The Asia-Pacific Seminar Series
The Asia-Pacific Seminar Series is a forum for the exchange of ideas related to Asia-Pacific issues. This forum is open to scholars who would like to present their work (findings or in-progress) to share, exchange and develop ideas. Staff, students and members of the public are most welcome.
This seminar series is jointly sponsored by School of Humanities and Social Sciences and School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences of UNSW@ADFA.
Current Seminars in 2008
Previous Seminars in 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004,
2003, 2002, 2001
Where and When
Seminars are held in room 106 (ground level) in Building 29, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) at UNSW@ADFA
on Monday at 12:10-13:00. UNSW@ADFA is located at Northcott Drive, near
the Canberra airport (link
to map). It takes approximately 10-20 minutes if you travel from
the city centre by taxi or bus (Bus no. 9 or 10, City Interchange, Platform
7).
Please feel free to bring your lunch.
Enquiries and Suggestions
The Asia-Pacific Seminar convenors welcome suggestions for seminar speakers
and topics. Please contact 2008 convenors:
Minako Sakai (m.sakai@adfa.edu.au), Paul Tickell (p.tickell@adfa.edu.au), Jian Zhang (j.zhang@adfa.edu.au).
For seminar enquiries or if you want to be included into our mailing
list, please contact Taufiq Tanasaldy, tel.: (+61-2) 6268 8914 or email:
apss [at] adfa.edu.au
Seminars in 2008
28 July 2008 [Please note that this is the correct date of the seminar, and not on 28 June as advertised previously]
Hybrid Economy, Hybrid Culture: Jepara, Indonesia prior to the Crisis
Dr Jennifer Alexander, Department of Anthropology, RSPAS, ANU
This paper explores the hybrid composition of the entrepreneurs involved in the furniture industries of Jepara in the 1990s. It examines not only the interface between various ethnic groups, Javanese, Indonesian Chinese, Europeans, and Asians, but also the nature of the material culture they were involved in reproducing, how it has evolved over time and the development of economy, material culture, and local consumption patterns up to the time of the 1997/1998 Asian economic crisis. The research was based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork from 1991 to 1995 during the course of which I attempted to document the development of an export oriented economy in a region with a long tradition of producing wood handicrafts and furniture for local and international markets. The paper highlights transnational links in economic and cultural processes between global cities and Indonesian towns and villages and the consequent hybridization of economy and culture.
Seminar 2008 (past seminars)
17 March 2008
Civil Society and the Prevention of Ethnic Violence in Indonesia:
the Case of Yogyakarta City
Jae B. Park
PhD Candidate, Indonesian Program, HASS, UNSW at ADFA
Indonesia experienced a considerable degree of ethnic violence during and after the Asian economic crisis of 1998. During this period, thousands of Indonesian people, including Chinese Indonesians, were killed and displaced in various towns and cities. Observers have mainly focused their research on why ethnic violence took place, while have relatively little attention to how to prevent ethnic violence in a town or city in Indonesia. This paper will deal with how people in Yogyakarta City, Java, succeeded in preventing ethnic violence, particularly anti-Chinese riots during the turbulent months of 1998.
The response of Yogyakarta people to economic and associated political crisis of 1998 was unique. Even during the one-million strong anti-Soeharto demonstration (Gerakan Rakyat Yogyakarta) of 20 May 1998, Yogyakarta City was a safe place for ethnic and religious minorities, particularly ethnic Chinese. From the onset of the economic crisis of 1998, Yogyakarta people launched a series of campaigns to overcoming the socio-economic crisis in society through the dispensing staple food packages, joint prayer meetings, and the formation of vigilante teams. These activities contributed to the prevention of ethnic violence in Yogyakarta. Various civil society organisations in Yogyakarta City mobilised their networks and presided over these activities. I argue that civil society engagement was a crucial social force to manage socio-economic tensions and facilitated ethnic peace in Yogyakarta during the economic crisis of 1998.
7 April 2008
Fear of Security: Terror and Asylum in Australian Defence and Foreign Policy after 9/11
By Dr Anthony Burke
Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
This seminar, based on chapters in the books Fear of Security: Australia’s Invasion Anxiety (Cambridge 2008) and Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific (Manchester, 2007) critically reflects upon Australian security policy since 2001. It considers how threat perceptions were ‘broadened’ to take in new threats from terrorism and illegal immigration, how claims about security were drawn into domestic politicking, and how they legitimated coercive and militarized policy responses to problems requiring a more nuanced and humane mix of solutions. The seminar reflects on the conceptual, ethical and policy problems generated by this approach, and ponders how they could be changed to as to make claims about security both ethically defensible and practically achievable.
26 May 2008
The Phantom Samurai: Pursuing Traces of Militarism in Provincial Japan after the Russo-Japanese War, 1905-1910
Associate Professor Stewart Lone
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
In 1905, Japan claimed victory over imperial Russia, possessor of the largest army in the world. From that point, Western observers began to speak of the Japanese people – man, woman and child - as imbued with the military values of bushidō including unquestioning obedience to superiors and an unhesitating willingness to sacrifice themselves in defence of the emperor and nation. This image of a uniquely militarized society continued to influence Western diplomatic and military attitudes towards Japan up to and including WW2.
This paper explores the realities of provincial society’s relations with the military in the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Japanese war. It takes a central region of mainland Japan and uses the daily press to resurrect the voices of contemporary civilians. It looks at civilian attitudes towards the military as an institution, encounters with individual soldiers, and relations with military support groups. In particular, it considers the local debate on becoming host to a new regiment as the government expanded the army to meet the new international and domestic security challenges of the post-1905 world.
The paper concludes that the stereotype of Japanese popular militarism was a gross distortion of reality. It shows that there was constant criticism of the military and other forms of authority in imperial Japan, that, among civilians, there was always a concern with personal and local interests rather than self-sacrifice, and that, overall, relations between provincial society and the armed forces at this time were contractual, not open-ended. In short, it argues that, far from being unique, society in imperial Japan functioned according to an entirely recognizable and common set of human motivations.
2 June 2008
The Great Rumour Mill: Gossip, Mass Media, and the Ninja Fear
By Dr Nicholas Herriman, Anthropology, ANU
Different methods of communication are associated with different kinds of human interaction and have different political implications. Generally, face-to-face communications spread through contact between people, predominate in pre-literate or semi-literate societies, and can have a strong subversive potential. The mass media spread through centralised broadcast stations or presses, predominate in industrialised or post-industrialised societies, and tend to be controlled by elites. In this presentation, I analyse the interaction of face-to-face communications and the press. I focus on a phenomenon that occurred in East Java province, Indonesia during October-November 1998. According to newspaper reports and rumours, conspirators and ninjas who had been responsible killing of hundreds of alleged sorcerers were now persecuting the traditionalist Muslim majority. Local residents established guards against, attacked, and even killed suspected ninjas. One fascinating feature of the rumours and newspaper reports was that suspicion was directed against the government, elites, and the armed forces. I attribute this inversion of authority to particularities of this historical period—Reformasi—and also to the preponderance of face-to-face communication in East Javanese society.
16 June 2008
Bisa Dewek (We can do it ourselves):
Being Plant Breeders, Producing Our Own Ideal Seeds
By MA. Yunita T. Winarto, Ph.D.
Academy Professor in Social Sciences & Humanities, Gadjah Mada University, Associate Professor in Anthropology, University of Indonesia
Abstract
"Before we were the selectors of local seeds. Throughout the Green Revolution, we have only been the buyers and planters of government seeds. Now, we want to be plant breeders, producing our own ideal seeds," said farmer-breeders in the Regency of Indramayu, West Java Province, Indonesia. These statements encapsulate their experience in the history of rice planting, namely from 'free-producers and innovators' to 'planters and targets of government rice intensification programs' (in the past four decades) before arriving at the present where they reach out for the freedom of producing their own ideal seeds.
A farmer's skill, technology and knowledge in plant breeding are a very significant phenomenon in the history of rice cultivation in Indonesia which for long been appropriated by 'state agricultural plant-breeders/scientists'. How did the farmers acquire such skills?
What are the advantages gained by being plant-breeders? Recognition and legitimacy of their skills, however, remain a distant possibility.
They also face the challenge of a recent government policy to produce hybrid seeds, as well as the continuing Green Revolution paradigm that relies heavily on high-level inputs.
The 4-minutes ethnographic film tells the story of the farmers' struggle. It is produced by the Indonesian Integrated Pest Management Farmers Alliance (IPPHTI) of the regency of Indramayu in collaboration with the Undergraduate Program, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia.
Synopsis of the film
Prior to the Green Revolution, farmers in Indonesia selected and planted what they saw as their own local seeds. Since the Green Revolution was introduced in Indonesia in the early 1970s, the state has forced farmers to comply with a centralized, uniform, expensive and environmentally-damaging agricultural development program. Farmers were forced to purchase seeds produced by scientists and government seed-companies. The ethnographic film BISA DÈWÈK (We Can Do it Ourselves) portrays farmers’ production of their own ‘ideal’ seeds through cross-breeding.
The farmers in Indramayu Regency, West Java, began this activity in 2002 when an Indonesian NGO assisting farrmers, in collaboration with a Dutch agricultural university, wished to establish a participatory plant breeding program among the farmers. There were three steps to the program. First, the farmers were selected to be educated as farmer-trainers. Second, these farmer-trainers returned to Indramayu and taught participatory plant breeding at farmers’ “schools without walls” (Participatory Plant Breeding Farmer Field Schools), as well as educating other farmers to be farmer trainers. Third, all the farmer-trainers spread out this new skill and knowledge to farmer groups in the other eleven districts in Indramayu.
Despite the advancement in their knowledge and practices, the farmers experienced hardships at the follow-up stage of the program. First, without assurance of the ongoing financial support from the NGO in the middle of their experimental seed selection program, they were unsure if they could rent sufficientg land. Second, the regency agricultural officials questioned the ‘legality’ of farmers’ plant breeding production and threatened the farmers to ‘close-down’ their activities. On the other hand, the farmers were enthusiastic to disseminate their new skill and knowledge to fellow farmers, the youth, and other parties, including the bureaucrats. Facing these constraints, could they disseminate such new skill and knowledge and persuade the bureaucrats to acknowledge and support them?These were the questions posed to me at the time I revisited their place in early 2006.
My original intention was to observe such a significant phenomenon in the history of agricultural development in Indonesia. In the Green Revolution era, it was thought that plant breeding should be in the hands of scientists, not the farmers. If farmers resumed plant breeding I was interested in discovering the changes in their knowledge, practices, and position vis-a-vis those in power. The plant-breeding production also stimulated farmers to rediscover their old local seeds. The farmer plant-breeders learned in the ‘schools’ that they were not allowed to cross-breed the government’s seeds on their own. To avoid such ‘illegal’ breeding, the farmers looked for their own local varieties to be selected as the parental seeds in cross-breeding. I assumed that a ‘reinvention of the traditional knowledge of local rice varieties’ would be a reality. How would this phenomenon occur and sustain within the existing Green Revolution paradigm in Indonesian agriculture? Such was the question motivated me to find the answer.
By being experts in adopting the modern scientific knowledge in plant breeding, the farmers were able to reinvent their local varieties. They used the local varieties as either the ‘father’ or the ‘mother’ varieties to be bred. By doing so, they made the ‘local generated knowledge’ be lively again. The farmers’ focus was looking for the ‘best ideal traits’ among the varied range of segregating progenies produced from the initial cross breeding. In farmers’ eyes, their criteria—including high productivity, form of grain, maturity-age of plants, resistance towards pests and diseases, aromatic and palatable taste, and adjusted to local agro-ecological conditions—were more suitable to their own needs and local ecosystem condition rather than the high yielding varieties. However, the activation of old memories within the new scheme of plant breeding on the basis of their needs and interests does not automatically yield any outputs without the material substance (see Winarto and Ardhinato 2007).
Responding to farmers’ questions and request for any help I could provide, I began to think of producing an ethnographic film that could also be used by the farmers to achieve their goals. With the assistance of some young anthropologists and students from the University of Indonesia, I finally agreed to collaborate with the farmer plant-breeders to produce a film while also carrying out my own research. I also provided an opportunity to the students and young anthropologists to carry out their individual research.
Such was the beginning of the collaborative ethnographic research and film: BISA DÈWÈK. Farmers themselves chose the title because the meaning—we can do it ourselves—expressed their pride, empowerment, ownership, and agency they achieved through the program. They were also actively participating in proposing the story-line, defining the informants to be interviewed, the scenes and events to be filmed, and voicing their evaluation, comments, and suggestions in improving the film. Not only that. The farmers gradually came to understand our interests and questions and assisted us in data collection. The data and information we collected together provided a rich input to improve the stories and events to be filmed. Without the farmers’ active participation, it would not be easy for the young anthropologists to accomplish their works in an effective and efficient manner. The film: BISA DÈWÈK presents the results of such a collaborative work.
I first came to the village of Kalensari, Widasari district in Indramayu in 1996 to carry out an observation on the farmers’ research and experiments in developing an efficient and effective control strategy against a pest known as white rice stem borer in the so-called Research Action Facility program under the auspices of the Indonesian FAO-Intercountry Program.
The research and collaborative program consisting of ethnographic fieldwork, film documentation and dissemination, was carried out through one and a half-year collaborative work from June 2006 up to the end of November 2007 supported by the University of Indonesia, the Embassy of Finland, and the Academy Professorship Indonesia (KNAW-AIPI). Rhino Ariefiansyah agreed to assist me as the film maker. Two undergraduate students (Hestu Prahara and Syamsul Ma’arif) of the Department of Anthropology, University of Indonesia (UI) studied the transmission of knowledge through film and the extent to which the knowledge become the basis for action. They also examined the creation of social institution as a consequence of the program. One Masters student from the Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University (Zudan Rosyidi) joined the team and focused his research on the development of farmers’ discourses throughout the program. Hanantiwi Adityasari documented the farmers’ activities and the two teams (the UI and the farmers)’ collaborative works in still-photos. While taking the video-shooting and disseminating the film, the team members observed the farmers’ activities throughout their collaboration with the UI team, as well as their struggle to gain the authorities’ support and official recognition. Another young anthropologist (Imam Ardhianto) assisted me in carrying out my observation on the dialectics between the scientific and local knowledge through farmers’ participatory-plant-breeding practices, and farmers’ creativity and empowerment within the existing context of power relations.
10 September 2007
Bonking without Book or Book without Bonking: A Personal Encounter of Cultural Censorship
Dr Ouyang Yu
Visiting Fellow UNSW@ADFA
Professor of Australian Literature, English Department,
Wuhan University
In literary translation from English into Chinese, what is often at work is not political censorship but cultural censorship. In this presentation, the author tells of his own experience encountering cultural censorship in the translation and publication of such titles translated by him as The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer (Beihua Publishing House, 2003), An Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry (Shanghai Literature and Arts Publishing House, 2007) and Representing the Other: Chinese in Australian Fiction: 1888-1988 (Xinhua Publishing House, 2000). One of the main arguments in this presentation is that cultural censorship is not unique to China and Chinese culture but common to us all as instances are shown of this censorship at work in Australia, the UK and the USA as well.
17 September 2007
Ahmadinejad, Iranian Nationalism and the Nuclear Crisis
Hamis McGregor
ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies
Abstract
This seminar presents the inside story of one of the most important issues on the contemporary global stage, the Iranian nuclear crisis. It will examine the controversy from the Iranian perspective, charting the rise to power of Ahmadinejad and the Iranian ‘neo-conservatives’ and explore the deeper motivations behind their brinkmanship with the West. Specifically this seminar will discuss the ways in which Ahmadinejad and the political establishment are utilizing this crisis to whip up nationalist fervour inside Iran, and make overt and implicit parallels with the Oil Nationalization movement of the 1950s under Prime Minister Mossadegh.
8 October 2007
Chief Roi Mata’s Domain: Nominating a World Heritage Site in Vanuatu
Chris Ballard and Meredith Wilson
Australian National University
Abstract
This seminar describes the process of developing a formal nomination for inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage list of a cultural landscape from Vanuatu – Chief Roi Mata’s Domain (CRMD). As one of the first two cultural nominations from independent Pacific Island states, CRMD has posed particular challenges, including questions about the nature and relative significance of cultural heritage in a developing country, the central role in decision-making of customary owners of the land, the threat of land sales to expatriates, and the goal of generating benefit streams from cultural heritage. Meredith Wilson, as leader of the nomination team at the Vanuatu National Museum and Cultural Centre, and Chris Ballard, as principal researcher for the nomination, provide a frank overview of these and other challenges, and an assessment of the scope for future nominations from the Pacific.
22 October 2007
The Pacific Islands: Forgotten Space or Next Place?
Associate Professor Grant McCall
School of Sociology and Anthropology, University of New South Wales
Australian governments to and fro about what they wish to do with the Pacific Islands. Some ignore one of our traditional major trading partners, whilst others mine the territories for minerals and other uses ("Pacific Solution").
The Pacific Islands remain a "backyard" to Big Brother Australia or the part of the world where Australia really does have a prominent role as a middle power and economy. I present some historical perspectives on Australia/Pacific Island and devise what our part of "Meganesia" might do in the region.
-----past seminars-------
3 September 2007
The Rise of Islamism in regional Indonesia: Local Problems and Global Solutions
Minako Sakai
Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences
The University of New South Wales at ADFA campus
Abstract
After the introduction of decentralisation in Indonesia, local governments in strongly Islamic regions have implemented syariah-like regional by-laws. This paper will analyse why such movements are on the rise in provincial areas of Indonesia (West Sumatra, South Sulawesi, West Java and South Kalimantan). The provincial localities of the recent rise of Islamism will pose a question because support for Islamism is traditionally strong among the urban middle class. In this paper I will highlight various factors contributing to the rise of Islamism in provincial areas of contemporary Indonesia and argue that the rise of Islamism in local contexts of Indonesia should be interpreted as a response to global, national, local and historical factors. Various groups are supporting their brand of Islamic movements to promote their own agenda.
18 June 2007
National Disaster and Islamic Zakat Organisation's Relief in Indonesia
By Arif Abdullah and Ahmad Juwaini
The Dompet Dhuafa Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia
Abstract
The Dompet Dhuafa Foundation has been a leading Islamic zakat welfare foundation, established by the staff members of the Indonesia's Islamic newspaper, Republika in the mid 1990s. After the Indonesia's economic crisis, it has grown to be an exemplary Islamic zakat foundation, and has branches across Indonesia.
The foundation draws resources from Islamic zakat donations and offers various relief activities. In this seminar we will present recent relief operations conducted by the Dompet Dhuafa responding to various natural disasters in Indonesia. We will also explore why support for Islamic foundations is increasingly growing in Indonesia.
4 June 2007
External Intervention and the Challenges of State-building in
Solomon Islands
By Dr Sinclair Dinnen
State Society and Governance in Melanesia (SSGM) Project
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Abstract:
The Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
(RAMSI) was deployed in mid-2003 in response to a request from the SI
government for helpin restoring order in the aftermath of a low-level
conflict, as well as assisting the rebuilding the key institutions of
government in this independent Pacific Islands country. RAMSI
provides the first example in the Pacific islands of the current
international spate of state-building interventions aimed at
strengthening 'weak' and 'failed' states. After achieving
considerable success in its initial phases, serious difficulties
began to emerge in 2006. Following the disturbances in Honiara in
April 2006, a new government emerged. The past year has been marked
by an increasingly acerbic struggle over the control aof the regional
mission. In this presentation, I shall discuss the larger crisis of
state in Solomon Islands and the difficulties this presents to
external interveners.
21 May 2007
Afghanistan since 2001: Transition under Stress
By Professor William Maley, AM
Director, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy
Australian National University
Abstract
Afghanistan's post-Taliban transition continues to be clouded by complex and challenging problems, and it is not clear that means will easily be found either to manage or to solve them. Some issues that required early attention were overlooked at the Bonn Conference of November-December 2001, while other problems arose as decisions taken in Washington and in European capitals slowed the momentum of political change in Afghanistan, and compromised the development of effective governance structures in the Afghan countryside. Afghanistan now faces multiple threats arising from ineffectual central government, indifferent state capacity at the local level, and increasing insurgent activity fed from Taliban sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan. There is no simple solution for these problems; rather, a range of tough measures are required to address them at multiple levels.
30 October 2006
Literary Links: Australia and the Asia-Pacific
By Professor Bruce Bennett
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
Abstract
Literature is one of the art forms that links Australia with countries of the Asia-Pacific. This talk gives special attention to a number of writers who have 'crossed' the cultures of Australia and other nations of the Indo-Asia-Pacific.
The focus is mainly on 'trans-national' writers in English who have travelled, lived or taught in countries of the region.
They have created, and continue to create significant literary art from their encounters with 'strange' cultures, ideas and ideals.
23 October 2006
Language Shift and Language Choice in a Chinese-Indonesian Family
By Francisca Handoko
PhD candidate, RSPAS, Australian National University
Abstract
In 1966 there was a dramatic change in the Indonesian educational system when all Chinese schools were closed down. This closing especially affected the ethnic Chinese Indonesians who had been sending their children to these schools. Until1965 most children of ethnic Chinese origin with a Totok background in Surabaya spoke Mandarin –a language they learned in most cases at Chinese schools. (Totok are ethnic Chinese Indonesians whose forebears first arrived in Indonesia in the early part of the twentieth century, and they are distinguished from Peranakan whose ancestors arrived in Indonesia centuries ago). Thus, prior to 1966, members of the Hakka family who are the subjects of this study spoke a number of languages –Mandarin and Hakka– with each other in addition to Malay/Indonesian and Ngoko Javanese.
After the closing down of Chinese schools, all children, including those from a Totok background, had to move to Indonesian schools. The post 1966 generations speak more (or better) Indonesian (and varieties of Indonesian) than their parents do. Some also speak English with their siblings.
When members of this family get together, they use a rich variety of the languages from their collective repertoire in their conversations, often switching mid-sentence between one language and another. This paper focuses on the intergenerational interactions in which more than two languages are used alternately during family conversations I recorded in Surabaya in 2001. There are five separate languages involved, namely Indonesian, Javanese, Mandarin, Hakka and English. In addition, there are two other similar language varieties, East Java Indonesian and Chinese Malay/Indonesian, employed in the family interactions. The paper presents some of the major social motivations behind the language choice practices which the speakers are engaged in.
16 October 2006
Emblematic Lives of Cosmopolitan Pluralists: Sketching the Social Context of Indonesia’s Sufi Revival
By Associate Professor Julia Howell
Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University (Nathan)
Abstract
Contemplating the failure of the ‘secularisation hypothesis’ and the preponderance of ‘fundamentalist’ religious movements at the end of the twentieth century, Peter Berger (1999) suggested that there are just two social niches in which liberal forms of religion are now dominant: Western Europe and a globalized elite subculture. Like Ernest Gellner, he was pessimistic about the capacity of the Islamic tradition to produce movements genuinely supportive of modernising social change (such as positive attitudes towards pluralism, independent attitudes towards authority, and a thorough-going egalitarianism in gender relations).
This paper calls attention to reasons for moderating such pessimism. Examining three emblematic spiritual life histories of members of Indonesia’s emergent new middle class, it reveals the importance of cosmopolitan life experiences, newly available to large numbers of people from ‘strict’ Muslim backgrounds, in developing critical attitudes to religious authority and a kind of ‘seeker’ orientation similar to that of Westerners who have resisted both religious fundamentalism and wholly ‘disenchanted’ lives. The pervasiveness of such cosmopolitan life experiences amongst Indonesia’s modernising elites helps to explain their new receptiveness to once denigrated Sufi experiential religiosity in various renovated forms in contemporary urban settings.
9 October 2006
Restructuring Sulawesi: Factionalism and Unity in the Drive for Development
By Dr Elizabeth Morrell
Director of Studies, Flinders Asia Centre, Flinders University
Abstract
This paper explores some of the key geo-political movements which are occurring as people seek new economic and political advantages in Indonesia’s transition.
In Sulawesi, the realignment of local government and province boundaries has simultaneously generated new partnerships and competing interests. Some of this activity attempts to bypass the capitals of Makassar and Manado as centres of power. At the same time, planners in each of those cities are endeavouring to bypass Jakarta and establish their respective regions as the driving force of eastern Indonesian development.
18 September 2006
Beyond Terminal Development? Rethinking Economic Development in Melanesia
By Dr Glenn Banks
Senior Lecturer, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
Abstract
The limited economic growth of countries in Melanesia over the past decades is a cause of concern. It is equally apparent, though, that the 'wish-lists' of many economists in relation to these economies are generally fanciful. Likewise the ambitious scope of local 'Business Development' programs at major resource developments in Papua New Guinea have led to widespread perceptions of 'failure' for these programs. In this seminar evidence from 10 years of business surveys at the Porgera mine are presented as the basis for a fundamental rethink in terms of the ways in which business development programs (and at the national level, economies) are evaluated.
11 September 2006
Creating a New Indonesian Society: Recent Development of Islamic Economic Institutions in Indonesia
By Dr Minako Sakai
Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
Abstract
Ekonomi syariah is an Indonesian word which refers to Islamic business and economic systems based on Islamic values. Along with the increasing resurgence of Islam as a religion, support for Islamic economic systems is growing. The first syariah business expo in Jakarta in May, organisers expected, was the first step to create a new direction of social and economic development in Indonesia by promoting the emergent ekonomi syariah business.
This paper aims to review the recent institutional development of Islamic economic systems in Indonesia. It will examine the aims of ekonomi syariah and motivations of new business practitioners through case studies. The causes of the resurgence of Islam, are often linked to the rejection of dominance against the west/globalisation (Islamic activism). I argue that in the case of Indonesia, the most important element of the rise of ekonomi syariah is nationalism; a commitment to strengthen the Indonesian economy from economic crisis and to create a humane society by eradicating poverty.
26 June 2006
Chinese Nationalism and Sino-Japanese Relations
By Dr Jian Zhang
Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
Abstract
This paper examines the nature of the rising anti-Japanese nationalistic sentiments in China and its impacts on Beijing’s Japan policy. It argues that over the last two decades there have been considerable changes in the nature, contents and proponents of anti-Japanese nationalism in China. Instead of being ‘state-led’, the current anti-Japanese expressions of nationalism have been increasingly ‘society-driven’, underpinned by the emergence of a growing number of grassroots nongovernmental ‘anti-Japanese’ nationalist groups. These groups have demonstrated an increasing influence over recent years thanks to the rapid growth of internet usage and a much more pluralistic Chinese society. Far from being manipulated by state propaganda, many of the new nationalists in China are actually well informed and have a more sophisticated understanding of the historical and contemporary issues in Sino-Japanese relations than those advanced in the state media, and often pursue different agendas from those of the government. This paper also argues that despite the escalating tensions between the two countries, Beijing’s policy towards Japan has not been dictated by popular nationalistic sentiments, but rather has displayed both pragmatism and flexibility. However, facing an increasingly nationalistic society internally and an increasingly assertive Japan externally, Beijing’s future policy choices appear to be constrained.
1 May 2006
The View from the Bottom: A Recent Civil Society Project in Papua New Guinea
By Fritz Robinson
Capacity Building Advisor, Community Development Scheme
Abstract
Despite the portrayal in the Australian media, there are plenty of ‘good news stories’ in Papua New Guinea. Most of them are small and occur outside Port Moresby, so they rarely come to the attention of Australian observers. One of these is the Community Development Scheme, an AusAID funded project that costs A$13 million a year and aims to build capacity in civil society from the bottom. In this seminar Fritz will outline the working of the CDS, focusing on one of its four elements – the small grants scheme. He will talk about the way in which small scale community projects are integrated and made dependent on community capacity-building and governance from the bottom. The challenges, the variable success across the country, and the lessons that can be taken from the scheme for broader capacity building within Papua New Guinea, will be discussed.
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27 March 2006
Australians’ knowledge of Islam & Islam in Indonesia
By Dr Kevin M Dunn
Senior Lecturer in Geography, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales.
Abstract
Recent events within Australia, and outside, have drawn attention to Australians’ understandings, and mis-understandings of Islam. Results from a 2003 telephone poll (n: 1311) indicate that only one-fifth of Australians have a reasonable or better knowledge of Islam, and half knew a little about Islam. The sample was stratified for age, gender and state of residence. Males, middle-aged (25-49) and older respondents (50+) were much more likely to claim a fragmentary or better knowledge of Islam. By far the greatest variation in knowledge of Islam was between those with and without some tertiary education. The forms of respondent knowledge of Islam took the form of critique of Muslims, knowledge of Amal (key performances), or understandings of Iman (core theology). Forty-two per cent of respondents stated “they knew a few people who were Muslim”. Older respondents had lower rates of direct contact with Muslims, yet those Australians claimed higher rates of knowledge of Islam, this took the form of the critiques and stereotypes of Islam. A majority of Australians were aware that Islam was the faith followed by most Indonesians. A bare majority of respondents felt that Islam in Indonesia
13 March 2006
The mediation of publicness, or the Indonesianness of Reformasi
By Dr Edwin Jurriens
Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy
Abstract
This presentation will be about publicness (as in public space/sphere, public values¹ and public media), a prominent notion in the Indonesian ideal of social and political reform, or Reformasi. By examining the ways in which publicness has been represented in the post-New Order media landscape, I will show the transnational dimension of its genealogy. I will not discuss the macro-level of immediate foreign financial support or ideological influence, but focus on the role of Indonesian intellectuals and activists in the field of the electronic media, particularly radio, as the mediators and re-creators of foreign ideas and practices. Concrete case-studies will inform my argument that Reformasi should be seen as a specific, simultaneously local and translocal, configuration of the migration of ideas and practices, and that its Indonesianness¹ should be problematised.
10 October 2005
Whose Aceh? Colonial Contributions
By Associate Professor Jean Gelman Taylor
School of History, University of New South Wales
Abstract
Since 1998 Indonesia's media have reported on demands by various groups
to "straighten out history". The history attracting keenest
attention is that of the Republic of Indonesia, not an older past, but
events intimately associated with former, now maligned, President Suharto.
In 1999 Indonesia's professional historians were charged by the Department
of Education with revising the nation's history books. Historians outside
Indonesia argued this duty opens the opportunity for a whole-scale rethinking
of Indonesian histories including reconsidering periodization, agency,
class and gender issues. Some, notably Thongchai Winichakul in 2003,
argued that it is time for historians of Southeast Asia to “move
on” from the narratives of nation-building and to look, for instance,
at border societies in "zones of contact".
Inside Indonesia Thongchai¹s challenge is addressed, not by professional
historians, but by writers outside academe who have produced histories
to support the cause of "ethno-nationalisms". M. Junus Djamil
and Hasan di Tiro, for instance, had already in 1968 and 1976 constructed
narratives arguing Aceh’s segregation from Indonesian histories
in order to imagine a new future within the regional setting of Aceh
or the whole island of Sumatra. Yet Aceh plays a distinctive role in
the national narrative of Indonesia¹s birth. Key elements include:
Aceh¹s devotion to Islam; Aceh’s long resistance to the Dutch
(1873-1903); Aceh¹s share of heroes in the national pantheon; Aceh¹s
contributions to the Indonesian revolution. Aceh’s offshore island
of Sabang supplied one half of Sukarno¹s compelling slogan "From
Sabang to Merauke", by which he meant the geographical bookends
marking the Netherlands East Indies that should define Indonesia. Acehnese
and Dutch had a much shorter time span in which to get to know each
other than, for example, Javanese and Dutch had. I will explore the
colonial input by considering Dutch knowledge of Aceh, particularly
as represented through photographs made by Dutch camera men from 1873
to 1930 that are preserved in the KITLV archive.
12 September 2005
Vietnam's Defence Diplomacy
By Professor Carlyle A. Thayer
Director UNSW Defence Studies Forum
University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy
Abstract
In 1986, Vietnam adopted a reform program known as doi moi or renovation.
One aspect of this program was an open door foreign policy that went
under the slogan 'making friends with all countries.' This was highly
successful. Less well known has been the expansion of Vietnam's defence
contacts across the globe since 1991 when Vietnam's pariah status ended
following the comprehensive settlement of the Cambodian conflict. This
presentation analyses the pattern of over three hundred high-level defence
exchanges between Vietnam and the outside world since 1991. An analysis
of these exchanges provides new insights into Vietnam's strategic outlook,
security concerns and defence modernisation program. This presentation
will also address Vietnam's nascent defence relations with China and
the United States.
8 August 2005
Pakistan as a Muslim State:
Conflicting interpretations and Foreign Policy Orientations
By Dr Samina Yasmeen
Political Science and International Relations
University of Western Australia
Abstract
As one of the most populous and strategically located countries, Pakistan
has attracted increasing attention since the terrorist attacks of 11
September 2001. After years of supporting Taliban with a view to gaining
'strategic depth', the Pakistan Government has altered its foreign policy
and is cooperating with the United States in the War on Terror. This
has resulted in at least 500 members of Al-Qaeda being captured in the
last four years. But the question arises if this shift corresponds with
the change in ground realities within Pakistan. This, in turn, leads
to a number of other
questions: Have dominant sections in the society shifted from subscribing
to orthodox views to more moderate approach to world politics? How have
militant groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish Mohammad reacting to
the changes in Pakistan Government's foreign policy orientation? What
implications can different views on Islam, state and foreign policy
can have for regional and global stability? The seminar will attempt
to answer these questions and place the discussion within the context
of relative balance between orthodox, and moderate approaches to Islam
globally and in South Asia.
20 June 2005
From Diaspora Islam to Globalised Islam:
Changing Islamic Religiosity and Identity in the West
By Professor Michael Humphrey
School of Sociology & Anthropology, University of New South Wales
Abstract
This paper explores the emergence of a ‘globalised’ Islam,
what Roy (2004: ix) sees as the ‘way in which the relationship
of Muslims to Islam is reshaped by globalisation, westernisation and
the impact of living as a minority’. It is the product of the
experience of the de-territorialisation and de-culturalisation of Islam
in immigrant Muslim communities. The focus is on Islam in the West,
in Australia, Europe and North America where there has been a shift
from a socially embedded ‘diaspora Islam’ produced through
immigration and settlement to an increasingly socially and culturally
detached ‘Islam’. Globalised Islam is a new imaginary shaped
by social experience of marginalisation and generational change in distinct
Western countries and the political redefinition of cultural difference
identity in the context of international terrorism of radical Islamists
on the other explicitly linking integration of immigrants with national
security. The paper explores the way globalised Islam articulates different
forms of religiosity dominated by neo-fundamentalist interpretations
of religion as a re-universalised set of beliefs. It has created a new
Muslim identity de-linked from the nation-state project but with no
substitute political centre. This only reinforces the globalised imaginary
of Islam and a discourse on ‘human security’ which focuses
on the individualised rather than the collective. Globalised Islam can
also be understood as just another instance of the predominance of global
idioms over local idioms to interpret the complex reality of contemporary
social life.
6 June 2005
Replication as Technique of Hope: Toward an Anthropology of Financial
Economics
By Hiro Miyazaki, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Cornell
University
Abstract
This paper aims to bring to light a variety of ways in which the utopian
content of financial economics has served as a source of hope in the
midst of Japan's long economic recession from the early 1990s to the
present. Drawing on ethnographic research among a team of Japanese financial
derivatives traders in a major Japanese securities firm completed between
1997 and 2003, the paper chronicles a series of hopeful visions animating
individuals' personal and professional choices. It draws attention to
the way these traders have sought to extend the technique of replication,
one of the most important analytical operations in financial economics,
beyond the market. The paper seeks to explore the possibility of extending
this analytical operation further as a method for writing a critical
history of hope.
18 April 2005
Land Reform in Indonesia: Between Pluralism and Unification
By Daryono, Faculty of Law, ANU
Abstract
The complex and contested tenure system has been experienced since colonial
times. The competing authorities between state law and adat law, formal
bureaucracy and local (adat) institutions and the formal judiciary and
informal adat settlement have been persistent as major sources of disputes
and uncertainty. Land reform therefore has been addressed to cease the
pluralistic tenure by promoting legal unification under Basic Agrarian
Law 1960. However the transformation seems to lack comprehensive socio-cultural
understandings, which result in uncertainty, conflicting legal substances
and wide bureaucratic discretions. By the establishment of current local
autonomy post new order government, the adat community has been formally
recognised and the pluralistic tenure systems re-emerge but the devolution
of central government authority on land affairs has become a source
of conflict among competing agencies. This paper describes and examines
the transformation of pluralistic tenure system into unified system
under Basic Agrarian Law 1960 and the future tenure system post-local
autonomy.
4 April 2005
Preaching on record and on the air in Indonesia
By Professor Bernard Arps, The University of Leiden
Abstract
Over the past three decades a range of audio media have been used in
Indonesia for the propagation of Islam (so-called dakwah): audio cassettes,
radio broadcasts (also on the world wide web), sound amplification,
and most recently MP3 files (downloadable from the web) and ven mobile
phones. Several preachers have gained no less than superstar status
in Indonesia and other Malay-speaking countries and among Malay-speaking
Muslims abroad. This is largely due to their live and televised appearances,
but there can be no doubt that their audio performances have also contributed
significantly to their popularity. Zainuddin MZ, for instance, published
over 60 official C60 cassettes in the 1980s and 1990s, and a great many
official recordings of his sermons are in circulation. The oeuvre of
Aa Gym, the currently most popular Islamic preacher, contains audio
cassettes as well, and several of his sermons are available on the web.
In this talk I will examine this relatively new media genre, Islamic
audio preaching, focusing on the ways the preachers represent people.
7 March 2005
Tsunami Relief Operation in Aceh and the Future
By His Excellency Mr. Imron Cotan, Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia
(no abstract)
25 October 2004
Australia’s Papua New Guinea Dilemmas
By Dr. Bill Standish, PNG specialist and visiting fellow in the Arts
Faculty, ANU
Abstract
Ever since
the Bougainville secession crisis erupted in 1989, Canberra-based academics
and government officials
have known that Papua New Guinea faced serious problems with its internal
governance and security, but they have not known whether or how Australian
governments should respond. PNG’s national governments were naturally
jealous of their autonomy. Australia respected PNG’s sovereignty,
yet it also lacked influence in Port Moresby, as was demonstrated by
the Sandline Crisis of 1997. The government led by Bill Skate commenced
the Bougainville peace process but lost international financial support
and then imploded in June 1999. The next government led by Sir Mekere
Morauta initiated reforms with Australian support but then ended its
days in a spending spree before the 2002 elections. The current Somare
government is politically insecure, like its predecessors. Papua New
Guinea still faces serious fiscal shortages and ongoing problems of
crime, failing government services and infrastructure, and in the next
decade will lose much of its export revenue from diminishing mines and
oil wells.
The Australian government’s inhibitions have dropped since the
East Timor and Solomon Islands engagements, and the international climate
has changed since September 2001. Australia in 2003 proposed the Enhanced
Cooperation Program (ECP) as a new response to PNG’s problems,
reversing previous policy by placing about sixty Australian officials
directly into the PNG state’s financial, legal and border management,
and putting 210 Australian police into frontline positions. The idea
of the ECP is currently popular with most of PNG’s elite, who
welcome the additional resources, but the reality will involve acute
sensitivities. The ECP, initially a 5 year program, is not a panacea
for solving the deep-seated problems of this underdeveloped state and
nascent nation on Australia’s northern boundary.
11 October 2004 [Book Launch]
Cultural Travel and Migrancy
By Dr. Edwin Jurriëns, HASS, UNSW@ADFA
Edwin Jurriëns is a Lecturer in Indonesian Language and Culture
at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of New
South Wales University at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.
He holds a PhD degree in Indonesian and Literature from Leiden University.
He can be contacted at e.jurriens@adfa.edu.au
This book will be launched by Professor Philip Kitley
Professor Kitley is Head of the School of Social Sciences, Media and
Communications at the University of Wollongong. He has written extensively
on media in Asia, in particular television in Indonesia and Malaysia.
His publications include Television, Nation, and Culture in Indonesia
(Ohio University Press, 2000) and Television, Regulation and Civil Society
in Asia (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003 [edited volume]).
Venue
11 October 2004 at 12:10-13:00.
Room SL1 in the former Geography & Oceanography Building (Building
No. 21) UNSW@ADFA, Nothcott Drive, Canberra
All welcome, refreshments provided. Copies of this book will be available
for sales at the venue.
Please RSVP for catering purposes by 7 October 2004 by
email: apss@adfa.edu.au or telephone: 6268 8914
This Book Launch is sponsored by
Co-op Bookshop at ADFA;
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW@ADFA
Asia Pacific Seminar Series at ADFA (APSS)
Abstract of the book:
Cultural Travel and Migrancy examines how people in West Java use modern
media such as radio, television, and cassettes to give expression to
their thoughts and feelings about problems of contemporary life. It
describes artistic approaches to globalization, one of the problems
that has been felt most pressing during the late New Order and early
Reformation. Situating itself at this remarkable turning-point in Indonesian
history, it shows that local artists have not been mere victims or products
of globalization, but virtual migrants who self-consciously steer the
electronic media on their worldwide travels. The book gives an analysis
of relevant case-studies and historical debates on culture and representation
in Indonesia and the West, and also provides an overview of early developments
and recent trends in the Indonesian and West Javanese media landscapes.
With its focus on Sundanese language and culture, it is a pioneering
and gap-filling complement to the existing literature on media, which
has predominantly dealt with national and international, rather than
regional or local, cultural contexts.
13 September 2004
The struggle for formal Islam in South Sulawesi:
The case of Komite Persiapan Penegakan Syariat Islam (KPPSI)
By Hamdan Juhannis, PhD candidate, Asian Studies, ANU
This paper investigates the dynamics of Muslims in South Sulawesi in their efforts towards formalising the political role of Islam as exemplified by the KPPSI (Komite Persiapan Penegakan Syariat Islam, Committee for Upholding Islamic Law) which was founded in 2000. It explores the nature of the organisation and its main struggle, that is, the struggle for Special Autonomy for South Sulawesi, thus enabling the province to formally implement Islamic law. The relationship between the historic Darul Islam (DI) movement and the emergence of the KPPSI are analysed in the broader context of this movement, in particular its relationship with other similar movements in Indonesia, reviewing the evidence for links with any national and international network. The DI movement can be seen to be linked with the KPPSI, as indicated by the fact that the leader of the KPPSI is the son of Kahar Muzakkar’s DI. The DI and the KPPSI seem to have the same objectives, namely, to establish a formal Islamic territory. They differ only in the manner of achieving this. The DI movement fought through physical confrontation, while the KPPSI utilise the momentum of “Reformasi” in Indonesia. This paper will also explore whether the KPPSI as a radical Islamic organisation was involved in violent activities due to the existence of Laskar Jundullah (the army of God) as its paramilitary wing.
30 August 2004
Narratives of ethnicity and environment in the uplands of northern Thailand
By Dr. Andrew Walker, RSPAS ANU
This paper is one component of a broader attempt to critically examine popular and scientific perceptions of environmental "crisis" in the uplands of northern Thailand. The paper examines how some of the major ethnic groups in the region are differently, and sometimes ambigiously, situated within various environmental narratives. Three groups are considered - the northern Thai, the Karen and the Hmong. Standard accounts assign these groups to quite different ecological and livelihood niches: the lowland paddy-farming northern Thai; the midland forest-dwelling Karen; and the highland entrepreneurial Hmong. But in the contemporary environmental politics of northern Thailand there are subtleties, tensions and strategic responses that make the relationship between ethnicity and environment somewhat more complex and considerably more interesting. The presentation will be accompanied by a series of images which illustrate some of the ways in which modern upland ethnicity is woven into environmental narratives.
16 August 2004
Boven Digoel: a thoroughly modern prison camp.
Modernity and political imprisonment in the Netherlands East Indies
By Paul Tickell, UNSW at ADFA
In 1926-1927 the Indonesian Communist Party launched uprisings against
Dutch colonial authority. These rebellions were soon quashed and within
months the Dutch had established concentration camps in the isolated
upper reaches of the Digoel River in West Papua. Digoel-the nature of
its location, details of its establishment, and the identity of its
in-mates-were widely reported in the Indonesian and Dutch colonial press.
They were debated in the Dutch national and colonial parliaments and
were the subject of Dutch reference works and official reports. Ultimately
Boven Digoel also became the subject of Indonesian-language creative
literature. For the Dutch colonial authorities, this well publicised
internment camp was not just the model of a modern prison but also of
a modern community-neat, orderly, sanitary, and peaceful-precisely the
ideal of rust en orde (peace and order) that the Dutch had projected
onto their whole colonial enterprise.
For Indonesians, Digoel was largely depicted as a hellhole-a primitive land of disease, headhunters, man-eating crocodiles, isolation and no escape. The camps not only coercively disciplined Indonesian political malcontents, but Dutch and Indonesian discourses also disciplined the "free" population in different and paradoxical ways. Dutch discourses engendered fear by reinforcing images of Dutch power. Indonesian discourses lionized Indonesian anti-colonial resistance and importantly, but paradoxically, reinforced notions of a modern, self-regulating citizenry. For the Dutch, Digoel was both an important tool in controlling an increasingly recalcitrant colonial population and an exercise in colonial "urban planning". For Indonesian nationalists the primitiveness of Digoel's environment, the internees' conscious efforts to create a civilised and cultured society in the wilderness and the contrasts with their Indonesian readers' everyday experiences in modern colonial cities and under Dutch colonial order, all served to develop their sense of modern difference.
2 August 2004
Currents in Contemporary Islam in Indonesia
By Professor James J. Fox, RSPAS ANU
This presentation surveys some of the variety of Islamic thinking in Indonesia today and endeavors to trace the roots of this thinking to historical developments in the 19th and early part of the 20th century. Some commentators have referred to the contemporary diversity within Indonesian Islam as a ‘polyphony of voices’. This presentation offers a different metaphor – one of currents and countercurrents – in an attempt to convey a sense of the present fluidity of ideas and practice.
21 June 2004
The 1965 Coup in Indonesia: Aspects of the US/Indonesian Relations 1960-65
By Dr. Frank Cain, UNSW@ADFA
The 1965 Coup in Indonesia was the most important event in modern Indonesian history and its indirect effects are still being felt today. The causes of the Coup and its purposes remain obscure in historical terms and while it is not the intention of this seminar to tackle those issues, it will examine the US reports and insights that were collected by US officials in Indonesia in those years concerning the various governmental groups,the military,the PKI,the religious groups and US oil companies. These Indonesian/US relations are to be viewed against the intensity of the Cold War with The US focusing particularly on greater engagement in Vietnam, before launching into the Vietnam War, and the increasingly tense relations with Communist China.
31 May 2004
Who should be afraid of the "Hindu Right" of Indian Politics?
By Himanshu R. Pota, UNSW@ADFA
For Australia to have a sound strategy in building its relationship with India, the root cause of the present upheaval in its social and political organisations must be correctly understood. In this seminar I wish to discuss the forces behind the recent political changes in India and the direction India is going to take under the new leadership. The talk will firstly present in detail the inner political aspirations of mainstream India. Secondly we will see how the so labelled "Hindu Right" was able to tap into these aspirations. Finally I will present what I think is the direction India is likely to take in the next decade or so.
17 May 2004
Muslims and the Rise of the ‘Hindu Right’ in India
By Sandy Gordon, HASS, UNSW@ADFA
Hinduism is traditionally a syncretic religion. This is in part why India has been able to develop a secular, plural polity. That is changing, however, in light of the advent of a new Hindu politics that seeks to unify the hitherto diverse Hindu population under the umbrella of a ‘Hindu’ India. This seminar will examine the hitherto constrained Muslim response to these developments and assess whether this constraint will continue, or whether we are witnessing the start of a downward spiral into violence – a development that could derail India’s nascent economic awakening and have important regional implications.
28 April 2004
Fluctuating fortunes in a Japanese village
By Rosemary Jeffcott, History UNSW
Extract: Nozawa onsen mura is a village on the border of the Japanese prefectures of Niigata and Nagano, on the main island of Honshu. Since its location was chosen for a remote mountain temple by Buddhist priests from a head temple in coastal Kanagawa prefecture, Nozawa has undergone several transformations, as the local population has adjusted to waves of Japanese settlers and visitors because of its subsequent identities as pilgrim destination, hot spring centre and ski resort. Nozawa onsen hosted the cross-country ski races during the Nagano Winter Olympics. Meanwhile, the local farming population has adjusted its focus beet green pickles to rice to tomatoes, blueberries and other cash crops as household survival has increasingly depended on the ski season and hosting the influx of winter visitors. My seminar will trace this story by looking at changes in the annual observance of a local traditional festival.
13 April 2004
Who Did This to Our Bali?
Dewi Anggraeni
Introduction by Prof. Bruce Bennett (HASS, UNSW@ADFA)
BIO-NOTE. Dewi Anggraeni is a well-known novelist, poet, short story writer and journalist who was born in Jakarta but has made Australia her home. Her articles and essays about Australian-Indonesian relations have appeared in Tempo, the Age and a variety of other newspapers and magazines. Her Stories of Indian Pacific (1992) was supported by an Australia Council grant and has been widely cited. "Psychologically", she has written, " I am becoming increasingly bicultural ... feeling Indonesian and Australian in respective countries". Her most recent book, Who Did This to Our Bali? (2003) is an eloquent response, both personal and cultural, to the Bali bombings of 12 October 2002.
22 September 2003
Becoming Indonesian can drive you mad ..... a Chinese-Indonesian public
intellectual
By Professor David Reeve
(Dept. of Chinese and Indonesian, School of Modern Language Studies,
UNSW)
Abstract: The role of Chinese Indonesians in the archipelago is a question
of great importance, now and in the future. The Chinese are often suspected
of having an incomplete Indonesian identity. This paper examines the
life of a famous Chinese Indonesian public intellectual, Ong Hok Ham,
a great favourite of Australians in Jakarta, now in his 70th year, and
confined to a wheelchair after a stroke. Ong Hok Ham made a strong decision
in the early 1950s to become a 'real Indonesian' but it took another
twenty to thirty years to inhabit that identity with confidence and
gusto. There was lot of pain along the way. Examining this singular
life will bring into focus issues relevant for all Indonesian Chinese.
8 September 2003
Crossing boundaries: transnational migration of Eastern Indonesian domestic
workers
By Dr. Catharina Purwani Williams
(RSPAS, ANU and Humanities and Social Sciences,
UNSW@ADFA)
Abstract
The political economy of transnational migration in Indonesia presents
a form of space where women are encouraged to participate and benefit
from economic process. My research of Eastern Indonesian women migration
to global cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore emphasises a feminist
geography perspective. In this way interpretations of place and ideologies
of Self are problematised, thus, goes beyond the economic ‘push
and pull’ factors of migration. Employing an ethnographic approach,
the research excavates meanings of spaces and changes of migrant subjects
from their move overseas. Returned domestic workers elaborated their
migration stories in my qualitativestudy. This study argues that new
mobile migrant subjects emerge as women cross the threshold of home,
negotiating various boundaries. The local term ‘langgar laut’
or crossing the ocean metaphorically captures the women’s negotiated
positions within the dominant femininities and in generating income
in order to achieve personal goals.
25 August 2003
Islamic Radicalism in Southeast Asia
(With Specific reference to the Alleged Terrorist Organisation, Jamaah
Islamiyah)
By Akh. Muzakki
(ANU Asian Studies and UNSW@ADFA, Humanities and Social Sciences)
Abstract
In the wake of the September 11 incident, Islamic radicalism has become
a prominent issue across the world. The issue has intensified in the
aftermath of the October 12 bomb blast in Bali, Indonesia. Jamaah Islamiyah
(JI) has been alleged to be part of the al-Qaeda
terrorist network in Southeast Asia and the group responsible for the
bomb attack in Bali and other places of the region. JI has been associated
with two prominent Indonesian figures, Abu Bakar Baasyir and Abdullah
Sungkar, who are said to be its spiritual leaders. This presentation
examines Islamic radicalism in Southeast Asia in terms of its roots
and the possibility of there being a structural connection between radical
Islamic and terrorist groups. It will focus in particular on the JI
in Indonesia, but possible links with Malaysia, the Philippines, and
Singapore will also be addressed.
11 August 2003
Turning off the lights: Closing a mine and shutting down the State in
Papua New Guinea.
By Dr. Glenn Banks
School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences (UNSW@ADFA)
Abstract
The Papua New Guinea minerals sector, for the 15 years the subject of
controversy, is facing another crisis. In this case it is not so much
the operations of the mines that are causing concern, but their imminent
closure. Within the next decade the two largest operating mines, Porgera
and Ok Tedi, will be closed. This paper explores the consequences of
this at two levels, for the communities around the mines (using the
Porgera case) and for the state in Papua New Guinea, the largest local
beneficiary of the mine operations. I argue that without appropriate
planning, along with the absence of new investment in the sector, the
potential consequences of the closures present the communities and the
state with bleak prospects. Actual and proposed measures to at least
lessen the impact of the closures will be outlined.
28 July 2003
Whither Southeast Asia?
By Professor Ron Hill
Honorary Professor in the School of Ecology and Biodiversity at The
University of Hong Kong
Abstract: With a population of around 550 million, joined in the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, it might be expected that the region has
the potential to emerge as a globally significant political and economic
bloc. This presentation will focus upon forces for stasis and change
and will
suggest a likely medium-term trajectory for the region.
16 June 2003
Australia-Indonesia Relations in the Post-Iraqi War Environment: an
Indonesian perspective
By Mr Imron Cotan
Charge d'Affaires, Minister of the Embassy of Republic of Indonesia
Abstract: The overall Indonesia and Australia ties have always been
rock-solid and based on the principles of mutual respect, mutual understanding
and mutual benefit. We came to this view after we recognized the fact
both countries indeed share abundant of common interests. With vast
socio-political differences, the two neighboring countries have however
occasionally encountered a number of ups-and-downs in their relations.
The roughest being the period after the popular consultations held in
East Timor, which resulted in the separation of East Timor from Indonesia
in 1999. Other contentious issues such as terrorism and unilateralism
in international affairs need to be properly handled to avoid any misunderstandings
that may hamper the bilateral ties between the two.
29 May 2003
Reading remittance landscapes: female migration and agricultural transition
(Case of the Philippines)
By Dr Deirdre McKay
Research Fellow, Department of Human Geography, RSPAS, ANU
Abstract: In the Philippines, female migration for contract domestic
worker overseas is transforming local agricultural landscapes. Yet the
changes in land, labour, crops and cropping patterns that are occurring
may not reflect local ecology or economic opportunity as much as they
represent gendered versions of local modernity, envisioned at a new
global scale. This study shows how local agricultural change is intimately
linked with local interests in global migration and how local landscapes
can be read as reflecting those links. By tracing migrants' remittances
into their investment in crops and labour, the analysis ties female
migration to household land-use decisions. Describing how remittances
fit into the agricultural system shows how such decisions may undermine
or enhance long-term agricultural sustainability and produce future
waves of migration. Similar findings are likely in other developing
countries which export female labour.
14 April 2003
Dayaks Politics Resurgence in West Kalimantan, Indonesia
By Taufiq Tanasaldy
PhD Scholar, Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU; Research
Assistant, LL&C, UNSW@ADFA
Abstract: Dayaks are the majority of West Kalimantan population, forty
one percent, followed by Malays and Indonesian-Chinese. But yet, their
political role in West Kalimantan during Soeharto era was very limited.
Most of the districts were headed by non-Dayaks. Their representations
in government offices and legislative councils were also very small.
The absence of Dayaks in politics during Soeharto's New Order is quite
contradictory with their domination in West Kalimantan politics throughout
1950s to 1960s. During this period, Dayaks had occupied many important
positions such as governor, district heads, and dominated legislative
branch in many districts. This presentation will explore how the Dayaks
politics have evolved (particular emphasis from period after independence
to early New Order era), what political blunders they had made that
had excluded them from local politics for more than 30 years. This paper
also will briefly summarise some new developments in West Kalimantan
politics, after the fall of Soeharto.
31 March 2003
Mass Killing in Indonesian History
By Robert Cribb (Pacific and Asian History, RSPAS, ANU)
Abstract: Indonesia's history has been punctuated by episodes of mass
killing. The massacres of 1965-66 are well known, if not so well understood,
but recent violence in Maluku and Sulawesi, the endemic violence in
Papua and Aceh, the long violencen in East Timor, and earlier violence
in Madiun (1948) and Jakarta (1945) raise questions about the place
of such outbreaks in a country which has often been described in terms
of peace. This presentation will outline the patterns of mass killing
in modern Indonesia history and suggest how they might be understood
in the context of broader patterns in world history.
10 March 2003
The Signature of Terror: Violence, Memory and Landscape in Eastern Indonesia
By Chris Ballard (Pacific and Asian History, RSPAS, ANU)
Abstract: This paper attempts to build on Elaine
Scarry's remarkable book, The Body in Pain, by suggesting that her analysis
of the torture of individuals can be mapped fairly simply and effectively
onto the larger scale terrorization of entire communities. Critical
to the inspiration of terror is the way in which the effects of what
Nancy Scheper-Hughes calls 'graphic public, violence' on the part of
agents of the state take root in daily life through a profound theatricalization
of terror. Fantasies of violence are enacted by the Indonesian army
in the vicinity of the Freeport mine in West Papua, both by assuming
the role of Papuans and by refashioning Papuans as mouths for the truths
of the state. The relationship between violence and terror, their structured
enactment, and the question of audience identity and participation are
each considered as elements that might contribute towards a general
theory of state-sponsored terror.
back to top
8 April 2002
Iwan Amir (School of LLC, UNSW@ADFA)
Media Coverage in Aceh
20 May 2002
Mike Cookson (RSPAS, ANU)
Civil Society and Public Culture in Papua
3 June 2002
Jung-Soo Seo (School of Economics and Management, UNSW@ADFA)
Intra-industry Foreign Direct Investment and Intra-industry Trade: Case
Study of Korea
17 June 2002
James Cotton (School of Politics, UNSW@ADFA)
North Korea: A Member of the Evil Axis?
24 June 2002
Richard Broinowski
Australia's Nuclear Diplomacy: Implications for Howard's War on Terror
15 July 2002
Doracie Nantes-Zoleta (University of the Philippines)
Differential vulnerabilities to flood hazards among the urban poor,
street children and residents of wealthy neighborhoods in Metro Manila,
the Philippines
8 August 2002
Minako Sakai (School of LLC, UNSW@ADFA)
Privatisation of the Padang Cement Company
15 August 2002
Agus Sumule (Resource Management Project, RSPAS, ANU)
Regional Autonomy and West Papua
5 September 2002
George Quinn (Southeast Asian Centre, ANU)
Political Pilgrimage in Java: Cases of Gus Dur and Megawati
19 September 2002
John Walker (School of Politics, UNSW@ADFA)
Arabs in Borneo
17 October 2002
Anna Papoulis (Library, UNSW@ADFA)
Library Resources on Asia Pacific and Humanities/Social Sciences
21 November 2002
Anthony Reid (Director of Asia Research Institute, The National University
of Singapore)
Aceh and Indonesia: Tangled Pasts, Dark Future
13 June 2001
James J. Fox (RSPAS, ANU)
East Timor: Scenarios of Future Developments
25 July 2001
Paul Tickell (School of LLC, UNSW@ADFA)
Love in a Time of Colonialism: Race and Modernity in early Indonesian
fiction
15 August 2001
Glenn Banks (School of Geography and Oceanography, UNSW@ADFA)
Mining and the Environment in Asia-Pacific
22 August 2001
Judy Henderson (Oxfam)
Dams and Development in the Asia Pacific
29 August 2001
Ian Scales (Dept of Anthropology, RSPAS, ANU)
Regional Politics in Solomon Islands
5 September 2001
William Maley (School of Politics, UNSW@ADFA)
Afghanistan under the Taliban
12 September 2001
James Cotton (School of Politics, UNSW@ADFA)
Elections for an Independent East Timor
3 October 2001
Minako Sakai (School of LLC, UNSW@ADFA)
National Integration and Regional Identity at the Time of Regional Autonomy:
The formation of the Province of the Bangka-Belitung, Indonesia
17 October 2001
Iwu Utomo (Demography, RSSS, ANU and School of LLC, UNSW@ADFA)
Sexuality and Relationships Between the Sexes in Indonesia: a Historical
Perspective