices.In this article, we have highlighted that the formalization of karawitan was influenced by colonial knowledge and power through concepts of fine art or high art and homogenization by nationalist movements through academic institutions in Indonesia.These two forms acted in parallel and have developed and persisted in Indonesian institutions supported by government policy.The transformation in the discourse of karawitan has demonstrated a shift from colonial power to national power, resulting in a transformation of associated knowledge.Within these fragmented historical discontinuities, the significance of karawitan remains dominant as gamelan music; however, it has evolved beyond Javanese gamelan to encompass various other Indonesian traditional music forms, thereby becoming homogenized into Indonesian traditional music.Its meaning has been progressively expanding, particularly centered around artistic institutions in Indonesia.However, the musical concept of

A Part of Pupuh Asmaradana (1877) Bahasa Indonesia Translation English Translation
In this poem, there is no explanation or definition of karawitan, however, we can deduce its meaning from Table2.In this text, gêndhèng means melody.However, the music that accompanies Wayang is not gêndhèng but karawitan.Therefore, we can determine that during the colonial period, the term karawitan meant Javanese gamelan music.However, according to Sejarah Karawitan, the term gending makes its earliest appearance in literature dating four centuries ago, whereas the term gamelan first appears in literature twelve centuries ago.

Table 6 .
Definitions of karawitan in several literature and interview sources.

page) Definition of Karawitan (In Bahasa Indonesia) Definition of Karawitan (In English)
The classical music of central Java.The term karawitan, widely used only since the midtwentieth century… it must use one of both of the characteristic tuning systems slendro and pelog, neither of which corresponds to any Western scale."Thesimplest definition of karawitan is music.More specifically, music is the art of sound.So, karawitan is a sound art that uses slendro or pelog scales and uses a set of gamelan" Lanjutan tabel 6 of karawitan is gamelan music.As shown in Table6, the definition of karawitan