<p>Batik in Java has become a cultural icon of Indonesia. Alongside with the old technique of hand-drawn batik, the stamping method was invented in the 1840s, which increased the productivity of batik enormously. Combining this new method with the old hand-drawn one, many new batik firms developed into the early part of the twentieth century. This article aims to depict the ongoing marginalization of the modern tradition of batik making. The batik industry kept thriving even through the 1970s as there was an ample domestic demand for their products. This sustained demand was partly supported by a new trend of clothing then emerging in Indonesia. Starting in the 1960s several batik designers began utilizing batik for Western-style long sleeve shirts. Though this new fashion looked strange for many people, it became so trendy especially after top rank politicians and high officials adopted it in the early 1970s as formal dress a la Indonesia. The use of batik for any kind of western-style clothing spread quickly soon after that. In the 1980s, however, a serious blow fell on the batik industry, that is, the quick development of print batik. Print batik is made by methods of hand screen printing or mechanized roller printing. Since these methods do not involve wax-resisting dyeing, it is actually dubious whether their products can be called batik. According to the late Mr. Soemihardjo, a well-known batik designer and producer in Yogyakarta, an early experiment of print batik by Indonesians was done in 1950 at the Institute of Textile Technology at Bandung with the advice and help of ICI, a British chemical firm. Its commercial production began in several batik-producing centers in Java in the 1970s. At this initial stage, print batik did not threaten the traditional methods of batik making because its low quality was obvious to consumers of batik. The technique of the print method, however, developed so rapidly into the 1980s that even knowledgeable consumers could hardly tell it from traditional batik. While high-grade batik with the hand-waxing method could still compete with print batik, most hard hit was low-grade batik, whether it was made by hand-drawn or stamp methods. This meant that many batik makers lost their most important source of income as the low-grade batik provided them with large sales volumes and quick turnover. Besides the threat by print batik, the quick development of huge, fully mechanized textile firms in Indonesia from the 1970s took its toll of more traditional batik makers. People now could purchase mass-produced textiles and garments for a price cheaper than batik. Many batik makers gave up their business ; they went bankrupt or turned to other sectors. In the city of Yogyakarta, the number of batik makers, which amounted to more than 900, has decreased to 90 now. In Laweyan, a neighborhood of batik makers in Solo which used to symbolize the prosperity of the batik industry in Java, one can hardly find anyone who still continues making batik. Ponorogo, a district in East Java which in the golden era of GKBI (Indonesian National Association of Batik Cooperatives) was counted as the fourth largest batik producing center in Indonesia, has suffered the same fate. Print batik now accounts for about 90 percent of the annual production of batik in quantitative terms. About this technological change from the wax-resisting to the printing methods, we have to ask if it is another technological innovation within the batik industry, or an external threat to it. This involves a difficult question about the definition of batik. There are people who categorically reject print batik. This view has a strong case since the artistic value of batik cannot be separated from the traditional method of wax-resisting dyeing. However, we cannot just ignore the economic reality that print batik is cheap and many consumers cannot distinguish it from traditional batik. Only after</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>