Conclusion | Flows & Frictions

As my fieldwork was coming to an end, so too was the construction of the latest shopping mall. Manado Town Square, better known as Mantos 3, was the fourth mega mall to open in Manado but the first to host a Starbucks. Like the other malls, it was part of the Boulevard Commercial Project. People from the city and nearby villages flocked to the area to see the new attraction, leading to heavy traffic on Jalan Piere Tendean, the main road out front. Those stuck in the traffic jams often complained of an unbearable heat, as the coastal winds that had previously cooled the area were now blocked by the large new building. The trees that PT Kembang Utara had planted in front of its mall, still in their infancy, provided little to no shade.

The developers had replaced nature’s cool with a different sort, one that people stuck in traffic could sometimes be lucky enough to experience—if they happened to be stopped right in front of the mall’s sliding doors just as people entered or exited the building. With perfect positioning and timing, it was possible to feel, from the main road some fifteen meters away, a caress from the cool air that traveled across the sidewalk, carrying with it a taste of modernity’s new cool. As Eva Horn writes, “Air conditioning—the possibility of ‘fixing’ the air’s temperature and humidity at one’s own comfort level—is one of the oldest dreams of mankind” (2016, 234). Yet a shared dream, in Manado, it had come true only for some.

If the shopping mall is a text, and specifically an encoded text of a city, how shall we read it? Shall we see this text, these malls, as representations of an idealized city, a contemporary fabrication of the mythical utopian city? (Backes 1997, 1)

Daseng and its different punk and environmental activist groups recognized that this growing heat was unevenly distributed; some could find reprieve in places like the mall, but the elements that cooled Daseng’s air—the sea breeze and the shade of trees—were continuously encroached upon. Their resistance to this modernist project was partly about tradition, but a closer look reveals that it also contested ideas about class, gender, and who gets to decide what a city should look like in the future. This process of constructing social spaces to serve certain groups is the same as the process by which some forms of alcohol consumption are permitted while others are not.

Though predominantly Protestant, Manado was strongly influenced by national discourses and politics around the dangers of alcohol, particularly moral evaluations related to alcohol and the nation’s youth that stemmed from the rise of normative forms of Islamic practice and Islamic conservatism (Kuipers and Askuri 2017; Sebastian, Hasyim, and Arifianto 2021). This was certainly part of why the legal framework around bans on the sale and consumption of alcohol continued to shift. But contrary to popular belief, the increased policing and social control around alcohol was not simply a matter of the growing Islamic conservatism in Indonesia but, as shown, also an effect of rapid urbanization and modernization.

Those who wanted to ban Cap Tikus in Manado did not see traditional methods of distilling it as modern, safe, or hygienic, while others described the drink in terms of a fixed, one-directional effect: alcohol consumption as a direct cause of criminality. Yet these logics were somehow more flexible when it came to alcohol consumption among the upper-middle-class and the imported alcohol brands stocked by expensive hotel bars.

But, as shown throughout my thesis, Cap Tikus effects were multiple, as were the social meanings the drink took on and the roles it played in mountain villages, city neighborhoods, girls’ drinking circles, and wedding parties. It is a drink that, when passed around in a circle, brings people together, binds them through the act of drinking from the same glass, frees up their tongues, and heats up the suasana that surrounds them.

Perhaps, given my Indonesian roots, I should have foreseen that panas (heat) would emerge, in ways that surprised me, as a core theme across the sites in which I conducted fieldwork. Among nature lovers in mountain basecamps, as well as those who traveled long distances by motorbike or in the back of pickup trucks, heating of the body was one of the most important sensations afforded by Cap Tikus, providing as it did a sort of shield against cooling winds. While Cap Tikus was sometimes used as a cooling remedy for fevers, it was most often described as a “hot drink” despite its serving temperature typically being nowhere close to warm. But this categorization went beyond the usual distinction between hot and cold drinks (the temperature of the drinks themselves) to enter a different realm of sensing heat, one perhaps closer to that of spicy food and drink, which are better understood via the temperature of the bodies of those consuming them.

Perhaps the use of heat as a powerful metaphor in the social and political debates around alcohol in Manado, as well as linking rich individual experiences of the effects of alcohol to affective atmospheres, can help us understand the metaphor’s use in other debates—those over the health of the planet, for instance (Nading 2016).

Like space, heat is not just what is observed or seen. It is also what is sensed and felt (Ong 2012a). It is the co-production of bodies warming up and the mood (suasana hati, literally, “atmosphere of the heart”) that characterizes Cap Tikus drinking circles—not just a natural, preexisting atmosphere that one may encounter in these circles, but also the chemosociality generated through encounters between Cap Tikus and its drinkers (Shapiro and Kirksey 2017). This heat is not imbibed hot but a sensation produced by a collective in the making and always in flux.

Heating effects are thus not just a result of the drink itself. Instead, they are a co-production, a collective effort to regulate. Heat can bring people together, but like the heat of the warming climate, it can also drive people apart (Lee 2016). It is an important quality of Cap Tikus, one that can be described in many different ways, including through the strength of the drink, which is made visible through flame tests and hydrometers. Through standardization, Cap Tikus is tamed to meet the needs of the project of modernity.

In this thesis, I followed the simultaneous provisioning pathways of Cap Tikus from the highlands of Minahasa to the rapidly modernizing urban topography of Manado; from the mountains where the drink is said to have its roots to the fringes of the city, where the drink co-produces new socialities and heats affective atmospheres. Along these trajectories, we have witnessed the persistence of tradition as well as changes in how the drink is used, which reflects the economic and political forces that constrain people’s consumption, along with a local politics of value. Understanding heat and Cap Tikus socialities, following different provisioning pathways, and recognizing the broader social and political projects of modernization allows us to explore and understand the cultural politics of Manado and the experiences, aspirations, and challenges of the people who live there—particularly young people.

I started my fieldwork with the question, “How can a drink that is so central to social life in Northern Sulawesi be banned?” Given Cap Tikus’s multiplicity, it is unsurprising that despite laws against alcohol, there is ambiguity in how it is regulated and policed. Regulation and policing are attempts to tame the heat of Cap Tikus, control parts of its chemosociality, and sanitize public spaces as a part of a broader project of creating a modern city. But this project is also challenged, especially in youth communities, where we see young people experimenting with different lifestyles and practices, giving us a glimpse into their current desires as well as their future aspirations.

Perhaps, as Cap Tikus continues to be transported and relocated, adapting to and avoiding bans, it too will take root in multiple places and yet, simultaneously, remain representative of a certain region. But for now, the glass keeps on rolling inside the drinking circle.

The text on this page is extracted from the PhD thesis: “Inside the Drinking Circle: Cap Tikus, Contested Modernities, and Youth Resistance in Manado, North Sulawesi.” This thesis was submitted by Nastasja Ilonka Roels as part of the Doctoral Regulations of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). All text references should be made to the original thesis manuscript, once published via the UvA Digital Academic Repository, and not to this website. Permission is required to copy, display or reuse images, songs, and videos.