Indonesia Council Digest - May 2022
Hi from your new President!
I’m Natali Pearson, and I’m delighted to be writing my first Monthly Digest for Indonesia Council.
I’d like to start by extending my deep thanks to outgoing President Jacqui Baker, who has worked so hard over the last few years to keep this community going. We will miss her strong advocacy for academics in both Australia and Indonesia, as well as her delightful Digest musings (and gifs). Thank you, Jacqui, for all you have done. I’m also grateful for Taufiq Tanasaldy and all those who have worked behind the scenes to support Jacqui over the years. Thank you so much.
A bit about me… I’m a teacher and researcher at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, University of Sydney. My teaching involves running interdisciplinary field schools in Southeast Asia, as well as professional development programs for our community of postgraduate students. Research-wise, I’m interested in underwater cultural heritage and my current research projects are all Indonesia-focused (it’s a great place to study shipwrecks!). I first visited Indonesia in 1997 in my post-school “gap” year, and started my Asian Studies degree the following year majoring in Indonesian and History. I’m an ACICICS alumni (2000) and a big supporter of Asian language teaching in Australia. I’m keen to keep building the IC community and to showcase the research and innovation our community is engaged in. I hope you will feel free to get in touch with me (iclistdata@gmail.com) with your suggestions and ideas!
Let me also introduce our new Deputy President, Dr Jeremy Kingsley from Swinburne, who is bringing his legal mind to all things IC. So grateful to have you!
We’re supported by Digital Engagement Editor, Cut Nurkemala Muliani, who knows her way around a website, a Mailchimp account and more. Thanks Nuke! 😊
We’ve got big plans for the IC but for now we’re happy to bring you our first Monthly Digest. Please follow us on Twitter (@IndoCouncil) and Facebook (Indonesia Council).
What's happening...
Indonesia Council @ ASAA
It’s all about the Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference at the moment. Associate Professor Sharyn Davies and her team at Monash are busy putting together an amazing program, which includes a full day workshop for postgraduates and a packed schedule of panels and events online and in-person.
We’re delighted to have a whole afternoon of Indonesia Council activities planned for you on Wednesday 6 July 2022 as part of the ASAA Conference. Rather than having a keynote speaker this year, we’ve gone with a panel of experts who will be speaking about Barriers to Research in Indonesia and Australia. This will be followed by our Annual General Meeting – a chance to meet the new team, and voice your expectations/suggestions – and an in-person Networking and Nibbles event. Many thanks to the ASAA for their financial support of our program this year!
Program
Time Session 15:30–16:30 AEST
Online and in person
Panel: Barriers to Research in Indonesia and Australia
Professor Kate McGregor, President, ASAA
Professor Vedi Hadiz, Director, Asia Institute (via Zoom)
Dr Saiful Mahdi, Lecturer, Syiah Kuala University (via Zoom)
Dr Rebecca Meckelburg, Satya Wacana University (via Zoom)
16:30–17:15 AEST
Online and in person Indonesia Council Annual General Meeting 17:15–19:00 AEST
In-person only Networking and Nibbles
About the speakers
Professor Kate McGregor, President, ASAA
Professor Katharine McGregor in a lecturer in Southeast Asian History and Deputy Associate Dean International (Indonesia) for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. She has researched Indonesian history for over twenty years focusing on the key themes of memory, violence, human rights activism and gender.
Professor Vedi Hadiz, Director, Asia Institute
Professor Vedi Hadiz is Director and Professor of Asian Studies at the Asia Institute and an Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor International at the University of Melbourne. In this role he has assisted the university to build stronger relationships with Indonesia, including its universities and government, as outlined in the University of Melbourne Indonesia Strategy (2019). Professor Hadiz’s research interests revolve around political sociology and political economy issues, especially those related to the contradictions of development in Indonesia and Southeast Asia more broadly, and more recently, in the Middle East. Professor Hadiz is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in 2010-2014.
Dr Saiful Mahdi, Lecturer, Syiah Kuala University
Saiful Mahdi is a lecturer at Universitas Syiah Kuala (USK) and a researcher at the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS), an inter-university and inter-national training and research centre in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. A statistician by training, Dr. Mahdi is the founding chair of the USK’s Statistics Department. He is a Fulbright scholar with a Ph.D. from Cornell University’s Regional Science, City and Regional Planning, and a master in Statistics from the University of Vermont. His research interest includes applied econometrics, social and official statistics, demography, and survey methodology. He also publishes on regional economics, post-disaster and post-conflict development, social and cultural capital, and disaster statistics.
Dr Rebecca Meckelburg, Satya Wacana University
Rebecca Meckelburg is a research scholar at the Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Lecturer at the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Satya Wacana Christian University (Indonesia). Rebecca’s research interests focus on Indonesian politics and social change, in particular post-authoritarian experiences of democratization and the study of non-elite forms of political organization. Her long-term fieldwork research has employed ethnographic studies in rural villages and other organised socio-political communities in rural Java since 2002. Recent research projects have examined the political conflicts and contestations of COVID-19 responses and the leadership role of women in local COVID responses in Indonesia.
RSVP for some or all of these activities here (you’ll need to nominate if you are attending online or in-person) by 30 June.
Other cool stuff
The Indonesia Update is happening again! It will run in hybrid form on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 September at the Australian National University and online. This year’s theme is Gender Equality and Diversity in Indonesia: Identifying Progress and Challenges, and convenors Dr Angie Bexley, Dr Sarah Dong and Dr Diahhadi Setyonaluri have put together a fantastic line-up of speakers. It’s free, and registrations open mid-2022.
Emeritus Professor Virginia Hooker received her Order of Australia medal earlier this month, for significant service to tertiary education and to Asia-Pacific relations. You can watch the Investiture Ceremony at Government house here.
Professor Robert Cribb is offering his Reading Dutch for Historical Research workshop again, from 11 – 15 and 18 – 22 July 2022 at the Australian National University in Canberra. It’s free and in person. Attendees will require a copy of Dutch for Reading Knowledge (John Benjamins, 2012). See: https://benjamins.com/catalog/z.175. For more info, contact robert.cribb@anu.edu.au.
Research permits
The system for getting permission to conduct research in Indonesia has changed following the establishment of Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, or BRIN. As fieldwork starts to return, research are starting to ask questions about ethics, data security and co-authorship requirements.
We’re pleased to be partnering with the Monash Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre to bring you a special information session with BRIN representatives to learn about the new requirements. You’ll be able to submit your questions in advance. Block out 16:00-17:30 (AEST) on Monday 5 September, and we’ll share more details once they’re available.
If you can’t wait till then, check out the American Institute for Indonesian Studies & Michigan State University 2nd annual conference on Indonesian Studies (21 – 25 June 2022, virtual), which will convene a roundtable discussion with representatives from BRIN. Organisers say they will “discuss key areas of concern we've seen expressed by our research communities, new institutional collaborations under BRIN, and open the session for Q&A. We of course welcome everyone to join the conversation at our conference, the talk will be moderated by Alan Feinstein of AMINEF. We also plan to share a video transcript for wider distribution after the conference.” More info here.
Indonesia Council Open Conference
After the sterling job by University of Queensland in 2021, it is hard to believe that we are already putting out the call for expressions of interest to host the next Indonesia Council Open Conference! If your institution is interested in hosting the ICOC 2023, please get in touch: iclistdata@gmail.com.
Call for papers
15th International Indonesia Forum Conference
Indonesia’s Complexity: Investigating the Layers between the Apparent and the Underlying
Yale University (virtual format), USA, 23 – 25 September 2022.
Call for papers deadline: 8 July 2022.
Scholars interested in presenting papers at the conference are invited to submit a short CV and one-page abstract, plus additional page(s) for references in electronic form (PDF or Microsoft Word) to secretariat@iif.or.id, by Friday 8 July 8, 2022 (11:59 p.m. EST). All abstracts must be in English, and papers will likewise be presented in English. Abstract acceptance email will be sent by 29 July 2022. Question(s) regarding the 15th IIF Conference can be sent to iifatyale@gmail.com and dinny.Aletheiani@yale.edu.
Southeast Asian Frontiers: Highlands
Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta (in person and online), 18 – 20 August 2022.
Call for papers deadline: 31 May 2022 (that’s soon – get moving!)
Early career scholars, PhD students, and researchers are invited to participate in the Southeast Asian Frontiers (SEAF) Workshop Series #1: Highlands. The SEAF Workshop aims to host innovative discussions concerning historical and ongoing frontierization in Southeast Asia. Keynote speakers are Michael Eilenberg (Aarhus University), Tania Li (University of Toronto), and Timo Maran (University of Tartu). Abstracts are due by 31 May 2022. The selected participants can apply for limited travel grants and compete for the best paper prize! The selected on-site participants also can enjoy the 4-nights free accommodation in Yogyakarta. Please visit www.seafworkshop.org for further information.
Publications
Congrats to Dr Elisabeth Kramer at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre for her forthcoming publication with Cornell! The Candidate’s Dilemma: Anticorruptionism and Money Politics in Indonesian Election Campaigns tells the story of how three political candidates in Indonesia made decisions to resist, engage in, or otherwise incorporate money politics into their electioneering strategies over the course of their campaigns. Get your copy here!
Also keep an eye out for Dr Elly Kent’s new book, Artists and the People: Ideologies of Art in Indonesia, published by the University of Chicago Press and due out in July 2022. Exploring the work of established and emerging artists in Indonesia’s vibrant art world, this book examines why so many artists in the world’s largest archipelagic nation choose to work directly with people in their art practices. For more info and to order a copy, click here. Nice work Elly!
Dr Antje Missbach’s new publication, The Criminalisation of People Smuggling in Indonesia and Australia: Asylum Out of Reach, is out now with Routledge. It offers an ethnographically informed critique of the hyper-politicised debate on the facilitation of irregularised migration for people seeking asylum between Indonesia and Australia.
After many years in the works, it’s pure joy to share the news that Prof David Reeve’s history of Onghokham is out now with NUS Press. Published as part of the ASAA Southeast Asian Publications Series, To Remain Myself: The History of Onghokham is a vivid biography of a remarkable individual, an Indonesian historian and public intellectual who was both a public figure and a multi-minority member, being Dutch educated, Indonesian Chinese, gay, alcoholic, irreligious and hedonist, in a conservative society. This is the first Indonesian biography where the interior life is closely recorded: the fears, doubts, confusions; the issues of sexuality, the mental breakdown, the jailing, the later success, joys and celebrity, as a historian, public intellectual and famous cook. Worth the wait, David.
Check out Brigitta Isabella’s article, ‘Rewriting Solidarities in Juxtaposition: The Poetic and the Chronopolitics of Bandung’ for the International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. In it, she calls for the spirit of Bandung to be taken beyond the romantic space of Bandung Conference 1955 and towards the political urgency of today’s transnational and anticolonial struggles.
You’ve heard of resource nationalism but how about viral sovereignty?? Not quite a publication but fascinating nonetheless: this excellent talk on 'Governing Bioscience in Globalisation' by Professor Sonja van Wichelen, who has just wrapped up her visiting fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. If you don’t know what biogovernance is, or why Indonesia is such an important case study when thinking about the regulation and global exchange of biological materials, it’s a must watch.
This is a great article by Honours student Jennifer Yang, published on Perspectives on the Past at New Mandala, in which she looks at forgotten art histories of Chinese Indonesian women in the 20th century.
If you published something on Indonesia recently and it’s not listed here, just get in touch: iclistdata@gmail.com. We rely on you to send us news and information. 😊
ACICIS update
I have a particular soft spot for the work of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) and the essential work they do in developing Indonesia-literate students. We’ve set aside a place in our Monthly Digest for semi-regular updates from Liam Prince and his team at the ACICIC Secretariat. For now, suffice to say that they are working hard to return to their in-country programs, starting August 2022, so spread the word and let your students know about the opportunities on offer.
And, if you enjoyed Liam’s article for Asian Currents on Investing in the future of language studies by learning from the past, you can now access a recording of the talk he did with Professor Melissa Crouch at the Monash Herb Feith Centre. Get into it!
Meet our Members
To help us (especially me!) get a better sense of the Indonesia Council community (900 plus at last count!), we’re introducing a new section called Meet our Members. First off the blocks is Dr Ken Setiawan – read on to get to know a bit more about her. And if you’re keen to be featured (or want to make a cheeky nomination for someone else), get in touch: iclistdata@gmail.com.
Ken Setiawan
Tell us about yourself!
I’m a Lecturer in Indonesian and Asian Studies at the Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne, where I have worked now for the past seven years. I’m passionate about anything to do with Indonesia! I’m a socio-legal researcher and work mainly on human rights issues. I teach both Indonesian language and subjects related to politics and society of Indonesia as well as the broader Southeast Asian region.
Where does your interest in Indonesia stem from?
Family background has a lot to do with this, I suppose! I have an Indonesian father and a Dutch mother. I was born in Indonesia, and lived there for the first 6 years of my life, before moving to The Netherlands. Both my parents passed on their interest in and passion for Indonesian language, literature, culture, society and history onto me. I wanted to learn more so after high school, I enrolled in an undergraduate degree in “Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia” at Leiden University.
What is the nature of your engagement with Indonesia – are you an academic, a professional, an alumni…
I’m an academic, but I would like to see my engagement with Indonesia as much broader than that. Many of the people that I work with in Indonesia have over the years become good friends. And while I work on human rights in Indonesia, it’s not just my “job” – it’s something I personally deeply care about too. I try to bring this personal interest and commitment to everything that I do – whether it’s teaching, research or engagement.
How do you think organisations like Indonesia Council can improve Australia-Indonesia relations?
What Indonesia Council does really well is by bringing together people that are interested in Indonesia. I think it’s through building a community and creating spaces for dialogue, that really benefits the Australia-Indonesia relationship. What I also really like about Indonesia Council is that the conference is so accessible when compared to other conferences. That really makes it easy for people to share their ideas and connect to one another.
Tell us about your favourite Indonesian food experience
One food experience I will never forget was when in 2015 visited the island of Buru in Indonesia. One the people I travelled with, Rahung Nasution (who is also known as a culinary activist), cooked with and for the community of former political prisoners that we had visited. There were a lot of fish and vegetable dishes, which were all delicious, but above all it was about connecting with the people who so generously had shared their stories and experiences with us.
Who is your favourite Indonesian writer?
Another difficult question… but I will go with the work of Leila Chudori, especially Pulang and Laut Bercerita. This obviously has something to do with that both these books focus on past human rights issues, which resonates with my research interests. Pulang in particular transported me to my own childhood in The Netherlands – during holidays my Dad would often take me to Paris where we frequented Restaurant Indonesia which features prominently in Pulang. So, it reminded me of those times and my family’s connection with Indonesian exiles.
What’s your favourite Indonesian idiom?
I really like “malu-malu kucing”. Not sure why, I just think it’s funny. Maybe it’s because I love cats?!
PAY IT FORWARD: Finally, it’s YOUR turn to ask a question… Please suggest a question we can ask our next member!
If you didn’t work on Indonesia, what would your profession be and why?
Be sure to check out the June Monthly Digest for our next featured member. 😊
