World-Building, Social Imagination, and Everyday Life in Indonesia: A Perspective from Tere Liye’s "Bumi" Series

This article examines how various elements typically found in global fantasy stories are localized in Tere Liye’s Bumi series through the integration of various Indonesian socio-cultural elements. This study employs a close-reading method, drawing on the concepts of world-building and cultural hybridity to analyze the first three novels in the Bumi series: Bumi, Bulan, and Matahari. The results of this study indicate that the Bumi series adopts several fantasy elements commonly found in global fantasy narratives; however, Tere Liye’s adoption is not wholesale. These elements are reproduced following adjustments, negotiations, and integrations with diverse Indonesian socio-cultural elements, including school life, family relationships, daily food practices, transportation, and urban environments. In addition, the series depicts a complex social system and civilization through clan hierarchies, political institutions, power dynamics, and portrayals of social inequality. These elements position this fantasy world not merely as a story setting but as a space for imagining alternative social systems and civilizations that remain connected to real-world social issues. This study argues that localization in the Bumi novel series is achieved through world-building itself, in which the daily lives and social imagination of Indonesian society become integral to that fantasy world. Through this process, the structure of global fantasy is negotiated and re-adapted within the local socio-cultural context.