A MOMENT OF CALM, A MOMENT OF CHAOS: UTOPIA-DYSTOPIA IN SMALL TOWNS IN RAUDAL TANJUNG BANUA’S SHORT STORIES

Small towns in Indonesia are experiencing various conflicts, including spatial conflict. Unfortunately, attention to these small towns, in the context of Indonesian literature, is still minimal. Raudal Tanjung Banua, in his short stories, intensely records the conflicts of small towns, thereby revealing the political dynamics of space within them. This study aims to describe the construction of small-town space in Raudal Tanjung Banua's short stories while also showing the spatial responses evoked by the author using Sara Upstone's spatial politics reading. The method used is qualitative descriptive. The results of the study show that dystopia in small towns gives rise to utopian towns that offer hope. However, this utopia is not permanent, as dystopias resurface, creating a dynamic interplay between utopia and dystopia in these small towns. It can be said that Raudal Tanjung Banua constructs a dynamic small-town space that neither rejects nor fully embraces utopia.