The Missing Coke Bottle
Arahmaiani and the Neo-Colonial Shadow of Capitalist Globalization
Abstract
Indonesian artist activist Arahmaiani uses art to call attention to the role of capitalist globalization as an exploitative neo-colonial force in developing nations. Beginning in the 1990s, Arahmaiani employed a Coca-Cola bottle in many of her installations and performances as a symbol of the commodification and Americanization of lifestyles and identities occurring in Indigenous and non-western cultures. Arahmaiani’s work connects patriarchy, class exploitation, and environmental destruction to global political and economic structures in ways not typical of western liberal human rights discourses. In contrast, liberal constructions of human rights tend to focus ideologically on local, non-western institutions and practices as barriers to human rights. This gives rise to significant contradictions that complicate such conceptions of human rights and their proposed solutions, as will be demonstrated with a key work from feminist scholar Lucinda Peach. Arahmaiani’s work thus challenges western liberal human rights discourse; it urges academics and activists to redirect their myopic gaze away from the cultural idiosyncrasies of non-western nations towards the global capitalist structures that support inequality and oppression across the globe.
Copyright (c) 2020 Julian Brook Ruszel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to the Artbutus Review agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.