Talking Indonesia: Recent Episodes
Talking Indonesia
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Jacqui Baker and Tito Ambyo present an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia podcasts and more at the Indonesia at Melbourne blog.
Independent publishing might seem like a small element of Indonesia’s cultural landscape: limited print runs, niche books, and audiences that rarely extend into the mainstream. Yet these spaces can matter precisely because they make room for voices, ideas, and forms of cultural expression that have little place elsewhere.This matters in Indonesia today, where civic space is increasingly constrained and marginalised communities, including queer people, face growing stigma, scapegoating, and political hostility. In this context, publishing becomes not only about circulating books but a way of sustaining communities, and creating spaces where people can think, disagree, and imagine different forms of social and political relations.In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Clara Siagian speaks with Syarafina, co-founder and commissioning editor of Cahyati Press, an independent publishing practice based in Bali. Cahyati publishes books, zines, and artist books by writers, poets, artists, and researchers, particularly queer, working-class, and BIPOC voices that are often overlooked by mainstream publishing.Syarafina reflects on her twelve-year journey through independent publishing and on why Cahyati Press came into being. For her, independent publishing is less about size than editorial freedom to publish work because it matters, even when it defies common literary classification or when it is not commercially viable.That freedom takes on particular significance when we talk about queer publishing. As LGBTQ+ people in Indonesia face increasing stigma and political scapegoating, Syarafina argues for the importance of documenting queer lives in all their complexity. This means communicating not only stories of violence and survival, but also stories of friendship, family, work, migration, desire, boredom and joy. Publishing, in this sense, can be a quiet form of resistance which encompasses preserving stories, creating memory, and allowing people to recognise that they are not alone.The conversation also takes us beyond Indonesia. Cahyati Press is part of a growing international network of independent publishers, artists, writers, booksellers and cultural organisers across Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and beyond. Rather than seeing Indonesia simply as a place where international researchers and artists come to study or work, this network points to Indonesia as a place from which connections are being forged, and cultural conversations are being shaped.Finally, we discuss what independent publishing might offer academics: an opportunity to experiment with shapes, audiences and methods, and to imagine forms of knowledge production beyond the rigid conventions of academic publishing.In 2026, Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Clara Siagian from University College London, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
The problem of Australian knowing and engaging Indonesia, as our closest neighbour, has vexed successive Australia governments ever since Keating called for Asian literacy in the 1980s. Toward that end, we have seen intermittent policy interventions recognizing the strategic importance of what has come to known as Australia’s “Asian capabilities”. This includes a National Asian Language and Studies program in the 1990s, a 2012 white paper under the Gillard government and in 2015, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade unveiled the New Colombo Plan which provides grants and high prestige scholarships to Australian undergraduates studying in the region. And yet Australia’s quest for “Asian Capabilities” has been nonetheless been marked by declining numbers in Asian language learning, closures of Asian studies departments and programs at senior high school and in universities and with repeated warnings from educators, language teachers, high schools and universities about the catastrophic decline in student numbers. An important element of Australia’s relationship to Asia has been forged through study abroad programs which send hundreds of Australian students to Asia each year. The Australian Consortium for In Country Studies Indonesia Studies, known as ACICIS, is the longest running facilitator of these kinds of programs to Indonesia, having facilitated some 5000 of Australian students to Indonesian universities since it was established nearly 30 years ago. This month also marks the launch of a new book on the generational impact of these programs called Experiencing Indonesia: 30 years of ACICIS published by ANU Press and edited by Kirrilee Hughes, Kate Naidu and David Reeve. Today I’m speaking to Liam Prince, Director of the ACICIS program based at the University of Western Australia about the future of Australia’s Asia and Indonesia capabilities.
Indonesia is home to some of the largest stretches of tropical rainforest left on Earth — and to a growing community of people willing to put themselves on the line to defend it. But across the archipelago, environmental activists are increasingly finding that the sharpest threat they face isn't out in the field. It's in the courtroom.In this episode, we're looking at how the law itself is being turned against environmental defenders in Indonesia, especially through what are known as SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits against public participation. What are these suits, and what is the intention behind them? To unpack this, I'm joined by Austin Jenish. Austin recently finished his studies, and his path into these questions didn’t begin in a lecture or a research program, but with a study abroad program that took him to Indonesia. He came to the country's legal system and its environment out of genuine curiosity, and followed that interest far enough to start writing about it. So, we connected through an article Austin wrote for Earth.org on SLAPP which can be found at https://earth.org/how-malicious-lawsuits-are-silencing-climate-activists-in-indonesia/.Austin holds degrees in both law and genetics from Monash University and now works at a commercial litigation firm, but his engagement with environmental issues is a longstanding passion. He's served as a conservation status assessor with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, contributed environmental law and policy work to NGOs including the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform in Jakarta, and through Monash's law clinics helped draft a framework for environmental litigation and supported the Cook Islands in the UN's plastic pollution treaty negotiations.
What does it mean to believe in ghosts? It turns out that's exactly the wrong question.In this special episode of Talking Indonesia, co-hosts Tito Ambyo and Jamie Edmonds sit down together not as interviewer and guest, but as co-editors who have spent months immersed in a collection of essays on ghosts and haunting in Indonesia. The result is something that is a bit different than the usual podcast interview: two scholars thinking aloud about what the ghostly has done to them.They move between the personal and the theoretical. Jamie's childhood on a road called Whispering Woods, his years navigating psychosis and hallucination, and the way ghost stories kept refusing to let him stay on the outside. And Tito's discovery, buried in a Dutch East Indies newspaper, that his grandfather hosted a radio programme about spirituality, which was a revelation that arrived mid-thesis, mid-life, with the force of a haunting.The episode also serves as a guide to the Inside Indonesia special edition on ghosts that Tito and Jamie co-edited: essays on pulung gantung in Gunung Kidul, haunted manuscripts that resist digitisation, headless soldiers whose presence keeps colonial violence from being forgotten, female dancers whose spectral power is reshaping Indonesian cinema, and journalists learning to take seriously the tree that refused to be felled. What emerges from all of it is not an argument for or against the existence of ghosts, but something more interesting: a case for sitting with what we cannot explain, and for the kind of knowing that begins with admitting we do not know.In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo and Jamie Edmonds explore what ghosts teach us about Indonesia — and about ourselves.Jamie Edmonds is Director of the Critical Languages Institute, Associate Director of the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. His research focuses on Islam, popular culture, and the supernatural in Indonesia.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Dr Clara Siagian from University College London.
Airlangga Julio - The People versus Fadli ZonLast month marked the 28th anniversary of the mass rioting, that shook Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, and other major cities for several days in mid-May 1998. There was widespread looting and arson, which resulted in the deaths of over a 1000 people and large-scale property damage and capital flight. Soon, it was also revealed that incidents of sexual assaults and rapes had occurred on a massive scale. The rioters’ targets were overwhelmingly properties and businesses owned by ethnic Chinese Indonesians. The victims of sexual violence and rapes were also, although not exclusively, Chinese, Indonesian women. In the following days, Suharto’s authority became fractured and his regime fell, ushering in the Reformasi era. Key actors involved in these events of almost three decades ago, are today at the centre of power in Indonesia. Prabowo Subianto, now President, was then Commander of Kostrad, the Army Strategic Reserve Command, and Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, now Defence Minister, was then Commander in charge of Jakarta, Pangkoops Jaya. At the time, Sjamsoeddin’s failure to protect the capital was singled out for condemnation. Around the fringes of these events was also Fadli Zon, a long-time supporter of Prabowo, who by his own account, was close to the now president as the events of May 1998 played out. When he was appointed the Minister of Culture in Prabowo’s first cabinet in 2024, Fadli Zon immediately embarked on a controversial project to rewrite Indonesia’s official history for school curricula. He had a particular interest in the way in which the history of May 1998 would be represented. This became a focus in his public statements about the project, including challenging the historical account of these events accepted by the official government-appointed task force set up after the riots, and by rigorous academic research. Then in June 2025, Zon went on the record questioning if sexual assaults and rapes had taken place. A few months later, a group of advocates, including some of those directly involved in the fact-finding investigation and who provided support to victims at the time, filed a case against the minister in the Jakarta Administrative Court. Following several months of evidence, the trial concluded in April 2026. What was the nature of their case against Minister Zon? How did the court respond? And what implications might this case have for the broader struggle for human rights protections and democracy in Indonesia right now?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Airlangga Julio, associate lawyer at AMAR Law Firm and Public Interest Law Office and a member of the Tim Advokasi Untuk Demokrasi (TAUD, Advocacy Team for Democracy).In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Clara Siagian from University College, London.
that depicts the ocean as the future of our civilisation especially during Jokowi’s administration, Indonesia's relationship with its waters has been largely shaped by an impulse to conquer, control, and extract. It is within this tension that the stories of Indonesia's Sea Nomad peoples become both urgent and instructive. Communities such as the Orang Suku Laut and the Sama-Bajau have maintained deep cultural, social, and economic ties to the ocean across generations. For them, the sea is home, identity, and livelihood, not something to be managed or tamed. Yet these communities are increasingly marginalised, their connection to the sea is systematically eroded for economic development, conservation, and paternalistic policies enacted in the name of their own welfare.In this episode, Dr Clara Siagian speaks with Dr. Wengki Ariando, a scholar-activist from the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV). He is also a part of Sea Nomads Contact Group, a collective of researchers and community representatives with a mission to translate research into advocacy and activisms for the political recognition of Sea Nomads in Southeast Asia. Drawing from more than a decade working with and learning from Sea Nomad communities in Indonesia, Wengki unpacks who Orang Suku Laut and Sama-Bajau are, the nature of their relationship with the sea and the very real threats they face today. Crucially, Wengki also introduces the concept of fluid or rhizomatic territory and Aquapelagos to challenge the dominant, land-based notion of territory as something fixed and bounded, and views the ocean and the land as separate entities. For Sea Nomads, whose lives and identities are organised around movement in water, and between water and land, such conventional territorial frameworks render them invisible and rightless. A rhizomatic understanding of territory, by contrast, opens space for recognising the legitimacy of Sea Nomads' claims to their waters, and with it, the political recognition they are long overdue.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Clara Siagian from the University of College London, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Society and Education and Information Technologies, contributing to scholarship that influences both research and practice.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Clara Siagian from the University of College London, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, and Dr Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Child in school uniform besides child in traditional Papua dress. Photo by Asso Myon/Unsplash.
If you studied Indonesian history in school in the 1990s, you learned to divide the archipelago's past into neat chapters: Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, then Islamic sultanates, with a brief “transitional period” somewhere in between. Colonial archaeologists created these categories in the nineteenth century, and they've structured Indonesian historiography ever since — shaping not just how we study ancient sites, but what counts as history in the first place and what we archive and remember for the future. But visit Sendang Duwur, a sixteenth-century Islamic compound in East Java, and these categories start to fracture. Here, soaring temple gates with Hindu iconography guard an active mosque. Pilgrims climb stairs designed like pathways to heaven, passing through spaces that refuse singular religious meanings. The site has been continuously inhabited, renovated, and reinterpreted for five centuries, yet archaeological scholarship tends to freeze it in time. What if this framework blinds us to how Javanese communities actually understand sacred space? What recourse do scholars have to resist these inherited categories and imagine decolonial futures for Indonesian archaeology?In this week's episode, Tito chats with Panggah Ardiyansyah, a Research Associate at the Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield, whose research challenges us to read Indonesian antiquities through Indonesian epistemologies. Drawing on his paper Fragment and Evocation: Hindu-Buddhist Hauntings in the Islamic Complex of Sendang Duwur published in the journal Art History in 2025 as part of a special edition on decoloniality, Panggah argues that the concept of kramat — sacred sites imbued with ancestral power — offers better tools for understanding sites like Sendang Duwur than the binaries we inherited from colonial scholarship.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Clara Siagian from the University of College London, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, and Dr Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Rassela Malinda – Papua, development and politics from belowIn his inauguration speech in October 2024 President Prabowo Subianto reiterated his campaign pledge to “achieve food security in the shortest possible time”. He was not the first Indonesian president to make such a declaration. For Jokowi’s administration too and now Prabowo’s, West Papua occupies a central place in its ambitions to achieve both food and energy security, with the rollout of massive sugarcane and palm oil plantations to meet increasing biofuel targets, as well as mega rice production. These plans involve the clearing and development of hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests, the customary lands of the indigenous peoples of these regions. Resource extraction at such scale by the state and the corporations is backed by military force, often rendering the indigenous communities helpless to respond. But some are fighting back. So just what recourse do the customary owners of the forests of Papua have to resist and take a stand, in the face of such powerful forces?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Rassela Malinda, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne who lived and worked with indigenous communities in Papua and whose research gives us rare insights into their struggles from below. She previously worked with the NGO Yayasan Pusaka Bentala Rakyat whose report she draws on in this podcast.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Clara Siagian from University College, London.Image 1: Indigenous activists protesting Merauke food estate project in front of Defence Ministry in Jakarta – October 16, 2024 (Photo by Afriadi Hikmal/Greenpeace)
Rural Java has changed enormously over the past half-century. Girls now finish school, women hold community leadership positions, and dual incomes have become the norm rather than the exception. And yet, many Javanese women will tell you they still cook every meal, manage the household, and show up visibly as devoted wives, on top of everything else.It is this gap between what has changed and what has not that drives the research of Dr Linda Susilowati, a lecturer at Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana in Salatiga. Drawing on her doctoral fieldwork in Wonogiri, Central Java with over two hundred women, men, and community members across generations, Linda traces how gender roles have been renegotiated, and how cultural expectations have proven far more resilient than economic or infrastructural change alone.In this episode, recorded in the spirit of International Women’s Day, Dr Clara Siagian chats with Linda about generational shifts in rural Javanese women’s lives, the enduring weight of kodrat (predetermined nature) and kewajiban (obligation), and how Julia Suryakusuma’s concept of State Ibuism appears in contemporary Indonesia.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Clara Siagian from the University of College London, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Timor Leste became independent from Indonesia in 2002, after 24 painful years of Indonesian occupation built on centuries of Portuguese colonisation. Both regimes were deeply violent and extractive, and as my guest today argues, drew Timorese society into different forms of a valorised armed masculinity that would have repercussions well after Timor’s independence. It’s in this post-conflict context that Mel Johnston examines Timor’s gender interventions. Gender mainstreaming is a global set of strategies, interventions and approaches that seek to address the inequality of being a women in policy-making. These set of principals have particular traction in the region. Gender mainstreaming has been mandatory in Indonesia since 2000. In Timor Leste, gender mainstreaming is so important its crystallised in the actual constitution. And yet, Mel went to East Timor to investigate women’s lives after independence, she found deep tensions between the goal of peace on one hand and gender equality on the other. Why would this be so? Did Timor’s independence transform the role of women in Timorese society? How did major gender reforms like microfinance and the law against domestic violence impact ordinary Timorese women? Today we will be talking about Mel Johnston’s prize winning book, Building Peace, Rebuilding Patriarchy
—and potentially worse than the system it replaces.At the heart of the controversy: police can still arrest and detain people without a warrant and Amnesty International has identified 88 articles that could be used to silence critics and criminalize peaceful dissent.So which is it? A historic reform that modernises the Indonesian justice, or a step backward that gives authorities concerning new powers? In this episode, we're speaking with a legal expert who's been following this law since its drafting. Maidina Rahmawati has over 8 years of experience in criminal justice reform advocacy. She is a certified advocate/litigator and mediator, and currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR). Mai holds a Master of Laws from the University of New South Wales, specialising in Criminal Justice and Human Rights. She is newly appointed as a lecturer in Criminal Law and Human Rights at Atma Jaya University Jakarta and in Criminal Law in the undergraduate Criminology program at the University of Indonesia (UI).
As Indonesia grapples with increasingly frequent climate disasters—from the devastating floods in Sumatra and Aceh to prolonged droughts affecting food security—a new book is rejecting the usual solutions. No carbon credits. No waiting for the next Elon Musk. Instead, Bacaan Bumi asks: what if the answers lie in Indonesia's own revolutionary history, its constitutional foundations, and its diverse philosophical traditions?Published by Yayasan Obor Pustaka Indonesia last year, Bacaan Bumi began as a monthly supplement for Inside Indonesia magazine—where, we should acknowledge, several Talking Indonesia hosts are also involved. (Yes, this is a slightly nepotistic episode, but we promise the ideas are worth it.) The supplement was initiated by Gerry van Klinken, a longtime Indonesia scholar and one of the board members of Inside Indonesia, and brought together 17 Indonesian academics, activists, and thinkers who argue that technology and market mechanisms alone won't save us. Instead, they propose something more radical: an eco-socialist manifesto rooted in Indonesian soil.The book emerged from conversations sparked by a groundbreaking summer school on critical environmental history at Gadjah Mada University—Indonesia's first university program of its kind. The response has been striking: packed book launches across Java, students demanding more courses, and activists finding new language to connect Marxist commodity analysis with Javanese mysticism, Islamic green theology with feminist readings of adat traditions, and Sukarno's Marhaenism with 21st-century ecological citizenship.The editors don't call it an academic collection. They call it a manifesto. In his introduction, Farabi Fakih writes that Indonesia's environmental movement in the 21st century is “the natural continuation of the Southern revolution imagined by Sukarno.” He explicitly rejects what he calls the “techno-magical narrative” of Silicon Valley billionaires and the “declensionist narrative” of inevitable doom—both of which, he argues, serve to disable collective action against capitalism.But what does an environmental manifesto look like in the Indonesian context? How do you connect Marx's theory of metabolic rift to flood disasters in Sumatra? Why do young Indonesians find hope in pan-psychism and Kendeng mountain feminism? And what happens when you discover that Indonesia's 1945 constitution already contains ecological philosophy that's been largely forgotten?In this episode, we had a conversation with two of Bacaan Bumi's key contributors: Farabi Fakih, who heads the Master's program in History at Gadjah Mada University where the critical environmental history curriculum was born, and Fathun Karib, a historical sociologist, postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute, and founding member of punk band Critical Death. Together they explore why genuine solutions must come from within Indonesia, why book tours revealed both hope and anxiety among younger generations, and how a 1960s Indonesian constitutional provision about the earth might offer more wisdom than all of Silicon Valley's promises combined.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Clara Siagian from University College London.
After the floods – Alfira O’Sullivan and MurtalaIn late November last year, heavy rainfall brought by Cyclone Senyar saw massive floods and landslides hit large parts of West and North Sumatra and Aceh Province. The images captured on cell phones and quickly sent across the world showed horrifying scenes of villages swept away by raging rivers and mudslides; and astonishingly, tree logs coursing down hillsides, collecting everything in their wake. The cost of this disaster, six weeks later, is still being counted. The National Disaster Management Agency's official tally has around 1,200 people killed, with hundreds still missing and thousands more injured. Over 230,000 people remained displaced. In the wake of the disaster, in a somewhat surprising shift in tone, government officials joined scientists and environmental experts in acknowledging that changes to these landscapes caused by large-scale deforestation and forest conversion were contributing factors to the disaster and must be addressed. Whilst this was welcomed, concrete policy is still to come, and aid has been slow to reach those in need with victims calling for more and faster assistance.Over a month later, what is the situation in these affected areas? Just how huge is the scale of this disaster? And how are the people of Aceh coping with yet another massive natural disaster? In this week's episode Jemma chats with Alfira O’Sullivan and Murtala, directors of Suara Indonesia Dance. Mur, originally from Banda Aceh, worked as a volunteer assisting in the wake of the 2002 tsunami. Together with friends and colleagues in Aceh, they are coordinating relief efforts in flood-stricken Aceh.In 2026, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Clara Siagian from University College London.
Jakarta is said to be in a water crisis. This is a familiar claim that has been repeated for years as parts of the city sink, groundwater is over-extracted, and access to clean water remains uneven. Yet what, precisely, is the crisis that Jakarta is facing?In this episode of Talking Indonesia, I speak with Wahyu Astuti, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, whose research shows that Jakarta’s water crisis is not singular, but defined in multiple and competing ways. She traces how certain framings of the crisis are sidelined, while others are actively promoted, and asks how the state narrates the water problem amid pressures to move away from privatization.Following UN-Habitat’s recent designation of Jakarta and the surrounding regions as the world’s largest city, with an estimated 42 million people across its metropolitan region, questions of how life is sustained at this scale become unavoidable. Water sits at the centre of these questions. This conversation unpacks the political and financial logics shaping water governance today, revealing how efforts to make water provision financially viable draw in different levels of government, new institutional arrangements, investment actors, and private businesses.As Ayu’s research makes clear, the drive to build a water system that can “pay for itself” does not resolve Jakarta’s water crisis. Instead, it produces a governance system riddled with contradictions that shapes how the crisis is understood, and who ultimately bears its consequences.In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Clara Siagian from University College London, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
regime. His rule brought rapid economic development, lifting millions out of poverty and transforming Indonesia into a regional power. But it was also marked by systematic human rights violations, including the mass killings of alleged communists in 1965-66, as well as brutal crackdowns in East Timor, Aceh, and West Papua. His regime was characterized by media censorship, restrictions on freedom, and widespread corruption.The decision to honour Suharto came despite protests from over 500 civil society members, academics, and activists who argue the designation whitewashes history and betrays the victims of his regime. But defenders point to his role in Indonesia's economic transformation and his contributions during the independence era.In this episode Elisabeth Kramer is joined by historian Dr. Ken Setiawan and Lailly Prihatiningtyas, a PhD student representing Sydney group Aliansi Gusar, to explore what this designation means for Indonesia's democracy, its memory politics, and its ongoing struggle with accountability for past atrocities. We also ask, how have young people reacted to this, and what does it mean to them?Dr Setiawan has written a highly relevant article on historical revisionism under the Prabowo presidency, which you can find at https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/of-heroes-and-villains-prabowos-playbook-for-power-and-historical-revisionism/. Dr Ken Setiawan is a Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies and a Deputy Director (Diversity and Inclusion) at the Asia Institute, Faculty of Arts. She is also an Associate at the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS) at the Melbourne Law School. Ken's research interests include globalisation and human rights, historical violence and transitional justice, as well as gender and civil society. She has widely published on the politics of human rights in Indonesia, and teaches in the areas of Indonesian Studies, including language, and Asian Studies, with a particular focus on politics and human rights.Lailly Prihatiningtyas is a PhD candidate and research consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney. Her work focuses on the governance of just energy transitions, green jobs, and labour market institutions, especially in Southeast Asia. She has more than a decade of diverse professional experience in Indonesia, working with government, development organisations, the private sector, and NGOs. She is part of Aliansi GUSAR (Gerakan untuk Sydney Bersuara), a grassroots collective of Indonesian diasporas in Sydney concerned with justice and equality in Indonesia, and joins Talking Indonesia to share a civic engagement perspective on social justice, state accountability, and the impacts of political decisions on ordinary Indonesian citizens.
Cast your minds back to February 2024, in the campaign lull before Indonesians hit the ballot box, a documentary unceremoniously dropped on youtube. Now, documentaries on electoral campaigning are legion, and generally they attract a pretty narrow audience. By contrast, Dirty Vote, directed by acclaimed Indonesian investigative journalist, Dhandy Dwi Laksono, garnered 6.4 million eyeballs in the first 48 hours, over the week Dirty vote attracted half a million tweet on twitter, trending worldwide. Overall Dirty Vote had over 30 million viewers. So to say Dirty Vote went viral would be putting it mildly. And yet Dirty Vote was anything but ephemeral. In a large warehouse, against what was a essentially a giant power-point deck, three nationally renowned Constitutional lawyers, Bivitri Susanti, Feri Amsari and Zainal Arifin Mochtar systematically laid out the case for a critical double take on how key figures, principally then- President Jokowi, were using all the instruments of the state to ensure the 2024 national election would be won by his anointed successor, Prabowo Subianto. This included Bansos, or social welfare payments, the use of police to pressure and criminalise village heads and opposition figures, and of course, the Supreme Court decision’s overturning the election law to allow Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka to run as VP. Now that team is back, with their sequel Dirty Vote two, and they are here once again to methodically unpack the consolidation of the Prabowo regime. My guest today is Dirty Vote presenter, Dr Zainal Arifin Mochtar, Professor at the faculty of Law at the Gadjah Mada University. Pak Zainal has been involved in the establishment and running of number of research centres, including Pukat Korupsi UGM, the Centre for Anti-Corruption Studies, Caksana Institute and the Administrative Law Society. He also serves on the board of the Partnership for Governance Reform and has won numerous awards over his career, including the Muhammad Yamin Constitution Award in 2016 and the Best Constitutional Law writer from the Constitutional Court in 2018. You can find Dirty Vote 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=895Cqij7i00
Corruption is always a hot topic in Indonesia, but where does the situation stand right now? In this episode, we talk to Egi Primayogha who is the advocacy coordinator for the NGO Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) about their assessment of the current government and their recent report entitled Catatan Kritis (or critical notes) on the first year of the Prabawo-Gibran government. ICW was formed in 1998 and, unfortunately, their role in keeping the government accountable is as important as ever. The report highlights a number of areas of concern, many of course are not new in Indonesian politics. The impact of dynastic politics, patronage driving cabinet appointments and the lack of oversight that the parliament is having over government policies and activities are all mentioned as ongoing issues. The report also looks more closely at corruption and lack of accountability in the Free Healthy Meal Program, known as Makanan Bergizi Gratis or MBG, which has been in the news recently for large numbers of students being struck with food poisoning. All in all, the report is a reminder that democracy is tough road with many obstacles and civil society groups like ICW are crucial for keeping corruption and transparency in the spotlight.Our guest today, Egi Primayogha is a member of Indonesia Corruption Watch with more than 10 years of experience leading investigations, research, and advocacy to promote transparency and accountability. His work focuses on state capture, politico-business corruption, and the intersection of governance and climate issues.Image used with permission, Indonesia Corruption Watch.
A ‘re’-writing history project - Grace LeksanaShortly after taking up his position as the Minister for Culture and Education in the Prabowo government, Fadli Zon announced he was commissioning a reworking of the official Indonesian history textbook. In early 2025, outlines of the project’s terms of reference started to trickle out, and historians, activists and survivors’ groups grew increasingly concerned. The new version, assembled without broad consultation, contained a raft of significant changes and glaring omissions, including human rights violations carried out by the New Order, and the roles of women at various stages in Indonesia’s pre- and post-independence past. Moreover, Minister Zon was determined to deliver the new book in time for the celebration of Indonesia’s 80th anniversary of independence on 17 August. That deadline has now passed but the project remains in progress.What and who was behind this ‘rewriting’ history project? What were their motives? What ‘red flags’ most alarmed historians and others, and ultimately what can be done to resist and possibly reverse the course of this project? In this week's episode Jemma chats with Grace Leksana an Assistant Professor in Indonesian history in the Cultural History section of Utrecht University. Grace is author of Memory culture of the anti Leftist violence in Indonesia: Embedded Remembering (Amsterdam University Press, 2023). She is a member of the Indonesian History Openness Alliance (AKSI).In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
On August 25 2025, protestors took to the streets in Jakarta outside the parliament to vocalise their loss of confidence in the current parliament. While the protests were triggered by a newly announced increase in parliamentarian housing allowances, the protests were about so much more. Underpinning it all was a general lack of confidence that Indonesian politicians care about, or were effectively responding to, the very real struggles of everyday Indonesians that they are supposed to be representing. These protests spread to other parts of the country and in some cases, turned deadly.In today’s special episode, we turn to the thoughts and responses of Indonesians currently living overseas. Being away from home when such serious and concerning events are underway poses its own challenges, and today I want to find out more about how they are getting information, what they see as the key issues, and what can be done from abroad. Elisabeth Kramer talks to Indonesian students currently studying at the University of Sydney, Australia--Mahesti Hasanah (PhD Candidate Political Economy), Benni Hasbiyalloh (PhD Candidate Government and International Relations) and Ifana Tungga (Masters Candidate Cultural Studies). They are some of the organisers behind Aliansi Gusar, a grassroots based organisation concerned with justice and equality in Indonesia. They share their thoughts and experiences regarding the current protests and organising around ongoing issues in Indonesia. This podcast was recorded on 7 September 2025.
In late August, demonstrations against housing allowances for national parliamentarians escalated dramatically when a motorcycle delivery driver, Affan Kurniawan, caught up in the protests, was run over by a police tactical vehicle. His death, live-streamed, saw waves of protests in at least 47 Indonesian cities in a convulsion of genuine national rage and frustration. Parliaments were set on fire in at least 4 cities, police stations were attacked, and the homes of prominent political figures were looted, including Finance Minister Sri Mulyani. Our social media feeds were awash with footage of angry protestors and police brutality. Ibu Ana, a housewife in Jakarta, caught the national mood when she was photographed in the rain in thongs and a pink headscarf, facing down a cordon of heavily armed police officers with the Indonesian flag on a bamboo pole. Who are these protestors? How did they mobilise so fast? What do they want and how will they achieve it? Super fans of the podcast might remember Rebecca Meckelburg from a year ago when I interviewed her on agrarian change. Her view from Central Java, where she lives, complicates conventional pictures of a protest movement that spontaneously burst into view last week, originating in Jakarta and spreading out to the peripheries.
While Jakarta's eviction politics have often dominated headlines and grassroots campaigns, the experiences of those who have been relocated to rusunawa (social housing) complexes have remained largely invisible. Yet these families reveal how Indonesia's vision of urban modernity is being literally built into the architecture of everyday life, changing the ways people connect with each other and build their lives.In this episode of Talking Indonesia, host Tito Ambyo explores these tensions with guest Dr Clara Siagian, whose ethnographic research uncovers how social housing design enforces specific values of respectability on the urban poor - from banning certain cooking methods to restructuring family life itself.Clara Siagian did her PhD at the Australian National University and is senior researcher at the Center on Child Protection and Wellbeing at Universitas Indonesia as well as a postgraduate researcher at the University College London. Her research examines urban governance, childhood policy, and development through the perspectives of marginalised populations.In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr. Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University and Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre.
From the algorithms that curate your social media feed to the recommendation systems that influence what you buy, artificial intelligence is quietly reshaping every aspect of our daily lives. Yet most of us remain in the dark about how these powerful technologies are governed—and that's a problem we can't afford to ignore.Artificial Intelligence (or AI) policy isn't just about tech regulation; it's about who gets to shape the future of work, privacy, and power in our increasingly digital world. The rules being written today will determine whether AI serves all of society or just a privileged few.In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Elisabeth Kramer dives into Indonesia's approach to AI governance, taking its cues from the private sector, with guest Diah Angendari.Diah Angendari is a PhD Candidate at Leiden University and her dissertation examines the interplay between imaginaries, power, and interests in policymaking. She’s using the case study of AI in Indonesia to understand the factors that shape these policies. Prior to joining the PhD program, Diah was a lecturer in the Department of Communication Science at Gadjah Mada University.
Palm oil contributes to up 4.5% to Indonesia’s GDP and unlike other commodities, the Indonesian government promotes palm oil as motor of rural development. This is because up to half of Indonesia’s palm oil production is generated by smallholders, farmers with 2-3 hectares of land, cultivating oil palm crops and selling the product for reliable market prices to corporate and state refineries. But this model of national development is in crisis. Small holder palm oil plants are aging, yields are decreasing and company profits are becoming leaner. At the same time, major markets are putting pressure on Indonesia’s palm oil industry for its environmental impact, including rampant deforestation and biodiversity loss. To address this crisis, the former Jokowi government embarked on an ambitious plan to help small holders replant their declining palm oil, this time in accordance with new standards of sustainability. But as my guest, Ara Simanjuntak, today reveals, the new government grants given to smallholders to help is creating new sources of precarity, anxiety and indebtedness that is fundamentally transforming the nature of rural development in Indonesia.To bet the farm, the title of this episode, is an expression in English. It means to risk everything on an uncertain outcome. And this, argues Ara is akin to what Indonesia’s palm oil smallholders are being asked to do. To talk about these issues, I’m here with Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak, or Ara, PhD candidate in Anthropology from Northwestern University.
Nurwanto Nurwanto - School Violence and Bullying In recent months Indonesians have grown increasingly concerned and indeed outraged following several reports of deadly violence involving children as young as elementary school age. In a case in Riau in May an eight-year-old boy died after complications due to a ruptured appendix, which his parents believe was the result of beatings he suffered at the hands of fellow students aged 11-13 years. Around the same time, a video when viral of a brawl involving 20 primary school aged children in Depok. In response, the Governor of West Java, Dedi Mulyadi, called for the students involved to be sent to military camps. These recent cases have focused the country’s attention on what has been a critical issue for some time. In 2024 the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) reported that cases of violence among school students had increased 32%, and a 2018 PISA survey showed that 41% of Indonesian students aged 15 years reported being bullied, nearly double the OECD average of 23%. Across various levels of government and among stakeholders a range of regulations and taskforces have been established to tackle the issue, but they are falling short. What is school violence and bullying and why is it becoming more prevalent among young people? What are schools, parents and policymakers currently doing to tackle it, and what more needs to be done?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Nurwanto, a lecturer education at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. His Phd thesis is titled 'Nurturing peace through education: advocating a pedagogy of love in urban schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia', University of Western Sydney, 2023.In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Flickr CC/lau rey
Justinus Lhaksana - Indonesian Football and the Road to the 2026 World CupIn October 2022, the image of Indonesian football filling news bulletins around the world was one of tragedy and horror at the huge loss of life sparked by clashes between fans and security agents at a football match in Kanjuruhan, East Java. Less than three years later, this image is being replaced some by something quite different. In June this year, Indonesia did what no other Southeast Asian football team has done since the 1930s and proceeded to the fourth round of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup to be held in Canada, Mexico and the USA in 2026.To get this far Indonesia beat both China and Bahrain at home after going down to Australia and Japan away in the third round of qualifying. Now, only two matches stand between this team becoming the first to represent the Republic of Indonesia at a FIFA World Cup. In 1938, it was the first Asian nation to go to a FIFA World Cup but was of course competing under the Dutch East Indies flag.The success of the Indonesian national team or Timnas Garuda, so far is due to a well-orchestrated plan to bolster the team from without and make significant investment within. Reeling from the Kanjuruhan tragedy and the international and domestic response to it, in February 2023, Joko Widodo appointed Erick Thohir, the Minister for State-Owned Enterprises in his government, as the new chairman of the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) with a mandate for the total reform of football, to tackle its myriad problems. For Thohir, a millionaire former owner of football teams in Europe, North America and Indonesia and with deep links in FIFA itself, this was also an opportunity to reshape Indonesian football from the top down.The project to reform the national team had in fact started some years earlier under the then South Korean coach, Shin Tae-yong. At its core was the recruitment of players of Dutch descent who after naturalisation would qualify to play for Indonesia. Since 2020, at least 15 players in the men's team have been naturalised and very recently four Dutch women footballers of Indonesian descent were also naturalised and will play in the Indonesian squad. The next major milestone in this larger plan came in January this year, with the appointment of former Dutch superstar Patrick Kluivert as coach of Timnas. It is now his task to finish the job and get the Garudas to the World Cup.Why undertake such a project of naturalization for the national teams? How have the fans responded to this influx of imported players? What is the state of Indonesia's domestic football league and down to the grassroots that has made it necessary in the first place? And what will it take for Indonesian football to overcome its challenges and finally take its place on the world stage?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Justinus Lhaksana, a football commentator (https://www.youtube.com/@CoachJustinl28/videos) and former coach of the Indonesian national futsal team. In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Image: Eliano Reijnders and Mees Hilgers receive their naturalisation certificates at the Indonesian Embassy in Brussels, 1 October 2024.
When you order food through Gojek or Grab in Indonesia, you're not just getting dinner delivered, but you're also participating in what has become a sophisticated digital platform economy. These food apps have fundamentally transformed how millions of Indonesians eat, shop, and navigate daily life, while generating billions in revenue for tech unicorns that now rival traditional media conglomerates in their cultural influence.But how exactly are these online food platforms reshaping Indonesian society? And what happens when we compare their impact across different cultural and economic contexts? A fascinating new study by Nadia Egalita, a PhD researcher at RMIT, offers insights into these questions through comparative ethnographic research conducted in Surabaya and Melbourne.Egalita's research reveals striking disparities in how online food delivery operates across class lines in Indonesia. While upper-middle-class families with domestic workers and dual kitchen systems allow children to order multiple meals daily, lower-middle-class households use these platforms primarily as treats for kids. Meanwhile, in Melbourne, rising costs have made food delivery a luxury that forces people back into their kitchens, challenging assumptions about technology inevitably replacing traditional cooking practices.Using innovative “digital walkthrough” methods that examine participants' actual ordering histories alongside their stated preferences, Egalita uncovers the gap between what people say they eat and what they actually consume. Her findings challenge common narratives about digital platforms isolating users, instead revealing how families bond over scrolling through menus and negotiating meal choices together.The research also offers fresh perspectives on platform capitalism, digital labor conditions, and the changing nature of domestic life in Indonesia and Australia. We'll explore how these seemingly simple convenience apps are actually reshaping everything from kitchen design to intergenerational relationships, while examining the regulatory challenges posed by Indonesia's growing platform oligarchy.In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Despite significant strides in recent decades, Indonesia continues to face one of Southeast Asia's higher maternal mortality rates. A recent study published by Syaraji and colleagues (2024) found that for every 100,000 live births, approximately 249 women die from pregnancy-related causes.In Jakarta and other major cities, expectant mothers often access modern facilities staffed by trained professionals. But travel just hours outside these urban hubs, particularly to eastern provinces or remote islands, and the picture changes dramatically. There, a shortage of qualified healthcare workers, limited emergency obstetric services, and challenging geography create significant barriers to care.The Indonesian government has implemented several initiatives to address these issues, including the deployment of community midwives to rural areas and the expansion of universal health coverage through the Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional program. But implementation gaps remain, with many women still facing obstacles, particularly in terms of medical staff shortages and lack of resources, that discourage them from seeking standard medical care during, and following, their pregnancies.Joining us is Dr. Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, Professor at the University of York, whose research has looked at healthcare policy implementation and regional disparities in Southeast Asia. Today, Dr. Shair-Rosenfield will help us explore these complexities in Indonesia, drawing on her research across the Indonesian archipelago and across different levels of government to examine what's working, what isn't, and what policy solutions might bridge the gap between urban privilege and rural vulnerability in maternal care.Dr Shair-Rosenfield's work has been published in a number of prominent journals and by Michigan and Oxford University Presses. She is the editor in chief of the Journal Political Studies and also a founding member of the Women in Southeast Asia Social Sciences network, affectionately known as Wiseass.
Evi Mariani - Media FreedomIn March this year parcels containing a pig’s head and the carcasses of dead rats were sent to the offices of Tempo magazine in Jakarta. The story made international headlines and led to an outpouring of support and condemnation from across Indonesia’s mediascape and public more broadly. Known for its deep investigative reporting the magazine’s chief editor described the brazen threat on its journalists as an act of terrorism. Just weeks after the attack on Tempo, the latest World Press Freedom Index downgraded Indonesia’s rating across all indicators. Media organisations and news outlets across the world face inevitable decline and are struggling to maintain relevance in the face of competition from social media platforms, content creators and influencers. In Indonesia, mass layoffs of journalists are imminent as the old commercial model collapses. In response, a new, although undeniably small movement of independent journalism is pushing back with the aim of finding new ways to beat both the algorithm and those seeking to suppress press freedoms.So what is the state of the media in Indonesia today? What protections are in place for journalists and in the midst of political, economic and technological challenges, who will stand up for a free press?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Evi Mariani, journalist and co-founder of the independent journalism collective, Project Multatuli.In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: With permission Project Multatuli
In recent years, Indonesia has experienced a remarkable transformation in its gaming landscape, with mobile esports emerging as a powerful cultural and economic force. What was once considered a fringe activity now enjoys mainstream legitimacy, supported by both grassroots communities and government institutions.In this episode, Tito Ambyo speaks with Haryo Pambuko Jiwandono, a PhD candidate at RMIT University researching mobile game esports in Indonesia. They explore how esports in Indonesia has evolved from informal gatherings at internet cafes to a structured industry with professional teams, government support, and international success. In 2024, Indonesia won the FIFA E World Cup against Brazil and dominated in the Football Manager competition against Germany, marking significant achievements on the global stage.Haryo's research illuminates how mobile games like Mobile Legends and PUBG Mobile have democratised gaming across Indonesia through their accessibility on smartphones, fostering community-centered "play gatherings" in coffee shops and warung. While celebrating these successes, the conversation also examines the precarious economic realities faced by many esports athletes and the challenges for Indonesia's emerging game development industry.From governmental efforts to build sustainable career paths in esports to the tensions between creative freedom and cultural preservation in game development, this episode offers valuable insights into how digital gaming is reshaping Indonesia's social landscape and contributing to its global cultural footprint.
A growing protest movementOn 28 March, in downtime Jakarta across from the Sarinah department store, an unlikely group of protesters gathered holding signs and making speeches. The crowd largely consisted of middleclass women of various ages, gathered under the name ‘Suara Ibu Indonesia’ (Voices of Indonesian Mothers). For the organisers, the choice of name and location for their protest was deliberately designed to evoke a moment in Indonesia’s past, now 27 years ago, when in the final months of the autocratic Suharto regime an economic and political crisis saw student protests met with deadly violence at the hands of the military and police. Then a group called Suara Ibu Peduli (Voices of Concerned Mothers, SIP), tapped into growing concern within wider society about the state of their country. In late March 2025, as student protests at campuses and in front of law offices were once again met with violence by state law enforcement, the women who gathered in downtown Jakarta expressed their fear of a return to unbridled militarism and a contempt for democracy. The revision of the Military (TNI) Law a few weeks earlier, which opens the door for active military figures to occupy more and key positions in the government and bureaucracy, appears to have sparked a broadening of the growing protest movement. As one of the original SIP organisers, Karlina Supelli was quoted as saying, “If mothers have joined the protests, this means that the situation has become critical.”What compelled the Suara Ibu Indonesia protesters to go to the streets now? What are the urgent concerns of activists and students amid a time they describe as ‘Indonesia Gelap’? Can such opposition to the newly installed Prabowo government be sustained for the long haul? In this week's episode Jemma chats with Olin Montiero, a feminist activist, researcher, writer, consultant and producer. Olin has been working for the women 's movement since the 1990s and was a member of the Suara Ibu Peduli movement in 1998. She has founded several women organisations in Indonesia, including the network Peace Women Across the Globe Indonesia and ArtsforWomen, connecting women activists, artists, art workers and cultural workers for a feminist collaborative space. Olin facilitates feminist networks Jagat Setara (Online platform feminist discussion), Woke Asia Feminist (young feminist in Asia network), and FeministArt Community (a new young people discussion on art creativity and feminism). In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Olin Monteiro
Bones can tell us so much about the past, not just about the ancestry of modern humans (or homo sapiens) but also about the people and cultures of times long forgotten. When we think about Indonesia’s place in history, we’re often inclined to think about the histories that shape the socio-cultural and political dynamics we see today. But Indonesia’s global historical significance goes way beyond this when we start considering how Indonesia features in early movements and migrations of humans and how they might have lived. It's estimated that ancient humans travelled through Wallacea, what we now understand as Eastern Indonesia, at least 50,000 years ago (possibly even before 65,000 years ago) before coming to Australia and its surrounding islands. There is also evidence of pre-modern ancestry- the most famous, perhaps, being the discovery of skeletal remains in Central Java, which became known as the “Java man,” in the 1890s. These were the first known fossils of the species homo erectus. While difficult to pinpoint precisely, the most recent estimates date these remains to being around 1.3 million years old. You may also recall the discovery of the Flores hobbits in the early 2000s, when skeletal remains of a species of “tiny humans” was found. These are estimated to be somewhere between 190,000 to 50,000 years old.Today’s guest is very familiar with the information we can glean from old bones. Dr Melandri Vlok has experience working on archaeological projects in Kalimantan and Sulawesi. She’s a bioarchaeologist and palaeopathologist who specialises in the Asia-Pacific region. One of her truly impressive claims to fame is her work in the discovery of a 31,000 year-old skeleton which shows strong signs of being one of the earliest known examples of a successful amputation, which you can read about in the highly renowned journal Nature. She’s also a member of the exclusive National Geographic Explorers community, having received funding through the program to further her research.
In Indonesia, a country prone to disasters and emergencies, effective risk communication can mean the difference between safety and vulnerability for millions. But what happens when risk communication fails to reach those most marginalised? How do social determinants of health impact how urban poor women navigate crises like the COVID-19 pandemic?In this week's episode, Tito Ambyo chats with Citra Lestari, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. With a background as a risk communication professional and drawing on her personal experience as a mother, Citra's research focuses on how urban poor women in Jakarta understand and respond to health crises. She explores the cognitive, affective, and socio-cultural factors that influence risk perception among marginalised communities, challenging the notion of "ignorant others" who simply fail to understand expert advice.Citra's research reveals how protocols designed to mitigate risk often fail to consider the everyday realities of those living in informal settlements, where economic precarity and fear of authorities shape decision-making. She argues for a dialogic approach to risk communication that centers marginalised voices and develops localised knowledge rather than imposing universal protocols that may be impossible to follow.In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT University.
Queer Muslims and Their AlliesAmid Indonesia’s conservative turn, the moral panics of the 2010s and the introduction of the draconian Criminal Code in 2022, LGBTQI+ people are as vulnerable as at any time in the country’s modern history. In a nation with the world’s largest Muslim population and where religion plays a central role in defining belonging and nationalism, the identities of queer Indonesian Muslims provide valuable insight into how these subjectivities are negotiated in everyday life. How do queer Muslims maintain their faith and religious practices in an increasingly hostile environment? While in the West religion and queerness are often seen as incompatible, how and why do LGBTQI+ Indonesian Muslims hold onto their faith? How does progressive Islam inform the work of their Allies and what support do they provide? In this week's episode Jemma chats with Dr Diego Garcia Rodriguez, a Leverhulme-funded Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. His book, 'Gender, Sexuality and Islam in Contemporary Indonesia: Queer Muslims and Their Allies' (Routledge), was published in English in 2024 and will be published in Indonesian by Marjin Kiri in 2025. In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Photo by Project M/Narriswari dan Sang Daulat
This past week has seen what some have argued are the first big mobilisations of the new Prabowo government, with coordinated student protests across 12 cities under the banner of Indonesia Gelap, or “Dark Indonesia”. The students list a number of demands, from human rights to environmental issues, but the trigger for these protests lie in deep budgetary cuts initiated across the public service, to the tune of US$44 billion. The worst ministries and agencies, including the Ministry for Manpower and the Ministry for Public Works, have proposed cuts of up to 55%. The National Consumer Protection Agency is being cut a whopping 73%. Meanwhile, the police, the Ministry for Defence and the Supreme Court are seeing cuts of around 15-16%. The government is selling these cuts as efficiency dividends for a sluggish and unproductive bureaucracy, and the savings will be directly diverted to fund Prabowo’s policy promises. This includes of course, Prabowo’s signature investment in human capital, the MBG, or Free Nutritious Meals program. But around half of these savings, US$20 billion, will be diverted to a a new sovereign wealth fund, known as Danantara, which stands for Daya Anagata Nusantara. Danantara is a super-holding company for state enterprises, modelled on Singapore’s Temasek, which will be used to invest in mega projects like food estates, renewables and nickel. What is Prabowo’s economic agenda? How will reshape the country and confront the key challenges in the years ahead? Will Prabowo’s economic plans take the country closer to its grand plans for Golden Indonesia 2045? To help us unpack Prabonomics is Riandy Laksono, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies or CSIS in Jakarta and Australia-Awards PhD candidate at The Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at the Australian National University.
Climate Change is well-recognised as a massive challenge facing society today. It is clear that the political, economic and social consequences of climate change will not be felt equally, not only globally but also across Indonesia. Geography, class and—indeed--gender dynamics will influence how individuals Indonesians experience and respond to climate change. But it’s not just the environmental impacts that require navigation. As Arora-Johnson wrote in 2011, within the gender and climate development nexus, poor, rural-based women are portrayed as the most vulnerable and likely to die due to climate events. So, are these portrayals accurate? And how have they influenced thinking about women’s roles in climate crisis projects. Sustainable development projects that seek to address climate change are often coupled with questions of how to address inequality, with a narrow focus on what gender inequality actually is and who is responsible for overcoming it.In this episode, Elisabeth Kramer speaks with Dr Jane Ahlstrand, a Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the University of New England, about her new research project on the relationship between climate crisis projects, sustainable development and gender in Indonesia. Jane completed her PhD at the University of Queensland, where she examined the use of language in the Indonesian online news media to represent women politicians and their dynamic relationship with power during a period of political and social transition. She is the author of the book, Women, Media, and Power in Indonesia published by Routledge in 2022.Photo: Project M/Yuli Z
In Melbourne and across Australia, Indonesian diaspora communities are reimagining what it means to celebrate their cultural identity through art, food, and the simple act of "nongkrong" - hanging out. But what happens when these cultural practices become spaces for exploring complex questions about belonging, identity, and ethical settlement on Aboriginal land?What does it mean to maintain connections to Indonesia while building new communities in Australia? How can festivals become sites of both cultural celebration and critical dialogue? And what roles do art and creative practice play in helping diaspora communities navigate their layered identities?In this episode, Tito Ambyo talks with Moira Tirtha, founder of Melbourne's Nongkrong Festival and a researcher studying Indonesian creative diaspora. Together they explore how the festival has evolved from a simple gathering among friends to become an important space for cultural dialogue and community building. Through their conversation, we learn about the complexities of Indonesian-Australian identity and how cultural events can create meaningful connections across communities.Moira is both a researcher and cultural producer, bringing unique insights into how festivals can serve as sites of research and cultural expression. Her work examines how Indonesian creative diaspora contribute to both their adopted homes and homeland, moving beyond traditional economic measures to explore cultural and social impacts.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Photo: Nongkrong Festival 2023 [Photo credit needed]
Art, activism and a cancelled show - Wulan DirgantoroLate last year news media splashed the image of an elderly artist standing before a locked door at the National Gallery of Indonesia. The sign behind him displayed his name - Yos Suprapto – and the title of his solo exhibition 'Kebangkitan: Tanah Untuk Kedaulatan Pangan' (Revival: Land for Food Sovereignty), due to have opened on 19 December. The headlines explained that the gallery had cancelled the show with little notice. What followed was a battle of words and claims around the cancellation, or as the gallery described it, it's closure at the behest of the artist. The newly minted Minister for Culture, Fadli Zon, also weighed in.What was it about this exhibition that made it so contentious? Who is the artist and why did this show become a lightning rod for controversy? More broadly, what might it mean for freedom of expression, art and activism in Indonesia?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Dr Wulan Dirgantoro, a lecturer in art history and curatorship at the School of Culture and Communication, the University of Melbourne. In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Yos Suprapto with one of the controversial paintings in his now cancelled exhibition, December 2024Source: IG @politicaljokesid
Late last month, for the first time its history, Indonesia held simultaneous regional elections across 545 provinces, regencies and municipalities across the country. Across 6000 ballot stations, and 1553 contesting candidates, there were upsets in key regions, like Central Java where the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) lost its provincial stronghold, and Jakarta, where PDIP’s underdog candidate, Pramono Anung, took the governorship from the governing coalition’s favourite, Ridwan Kamil. But elsewhere, candidates backed by Prabowo and his ruling KIM coalition handily won the election. This include Dedi Mulyani for governor of West Java, Khofifah Indar Parawansa in East Java, Bobby Nasution in North Sumatra and former “rose team” Kopassus officer, Yulius Selvanas in North Sulawesi. In South Kalimantan, the candidate backed by mining magnate and political powerbroker Haji Isem, also took office. Our avid listeners will remember my colleague Dr Ian Wilson, Senior lecturer in Politics, Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Murdoch University. Ian came on Talking Indonesia in December last year to discuss how the Jokowi government was reshaping the field of political contestation for the 2024 regional elections. Today we have him back to assess what the regional elections round up tells us about how power is being reorganised in Indonesia today.
Vannessa Hearman - East Timor’s Great Famine, 1977-1979Following Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor in December 1975, the forced displacement and mass starvation of its people resulted in what is known as the Great East Timor Famine, 1977-1979. As Indonesian forces moved into the province thousands of people were forced to flee their villages and farms into the mountains and bush, where food sources were scarce. It is estimated that over fifty percent of East Timor’s population of 600,000 was displaced. A report complied by the East Timor Truth, Reception and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) concluded that at least 84,000 people, but possibly up to 180,000, died in the famine. As such this tragedy touched one in two East Timorese. Indonesia’s restrictions on the media and its own propaganda, meant that there was little open reporting on the tragedy as it unfolded.More than two decades since East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia the truth and associated trauma of this conflict-induced famine remains little known.What was the context in which this famine took place? How did it unfold and what was the scale of the suffering of the East Timorese? What media reporting, if any, was there at the time, and what was the international community’s response? And how is the famine remembered in East Timor today and what is being done to bring justice for its victims?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Dr Vannessa Hearman, a senior lecturer in history at Curtin University in Western Australia. Her award-winning monograph, Unmarked Graves: Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia, is a study of the 1965-66 mass violence in Indonesia. Her research deals with the history and politics of Indonesia and Timor-Leste and Australia's engagements with both countries. She is researching the history of East Timorese migration to Australia and how Australian cultural institutions reflect this history in their collections. Her recent publications on East Timor’s famine include, ‘Australian News Photography and Contested Images of Indonesian-Occupied East Timor’, Australian Historical Studies, (2003) 54:3; and ‘Challenges in the pursuit of justice for East Timor’s Great Famine (1977-1979), Third World Quarterly (2024), 45:2. Also see Pat Walsh’s writings on the famine and the fate of the CAVR report Chega!.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: A Peter Rodgers photograph denoting forced displacement, surrender and famine on display at the CNC as part of an exhibition on the history of Timor-Leste’s independence struggle. Source: Raimundo Fraga, CNC.
About 1000km north of Jakarta is a little pocket of paradise, a sprinkle of islands called the Natuna Islands, home to less than 100,000 people. These sparsely populated islands are the gateway to the North Natuna Sea, an area of unparalleled natural wealth. These waters are rich in fish, tuna, mackerel and marine life which sustains fisher livelihoods. This is also an area endowed untapped gas and oil reserves worth many billions of dollars. Indonesia claims the area as within its Exclusive Economic Zone, a right backed up by international maritime law. But China’s controversial nine-dash line, a map that shows China’s claims to the South China Sea, overlaps Indonesia economic zone. And while China withdrew its claim to the actual Natuna Islands way back in 1995, it continues to insist that the maritime gas reserves are well within its rights. The past decade has seen this area militarise at a pace, as skirmishes with Chinese military and an army of illegal fishing trawlers challenge the Indonesian navy. Last week, the dynamics of this conflict took a dramatic turn when it transpired that Indonesia had signed a cooperative statement with China that committed to developing the area together in recognition of, and this is the kicker, overlapping claims on the area. This statement came off the back of President Prabowo Subianto’s maiden diplomatic jaunt, an ambitious itineray to Beijing, Washington and a host of other countries in service of Indonesia's economic interests. But the joint statement left analysts and observers wondering, did Prabowo, the muscular nationalist, get played? To talk about these issues, I’ve invited Aristyo Darmawan who is a Lecturer in International Law at Universitas Indonesia and PhD candidate at the Australian National University where he is currently writing his dissertation on how maritime law influences Indonesian foreign policy. You can find Aristyo on his Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aristyodarmawan/
We often talk hear about the lives and living conditions of Indonesian migrant workers, many of them going to countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and states in the Middle East to find employment. In its 2024 Empowering Migrant Workers report, the United Nations Development Project estimated that 9 million Indonesians are working abroad. With such a large cohort overseas, the rights and welfare of this labour force is a focus of the Indonesia government. And for good reason too, as we’ve all heard concerning stories of poor treatment, and particularly gendered violence, that can occur.However, what, or who, we hear much less about are the approximately 400,000 foreigners working in Indonesia. Has the Indonesian government’s concern for Indonesian citizens in foreign lands translated at all to an awareness of the need to protect foreign workers within its own borders? Who comprises this diverse group and what are their experiences of labour rights and labour protections while working in Indonesia?To helps answer some of these questions, and more, I’m joined by Dr Wayne Palmer who Is a senior research and teaching fellow at the University of Bielefeld. Wayne is a Southeast Asianist and a migration scholar with extensive experience providing paralegal assistance to migrant workers claiming labour and employment rights. He uses social-legal approaches to examine legal and policy frameworks that govern labour and migration.
The Papal VisitIn early September, Pope Francis visited Indonesia as part of a tour of the region. It was the third papal visit to the country after tours by Pope Paul VI in 1970 and Pope John Paul II in 1989. This trip included Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Singapore. The theme of this visit to the world’s largest Muslim nation was ‘Faith, Fraternity and Compassion’ and appeared to build on an earlier visit to the United Arab Emirates in 2019. On that trip the Pope and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar co-signed a statement known as the Abu Dhabi document, in which they declared a shared commitment to promote reconciliation, fraternity and with the aim of universal peace. The three-day visit to Jakarta was declared a success by the Vatican and Indonesian observers alike, with the Pope highlighting and praising Indonesia’s commitment to interfaith harmony.So, what was the aim of this papal tour for the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Indonesia? What were the Pope’s key messages and how was he received? And what lingering influences might this visit have for this minority religion of 9 million people, but also for society more broadly?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Bagus Laksana, the Rector of Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta. He is author of 'Muslim and Catholic Pilgrimage Practices: Explorations Through Java' (Routledge, 2016).In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: IG @archbishopcomensoli
Corruption in Indonesia is widely acknowledged as a complex issue, with some even suggesting it as something that is deeply entrenched in Indonesian culture. However, this perspective overlooks the generally accepted notion among historians of colonialism that corruption in Indonesia and other post-colonial nations is, at least partially, rooted in colonialism and the abuses of power and wealth during the colonial era.In this episode of Talking Indonesia, we examine the sugar scandal of 1926—a case involving wealthy industrialists and a powerful political party in the Dutch East Indies. We explore how a political donation, which was almost certainly considered a case of political corruption even by the standards of that era, somehow became accepted. Among various contributing factors, the fear of communism played a significant role in this acceptance.Our guest, Uji Nugroho Winardi, is a historian involved in the Colonial Normativity research project. This initiative aims to systematically investigate and narrate the role of corruption in Dutch and Indonesian histories of state formation, as well as its enduring impact on contemporary Indonesia.Through our discussion, we will address what insights we can glean from the 1926 sugar scandal corruption case in the Dutch East Indies, and how these historical lessons can inform our approach to tackling present-day corruption.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app.Photo: Sugar plantation worker in Java. Nationaal Archieve, Den Haag.
Some of the most challenging issues post-colonial societies face involve managing the physical remnants of their colonial histories. In Indonesia, centuries of colonialism left many buildings and spaces with strong colonial identities. While some of these spaces are now abandoned and forgotten, others are being remembered and revitalised.In this episode, Tito Ambyo speaks with Remco Vermeulen, a PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam and coordinator of international cooperation in collection management at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. Remco's professional experience informed his presentation at the EuroSEAS conference in Amsterdam this year on the revitalisation of Dutch colonial urban spaces in Indonesia. His ongoing PhD research examines how young Indonesians interact with and perceive these revitalised spaces.Remco shares fascinating insights from his research survey and visits to Dutch colonial buildings in various Indonesian cities. His findings reveal an intriguing disconnect: while many young Indonesians view Dutch colonialism negatively, they often appreciate the aesthetic and functional aspects of colonial architecture.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Starting a Start UpStarting a small business is a challenge in any context, but what about if you're a foreigner looking to establish a restaurant in Indonesia? What's it like to move to Indonesia, knowing little to nothing about the country, and then go on to start a successful online food business? What is it about the business context in Indonesia that facilitates or blocks small businesses, especially those wishing to leverage Jakartans' large-scale online connectivity?In this podcast, Elisabeth Kramer talks to entrepreneur Sujeet Ramgir, who came to Indonesia from India and went on to start a highly successful Indian food 'cloud kitchen' catering to the Jakarta market. At the end of 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic entered the chat, Sujeet launched his co-owned business, Accha. Little did he know how the pandemic and the mushrooming of online food apps would shape the trajectory of the business.In this podcast, Sujeet shares his motivations for starting the business, his experiences, and his reflections on what it's like to do business in Indonesia through his role as co-founder of a food and beverage business. We also talk about how online apps have taken off in Indonesia and what this might mean for business owners, sharing the positives and the challenges of starting a start up.
Digital PopulismJust as we were recording this podcast, the hashtag #daruratdemokrasi (democratic emergency) went viral across Indonesian social media. The alert was prompted by the latest example of Indonesia’s parliament (DPR) attempting to override or block a ruling by the Constitutional Court related to the eligibility of candidates to run in regional elections. The online campaign quickly turned into calls for real action to take place on Thursday 22 August, in the form of protests at the national parliament in Jakarta and other cities across the country. This would be parliament’s final sitting day before it headed into recess ahead of the November elections, and therefore the last chance for any amendments to be passed. The response on the streets by some thousands of protesters, including celebrities, filmmakers, actors and academics, was significant enough to force the DPR to pause its intervention. This effectively put an end to what was seen by the protesters as an attempt to both prevent a key rival of the Jokowi-Prabowo coalition, Anies Baswedan, from contesting the Jakarta gubernatorial election, and allow Jokowi’s second son, Kaesang, to stand as a candidate. This will be seen as a victory for a grassroots movement that began with digital activism and spilled out on to the street. The question now is, will this movement be sustained, or was it just a one-off? Over the past decade, digital activism has become deeply embedded and highly professionalised within Indonesia’s political and social ecosystem. In the recent presidential election, the size of a candidate’s team of ‘buzzers’ and their stable of social media influencers was a decisive factor in delivering voters for the major parties, especially from the increasingly important Gen Z demographic. Prabowo’s landslide win was made possible, in large part, due to a re-branding of his image and targeted use of TikTok throughout his campaign.Who and what is behind these campaigns driving what is known as digital populism in Indonesian politics? In a time when Indonesian democracy is under threat and protestors against the government are become more and more frustrated, does the internet in Indonesia still have the potential to be a force for good?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Ary Hermawan. Ary is the current editor of Indonesia at Melbourne and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute. He earned his bachelor degree in Islamic history from the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University and his master’s degree in international journalism from the University of Arizona's School of Journalism. He previously worked as a managing editor and editor at large of Indonesia’s leading English daily, The Jakarta Post. He also briefly served as deputy director of Amnesty International Indonesia.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Prabowo-Gibran Campaign 2024
One of the signature campaign promises of the Prabowo Subianto presidency is free lunches and milk for Indonesian school kids. This plan is linked to a much wider set of reforms to the way Indonesia’s produces and organises its agriculture sector, including the modernization of agriculture and converting land to plantations. The details are still pretty scant but this is not a thought bubble, food sovereignty is an issue that Prabowo has spent much of his political career touting. Prabowo served as head of the Indonesian Farmers Association and chairs the advisory board for the Primary Rural Cooperative or (Inkud). As Minister of Defence, Prabowo also led Jokowi’s food estate program, using private sector and military resources to open up massive new cassava plantations in Kalimantan. Those plantations failed. But nonetheless the incoming president is undeterred. Prabowo has called Indonesian farmers true patriots who will lead the country to food sovereignty. Food security is going to be the signature policy of the Prabowo administration so I figured we all need a primer not just on agriculture, but a sense of how small holder farming has been organised politically, socially and historically to better understand how grant state projects for agricultural transformation impact the lives of ordinary rural communities.
The Indonesian music scene is currently experiencing a vibrant period of experimentation, where musicians are blending vernacular Indonesian music traditions with elements from diverse global influences and historical periods. This fusion has led to the emergence of groundbreaking acts like Senyawa, who have successfully captured international attention. While the creative landscape pushes forward, however, there's a simultaneous return to older technology in music distribution, particularly the resurgence of vinyl recording. This vinyl revival, mirroring a global trend, has taken root in Indonesia. Taufiq Rahman, editor-in-chief of Jakarta Post as well as the founder of Elevation Records, is at the forefront of this. He and his business partners have now established the country's sole vinyl pressing factory, marking a significant milestone in Indonesia's contemporary music industry.What is the role of vinyl recordings in Indonesian music history? And what are the factors driving its current renaissance? For those interested in exploring Indonesian music through vinyl, Taufiq Rahman will also offer his valuable insights, including why "Badai Pasti Berlalu" is one of Indonesia's finest pop productions and how the artistry of Rhoma Irama extends beyond dangdut music.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Antje Missbach - Refugees growing up in limboIndonesia is currently home to over 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers, a majority of them young people who are stuck in limbo waiting for their futures to be determined. For most, it takes years, sometimes more than a decade, for resettlement to become an option. In the meantime, for those who arrive in Indonesia as children and teenagers this means that much of their youth and formative years - when they look to form relationships, explore their sexuality and establish their identities - are also ones in which they have very limited opportunities for education, work and recreation. This means growing up amid endless boredom and with few pathways into society. The recent arrivals of boatloads of Rohingya refugees on Aceh’s shores is a stark reminder that the asylum seeker issue is not going away. New solutions are needed to enable the thousands currently in Indonesia, to establish a somewhat normal life. With onward pathways to Australia and beyond cut off and resettlement extremely slow, will Indonesia shift its rhetoric and recognise its status as a destination, rather than transit, country for refugees? What will this mean for those stranded in Indonesia? Will they finally be permitted to integrate and make a place in society?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Antje Missbach, Professor of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. Antje is an expert on asylum seekers in Indonesia and specialises in global and transnational migration and mobility.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: /Ali Froghi
Teaching Indonesian as a second language comes with challenges. In Australia, there is a wide gulf between the government's rhetoric about the importance of learning Indonesian and the realities faced by teachers on the ground. In the absence of centralised resources, Indonesian teachers often have to work creatively to devise their own materials and deliver quality instruction.Today's guests on Talking Indonesia, Dr Howie Manns and Dr Jessica Kruk, both discovered Indonesian at a young age and have gone on to research and teach the language. In this episode, they chat about teaching colloquial and formal Indonesian and other challenges faced by Indonesian teachers in Australia. Howie and Jess believe in the power of open educational practices and collaboration among educators. To help out their fellow teachers, they are developing a new podcast called "Bloody Bagus” that will provide materials for standard and informal Indonesian, connect students with contemporary Indonesian culture and enrich their learning experience.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Bivitri Susanti - Dirty VoteThe frenzied final weeks of campaigning leading up to the presidential election on 14 February 2024 were packed with promises, symbols, celebrity and cash. When the dance literally stopped a few days before the polls opened, in the traditional cooling off period, a documentary film, Dirty Vote, dropped on YouTube. The work of activist filmmaker, Dandhy Laksono, the film has a lecture-style format featuring three constitutional law experts as its cast. At just under 2 hours long, the film draws on extensive research conducted by the experts and their colleagues, to shed light on the depth of election fraud, money politics and the systemic deterioration and abuse of Indonesia’s democratic institutions, including the electoral system, anti-corruption agency and the judiciary. Dirty Vote attracted over 6 million views in the first day of release and has since amassed around 30 million views. What were the filmmaker’s aims for this film and what kind of impact were they hoping it to have? What were its key messages and what is the path for Indonesia’s democratic project moving forward?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Bivitri Susanti, Deputy Director of the Indonesia Jentera School of Law and co-founder of the Indonesian Center for Law and Policy Studies (PSHK).In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: IMDb/Dirty Vote
In November 2023, a unique event occured. Eight gamelan groups - Gamelan DanAnda, Kacapi Suling Melbourne, Mahindra Bali Gamelan, Melbourne Community Gamelan, Mugi Rahayu, Putra Panji Asmara, Talo Balak, Selonding Sapta Nugraha - came together to perform at a small church in Northcote, a suburb in North Melbourne.The gathering was dedicated to the memory of Pak Poedijono, a master Javanese dhalang (puppeteer), musician, dancer and gamelan teacher. He taught in Australia for over 45 years and sadly passed away on the 30th of January 2021.In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo chats with the people who organised this gathering: John Cheong-Holdaway, an Australian gamelan musician; Eka Poedijono, daughter of the late Pak Poedijono; and Jocelyn Tribe, a biracial artist who connected with her Indonesian ancestry later in life.We spoke about many things, including the difference between gamelan and other types of music, the role of gamelan beyond musical performance, and what it's like to be a part of the gamelan music scene in a city like Melbourne. We also touched on a range of artists and gamelan groups, like Ria Soemardjo, Peni Candra Rini, Gamelan DanAnda, Bli Putu Septa, Desak Putu Warti and Sanggar Lestari.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Photo: supplied.
The talk on the street is all about electric cars and scooters as Indonesia strives to become a regional centre for manufacturing electric vehicles. At the heart of that goal is constructing a national supply chain of locally built battery hubs to drive the transition to electric.But as my current guest reminds us, harnessing electricity has always been at the centre of Indonesia’s dreams of development. Indeed, the very establishment of PLN, Indonesia’s ubiquitous state electricity company, was part of a wider nation building project to create a prosperous and socially just Indonesia.To talk about the role of electricity in the forging of Indonesia, Dr Anto Mohsin chats with Jacqui Baker. Anto is an assistant professor in the Liberal Arts at North-Western University in Qatar.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
There are many things that drive migration to other countries, and one of them is romantic relationships and marriages. But Asian women who are developing relationships with men from Western countries, like Australia, be it through snail mails, online sites or other means, often have to face the stereotype of the ‘subservient woman’. This stereotype has a history that still haunts us. In the case of Australia, the history goes way back to the First Fleet, but it also has a lot to do with the way multiculturalism is framed in this country. In a new book, the anthropologist Emeritus Professor Kathryn Robinson looks at intercultural marriages between Asian women and Australian men. The book, titled ‘Marriage Migration, Intercultural Families and Global Intimacies’, mostly looks at the lives of Filipina women who married Australian men, but the book is also about multiculturalism in Australia and the history of the damaging stereotype of the ‘subservient oriental women’ that many Indonesian women, in Australia, Indonesia and around the world, still have to face. In this episode, Tito Ambyo also chats with Kathryn about the importance of food and dancing for Filipina and Indonesian women who have migrated to Australia, digital ethnography best practices and some tips on how to do good research on Indonesia today.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Indonesians have a saying that you’re not properly satisfied until you’ve eaten rice (belum kenyang kalau belum makan nasi). But in recent weeks the price of rice has hit record highs, meaning that this daily serving of rice is becoming out of reach for some. In 2023 an EL Niño weather pattern across Indonesia made it the hottest year on record, leading to drought conditions and impacting rice production, with delayed harvests and low yields. Since late last year rice prices have continued to climb and with Idul Fitri approaching, prices for basic foods - including rice - are spiking to historic levels. Media reports show people queuing for hours at markets and President Joko Widodo has committed to providing 10 kilograms of rice a month to low-to-middle income households. The government claims that national rice stores are sufficient, but close observers note that cartels and collusion within the industry are also playing a part. At the same time - and an issue highlighted in the recent election campaign - over one in five Indonesian children under the age of five are affected by stunting due to poor nutrition.What is the current state of food production and food security in Indonesia, especially when it comes to rice, and what part does the past play in policymaking about the present? Why is the rate of stunting in children and poor nutrition still at such high levels? How can Indonesia’s food policy respond?In this week's episode Jemma chats with Associate Professor Jamie Davidson from the Department of Political Science and the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, where he is leader of the Cluster ‘Food Politics and Society’. Jamie’s research compares the politics of rice policy in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Workers are seen at a Bulog rice warehouse in Medan, North Sumatra, on 28 February 2024. (ANTARA FOTO/Fransisco Carolio/foc)
How do religious minorities fare under the constitution and blasphemy laws in Indonesia? The Indonesia Constitution seems to guarantee religious freedom so long as you believe in an almighty god. However, there are many real-life cases where it seems this is not enough. Add to this blasphemy laws, which have existed since the 1960s, and we can see that Indonesia has legal tools that can be easily weaponsised against individuals who express views that fall foul of the religious majority around them.In this podcast, Elisabeth Kramer talks to Dr Al Khanif about the state of religious rights and freedom of expression, and how jural traditions, the interpretations of laws based on historical and social norms, have made it even more difficult to assert these rights.Dr Khanif is the head of the Center for Human Rights, Multiculturalism and Migration at the University of Jember.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Caption: Thousands of people protest remarks made by Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama on 4 November 2016. Photo by Akbar Nugroho Gumay for Antara.
In the early 20th century in Sumatra, a movement of young women writers were finding new ways to express their identities, build communities and achieve their dreams. Soenting Melajoe was the first newspaper for women published in West Sumatra during the colonial era in the Dutch East Indies. The newspaper was a part of a larger constellation of people working together to help women find education and employment through writing and crafts like weaving.Tito Ambyo’s guest is Bronwyn Beech Jones, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, and a recipient of the Hansen Scholarship in History. Her completed PhD, called Textual Worlds: Rethinking self, community, and activism in colonial-era Sumatran women’s newspaper archives, looks at how women and girls from Sumatra articulated their experiences and conceived of themselves, their communities and aspirations in Malay language periodicals published between 1912 and 1929.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Energy transitionIn the recent national elections, the candidates paid surprisingly little attention to one of the greatest challenges Indonesia and the world at large is currently facing – that of climate change. At the same time, for more and more Indonesians, climate change induced natural disasters like droughts, storms and floods are increasingly impacting their lives. Indonesia has committed to the Paris Agreement to limit global warning to 1.5 degrees Celsius and signed up to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2060, including peaking emissions from the energy sector by 2030. Reaching these targets will have a lot to do with how it transitions from a reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. For a nation on a steep growth trajectory that includes downstreaming and elevated productivity, and with large coal reserves at its disposal, this is a massive challenge. What are Indonesia’s stated commitments and ambitions towards an energy transition away from fossil fuels? Does it have a plan to get there? What will it take?In this week’s episode Jemma Purdey chats with Wicaksono Gitawan, Just Energy Transition Associate at Yayasan Indonesia CERAH, an Indonesian non-profit organization working to advance the energy transition policy agenda in Indonesia.In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Image: Suralaya coal-fired power plant in Cilegon, Banten Province, ANTARA/HO-PLN
Prabowo has exceeded expectations to claim victory in 2024 Indonesian presidential election.What do our Talking Indonesia's co-hosts think about the result? Who are the winners and losers? What were the most interesting aspects of the campaign behind Prabowo’s success? And how did a pack of cigarettes save our co-host, Tito Ambyo, from possible jail time in the Suharto era?In this episode of Talking Indonesia, the co-hosts Jemma Purdey, Lis Kramer, Jacqui Baker and Tito Ambyo get together to chat about the election result, their analysis plus their hopes and fears for the future of Indonesian democracy. In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Photo by Adi Wibowo/Antara.
Faris Al Fadhat - Big BusinessConglomerates are the main players in the Indonesian economy, controlling core industries like agribusiness, banking and property and telecommunications. They are often built over multiple generations of a single, often ethnic Chinese, family.Indonesia’s biggest conglomerates - Sinar Mas Group, Royal Golden Eagle, Lippo group and Salim group - and their their owners are household names. Their businesses have an immeasurable impact on the daily lives of Indonesians: from the soap they use to wash the dishes, to the phone credit they use, and even to the hospitals they attend.Over the past two decades, Indonesia’s biggest conglomerates have emerged not just as domestic oligarchs but increasingly as regional players. This has come about through a series of acquisitions and joint ventures, but also through expansion enabled by the ASEAN regional economic architecture.To help us understand how Indonesian big business has transformed Indonesia and is now reshaping our region, Jacqui Baker chats with Faris Al Fadhat, Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Muhammadiyah University Yogyakarta. Faris is the author of the 'Rise of International Capital: Indonesian Conglomerates in ASEAN' and his new book 'Expansi Kapital', which was published by Kompas Publishing (2023).In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales.Photo by Julien from Flickr.
With the election just weeks away the campaign for the presidency is in full flight. The three candidates – Prabowo Subianto, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan – are proven campaigners and already familiar faces, but as has been the case in Indonesian politics for a while now, it is the coalitions they form around their tickets that will prove decisive on election day and in the government they ultimately lead. Indeed, Prabowo’s choice of Joko Widodo’s son and current mayor of Solo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka as his running mate is shaping up to be a strategic victory for both the Prabowo and Jokowi camps. So, what is the state of the current campaign? What is likely to happen on and after 14 February? In the end, does it matter who wins if a coalition of opponents and other parties and interest groups will govern together anyway? What does such a state of coalitional presidentialism mean for the future of democracy in Indonesia? In this week’s episode Jemma Purdey chats with Marcus Mietzner, Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. He is author of the recently published 'The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and Its Limits in Democratic Indonesia', Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 2023. In 2024, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Tito Ambyo from RMIT. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episode here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app. Image: @prabowo Instagram, 7 January 2024
Since the most recent conflict erupted between Israel and Gaza following the October 7 Hamas’ attacks and Israel’s subsequent mass bombings of the Gaza strip, the Indonesian public and government have overwhelmingly condemned Israel's actions. Like most Muslim nations around the world, Indonesia’s solidarity with Palestine is long-standing and deeply felt. Large solidarity gatherings held over the past few months and Indonesia’s diplomatic efforts on the world stage, demonstrate the importance of Palestine for how Indonesia sees its role internationally, but also in relation to politics, security and social harmony at home.With no formal diplomatic recognition, relations between Israel and Indonesia are facilitated between third parties, and therefore direct interactions between the two peoples is rare. Yet, for Indonesians, be they Muslim or Christian, this part of the world and the idea of ‘Arabness’ holds special and sacred meaning and has a strong pull. As Indonesia’s expanding middle classes enjoy greater access to international travel, religious tourism has enabled both Muslim and Christian Indonesians to encounter Israel and Palestine firsthand.How are movements between the two countries without official relations negotiated? What are its impacts on those who participate – the tourists, the agents and the local businesses? For those Indonesians who visit, have in-country encounters shifted perceptions and pushed back against a binary view of the Israel-Palestine conflict? What effect might the current war have on long held hopes that Indonesia can play a role as a bridge between the two sides in this intractable conflict?Jemma Purdey explores these questions with Mirjam Lücking, who is an anthropologist working on various forms of globalized mobility, such as migration and tourism, intercultural encounters, modern religious lifestyles (in particular, Muslim and Christian), and social media in the context of transregional connections between Indonesia and the Middle East. She is the author of Indonesians and Their Arab World: Guided Mobility among Labor Migrants and Mecca Pilgrims (Southeast Asia Program Publications by Cornell University Press, 2020) and has published several articles on Muslim and Christian pilgrimage-tourism from Indonesia to Jerusalem. Her insights stem from ethnographic research in various places in Indonesia and in Israel and Palestine. Mirjam is assistant professor at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Munich.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Image: Indonesian pilgrims in Jerusalem / Mirjam Lücking
The Indonesian word ‘pemuda’, or young person, has a complex meaning and history. Like in other languages and cultures, the term conjures up images of change and vitality. But in Indonesia, it also carries militaristic and masculine connotations which are coloured by the way it was used during the New Order era.In his PhD thesis at the University of Melbourne, Jonathan Tehusijarana traces the term back to the history of Tentara Pelajar, student militia units, that were active during the Indonesian War of Independence. He chats with Tito Ambyo about the fate of these Tentara Pelajar veterans, which was often determined by the needs of the political elites – some found political, intellectual and cultural success in post-war Indonesia, while others were not so fortunate.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
The choice by Indonesians to become a foreign overseas worker, known as Tenaga Kerja Indonesia (TKI), is viewed primarily as an economic one. Working in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong or further afield in the Middle East, is perceived to offer possibilities beyond what they might hope for back home. The Indonesian government itself recognises the crucial role played by overseas migrant workers, with the World Bank estimating in 2016 that over US $8.9 billion flowed back to Indonesia via remittances.However, it is limiting to view overseas workers' experiences purely in terms of economics. There are, of course, ongoing identity negotiations that mirror the complexities of being in a new and different land, particularly when it comes to religion and gendered expectations.Lis Kramer's guest today, Dr Lailatul Fitriyah, has researched and published on the migrant worker experience through an intersectional lens, focusing particularly on how gender and religion shape the lived experiences of women working overseas. She gained her PhD thesis from the University of Notre Dame’ Department of Theology and she is an Assistant Professor of Interreligious Education at the Claremont School of Theology in California.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Kate McGregor - Activism, Memory and Sexual ViolenceDuring its Occupation of East Asian and Southeast Asian countries in World War II, including the Netherlands Indies, the Japanese military installed a system of enforced prostitution, known euphemistically as the ‘comfort women’ system.Today these crimes are relatively well-known and condemned. In 1993 the Japanese state issued an apology known as the Kōno statement. In the 1980s and 1990s, a transnational activist movement which included women from Korea, Japan, the Philippines and elsewhere, began to speak out and make demands for redress. In Indonesia, however, activism on the so-called ‘comfort women’ issue was slower to emerge, faced with challenges from both inside and outside the country.In her new book 'Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory and Sexual Violence in Indonesia', Kate McGregor takes a close look at the system itself and seeks to understand it in the context of Indonesia’s own colonial and post-colonial history. What were the social contexts in Indonesia prior to and following the Japanese Occupation in relation to women, sexual exploitation and prostitution? What did it take for the voices of these survivors to be heard? How is this period in Indonesia’s history remembered today? And what are its legacies for activism on sexual violence?In this week's episode Jemma Purdey chats with Kate McGregor, professor of Southeast Asian history in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Lis Kramer from UNSW, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Image: Book cover illustration of Indonesian 'comfort women' by feminist scholar and artist Dewi Candraningrum / 'Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory and Sexual Violence in Indonesia', University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 2023.
As of July 2023, Indonesia had 139 million YouTube viewers giving it one of the biggest YouTube audiences in the world. But beyond the numbers, YouTube has also become an influential cultural force in Indonesia. YouTubers are shaping what we listen to and watch. YouTube food vloggers are changing the food we eat and the way we eat it. YouTube has even created a burgeoning career path for people who are finding new ways to produce and share their ideas - whether that be religious teachings, horror stories or new genres of music. And yet, the world of YouTube in Indonesia still remains under-researched on the international stage. In this podcast, Tito Ambyo chats with panelists at the Indonesia Council Open Conference at the University of Sydney in September 2023. Andina Dwifatma is a PhD candidate at Monash University who is researching Islamic web series in Indonesia. Erika Suwarno is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne who is looking at the early history of YouTube in Indonesia. Dr William Yanko is a researcher best known for his research on Indonesian Hip-Hop.Together, they explore questions about YouTube in Indonesia: what is it, what does it look like, and what does it mean to be a YouTube researcher. In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University.
Indonesia has sadly been the site of many crimes and mass atrocities, but uncovering all the details is fraught with challenges. How many people were killed or injured? Who was at fault? Who was in charge?And yet, as long as these events are shrouded in mystery, wrongdoing can go unpunished, victims stay unheard and we are unable to learn from our collective mistakes.In this podcast, Jacqui Baker chats with writer and law student Aisyah Llewellyn. Aisyah is a former diplomat who started her own true crime newsletter and podcast called Hukum. She is currently completing her second bachelor's degree in Indonesian law in North Sumatra.In her career, Aisyah has closely reported on many crimes and two mass violations of human rights. Most recently, in Kanjuruhan, where 135 people were killed last October when police fired tear gas into an overcrowded football stadium.But her most detailed long term investigation has focused on the mass atrocities committed in Aceh. These crimes were carried out by the Indonesian military, but aided and abetted by Exxon Mobil, who were operating the lucrative Arun gas field in Aceh. These events would trigger Aceh’s 30 year long secessionist movement.In this podcast we talk about what justice looks like after the mass atrocities, like in Aceh and Malang. We also segway into Aisyah's other fascination - Indonesian shamanic serial killers.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Photo by Moch Asim for Antara.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim majority country in the world, but it is not an Islamic state. The place of Islam within the state has been contested over the years, with proponents for and against a larger role for Islam in government and in the lives of citizens. The groups who advocate for a more prominent role for Islam occupy a wide spectrum of ideologies, approaches, and tactics. In the post-Soeharto era, terrorist acts have drawn attention through a handful of small, but committed, jihadist organisations mounting bombings at a variety of sites including churches, hotels, and, perhaps most famously, Balinese bars.In this episode we talk about pathways to extremism. Why do some people gravitate towards, and join, religious extremist organisations? How can we understand the difference between extremist and terrorist groups? And what important role do social relationships play in facilitating memberships and networks in this context?In this week's episode, Elisabeth Kramer chats with guest Dr Julie Chernov Hwang, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College in Maryland. She’s especially interested in how social networks facilitate entry into and exit from jihadist groups in Southeast Asia. She’s the author of a number of books including Why Terrorists Quit, published by Cornell University Press in 2018 and her most recent book is Becoming Jihadis: Radicalization and Commitment in Southeast Asia, published this year by Oxford University Press.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University and Dr Elisabeth Kramer from UNSW.Image by Masjid Pogung Dalangan from Unsplash.Caption: Close-up of hands held up in Islamic prayer.
Joko Widodo’s recent trip to four African countries marked the first ever by an Indonesian head of state. The President’s five-day visit took him to Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, before finishing in South Africa where he attended the meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group of nations in Johannesburg. In his address to the BRICS conference Jokowi evoked the ‘spirit of Bandung’ in reference to the Asia-Africa conference held in the West Java capital in 1955 and called for solidarity and cooperation between the nations of the Global South. But Indonesia stopped short of accepting an invitation to join the expanding group, which is seen as a potential challenge or alternative to Western hegemony in a changing new world order.So, what motivated such a high-level trip to Africa? Why did Jokowi choose to make such an historic visit at this stage in his presidency? What is the current state of Indonesia-Africa relations and what might Indonesia’s ambitions be for its future in the continent? In this week's episode Jemma Purdey chats with Dr Christophe Dorigné-Thomson who holds a PhD in Politics from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Universitas Indonesia, and a Master in Business/Management (Grande Ecole Programme) with a major in Finance from ESSEC Business School. His research focuses on foreign policy (Indonesia, Asia-Africa, and European nations notably); political economy; external powers’ engagement with Africa, Asia, and Europe, including political, economic, and defense and security approaches; and Indonesian, Asia-Africa, and Western politics. His forthcoming book, Indonesia's Engagement with Africa, will be published in 2023 by Palgrave Macmillan.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Image: Antara/Press Bureau of Presidential SecretariatCaption: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (left) and his host Mozambique President Filipus Nyusi wear traditional headbands as they attend the opening of the National Festival of Culture at Red Bulls Association Field in Maputo on Aug. 23, 2023.
Indonesians around the world will celebrate Independence Day in a range of ways on 17 August. Some will hold festivals in big cosmopolitan cities, serving Indonesian food to hungry diasporas, while Indonesian villagers will hold traditional celebrations with simple games and competitions, like tug of war and kerupuk eating. Many of these traditions have changed little since the New Order era. This leads us to ask, what should we think about independence in the context of Indonesia today?
We see that 78 years after Soekarno proclaimed independence in 1945 – Indonesians are still asking the question “sudahkah kita merdeka?” – are we truly independent yet? The question is asked so often it has become a cliché, but now many academics and activists are engaging with the question more seriously through frameworks and theories of decoloniality.
In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo chats with Tamara Soukotta, who recently defended her PhD thesis at the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In her thesis, she argues that to understand the Ambon conflicts that started in 1999, we need to view the conflict through a lens of decoloniality. Moreover, to be able to understand the processes of peacebuilding after the war, we also need to look at these events as decoloniality in praxis. In this episode, Tamara tells us about her research and shares her thoughts on celebrating Independence Day critically and decolonially - which is harder than it sounds.
In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo by Mo from Flickr.
Twenty-five years since embarking on its reform era following the fall of the New Order, observers, scholars and global democracy indexes agree that Indonesian democracy is in a state of regression.
Recent challenges levelled at key institutions including the Constitutional Court, the Corruption Eradication Commission, and threats to freedom of speech brought by the Information and Electronics Law (ITE Law) are evidence of significant degradation of the quality and integrity of democracy. Further, over the past two decades influence and control across the four branches of power – politics, media, civil society and business – is increasingly centred in the hands of just a few.
With the elections next year set to deliver a new government and new president, what must be done to halt further damage to Indonesia’s democracy and rule of law? What are the risks if it fails to do so?
In this week's episode Jemma Purdey chats with Professor Jimly Asshiddiqie, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Indonesia and a member of Indonesia’s senate, the Regional Representatives Assembly. Professor Jimly was founding Chief Justice of Indonesia’s first Constitutional Court, an adviser to presidents and ministers, was head of the Presidential Advisory Council, and former head of the Advisory Council of Indonesia’s National Commission of Human Rights. He is one of Indonesia’s leading jurists and distinguished legal thinkers, with more than 70 books to his name.
In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo: KPU staff carry out drills in Banyuwangi in preparation for the general elections. Antara Foto/Budi Candra Setya.
The project of bureaucratic reform has now been ongoing for over 20 years. But what issues remain and what is the government doing to try and curb corruption and boost efficiency?
In this episode, Dr Elisabeth Kramer speaks to Dr Kanti Pertiwi about how effective efforts to improve the bureaucracy have been. They discuss the design and implementation of incentives to reform the civil service and how disparities between different ministries can impact the psyche of civil servants.
In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo by Rendra Oxtora for Antara.
In January 2021, a case that became known as ‘digital-nomad-gate’ gripped both Indonesia’s social and conventional media channels and was also reported around the world. An American woman living in Bali was deported following a series of tweets in which she described her enviable and ‘elevated’ lifestyle there, encouraging others to follow. Amid a pandemic that had hit Bali’s economy particularly hard, her tweets went viral and led to a public backlash condemning her for a lack of cultural sensitivity and awareness of her own privilege. The woman was eventually deported for flouting immigration rules, although she claimed the true reasons were related to her sexuality and race.
This is just one of many cases in recent years which, due in great part to the prevalence of social media, have caught out foreigners in Indonesia for breaking laws and flouting or ignoring social and cultural norms and sensitivities. These range from taking inappropriate photos at sacred sights to ignoring pandemic protocols and refusing to abide by laws and acknowledge the right of local authorities to enforce them.
At the same time, in order to boost economies ravaged by the pandemic, government authorities have sought to attract more foreigners as so-called ‘digital nomads’ or ‘mobile professionals’ to live and work in Bali and elsewhere in the country.
So, who are these new expatriates and what is their motivation for coming to Indonesia? What can the history of expatriates in Indonesia tell us about these more recent conflicts related to cultural awareness and privilege? And do the recent tensions reflect the stresses brought by the pandemic, or are we witnessing a real shift in how Indonesians perceive foreigners living and working in their country?
In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Anne-Meike Fechter, Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, and author of 'Transnational Lives: Expatriates in Indonesia', Ashgate Aldershot, 2007. Her article 'Expatriates, privilege and racism', is published in Inside Indonesia, Apr-June 2021.
In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo by Matt Oldfield from Flickr.
Many of the big challenges humanity faces today – especially when we talk about environmental problems – can only be understood from a global perspective. This is definitely the case with sand. According to a report from the UN, sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after water. About 40-50 billion metric tons of it are used every year.
Indonesia, as an archipelago, has an abundance of sand. These sand deposits vary in quality and are used to create industrial products like concrete, asphalt or glass. It is also used in construction and reclamation projects, such as the controversial Jakarta Bay project, where sand is laid as a foundation for further development. Indonesia’s sand is even being exported to places like Singapore.
But sand mining operations can also wreak havoc. Done without care, sand mining can cause coastal areas or even whole islands to disappear. Some fishing communities in Indonesia, for example, are at risk of losing their livelihoods as well as their cultures when sand mining operations are literally erasing their lands.
In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo from RMIT University talks to Febriana Firdaus, who is the managing editor of a global journalism organisation Environmental Reporting Collective and Krisna Pradipta, Digital Content Producer from Tempo Magazine. Febriana and Krisna have been a part of a global collaborative journalism project that looks at sand mining around the world called Beneath The Sands which uses a range of journalistic storytelling formats to convey the impacts of sand mining.
In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from UNSW and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo by Anggri Pernanda from Flickr.
Jarrah Sastrawan - Natural Disasters and Ancient Beliefs
Indonesia is no stranger to natural disasters and it is not surprising that societies throughout the ages have attached political and social significance to these displays of natural power.
In this episode, Dr Elisabeth Kramer speaks with Dr Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan to understand how societies in Java and Bali have understood the significance of natural disasters throughout time.
Natural disasters are seen as markers of shifting political power. But whether they celebrate the emergence of new rulers or old dynasties losing divine favour is a matter of interpretation. Jarrah discusses this and contemporary interpretations of natural disasters in this episode. You can learn more about Jarrah's work at his website, www.wayanjarrah.com.
In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University and Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of NSW.
Photo by Yosh Ginsu on Unsplash
In 2015 and 2019 massive forest fires in Indonesia shrouded its neighbours in smoke. The haze caused respiratory and other heath problems for residents of Singapore and Malaysia, and the carbon and heat emitted from these fires pushed the achievement of Indonesia’s international greenhouse gas emissions targets further out of reach. 80% of Indonesia’s total emissions come from forest degradation and misuse. The fires and the haze they caused are the consequence of decades long industrial-scale destruction of the forests and carbon-rich peatlands of the world’s third largest tropical forests, which constitute a vital carbon sink in the race to reduce global emissions. In September last year Indonesia signed a new deal with Norway committing it to a significant reduction in emissions from forest degradation by 2030. This will be no easy task, because while a moratorium on deforestation covers most of the 90 million hectares of natural forest, millions of hectares remain under threat due to plantation expansion and new developments, including the national Food Estate Project and the new Capital City. With these competing interests at play, reducing the threat of fires and their high carbon emissions, has become more critical than ever. So, as we look towards a La Niña and a very dry season ahead, what is being done to reduce the risk of fires? Why do they happen in the first place? Why have they become so large in recent times? And what needs to be done to protect not only the forests, but the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous people who live in them? In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Sofyan Ansori, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University in the US whose ethnographic research is focused on the Indigenous Dayak in Central Kalimantan and their relationships with fire in a changing environment. He has written for The Conversation Indonesia and Indonesia. In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Photo by Rhett A. Butler from Mongabay
Indonesia's general election in 2024 will be a big one. Young voters have helped decide the last two general elections. It was millennials behind online movements, like Kawal Pemilu, which helped young Indonesians closely monitor the election results in 2014 and 2019. However, this time, a new generation comes of age: Generation Z. And with them, a new online movement has emerged in the form of Bijak Memilih, a website helping young Indonesian's better understand the political landscape - its parties, its candidates, and their track records and policies - before they vote. It began as a partnership between the public policy advocacy platform Think Policy and the youth media outlet What Is Up Indonesia. They are also building communities around Indonesia, through online and offline events, to help young Indonesians find their voices and vote based on objective facts. Abigail Limuria, co–founder of What Is Up Indonesia, and Dharmadji Suradika, founder of Pemimpin.Id, are both core members of the Bijak Memilih team, which just launched the first phase of its website. They chat with Tito Ambyo about their motivations for building the website, the problems they are trying to solve and their plans for the future. In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University and Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University.Photo by UN Women from Flickr.
Indonesia is an important global hub for minerals and resource extraction. The value of its metallic minerals and coal industry in 2020 was the ninth-largest in the world. Indonesia’s extractive sector accounts for 25 percent of exports and it is also an important source of economic growth, government revenue, employment and technology transfer. But, at the same time, scholarship has documented how extractive industries have generated social conflict, from armed separatism to political protest and high-profile legal disputes. From Aceh to West Papua’s notorious Grasberg mine, extractive industries have been called out for environmental destruction, land dispossession and human rights abuses.Much has been written about the extractive industries, but today'sguest, Dr Lian Sinclair from the School of Geosciences at the University Sydney, takes a unique angle. Lian focuses on how corporations, governments, community groups and non-governmental organisations contest the uneven costs and benefits of extractive industries. Today she chats with Dr Jacqui Baker about how groups embrace, adapt to or resist mining projects. Her book, Undermining Resistance: Extractive Accumulation, Participation and Governance in Global Capitalism is contracted with Manchester University Press and an Indonesian version will be released simultaneously by Insist Press. Her latest research project examines the political economy of the new critical minerals required for the global transition away from carbon.You can find more of Lian’s work on her profile or on Twitter. Also keep an eye out for announcements about the publication of her book later this year.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University.Photo by Richard Erari.
Talking Indonesia’s guest this week, Kevin O’Rourke, has been watching Indonesia closely for many years. He dodged tanks in his Toyota Kijang during the May 1998 riots, started the Reformasi Weekly newsletter in 2003, and launched the podcast Reformasi Dispatch with journalist Jeff Hutton in 2021.Podcasting is becoming an important medium in Indonesia, and we like to think Talking Indonesia and Reformasi Dispatch are both pioneering podcasts about Indonesia. In February this year, Jeff and Kevin kindly invited Talking Indonesia co-host Tito Ambyo to join Reformasi Dispatch. In this episode Tito introduces Kevin to our Talking Indonesia listeners.In this chat, we speak about many issues: the fragility of Indonesian democracy, Indonesia as a country of two systems, politics and football, Anies Baswedan’s presidential electability and the super coalitions that Indonesian political parties are currently forming.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.Photo by Ananto Pradana for Antara.
Indonesian literature in translationIn recent years the international profile of Indonesian literature has been given a substantial boost. Indonesian authors and their work was highlighted at major book fairs in Europe and given a special place within the cultural and commercial programs at these events, and also backed by funding from the Ministry for Education and Culture and the Agency for Creative Economy (Bekraf). It was hoped that an international boon for Indonesian literature would follow. Indeed, in the past decade the names of Indonesian writers such as Ayu Utami and Eka Kurniawan have joined those of Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Rendra as being recognised and read by readers all over the world. Undeniably, the publication of work in English translation is imperative in order to achieve such a global readership. In early March, Tiffany Tsao’s translation of Budi Darma’s 'People from Bloomington' (Orang-Orang Bloomington) won the prestigious PEN Translation Prize, potentially marking another significant moment for Indonesian literature internationally. What does the future look like for Indonesian literature in translation? Who and what is being translated and published? And what expectations do publishers and readers have about the stories they will encounter?In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Tiffany Tsao, author and translator of fiction and poetry, including the winner of the 2023 PEN Translation Prize, 'People from Bloomington'.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT. Photo: cover image, 'People from Bloomington', Penguin Classics, 2022
Associate Professor Eka Permanasari - Building the New Capital In late February, Joko Widodo’s official social media feed showed him conducting the affairs of state from a small hut set amongst a forest of trees. This was his second overnight stay on the site of the future Presidential Palace in the yet to be built new capital city (Ibu Kota Negara, IKN). Since announcing the move from Jakarta to East Kalimantan in 2019, this has become a pet project for the second term president, which many interpret to be his final legacy before he steps away from the top job in 2024. The idea to move the capital away from Jakarta is almost as old as the nation itself. The megacity of over 30 million is over-crowded, choked by traffic and famously, sinking. However, with the project's first milestone to deliver accommodation and services in the forest capital just over a year away, many questions remain. These include outstanding concerns about the highly ambitious design itself and the viability of its implementation. But also, who will pay for the projected cost of more than US$35 billion? With Indonesians already looking towards the 2024 presidential election, many speculate that project may not survive past Jokowi’s leadership. If it is successful the new capital stands to be a showcase of sustainable design and Indonesian progress. The question is, can these high design standards and ambitions be reached? And what are the risks if it fails?In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Associate Professor Eka Permanasari, Associate Professor in the field of urban design, architecture and Southeast Asian Studies at Monash Indonesia.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT. Photo by IG/@jokowi
ronmental Program has identified Indonesia as one of 17 "megadiverse" countries, making it highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Yet the country also ranks among the top-10 emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, largely because of its forestry, land use and energy sectors.The Indonesian Constitution provides for environmental protection, and sustainability is critical to its National Development Plan. But Indonesia has no specific law to deal with its National Action Plan on Climate Change or its international commitments to reduce carbon emissions. Its pledge to reduce emissions by 29% by 2030 is regarded as insufficient, yet it has announced plans to increase its dependence on coal by 2030.How can the legal framework promote defence of the environment in Indonesia? How are environmental activists strategically using the law to promote environmental protection? And, more chillingly, how is the law being used to criminalise their activism?Dr Jacqui Baker chats to Associate Professor Agung Wardana, from the Department of Environmental Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada, about these issues and more, in the latest episode of Talking Indonesia.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne.Photo by Walhi (Instagram).
The cryptocurrency market in Indonesia is booming. In 2022, the country recorded 14 million cryptocurrency investors, much higher than the number of Indonesians who invest in the stock market.Last month, President Joko Widodo signed off on a new law that aims to provide greater clarity on how cryptocurrency is regulated. The new law transfers cryptocurrency regulatory powers from the commodities watchdog Bappebti (Badan Pengawas Perdagangan Berjangka Komoditi) to the Financial Services Authority (Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, OJK), effectively switching the classification of cryptocurrency from commodities (like gold or coal) to securities. This is part of a larger plan in which Indonesia hopes to set up a national cryptocurrency exchange. The exchange will cover existing exchanges and function as a national custodian and clearing house for cryptocurrency in Indonesia, adding another layer of protection for cryptocurrency users in Indonesia. But the exchange has been delayed by various obstacles.Will this new law create more clarity for cryptocurrency users in Indonesia? How has it been received and what are some of the concerns users have about regulation of the industry in Indonesia? In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo speaks to Rob Raffael Kardinal, the chair of the Indonesian Crypto Consumers Association. In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne.
On 11 January, President Joko Widodo gave a national address in which he acknowledged gross violations of human rights had occurred in Indonesia and expressed his regret and sympathy for the victims.He referred to 12 incidents involving historical rights violations, including the 1965-66 killings, the extrajudicial killings of criminals in the 1980s (known as Petrus), kidnappings and disappearances of students and activists in the late 1990s, the Talangsari incident in Lampung in 1989, and a number of events in Aceh and Papua.Jokowi made the statement at an event where he accepted the recommendations of a team he had assembled in 2022 to consider non-judicial resolution of past violations of human rights. The presidential statement included a commitment to recovery and restoration of the rights of victims, and to ensuring that such events do not happen again.What is the significance of Jokowi’s acknowledgement and why did he choose to make it now? How has it been received by victims, their relatives and the human rights community in Indonesia? And does it signal a step towards further processes of truth seeking and accountability for past human rights violations?In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey speaks to Dr Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem, author of Transitional Justice from State to Civil Society Democratization in Indonesia. She is Fulbright Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, and director of the Center for Citizenship and Human Rights Studies, Universitas Pembangunan Nasional.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Photo by Akbar Nugroho Gumay/Antara.
Indonesia has expressed persistent reservations about AUKUS, the security pact reached in secret between Australia, the US and the UK and announced in September 2021. Under the pact, the three allies will share defence capabilities, with the initial headline item being Australia’s acquisition of a fleet of nuclear-powered but conventionally-armed submarines.When AUKUS was announced, Indonesia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing caution. In 2022, Indonesia also submitted a working paper to a UN review of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty critical of the transfer of submarine nuclear propulsion to non-nuclear weapons states.What underpins Indonesia’s negative response to AUKUS, and how widely are Indonesia’s views shared in Southeast Asia? What can Indonesia’s response to AUKUS tell us about how Indonesia will seek to manage great power competition between the US and China? Might AUKUS spur Indonesia to alter its own defence acquisition plans?In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Dr Ahmad Rizky M. Umar from the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Dr Umar is the author of a forthcoming paper on Southeast Asian responses to AUKUS with Yulida Santoso from Universitas Gadjah Mada.In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Photo credit: US Navy
On 6 December, Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR) passed a long-awaited new Criminal Code (KUHP), in an act the government described as one of decolonisation and modernisation of the Indonesian nation-state. Revised and re-drafted over several years, the new code replaces the 1918 version inherited from the Dutch and incorporated into the law of a newly independent Indonesia in 1946.Civil society organisations, journalists and human rights activists immediately condemned many of the articles in the new code, particularly those that restrict freedom of speech, the right to protest and express views deemed counter to the national ideology, Pancasila. Women and other minorities are seen to be particularly vulnerable, with new laws criminalising access to abortion, sexual relations and cohabitation outside marriage. Senior researcher at Human Rights Watch Andreas Harsono expressed the disappointment and concern of many Indonesians when he said: “In one fell swoop, Indonesia’s human rights situation has taken a drastic turn for the worse, with potentially millions of people in Indonesia subject to criminal prosecution under this deeply flawed law.”How did it come to this? Why did Indonesia need a new Criminal Code? Who were the key stakeholders responsible for writing it? What was the process and the impetus behind the creation of new laws (and a return to some old ones), which now curb Indonesians’ hard-won freedoms? Is there still time to change the code, or is there no turning back?In this week's episode of Talking Indonesia, the final episode for 2022, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Bivitri Susanti, deputy chair and lecturer at Indonesia Jentera School of Law.In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight when Talking Indonesia returns in 2023.Image by Asep Fathulrahman for Antara Foto.
This year, the Indonesian government has replaced more than 110 local elected leaders for appointed caretaker leaders. By 2024, almost all district and provincial leaders will be appointments from Jakarta. The government says that this is a technocratic fix. The plan is to hold all district, provincial and national elections on the same day, and to fill the gap between the electoral terms of these local leaders running out and the elections planned for 2024, the government has decided to appoint caretaker administrations.These appointments occupy a strange political space. Most Indonesians don’t know anything about them. And that’s because on one side, they seem highly technocratic. But as these appointments have been made, questions are being asked.Who are these interim regional leaders? Who decided on their rule? How will they rule? If the caretaker administrations are just a technocratic stop gap why do they feel like Jakarta overreach? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Jacqui Baker explores these questions and more with Dr Ian Wilson, Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Security Studies, Academic Chair of the Global Security Program and Co-Director of the Indo-Pacific Research Centre at Murdoch University, Western Australia.In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.Photo by Didik Suhartono/Antara.
There are many Indonesian researchers conducting important and path-breaking research, both within Indonesia and around the world. But many of these Indonesian scholars often find it difficult to distribute and share the results of their research projects with the global public.
The reasons for Indonesian researchers' underrepresentation on the global stage are varied, and include lack of access to global media organisations, language barriers, and limited infrastructure and support. One platform that has helped Indonesian researchers to share their knowledge and expertise with the world is The Conversation Indonesia, which launched in 2017.
In the latest episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo speaks to CEO and Publisher of The Conversation Indonesia Prodita Kusuma Sabarini about the challenges Indonesian researchers face in distributing their research, and what Indonesian academics need to do to communicate more widely with the world. Prodita is also one of the founders of "Ingat 65" ("Remember '65"), an online forum for young Indonesians to share their reflections on the 1965 tragedy.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Photo: The Conversation Indonesia hosts a panel discussion series titled “Hear The Experts” in September 2018. Photo by Gracesillya Febriani.
Preliminary investigations into the events at Kanjuruhan Stadium on 1 October, which claimed the lives of 135 people, have found that the use of tear gas by police was the primary cause of the tragedy. This and other recent high-profile scandals involving the Indonesian National Police (Polri) have led to a renewed focus on the failures of police reform.
It is two decades since the police separated from the Indonesian armed forces, following the fall of the New Order. How have the Indonesian police now become synonymous with scandal, violence and corruption? How have police responded to the Kanjuruhan tragedy and could this present a tipping point for lasting structural change? Or is it too late and instead the answer lies in more radical reform of the criminal justice system as a whole? What does a failing police force mean for democratic process and political competition as Indonesia heads towards national legislative and presidential elections in 2024?
In the latest episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Dr Jacqui Baker, lecturer in Southeast Asian politics at Murdoch University and a co-host of Talking Indonesia.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Image/ Biro Pers, Media, dan Informasi Sekretariat Presiden 2022
It is often said that it is easy to start a podcast. But not many make it to 200 episodes. Many factors have played a part in making Talking Indonesia special and helping us reach this important milestone, from the podcast's various co-hosts, its listeners (thank you!), its many supporters, and, most of all, its amazing guests, who have shared their fascinating insights into the latest research and happenings in Indonesia.
To celebrate Talking Indonesia's 200th episode, we are doing something a bit different. Three of the co-hosts will share some of their favourite grabs from past interviews. It wasn’t easy to choose, but we thought this would be a great opportunity for new and old listeners to discover, or re-discover, the depth of Talking Indonesia's archive.
We have selected four grabs from these interviews that we thought could provide interesting insights into the challenges that Indonesia faces today and discuss these grabs. Of course, you can get the fuller picture by listening to the episodes - linked below. We hope you enjoy the discussion as much as we did, and here’s hoping we will be here for another 200 episodes at least!
Associate Professor Merlyna Lim - Freedom to hate: https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/social-media-and-the-freedom-to-hate/
Dr Fabio Scarpello - Illegal fishing: https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/talking-indonesia-illegal-fishing/
Dr Ligia Giay - Racism: https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/talking-indonesia-racism/
Andy Yentriyani - The Sexual Violence Law: https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/talking-indonesia-the-sexual-violence-law/
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Indonesian football experienced its darkest day on 1 October, when more than 130 spectators were killed – including 35 children – after police fired tear gas into the crowd at the conclusion of a match between local rivals Arema Malang and Persebaya Surabaya at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang. Fans fleeing the tear gas, which police fired after some fans entered the playing field, were killed in the crush in stairwells and at exits that in some cases were locked or partially closed.
Other football leagues around the world held a moment’s silence in the wake of the tragedy as a mark of respect to the victims, in what was one of the worst football disasters globally in the history of the game. Within Indonesia, vigils have been held around the country for the fans who died at Kanjuruhan. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has asked a fact-finding team to deliver a report into the disaster within a month, and the country’s professional leagues have been suspended. The police’s decision to use tear gas has been almost universally criticised.
How we can account for the police decision to use tear gas in a sold-out Kanjuruhan Stadium, and what investigations and accountability are likely after the death of so many fans? What has the game-day experience been like for football fans in Indonesia, and what will be required to ensure that the events of Kanjuruhan are never repeated?
In the wake of this national tragedy, in this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Usman Hamid , executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, and Yogi Setya Permana , a PhD candidate at KITLV in the Netherlands and the author of a 2017 study into football fan groups and local politics in Malang .
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Siswowidodo for Antara Foto
In April 2017, Indonesian Muslim women did something quite revolutionary: they successfully held the first Congress of Indonesian Women Muslim Scholars (Kongres Ulama Perempuan Indonesia, KUPI). The inaugural congress of Muslim women scholars (or ulama), held in Cirebon, West Java, resulted in three fatwas on what attendees considered the biggest challenges faced by Muslim women: sexual violence, underage marriage and environmental destruction.
The congress was the result of collaboration among various women-led progressive Islamic organisations in Indonesia. They were united by the common goal of strengthening agency and taking charge over challenges faced by women at a time of cultural and political fragmentation in the country. Five years later, the second congress will take place in November, in Semarang and Jepara, Central Java, with the theme of “Affirming the Roles of Women Ulama in Creating a Just Islamic Civilisation”. One of the organisations involved is the Asian Muslim Action Network (AMAN) Indonesia.
What does the second congress aim to achieve? What are some of the biggest challenges faced by Muslim women leaders in Indonesia? In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo speaks with the director of AMAN, Dwi Rubiyanti Kholifah (Ruby), about these issues and more.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo by KUPI.
The #MeToo movement has led to a global reckoning on sexual violence, including in Indonesia. After a series of high profile sexual assault scandals, activists won a landmark legal battle against sexual violence earlier this year, with the passage of Law No. 12 of 2022 on the Crime of Sexual Violence, or UU TPKS.
But milestones aren’t achieved overnight. In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jacqui Baker talks to Andy Yentriyani, the head of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), who takes us behind the scenes of the 12-year battle to get the law passed. What does this law achieve for victims of sexual violence? How does an independent state organisation like Komnas Perempuan build alliances for change? How does it wrestle with the perennial problem of law enforcement?
This week's podcast is a collaboration with the Indonesia Update, hosted by the Indonesia Project at the Australian National University, where Andy spoke last week.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Photo by Andy Yentriyani.
Environment and climate ministers from G20 nations gathered in Bali last week. Indonesian Minister for Forestry and the Environment Siti Nurbaya Bakar told the gathering the world was already in the midst of a climate crisis and called on G20 members to work together to bring down global temperatures. Despite these strong statements, Indonesian environmental groups have been highly critical of the government's ongoing support for fossil fuel extraction and high rates of deforestation.
Beyond these high-level meetings, what is happening at the grassroots in Indonesia in response to the climate crisis and the environmental emergencies that communities face every day? Will "green" issues feature in the 2024 elections? What, or who, has the power to drive real change on the environment in Indonesia?
In the latest episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Ewa Wojkowska, co-founder and chief operating officer of Bali-based NGO Kopernik, and Gede Robi, social activist, research consultant and member of rock band Navicula. Together they are the producers of the documentary film Pulau Plastik, now screening on Netflix, and a podcast about Navicula’s activism and music, A Soundtrack of Resistance.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Image source/ Aliansi Zero Waste Indonesia
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in early August inflamed tensions with China and put Taiwan, and its implications for regional stability, in the spotlight. In response to Pelosi's visit, China conducted extensive military drills around Taiwan, which included firing ballistic missiles over the country. A potential invasion of Taiwan by China would have broad international security ramifications, as the United States and its allies could be drawn into conflict. Any conflict would also cause major disruptions to trade and transportation throughout the region.
On the day of Pelosi's meeting with Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement expressing concern at increasing great power rivalry, calling for the maintenance of peace and stability. The statement also noted Indonesia's continuing respect of the "One China Policy", whereby foreign countries acknowledge but do not recognise that China considers Taiwan to be a part of China.
What interests does Indonesia have with Taiwan and China? How would Indonesia respond in the event of armed conflict between the two? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Ratih Kabinawa, a PhD Candidate in International Relations and Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia, who is writing her thesis on Taiwan's Southeast Asia foreign policy.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/REUTERS/Ann Wang
Dr Wulan Dirgantoro and Dr Elly Kent - art and offence
Indonesian art collective Taring Padi made headlines around the world last month. The collective's 8x10 metre banner, "People's Justice" (2002), on display as part of the prestigious art exhibition documenta 15 in Kassel, Germany, was dramatically covered and subsequently taken down. The decision to remove the banner from its prominent position in the city's town square came after German and Israeli commentators labelled it antisemitic.
How did this work come to be on such prominent display? Who were the curators of documenta 15 and what part did they play in the decision to display this and other similarly controversial artworks in the three-month long exhibition? What has been the fallout for the Indonesian artists, and for the international art community at large?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions and more with Dr Wulan Dirgantoro, lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, and Dr Elly Kent, deputy director of the ANU Indonesia Institute. They recently wrote on the controversy for New Mandala.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Image: by taring_padi on Instagram, 20 June 2022.
Indonesia's longest-standing and most prominent "cause lawyering" organisation, the Legal Aid Institute or LBH, was founded in the early days of Soeharto's authoritarian regime in 1970. Cause lawyering broadly refers to using the law to achieve social change. Throughout much of its history, LBH has faced the challenge of pursuing this mission in a context in which victory in the courtroom has been highly unlikely.
How have LBH's lawyers pursued social change in circumstances where victory in the courtroom has often been highly unlikely? Did democratisation open new opportunities for cause lawyering? How has LBH responded as the quality of democracy has declined? What does the future hold for LBH and cause lawyering in Indonesia?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Dr Tim Mann, editor of the Indonesia at Melbourne blog and associate director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS). Dr Mann wrote his PhD thesis on LBH and cause lawyering in a fragile democracy.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Screenshot from Watchdoc Documentary/Trismana.
Rapid growth in internet penetration in Indonesia over the past decade has altered the local media landscape and the ways in which news is produced and consumed. Over the past few years, several new broadcasting and digital media outlets have emerged, such as Tirto.id, Asumsi, Narasi TV, and Kumparan.
One of these new digital players is the American-Canadian company VICE, which opened a Jakarta bureau in 2016. Instead of “importing” the VICE brand to Indonesia, the Jakarta-based team was given free editorial rein. As a result, it has created its own style of journalism that mixes “serious” journalism with popular culture reporting on memes or investigations into supernatural stories.
This approach has garnered national and international awards as well as public attention. For example, VICE Indonesia’s collaboration with Tirto.Id and the Jakarta Post to investigate cases of allegations of sexual abuse in Indonesian universities, won the 2020 Public Service Journalism Award from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA). Meanwhile, its investigations into debts and debt collection have attracted more than 10 million views on YouTube.
Like many digital media companies, however, VICE Indonesia also faces tough challenges. How is VICE Indonesia tackling these challenges? What does it contribute to the VICE global brand as well as to journalism in Indonesia? Why is VICE Indonesia interested in supernatural stories? And what’s the story with the Khong Guan biscuit tin?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Tito Ambyo explores these questions and more with the managing editor of VICE Indonesia, Ardyan M. Erlangga.
Image by VICE Indonesia.
Indonesian Islam has long been lauded as tolerant and "moderate". It is this moderate character that has enabled Indonesia – the world's largest Muslim-majority country – to become a flourishing democracy, unlike many Muslim-majority countries in the Persian Gulf region. But recent years have seen rising Islamic conservatism in Indonesia, a trend that some scholars have called the "Arabisation" of Indonesian Islam.
Conservative Islamic social movements have long had a foothold in Indonesia, but they have surged in the more open political environment of the post-authoritarian era. Salafism is one such movement, a puritanical school of Islamic thought connected to Saudi Arabia.
Why has Salafism grown in popularity, especially among young Indonesians? How have Salafis promoted their teachings? What do they want, politically and economically? How is Salafism changing the face of Islam in Indonesia and, potentially, being changed in turn?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jacqui Baker explores these questions and more with Dr Chris Chaplin from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr Chaplin recently published a book on the Salafi Islamic movement in Indonesia: Salafism and the State: Islamic Activism and National Identity in Indonesia.
Photo by Chris Chaplin.
Dr Elisabeth Kramer - Political candidates and anti-corruptionism
Indonesia has announced it will conduct its next general elections on 14 February 2024, to select a new president and vice president, and members of the national, provincial and district legislatures. This will be the largest electoral event in Indonesia’s history, with more candidates campaigning at the same time than ever before.
In past elections, fierce electoral competition has seen many candidates resort to vote buying (or "money-politics") to give them an edge in their campaigns. But a small number of candidates make the choice to take a risk and run against the status quo on a platform of "anticorruptionism".
Why is money politics so prevalent in Indonesian election campaigns? Why would a candidate choose to run on an anti-corruption platform, and do they have a chance of winning if they do? What does it all mean for the future of Indonesia’s democracy? In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions and more with Dr Elisabeth Kramer, deputy director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC), Sydney University and author of The Candidates Dilemma: AntiCorruptionism and Money Politics in Indonesian Electoral Campaigns.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Image: Antara Foto
Taking care of the environment in Indonesia, which has one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world, is a massive challenge. Covid-19 has intensified this challenge, presenting new threats and accentuating old ones. The democratic regression and post-truth politics that have become a feature of Indonesia over recent years are also directly and indirectly resulting in more damage to the environment.
How, exactly, are post-truth politics and democratic regression affecting environmental protection in Indonesia? How has the Indonesian government acted to address environmental problems, and has its efforts been successful? Is democracy the best political system for the environment?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Tito Ambyo talks with Dr Dirk Tomsa, former Talking Indonesia host and Associate Professor of Politics at La Trobe University. Dr Tomsa has recently commissioned a survey on Indonesians’ attitudes on the environment and has found some surprising results.
In 2022, Indonesia holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) a forum of 19 of the world’s major economies along with the EU. Indonesia has assumed the presidency at a time when the forum is bitterly divided over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in April, western finance officials walked out of a G20 meeting when Russian delegates were speaking. Facing calls to exclude Russia from the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali in November, Indonesia instead opted to extend an invitation to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, despite Ukraine not being a member of the group.
Indonesia's priority issues for its G20 presidency are global health architecture, sustainable energy transition, and digital transformation, under the overall rubric of “Recover Together, Recover Stronger”. But what effect will the war in Ukraine have on Indonesia's ability to pursue this agenda? How might the presence in Bali of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Zelensky – if both men attend – shape the leaders’ summit? How important, in any case, is the G20 to the Indonesian government, and to powerful political and business interests in the country?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Dr I Gede Wahyu Wicaksana, senior lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Universitas Airlangga in Surabaya.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo.
Photo credit: www.kremlin.ru
Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), claims membership of 40 to 45 million people, and has long occupied a highly significant position in Indonesian society and politics. One of its most high-profile leaders (and Indonesia’s fourth president), Abdurrahman Wahid, remains a symbol for pluralism, remembered for his role in the struggle for democratic reform under the New Order. Today, NU members hold key ministerial and administrative positions in the government of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
As Indonesian democracy shows signs of decline, what is NU’s role? How does it continue to defend its position as a ‘moderate’ Muslim organisation and advocate for pluralism? How will its new leader, Yahya Cholil Staquf, direct the organisation’s focus ahead of the 2024 elections?
In Talking Indonesia this week Dr Jemma Purdey discusses these questions and more with Dr Alexander R. Arifianto, a Research Fellow with the Indonesia Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Image: Hafidz Mubarak A/Antara
In 2005, in the wake of Aceh’s devastating tsunami, the Indonesian government signed the Helsinki Peace Agreement, drawing to a close a thirty-year conflict with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which sought independence for the province.
That agreement committed the parties to establishing a truth and reconciliation commission, designed to examine the abuses that occurred during the conflict and offer restitution to its victims. But it was not until 2016 that the Aceh Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) was finally established, and this only occurred after constant agitation by activists and victims.
Over the past five years, the commission has travelled the province, taking testimonies from some 5,000 victims of human rights abuses, leading toward a final report that is set to be released this year. What will the report reveal about the patterns and experiences of violence during the conflict? Who perpetrated the violence and who were the main victims? How will the report affect Acehnese politics and society, and more broadly, Indonesia?
In Talking Indonesia this week, new host Dr Jacqui Baker talks with historians Dr Jess Melvin from the University of Sydney and Dr Annie Pohlman at the University of Queensland. Dr Melvin and Dr Pohlman are among a group of activists and academics collaborating with the commission to produce the final report.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
One of the challenges that many countries around the world face when tackling the Covid-19 pandemic is widespread misinformation and disinformation polluting public discourse on health.
In Indonesia, misinformation and disinformation often influence the way political, health, environmental and religious issues are talked about publicly. But the way the government often insists on creating a 'single narrative' (narasi tunggal) has added another layer to the problem, where misinformation is created not only by nongovernmental agents, but also by members of government who are more concerned with controlling the narrative of an issue than creating real conversations with Indonesian citizens.
The Indonesian digital information Siberkreasi program, for example, was greeted with optimism by experts when it was first introduced in 2017 in an attempt to fight hoaxes. Five years later, however, some have criticised the program's changing strategies and focus.
In this week's Talking Indonesia, host Tito Ambyo, from RMIT's School of Media and Communication, chats to Associate Professor Ika Idris, whose work focuses on government communication, misinformation, and the internet’s impacts on society.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Kominfo
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been front of mind across much of the world for the past month – with Indonesia no exception. The Indonesian government has not joined the western sanctions regime nor criticised Russia by name in its statements, but it did support a UN resolution condemning Russian aggression.
Most striking in Indonesian responses to the conflict, however, has been the sympathy and even support for the Russian invasion that has come from many Indonesians online. What factors underpin the Indonesian response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how are Indonesians obtaining information about the war, and what interests does Indonesia have at stake? What are the implications for Indonesia-Russia relations? And can we discern anything from Indonesian reactions to the current war as to how Indonesia might react if China were to one day seek to occupy Taiwan?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Radityo Dharmaputra, PhD candidate and junior research fellow in Political Science at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia, and a lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Universitas Airlangga. Radityo recently wrote an article for Indonesia at Melbourne examining some of the reasons behind Indonesian support for the Russian invasion.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Dhemas Reviyanto for Antara Foto
Dr Dicky Budiman - Omicron wave
Indonesia has recorded more than 5.5 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 148,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. These are official figures, assumed by epidemiologists to be far lower than the actual impact of the disease on the population.
In July and August 2021, as the deadly Delta wave swept across the country, hospitals were overwhelmed and graveyards struggled to cope with a massive increase in demand for burials. Since then, Indonesia’s vaccination program has accelerated. More than 50% of the total population (an incredible 144 million people) have now had two doses of the vaccine, with almost 70% receiving at least one dose.
Over the past few weeks, the arrival of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in Indonesia has seen case numbers climb again – reaching daily numbers even higher than those recorded during the Delta peak. But what is happening in Indonesia’s hospitals this time around? Are vaccinations doing what they should? What are the legacies of the Delta wave on the health system and the people of Indonesia?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Jemma Purdey talks to Dr Dicky Budiman, a medical doctor, epidemiologist and advisor to governments and international organisations for more than 20 years. Dicky is currently completing his PhD at Griffith University on global health security, risk communication and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Antara Foto/Reuters
Major social and technological innovation is expected to be required if countries are to meet development challenges into the future. But government initiatives have typically had limited success in driving the transformative change required. Recent years have seen increasing instances of the private sector financing startups to meet societal challenges, while also generating business profits.
What spurs private sector companies to innovate in ways that cater to lower-income customers, what forms do these innovations take, and how have governments responded to such innovation?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Professor Michiko Iizuka from the National Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). Professor Iizuka recently co-authored a three-country study (with Gerald Hane) on disruptive and inclusive innovation, which included Indonesia as one of its case studies.
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Sigid Kurniawan for Antara Foto
In the 80s and 90s, the influence of hip-hop in the music industry and urban cultures of Indonesia was unmistakable. One of the first nationally successful rappers in Indonesia was Iwa K, with his hit Bebas. Legendary hip-hop band Homicide, led by Heri "Ucok" Sutresna (aka Morgue Vanguard), gained a devoted following for its socially conscious, political songs. Recently, artists like Young Lex and Rich Brian have attracted massive audiences.
How do Indonesian hip-hop artists tackle social and political issues in their music? How do the different hip-hop scenes, in Bandung and Yogyakarta, for example, differ in their approach to social and political themes? How do issues of ethnicity, sexism and masculinity influence hip-hop lyrics in Indonesia?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Tito Ambyo explores these issues and more with William Yanko, PhD candidate with the Digital Ethnographic Research Centre at RMIT University. William is writing up his thesis based on fieldwork with hip-hop artists from across Indonesia. His research criticises the often one-dimensional view of Indonesian hip-hop by other scholars, arguing that the hip-hop world in Indonesia is very diverse and encompasses multiple agendas and styles.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.
Photo Credit: William Yanko
Progressive politics in Indonesia has historically enjoyed only a narrow support base. Nevertheless, there have been several attempts to mobilise the support of progressives for political purposes.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Dr Amalinda Savirani about one such example, the emergence of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) to contest the 2019 elections. As Dr Savirani and her co-authors highlight in their article, “Floating Liberals: Female Politicians, Progressive Politics, and PSI in the 2019 Indonesian Elections”, PSI stood out as having a female face. This was seen in the prominence of women among party leaders, having women as almost half of its candidates, and in tackling controversial issues relating to gender equality in Indonesia. The party secured a number of seats in regional legislatures (DPRD). At the national level, however, where parties must obtain 4% of the vote to occupy any seats in the House of Representatives (DPR), PSI fell well short, with only 1.89% of the vote.
What does the experience of PSI in 2019 reveal about the support base for progressive politics in Indonesia, and prospects for advancing progressive causes in Indonesia via elections? At a more basic level, what does it mean to be "progressive" in an Indonesian context?
Dr Amalinda Savirani is the coordinator of the PhD program in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at Universitas Gadjah Mada.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Muhammad Adimaja for Antara
Researchers in Indonesia studying human society and its workings no longer operate under the strictures of the authoritarian era, when those working in the field of social science were expected to support the regime's policies. But do contemporary Indonesian social scientists enjoy the freedom to conduct socially relevant research on any topic of their choosing? How is their research funded, and how does the government view their work? More broadly, how does the entanglement of universities with the Indonesian state shape the work of social science researchers?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Dr Inaya Rakhmani , the founding director of Universitas Indonesia's Asia Research Centre , and the lead researcher of an 11-country study on mobilising social sciences in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh supported by the Global Development Network .
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo. Look out for a new episode every fortnight.
Photo credit: Aditya Pradana Putra for Antara Foto
Tito Ambyo - Supernaturalism online
Ghosts, spirits, kuntilanak, tuyul, and pocong. For most Indonesians these are familiar and, in some ways, even comforting companions from the supernatural realm. Ghost stories are passed down through generations, regardless of class, religion or belief system, and horror has long been a staple of Indonesian literature, art, film and television cultures. Across history, Indonesian leaders have claimed a mystic mandate, alongside political power, to rule. Supernaturalism or "horror stuff" is something of a national trait.
In recent years, young urban Indonesian YouTubers have engaged an eager and growing audience, telling old stories in new, innovative and fascinating ways online. The continuing popularity of horror stories and their reimagining through the use of digital technologies highlights some of the ambiguities in Indonesia’s progressive and increasingly cosmopolitan nationalism.
What is it about the supernatural that so captivates Indonesians? Why is YouTube a fertile platform for this thriving genre of entertainment? What can these videos and their creators tell us about how Indonesians see themselves, their society and the world at large?
In the first episode of Talking Indonesia for 2022, Jemma Purdey talks to Tito Ambyo, a journalist and lecturer in journalism at RMIT in Melbourne, and a new host of Talking Indonesia this year. Tito is currently completing his PhD at RMIT’s Digital Ethnographic Research Centre on digital horror and storytelling in Indonesia.
In 2022, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Son of Dad/YouTube.
Both the Indonesian government and universities have sought to increase the international outlook of the sector in recent years, for example, through proposals to increase the number of foreign staff working in Indonesian universities, and by tying pay and promotion to international publications. But there has also been disquiet about the restrictions and penalties imposed by Indonesia’s National System of Science and Technology Law (Law No. 11 of 2019).
How are Indonesian universities navigating this environment? What are they seeking from international collaboration? Do Indonesian universities face the sort of scrutiny and debate currently playing out in Australia over perceived foreign interference via research collaborations, especially with Chinese institutions?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, the final episode for 2022, Dr Dave McRae chats with Professor Panut Mulyono, Rector of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) about Indonesian universities and international research collaboration .
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight once Talking Indonesia returns in January 2022. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Maulana Surya for Antara Foto
The COP-26 climate summit in November – the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – focused the world’s attention on the challenges of global warming and government responses to it. But what targets has the Indonesian government set for itself, how were these targets formulated, and did they change as a result of COP-26? Is the government united in its response to climate change? And does Indonesia have the capacity to implement its climate change response framework?
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Josi Khatarina, Senior Researcher at the Indonesian Centre for Environmental Law. From 2010 to 2014 Dr Khatarina was also a senior legal specialist at the Indonesian REDD+ Taskforce and Agency.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Lukas for Biro Pers dan Media Kepresidenan
Road to 2024 - Philips Vermonte
The Indonesian government and General Elections Commission (KPU) have yet to agree on a date for the next legislative and presidential elections, which must be held by May 2024. Even though the concurrent elections are still more than two years away, with no incumbent candidate on the 2024 presidential ticket, gossip and speculation about potential contenders, coalitions and pairings is already well underway.
As Indonesia looks toward 2024, what issues are expected to dominate campaigning? Who are some of the likely candidates to emerge in the battle for president, and what sort legacy is President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo hoping to leave behind?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Jemma Purdey discusses these issues and more with Dr Philips Vermonte from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and International Islamic University of Indonesia (UIII).
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: ANTARA FOTO/OKY LUKAMSYAH
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the most severe economic contraction since Indonesia's 1997-98 financial crisis, posing a stern challenge for recovery. Covid-19 struck amid a push by the Indonesian government to increase the role of science and technology in driving economic development. The government enacted a new Science and Technology Law in 2019, and has also formed a new National Research and Innovation Agency, known as BRIN.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae chats with Professor Arief Anshory Yusuf, founding director of the SDGs Centre at Padjajaran University, about the economic impacts of Covid-19, Indonesia's likely trajectory for recovery, and the prospects for a transition as part of this recovery to a so-called knowledge economy - an economy based on the ability to produce and make use of knowledge.
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Yulius Satria Wijaya for Antara Foto
Please note that this episode discusses gender violence that some people may find disturbing or triggering. Listener discretion is advised.
Images have always played an important role in Indonesia, not just in everyday life, but also in its ever-changing political landscape. Terms like pencitraan (political image building) are commonly heard during election season. On social media, buzzers actively attempt to shape the public image of various social and political issues. Meanwhile, posters of murdered human rights activist Munir Said Thalib have become almost as iconic as the man himself.
What role do images play in political life in Indonesia? How do the public consume political imagery? Why do certain images gain political significance?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Annisa Beta discusses these questions and more with Karen Strassler, Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York. Professor Strassler's work focuses on the social lives and political work of images, looking into the relationship between visuality and political imaginaries. Her recently published second book, "Demanding Images: Democracy, Mediation, and the Image-Event in Indonesia", investigates how public images affected the political arena during the turbulent period of political upheaval and technological transformation following the fall of Soeharto.
Image source: jendoelhadisantosa https://www.deviantart.com/jendoelhadisantosa/art/MUNIR-in-WPAP-308894220
Dr Robertus Robet – Academic Freedom
Recently, a number of high-profile cases have highlighted growing threats to academic freedom in Indonesia, amid a broader environment of shrinking civic space. Last month, the imprisonment of Dr Saiful Mahdi from Syaih Kuala University in Aceh, under the draconian Law on Information and Electronic Transactions (known as ITE Law), brought condemnation from academics and civil rights groups across Indonesia and abroad.
In the face of widespread agreement that authorities had overreached, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo eventually granted Saiful amnesty. But this was just one example of the pressure academics and students have faced under the Jokowi administration. And while the government has acknowledged the need for reform of the ITE Law, serious structural, legal and cultural restrictions remain in the higher education sector, and beyond. What is driving these limits on academic freedom? What has been the impact of the ITE Law on academic freedom? What topics are off limits, and are curbs on academic freedom part of Indonesia’s broader democratic decline?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Jemma Purdey discusses these issues and more with Dr Robertus Robet, head of sociology at the State University of Jakarta (UNJ), and a frequent contributor to Indonesia at Melbourne.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Relevant links: https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/attempts-to-revise-draconian-ite-law-stumble/ https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/luhut-reporting-activists-for-defamation-is-another-blow-to-freedom-of-expression/ https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/academic-freedom-another-victim-of-the-ite-law/
Image: ANTARA FOTO/ANIS EFIZUDIN
Last month, Time published its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People. Under the category of ‘Pioneers’, alongside pop star Billie Eilish, was an Indonesian scientist from the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), Professor Adi Utarini.
Professor Utarini is head of the Eliminate Dengue Project at the UGM Faculty of Medicine, funded by the Tahija Foundation and run in collaboration with the World Mosquito Program at Monash University. In 2020, the team published the results of 10-year study, including a 3-year randomised controlled trial, examining the effectiveness of introducing Wolbachia bacteria into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to reduce their capacity to transmit dengue. The findings of the research were described by the World Health Organisation as epochal and a breakthrough in the fight to eliminate dengue and potentially other mosquito-borne viruses.
This is particularly significant given that dengue affects almost 400 million people around the world annually and is described by WHO as one of the 10 greatest threats to world health. In Indonesia each year, an estimated 7 million people are infected.
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey talks to Professor Utarini about how she and her team in Yogyakarta conducted their study and what they discovered. Does this bring us a step closer to eliminating dengue?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey talks to Professor Adi Utarini, Professor in Public Health and Project Leader of Eliminate Dengue Project Yogyakarta, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: World Mosquito Program
Despite the fact that Indonesia’s deforestation rate reached a historic low in 2020, the social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing of people whose livelihoods depend on forests has continued to suffer greatly. The indigenous Marind people in Papua, for example, have seen 1.2 million hectares of their lands and forests targeted for oil palm and timber plantations as part of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate. This has led not only to food and water insecurity but also fundamental shifts in the food and eating habits of the Marind people. Why is this happening?
Joining Talking Indonesia for a second time is Dr Sophie Chao, postdoctoral research associate in the Department of History, University of Sydney. Dr Annisa Beta chats to Chao about her extensive work with the Marind people and the intersections of race, food, and development in Papua.
Chao has recently published articles on gastrocolonialism and on the political symbolism of the monkey from the perspective of West Papuan indigenous communities. Chao's first book, In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua, was awarded the inaugural Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award in June 2021 and is forthcoming with Duke University Press in June 2022. In her first appearance on the podcast in 2019, Chao spoke with Talking Indonesia co-host Dr Jemma Purdey about the violence, displacement, and dispossession experienced by the Marind people.
Chao previously worked for the international human rights organisation Forest Peoples Programme in the United Kingdom and Indonesia and has undertaken consultancies for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. For more information about Sophie, please visit morethanhumanworlds.com.
Yogyakarta is famous for its bustling cultural scene and its cosmopolitan, artistic atmosphere. But the Covid-19 pandemic has seen Yogyakarta’s arts scene grind to a halt. With health restrictions and regulations against public gatherings, it has been almost impossible for artists to continue performing, and this situation has severely affected their livelihoods.
In Yogyakarta alone, an estimated 172,000 creative workers have had to seek alternative sources of income to make ends meet and continue their artistic endeavours. Many of these creative workers are young artists who have now been left wondering what the future holds for them as the pandemic continues, without an end in sight.
How have Yogyakarta’s young artists managed during the pandemic? What strategies have they implemented to try to make ends meet while still channelling their creative passions? What can the government, civil society, and the public do to support young creative workers during these troubled times?
To explore these questions further, Dr Charlotte Setijadi speaks to Dr Oki Radianto Sutopo about a research project on young creative workers in Yogyakarta that he recently conducted with a team of researchers that included one of our Talking Indonesia co-hosts, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne.
In recent years Indonesian cinema has enjoyed great success and acclaim at international film festivals around the world. In 2017 Mouly Surya’s film 'Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts' was met with rave reviews when it premiered at Cannes Film Festival and last month Edwin’s 'Vengeance Is Mine, All Other’s Pay Cash', based on the novel of the same name by Eka Kurniawan, took out the top award at the Locarno Festival in Switzerland. This so-called Indonesian New Wave is made up of a generation of filmmakers in their 30s and 40s who have come of age in post-New Order Indonesia. Their films tackle weighty themes like gender identity and inequality, historical injustice, sexual violence, family tragedy and the tensions between youth culture and tradition. Themes that transcend and translate for audiences around the world. Meanwhile, films including Joko Anwar’s suite of commercially successful and acclaimed horror and action flicks are also finding international audiences on streaming platforms around the world.
What is behind this new wave of cinema in Indonesia? What is behind this international success? Is that being translated into audiences for these films at home and what are the challenges facing this industry in a pandemic?
My guest today is Yulia Evina Bhara a film producer and founder of KawanKawan Media, a Jakarta-based film production house that focuses on international co-production. Yulia is also a member of the Jury for the ReelOzInd! Australia Indonesia Short Film Festival. Jemma Purdey is director of ReelOzInd!
Image: @yuliaevinabhara | Instagram
Indonesia’s once-feted Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) established itself as one of the most trusted institutions in Indonesia, through its prosecutions of ministers, heads of state agencies, political party figures and legislators from across the political spectrum, as well as judicial and law enforcement officers.
But the KPK’s many opponents appeared to strike a decisive blow in 2019, as a newly re-elected President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo lent his support to amendments to the KPK’s founding statute. The revision of the KPK Law severely undercut the Commission’s autonomy, and was one of the triggers of the #ReformasiDikorupsi protests, the largest wave of student protests in Indonesia since Suharto’s fall in 1998. Two years on, how have the new amendments affected the KPK’s ability to investigate corruption cases? How has the new set of commissioners performed, having been appointed soon after these amendments were passed? What lies ahead for anti-corruption efforts in Indonesia?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with anti-corruption expert Dr Ahmad Khoirul Umam. Dr Umam is Managing Director of the Paramadina Public Policy Institute in Jakarta; he also wrote his PhD at the University of Queensland on the politics of anti-corruption in Indonesia.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Maulana Surya for Antarafoto
In July, Indonesia recorded its highest daily numbers of new coronavirus cases, making it the epicentre of the global pandemic, ahead of India and Brazil. The daily peak of 55,000 cases in mid-July, though shocking, only represented cases confirmed by PCR testing and reported by the government in its national tally.
For many epidemiologists and other observers of Indonesia’s pandemic over the past one and half years, this surge was no surprise. Experts have long warned that Covid-19 cases and deaths in Indonesia are vastly undercounted and underreported and have expressed concerns about data transparency.
Volunteer organisations are among those seeking to provide a more complete picture of the state of the escalating health crisis in Indonesia. One of the most prominent is LaporCovid-19, comprised of scientists, public health experts and journalists. Established in early 2020, with a particular focus on the collection of data through an innovative crowdsourcing platform, the organisation regularly lobbies government for greater transparency in its pandemic response, and for equity in the vaccination program. Last weekend, LaporCovid-19 were joint recipients of the Tasrif Award from the Indonesian Journalists Alliance (AJI), for their brave coverage of the pandemic in the face of opposition.
What motivates this group of experts and volunteers to challenge the government? What are the implications for Indonesia if it continues to get the numbers wrong?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Jemma Purdey talks to Dr Irma Hidayana, a public health expert and co-founder of LaporCovid-19.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
LaporCovid-19 link: https://laporcovid19.org/
Fundraising campaigns to support of Indonesia's pandemic crisis: https://australiaindonesia.com/coronavirus/fundraisers/
Image: Ahmad Tri Hawaari
Please note that this episode discusses gender violence that some people may find disturbing or triggering. Listener discretion is advised.
UN Women recently described violence against women during Covid-19 as "the shadow pandemic". As Covid-19 has gotten worse, so has women’s experiences of domestic violence. Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) reported that the pandemic has reduced victims’ ability to report incidents of violence safely, aggravating the already elevated risks of domestic violence during the outbreak. Indonesia passed the Anti-Domestic Violence Law in 2004, but the law’s efficacy is disputable.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia, Dr Annisa Beta discusses domestic violence in Indonesia with Balawyn Jones. Balawyn Jones is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at Melbourne Law School. Her doctoral thesis examines the implementation of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law in Indonesia, with a focus on the intersection between gender, religion and law. She also currently holds the positions of Honourary Fellow at Melbourne Law School, teaching Criminal Law. Balawyn has written extensively on domestic violence in Indonesia. In 2020, she published a book chapter ‘The Politics of care: A case study of domestic violence in Aceh’ in ‘Gender, Violence and Power in Indonesia: Across Time and Space’ edited by Katharine McGregor, Ana Dragojlovic and Hannah Loney. Balawyn also wrote about the increase of domestic violence cases during the pandemic for Indonesia at Melbourne.
If you are experiencing domestic violence and require support in Indonesia contact LBH Apik, Pusat Pelayanan Terpadu Pemberdayaan Perempuan Dan Anak (P2TP2A) or Unit Pelayanan Perempuan dan Anak (PPA) Polda, or local services in Australia.
Image: ANTARA FOTO/Asep Fathulrahman
On 15 July, the Indonesian legislature (DPR) revised special autonomy legislation for Papua and West Papua provinces, extending the provision of additional funds to the two provinces. The extension of special autonomy – or otsus – has been hotly debated for 18 months, with many civil society groups and independence supporters rejecting special autonomy altogether. Special autonomy is one strand of the Indonesian government’s attempts to address protracted conflict with segments of Papuan society, including armed independence groups such as the TPNPB, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement. Another strand has been a security approach, including counter-insurgency operations, internet shutdowns and the sometimes fatal repression of dissent and protests.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses special autonomy and the overall Indonesian government approach to the Papua conflict with Hipolitus Wangge, a researcher at the Australian National University who was also a humanitarian volunteer in Papua in 2019 assisting displaced persons from Nduga in the Papuan highlands. He has published extensively on various dimensions of the Papua conflict, including a co-authored article with Shane Joshua Barter comparing special autonomy in Aceh and Papua, and a co-authored article with Camellia Web-Gannon on Indonesia’s counter-insurgency campaign in Nduga.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Setpres-Kris for Antara Foto
Dicky Budiman: the worsening pandemic crisis
We are bringing you this episode early this week in response to the current escalation in the pandemic crisis in Indonesia, especially in Java. Last week, 16 months after announcing its first case of COVID-19, Indonesia passed the ominous milestone of 2 million officially recorded cases, and daily case numbers are surging. Local government officials in parts of Java are moving to declare ‘red zones’ and limit movement in their regions, and hospitals are reaching if not already exceeding capacity.
What are the causes of this recent spike in Covid numbers? What does it tell us about the way the government has handled the crisis over the past 16 months? How dire will the situation become and can the vaccination roll out help to mitigate its impacts?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Jemma Purdey talks to Dr Dicky Budiman, a medical doctor, epidemiologist and advisor to governments and international organisations for over 20 years. Dicky is currently completing his PhD at Griffith University on global health security, risk communication and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Ahmad Tri Hawaari
As the coronavirus pandemic extends into its second year, digital literacy is more important now than ever. Misinformation and hoaxes are everywhere. Cultural and political contests on social media have also become more intense, and politicians are already beginning to position themselves ahead of the 2024 elections.
Being digitally literate entails not only the ability to use digital devices and platforms but also the capacity to ethically engage with other online users. Digital safety and privacy are also important. As is, of course, the capacity to understand whether information is true and reliable. But just how digitally literate are Indonesians?
In this episode, Dr Annisa Beta talks to Dr Novi Kurnia, a lecturer at the Department of Communication Science at Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Gadjah Mada University, and the founder and coordinator of the Indonesia Digital Literacy Network or Japelidi.
Japelidi, along with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics and Siberkreasi, published four important modules on digital literacy in April 2021. The modules can be accessed on literasidigital.id
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Harviyan Perdana Putra for Antara Foto
The Indonesian government is aiming to vaccinate two-thirds of the population in order to reach herd immunity against the Covid-19 virus, but the sheer size of the population and its geographical extent make the vaccination task a very challenging one. In order to balance the vaccination drive with on-going productivity, they have enlisted the help of private corporations to launch and pay for inoculation drives. In March, state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) signed a cooperation agreement on the implementation of the self-funded vaccination program ('vaksin gotong-royong')that targets employees of private companies and their families. While this public-private cooperation may sound like a good way to hasten the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine, some observers are worried about problems to do with vaccine supply, potential for corruption, and low health standards in the implementation. To talk about the role of the private sector in Indonesia's fight against Covid-19, Dr Charlotte Setijadi chats with Dr Andreasta Meliala, a public health expert from the Faculty of Medicine at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. Photo by Dhemas Reviyanto for Antara.
Mass protest movements have increasingly become a feature of Indonesian democracy. The massive #ReformasiDikorupsi (“Reform Corrupted”) protests in 2019 were hailed as the largest democratic reform protests in the country in two decades. Nearly three years earlier, Islamist groups also showed their ability to mobilise through their “Defence of Islam” protests, which called for the prosecution of Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian Chinese-Indonesian governor of Jakarta, on blasphemy charges.
Meanwhile, mass protest movements have emerged to oppose authoritarian regimes in Indonesia’s neighbouring countries of Myanmar and Thailand.
How do these movements mobilise and how effective are they at bringing about change? How has protest changed in the age of social media, and how has the state responded to mass protest? Are there parallels also that we can draw between protest movements in Indonesia and its regional neighbours?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Yatun Sastramidjaja, assistant professor in anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and an associate fellow with the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute in Singapore with the media, technology and society program.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Arnas Padda for Antara Foto
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo disappointed environmentalists at home and internationally last month, when he failed to set a date for Indonesia to reach net-zero emissions at US President Joe Biden's recent virtual climate summit. Leading up to the event, officials suggested Indonesia was considering setting a target of reaching net-zero by 2070.
Jokowi did, however, note that in 2020, Indonesia’s rates of deforestation had reached record lows, with a reduction in conversion of its natural forests and peatlands and fewer forest fires.
Indonesia is home to 10% of the world’s tropical rainforests. It is also the 5th largest emitter of carbon, largely caused by the continued destruction of forests and peatlands.
Does this recent data reveal a sustainable trend for the reduction of deforestation in Indonesia? What challenges remain to significantly reduce or even end deforestation? How important are Indonesia’s forests for the world’s climate future?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Jemma Purdey talks to Aida Greenbury, a sustainability and climate change expert and advisor to governments, industry and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). She was the managing director of sustainability at Asia Pulp and Paper Group for 13 years, and sits on advisory boards for a range of organisations, including Mongabay and Indonesia’s Palm Oil Smallholder Unions.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Cyathea Papua Rainforest/Widodo Margotomo/Wikipedia Commons
Transgender women, commonly called waria, are an important part of contemporary Indonesian society. Growing discussion of LGBTQIA+ issues have seen gender and sexual minorities become increasingly visible in Indonesian public life, especially among younger and urban Indonesian populations.
But what about the important role long played by waria in Indonesia's cultural-political landscape? How have waria navigated public life in the world’s largest Muslim society?
In this episode, Dr Annisa Beta discusses these issues with Dr Benjamin Hegarty, a Mckenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne. His book, tentatively titled "The Made-Up State", will be published soon.
In 2021, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
In late March, Indonesia faced two terror attacks in the space of a week, with a husband and wife conducting a suicide bombing against a cathedral in Makassar, and a woman attacking Indonesian police headquarters carrying an Airsoft gun. Indonesian police described the perpetrators of both attacks as supporters of the Islamic State or ISIS – the group’s supporters have been responsible for a string of attacks in Indonesia over the past five years, albeit mostly causing few fatalities, including attacks in Indonesia’s two main cities Jakarta and Surabaya in 2016 and 2018.
What do these recent attacks tell us about the nature of the terrorist threat in Indonesia, and how is this threat changing? Are ISIS supporters the main threat to Indonesian security or are longer-established organisations such as Jemaah Islamiyah emerging anew? Why have terrorist attacks in Indonesia persisted despite the imprisonment of hundreds of terrorist perpetrators? And how well have Indonesian authorities responded to the threat of terrorism and extremism.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Sidney Jones , director of the Jakarta-based Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict or IPAC, a world leading expert on jihadi terrorism in Southeast Asia.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Didik Suhartono for Antara Foto
International Women’s Day was celebrated on 8 March. It aims to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women and bring attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence against women. Since the fall of Soeharto, the Indonesian women's movement has been instrumental in pushing for affirmative action policies that have promoted women's participation in politics, and have successfully advocated for policies to protect the rights of women, such as the 2004 Law on Domestic Violence. At the same time, however, major challenges remain, particularly in maternal health, violence against women and discrimination. In Indonesia, as elsewhere, women are raising their voices and calling for improvements to women’s safety and equality.
What has been achieved in terms of women’s rights and equality in the post-authoritarian era in Indonesia? Are more women entering politics and what impact are they having? What are the issues driving the women’s movement today?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey speaks to Dr Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi a senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), about Indonesia’s women’s movement and its role in bringing about social and political change.
Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi is a senior researcher at Center for Political Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). Her research interests are in the areas of gender and politics, women and politics, gender and decentralization. She received her MA in Asian Studies from the Australian National University (2007) and PhD from the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies (ASAFAS) Kyoto University Japan (2012). Her doctoral dissertation was published as a book, Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press & Kyoto University Press, 2015). Her latest research explores the usage of motherhood identity in the 2019 Indonesian presidential election was published as ‘Motherhood Identity in the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Elections: Populism and Political Division in the National Women’s Movement’, Contemporary Southeast Asia vol. 42, no. 2 (2020): 224-250. She is Secretary General of Asian Association of Women's Studies (AAWS, 2020-2022).
© 2018 BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images
What are effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on children and vulnerable populations in Indonesia? As most schools and educational institutions have been closed for more than a year, many children have to shelter in places that may not always be ideal. The pandemic has also restricted opportunities for children and vulnerable populations to express their concerns and participate in public. Who has been affected the most? What can we do about the issues children and vulnerable individuals face? To shed light on these issues, in this episode, we are joined by Dr. Santi Kusumaningrum, the Director of Puskapa (Centre for Child Protection and Wellbeing at University of Indonesia). Photo by M Agung Rajasa for Antara.
In this Lunar New Year special episode, Dr Charlotte Setijadi chats with Dr Evi Sutrisno about the history and evolution of Confucianism in Indonesia, from its beginnings as a belief system for ethnic Chinese migrants to its recognition as one of the country's six official religions.
The December 2020 elections for mayors and governors marked the beginning of Indonesia’s fourth wave of direct local elections. Mayors and governors have been directly elected by popular vote since 2005, replacing a previous system of indirect election by local legislatures that was widely perceived as corrupt. Most candidates though are still nominated by coalitions of political parties, as provisions for independent candidates in place since 2008 are very difficult to navigate. What are the keys to winning these local elections? Do the party coalitions that candidates form shape their chances of winning, or the way that they govern afterwards? Have the ways in which local leaders won office shaped their response to the Covid-19 pandemic? And are changes now needed to the electoral system to improve the functioning of these elections and local governance?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Adrianus Hendrawan , a recent PhD graduate from the Australian National University who is currently engaged in research with ANU on women’s representation in local legislatures. In addition to his PhD research , Adrianus has co-authored a range of articles on local elections and local governance with several other colleagues: on ‘Parties as pay-off seekers’ ; on ‘Incumbency advantage and the performance of second term mayors’ ; and on ‘The impact of majority coalitions’ .
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Annisa Beta from the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Indrianto Eko Suwarso for Antara Foto
Dr Ines Atmosukarto - COVID-19 and the vaccine
Over the past few months, the Covid-19 crisis in Indonesia has escalated, with daily case numbers and deaths from the virus hitting record levels week after week. Without strict lockdowns, government efforts to encourage the public to comply with social distancing and masking advice has not been effective in controlling the spread of the disease.
On 13 January, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo received the first dose of the CoronaVac vaccine, manufactured by Chinese firm Sinovac, after interim data from phase III trials in late 2020 found that the vaccine is 65.3% effective. The vaccine trials and rollout across the world has been shrouded in some controversy, and the vaccine's reception in Indonesia has been mixed. As the government embarks on one of the largest vaccination programs in its history, what are the challenges? Is it taking the right approach, and will the vaccine do its job and arrest the pandemic in Indonesia?
To explore these questions and more, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Dr Ines Atmosukarto, a molecular biologist from the John Curtin School of Media Research at the ANU’s College of Health and Medicine. Ines is CEO of Lipotek Pty Ltd which develops vaccines and cancer treatments, and was previously project leader at the Research Centre for Biotechnology at the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI). To shed light on these questions and more I am joined by Dr Ines Atmosukarto a molecular biologist from the John Curtin School of Media Research at the ANU’s College of Health and Medicine. Ines is CEO of Lipotek Pty Ltd which develops vaccines and cancer treatments and she was previously Project Leader at the Research Centre for Biotechnology at the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI).
PHOTO: ANTARA FOTO
At the end of what has been a challenging year, governments around the world are imposing movement restriction orders to prevent Christians from traveling home and congregating at churches. The issue of restricting people’s rights to practice their religious rituals due to Covid-19 is a challenging and controversial one. However, in a country such as Indonesia where religion plays a huge part in the everyday life and identity politics of people, it is difficult to separate religion from politics, and the question then becomes how the government may better work together with religious leaders and institutions in the fight to curb the spread of Covid-19. To talk about the role of Indonesian religious leaders and institutions in the Covid-19 pandemic, I speak with Dr Syafiq Hasyim.
Religious harmony is a persistent challenge in Indonesia, whether between adherent to different religions or within each religious community. During the early years of the democratic transition, thousands of Indonesians were killed in large-scale inter-religious conflicts in several provinces in the east of the country; long after these conflicts have ended, the construction of new places of worship remains an ongoing source of tension thorughout the archipelago. One response of the Indonesian government has been to establish Inter-religious Harmony Forums (FKUB) in all districts and provinces. To discuss the issue of religious harmony, and how such Inter-religious Harmony Forums have performed in tackling religious disputes and promoting tolerance, I’m joined today by Ihsan Ali-Fauzi, director of PUSAD Paramadina, the Centre for the Study of Religion and Democracy . Ihsan has written extensively on these FKUB, and his organisation PUSAD Paramadina has established a national database to provide an evidence base for policy decisions about these forums.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses the issue of religious harmony, and how such Inter-religious Harmony Forums have performed in tackling religious disputes and promoting tolerance with Ihsan Ali-Fauzi, director of PUSAD Paramadina, the Centre for the Study of Religion and Democracy. Ihsan has written extensively on FKUB, and his organisation PUSAD Paramadina has established a national database to provide an evidence base for policy decisions about these forums. Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Associate Professor Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo: Yulius Satria Wijaya for Antara Foto
Indonesia has long been known as one of the most active Facebook and Twitter nations, but more recently Instagram has become the social media platform of choice for many young Indonesians. Some of the platform’s most prolific users are female Islamic activists who are keen to utilize social media as novel tools for proselytisation (or da’wa).
Why do female activists choose social media such as Instagram for their activism? How they utilise the visual tools available to them? And how does their activism differ from conventional da’wa?
In this Talking Indonesia episode, Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dr Annisa Beta, a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Annisa Beta
Rafiqa Quaratta A'yun - the omnibus Law on Job Creation
Since early October, large-scale protests have taken place on the streets of Jakarta and other cities around Indonesia in opposition to the new omnibus Law on Job Creation (UU Cipta Kerja). The 1000+ page law includes 186 articles and revises 77 existing laws, yet it took a relatively short time to be drafted and reviewed before being passed into law.
For months, legal scholars and academics warned about the lack of transparency around the drafting of the law and the haste with which it was completed, arguing it was unlawful. Meanwhile, workers, students and environmentalists have demonstrated over the law's weakening of workers' conditions and environmental protections.
What is in the omnibus law and why has President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's government made it a priority? Who are the winners and losers of the law? What does the process of its enactment tell us about the government, its priorities and values? In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey discusses these questions and more with Rafiqa Quratta A'yun, PhD candidate at the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), Melbourne Law School.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: ANTARA FOTO - Nova Wahyudi
Indonesia’s micro, small and medium enterprises sector – in which most Indonesians work - has been hard hit by public health measures in response to the pandemic and by the broader economic downturn. How have these impacts varied for different micro, small and medium enterprises? How has the sector adapted to the pandemic? And has government assistance addressed the sctor’s needs?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with by Nurul Widyaningrum, Executive Director of Akatiga, the Centre for Social Analysis, who has written widely about MSMEs in Indonesia.
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Associate Professor Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Fikri Yusuf for Antara Foto
Illegal, undocumented and unregulated fishing became one of the most prominent issues of the first term Jokowi government. Its prominence arose in part because of repeated confrontations at sea with the fishing fleets and coastguard of China and Vietnam, but more notably owing to the hardline enforcement approach of Jokowi’s first term fisheries minister, Susi Pudjiastuti. Susi’s use of explosives to sink siezed foreign vessels and her high media profile made her one of President Jokowi’s most popular ministers, but she was not re-appointed in Jokowi’s second term cabinet. But how did Susi transform Indonesia’s fisheries industry during her tenure? And what does her her replacement tell us about the sustainability of her approach to combating illegal fishing?
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Fabio Scarpello, lecturer in politics and international relations in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland. Dr Scarpello is the author of ‘Susi Versus the rest: the political economy of the fisheries industry in Indonesia during Jokowi’s first term’, recently published in the Asian Journal of Political Science.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Septianda Perdana for Antara Foto
According to Unicef, more than 60 million students in Indonesia have been temporarily out of school due to COVID-19, presenting the country’s education sector with unprecedented challenges. How have schools responded to these challenges? How have children and parents reacted? And what are the likely long-term implications of prolonged home schooling for Indonesian children?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, we chat about the impact of Covid-19 on early childhood education in Indonesia. Joining host Dirk Tomsa is Dr Vina Adriany, the Head of the Department of Early Childhood Education at the School of Graduate Studies at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia in Bandung.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/Didik Suhartono/hp.
A/Prof Marcus Mietzner - the Soekarno dynasty
The Soekarno dynasty is arguably Indonesia’s first and certainly most successful political family – able to count two presidents and the country’s largest political party, PDI-P - as its legacy, so far. Soekarno himself, was the nation’s founding father and first president and his daughter, Megawati, its fifth and to date, only female president from 2001-2004. Today Megawati continues to lead the family party, which has played a significant role in Indonesia’s democratic consolidation.
However, with the matriarch, Megawati, failing twice in her attempts to re-capture the presidency, in 2014 the decision was made to put forward a ‘proxy’ nominee for the party’s presidential bid. As history tell us, their choice, Joko Widodo, proved a very good one. Now, six years later, with Jokowi in his second and final term, the issue of a successor is once more on the table, and with it questions about the ability of the Soekarno dynasty to regenerate and hold on to its power.
What are the characteristics that have seen the Soekarno dynasty survive and thrive for three generations? What are the challenges of regeneration facing the Soekarno family? Has the dynasty weakened its own position by its decision to elevate Joko Widodo to the presidency? And as members of the president’s own family seek to enter politics via the upcoming regional elections (Pilkada), is Jokowi looking to create a political dynasty of his own to rival that of the Soekarnos?
To talk about these questions and more, our guest this week is A/Prof Marcus Mietzner, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU. He has written extensively on the Sukarno dynasty and the PDI-P, including, ‘The Sukarno dynasty in Indonesia: Between institutionalisation, ideological continuity and crises of succession’ SEAR, Volume: 24 issue: 3, page(s): 355-368.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Marcus Mietzner, November 2013
Recent years in Indonesia have seen repeated instances of the hacking of activists’ social media accounts, the defacing of media websites, as well as the activities of political influencers and automated bots attacking critics and promoting a pro-government line. On top of these digital attacks, the Indonesian government also twice throttled or shutdown the internet in 2019, first in Jakarta and subsequently in Papua.
Digital attacks on activists and the media raise a host of questions: who is responsible for these attacks, what effect do they have on Indonesian democracy, and what reforms are needed to better protect Indonesian internet users?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Damar Juniarto, Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet)
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Wahyu Putro A for Antara Foto
The relationship between Indonesia and Australia has not always been smooth, but the people of the two countries have mostly supported each other during times of crises. What is the state of Indonesia-Australia relations during these times of increasing international detachment and the defunding of public diplomacy programs? What are some of the contemporary challenges faced by those trying to foster public diplomacy programs between the two countries? Charlotte Setijadi spoke about the history and current state of Indonesia-Australia people-to-people relations with Dr Lis Kramer and Ms Ele Williams.
Launched in 2014 and aiming to provide universal healthcare coverage, Indonesia’s national health insurance scheme, JKN, has gradually increased its membership to 220 million people, or 84 per cent of the Indonesian population. Nevertheless, questions remain about the equality of access to healthcare and quality of treatment that JKN members receive in different parts of the country. The financial sustainability of the scheme also remains an ongoing issue, with the healthcare fund’s deficit reaching Rp 28 trillion rupiah (approximately A$2.5 billion ) in 2019, a significant burden for the government even prior to the severe economin downturn caused by Covid-19.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues, as well as the impact of Covid-19 on Indonesia’s national health insurance scheme, with Professor Laksono Trisnantoro, Head of the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing at Universitas Gadjah Mada . Professor Laksono headed a team from the Centre of Health Policy and Management that produced a recently published evaluation of the national health insurance scheme in 13 of Indonesia’s 34 provinces . Professor Laksono is a second time guest on Talking Indonesia, having appeared in 2016 to discuss the earlier development of JKN.
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Associate Professor Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Ampelsa for Antara Foto
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Indonesia was estimated to have between 55,000 and 100,000 political prisoners as a result of the Army-led anti-communist violence of the mid-1960s. Some of these prisoners maintained long-lasting epistolary friendships with supporters and human rights activists overseas. Who initiated these friendships and how did they evolve over time? What kind of broader support networks for political prisoners emerged out of this letter writing? And what legacy did this activism leave for contemporary human rights campaigners? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, we take a closer look at one of these epistolary friendships. Joining host Dirk Tomsa is historian Dr Vannessa Hearman, a Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, and the author of 'Unmarked Graves: Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia', which was recently awarded the 2020 Early Career Book Prize by the Asian Studies Association of Australia. In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo courtesy of Vannessa Hearman
The prominent role of active and retired officers of the Indonesian military, or TNI, has been widely noted, with Lieutenant General Doni Monardo serving as the head of Indonesia’s Covid-19 taskforce, the chief of staff of the army, General Andika Perkasa, serving as deputy head of a new COVID-19 handling and national economic recovery committee; in addition to the various retired officers occupying positions within the palace and the cabinet. How has the involvement of the military shaped Indonesia’s Covid response, and has TNI’s role in countering the pandemic altered the balance of civil-military relations? How also is President Jokowi likely to manage relations with the military for the remainder of his term, as the retirement of current TNI commander Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto looms in 2021?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Evan Laksmana, Senior Researcher in the Department of International Relations at CSIS Indonesia. Dr Laksmana is co-author with Rage Taufika of a recent CSIS Indonesia commentary on the militarization of Indonesia’s Covid-19 response.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Arnas Padda for Antara Foto
Dr Amanda Achmadi: Covid-19 and the city
As the pandemic enters its sixth month and Indonesia’s daily case numbers continue to rise, in order to avoid further deterioration of the economy the central and local governments have begun to loosen restrictions. For the tens of millions of Indonesians living in its densely populated cities this will prove to be a particularly difficult test. The pandemic has highlighted tensions between the informality that characterises these large cities, and the bureaucracies struggling to deal with this major public health crisis.
What did the ‘lockdown’ in Indonesia’s cities look like? What were the restrictions on public gatherings and use of public spaces? How is public space being organised under PSBB to accommodate the large informal sector? And as markets, malls, mosques and cinemas open up again how will Indonesia’s urbanites respond?
To answer these questions and more is Dr Amanda Achmadi a senior lecturer in Architectural Design, Asian Architecture and Urbanism at the Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo: Nova Wahyudi for Antara
The Covid-19 crisis in Indonesia shows no signs of abating as the government continues to struggle to find adequate responses to the crisis. In the absence of decisive government action, many grassroots communities are stepping up by starting their own initiatives to contain the spread of the virus. Who is driving this community engagement? What can be achieved at this level? And why do women play a particularly important role in such initiatives? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, we chat about Covid-19 and community engagement in South Sumatra. Joining host Dirk Tomsa are the incoming Director of the Monash Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre, Associate Professor Sharyn Graham Davies, as well as Najmah and Yeni, two members of the Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology at the Public Health Faculty, Universitas Sriwijaya in Palembang. In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Najmah
In the wake of these US protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd in May in Minneapolis, a #PapuanLivesMatter discourse has emerged in Indonesia, scrutinising racism against the indigenous populations of Indonesia’s two easternmost provinces, Papua and West Papua, site of a protracted conflict for independence between the Indonesian government and sections of Papuan society. #PapuanLivesMatter itself follows on from the massive, sustained anti-racism protests in Papua in August and September 2019, after Papuan students studying in Surabaya and Malang in East Java found themselves the target of racial abuse in the days leading up to Indonesia’s independence day.
To discuss racism towards Papuans, its impacts and drivers, I’m joined today by Ligia Giay, a PhD candidate at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Perth, and a frequent author on racism against Papuans. She is also part of the team that runs the Voice of Papua newsletter: https://voiceofpapua.substack.com/.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Raisan Al Farisi for Antara Foto
The mental health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic are generally assumed to be severe, but little data has been available to assess the situation in Indonesia. Indonesian survey firm SurveyMETER has conducted an online survey to measure the incidence of anxiety and depression during the Covid-19 crisis. In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses the survey with Dr Wayan Suriastini, Executive Director of SurveyMETER. Keep an eye on the SurveyMETER website for the results of the survey discussed in today’s episode, as well as future polls.
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Associate Professor Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Siswowidodo for Antarafoto
Dr Pandu Riono - Indonesia's pandemic
In early March as the pandemic quickly spread across the world and its neighbours rushed to close their borders and economies, Indonesia’s Minister for Health Terawan Agus Putranto told local media he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, describing the coronavirus as less dangerous than the flu.
Indonesia did not record its first official case of COVID-19 until 2 March and would not issue its PSBB or lockdown orders until the end of the month and in some provinces even later. Meanwhile, since January epidemiologists at the University of Indonesia and from other institutions across the country were working behind the scenes to convince the government that the pandemic posed a major threat to the country’s inadequate and fragile heath services and infrastructure.
Fast forward to June 2020 as lockdown restrictions are being eased and official numbers of cases and deaths ascribed to COVID-19 remain well below those earlier predictions and estimates but continue to trend upward, with some of the biggest daily totals of new cases recorded in the past week.
Why are Indonesia’s case numbers relatively low? Is the testing regime and data analysis adequate? Have the government’s PSBB or social distancing regulations been successful? And how that restrictions are being lifted, what does the future hold?
My guest today is Dr Pandu Riono an epidemiologist from the Faculty of Public Health at the University Indonesia and a member of a team of researchers who carried out some of the earliest modelling of the pandemic in Indonesia.
http://staff.ui.ac.id/priono @drpriono Twitter
Photo: Courtesy Central Java Provincial Public Relations
As the Covid-19 virus wreaks havoc across Indonesia, the World Bank predicts that Indonesia’s economy may shrink by as much 3.5 percent this year. The government is now pushing ahead to reopen the economy to prevent further weakening by easing restrictions in areas where infection rates are under control. How badly has the Covid-19 pandemic affected Indonesia’s economy so far, and which sectors and sections of society have been impacted the most? Is the government’s push to reopen the economy premature? What can the government do to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 while also minimizing the damage to the economy? To analyse the situation, Dr Charlotte Setijadi spoke to Dr Puspa Delima Amri, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Sonoma State University.
Across the world, the International Labour Organisation has highlighted the significant impacts lockdown policies have had on 1.6 billion informal workers, concentrated in low and middle income countries like Indonesia. The differing effects of Covid-19 responses on informal sector workers and those in formal employment is a massive issue for Indonesia, where more than half of the workforce works in the informal sector. How have informal sector workers coped during the Covid-19 crisis in Indonesia, and what is the Indonesian government doing to assist them?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Joanna Octavia, Visiting Fellow at Centre for Strategic and International Studies Indonesia, and a PhD Candidate at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research. She is the author of the recent CSIS Commentary, Towards a national database of workers in the informal sector: COVID-19 pandemic response and future recommendations.
Today’s episode is the latest in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Associate Professor Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Aditya Pradana Putra for Antara Foto
Many foreign media outlets have been highly critical of the Indonesian government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the Indonesian media, by contrast, seems far less inclined to question the government’s statistics and policy announcements. What explains this discrepancy in reporting standards? Are Indonesian journalists self-censoring because the space for dissent is shrinking in Indonesia? Are foreign journalists exaggerating the extent of the crisis?
In today’s podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Febriana Firdaus, an Indonesian freelance journalist currently based in Bali, and Max Walden, a reporter and producer with the ABC Asia Pacific Newsroom in Melbourne and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne’s Asian Law Centre.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/Dhemas Reviyanto/foc.
Athia Yumna – COVID-19, the poor and vulnerable
Globally, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating effect on the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. Prior to the virus emergency, Indonesia’s economy was the envy of many others around the world. Its steady GDP growth had led to a gradual decline in the number of Indonesians living below the poverty line to below 10 percent in late 2019. The economic shutdown and social distancing measures put in place to stop the virus have dramatically impacted the household incomes of these groups, many of whom work in Indonesia’s large informal sector. How will the economic contraction impact on Indonesia’s overall poverty levels? What is being done by government to provide assistance to the poor and vulnerable, including those who are in danger of falling into poverty? Will this be enough? What more can the government do?
To talk about recent research related to the impacts of COVD-19 on Indonesia’s poor and vulnerable and the government’s response, our guest this week is Athia Yumna is Deputy Director of Research and Outreach of the SMERU Research Institute. Athia has more than eleven years of experience working in the development sector and conducting applied economic research in the areas of poverty, inequality, social protection, health economics, and development economics. She is the lead author of the recently published Briefing Paper, 'Social Safety Nets amid the COVID-19 Crisis: What Should the Government Do Now?'.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo: Antara / Nova Wahyudi
The Indonesian government’s response to Covid-19 has been widely perceived as inadequate. Indonesia’s testing rate has been very low, sparking concerns that many Covid fatalities have gone undetected, but even so its current official death toll of 635 is the highest in Asia outside of China. It took almost a month after acknowledging its first case to declare a health emergency, enabling regions with high numbers of cases to institute social distancing. It was only on Tuesday this week that the government issued a ban on the annual mudik - where tens of millions of Indonesians living in major cities go home to rural areas at the end of Islamic fasting month, potentially taking Covid-19 with them. But with the fasting month starting at the end of this week, many Indonesians have already gone home.
What accounts for the Indonesian government response to Covid-19? What considerations have informed the government’s response, what challenges does it face, and does the crisis threaten the government’s legitimacy?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Yanuar Nugroho, former deputy chief of staff to President Jokowi during the president’s first term, and a member of the Indonesian Young Academy of Sciences, ALMI. Dr Nugroho is also currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, and a senior advisor to the Centre for Innovation Policy and Governance in Jakarta.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Photo credit: Agung Rajasa for Antara Foto
Covid-19 is spreading fast in Indonesia and the government seems overwhelmed by the monumental task of combating the virus. President Jokowi has ordered social distancing measures, but there’s been much confusion about what exactly that means. The situation is further complicated by disagreements and a lack of coordination between the central government and local administrations, many of whom are pushing for stricter measures.
Why has the Indonesian response been so ineffective? How can the disagreements between the national and local governments be resolved? And what is the likely trajectory of the virus in view of the upcoming Islamic fasting month of Ramadhan, when many Indonesians normally travel to their home villages?
In today’s podcast, I will discuss these and other questions with Dr Riris Andono Ahmad from the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Population Health at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image credit: ANTARA FOTO/Muhammad Adimaja/pras
Even without controversial changes to the Criminal Code that would criminalise same sex relations, many local level bylaws already persecute sexual and gender minorities in the name of public order and decency.
What are the difficulties faced by LGBT Indonesians? How do they see their place in society? What are the barriers to basic services, including health care and what are the implications for this community and Indonesian society as a whole if they are left behind?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey discusses inclusion, access and empowerment for LGBT Indonesians with Ignatius Praptoraharjo (Gambit) a research consultant at the Centre for Health Policy and Management at Gadjah Mada University and the HIV AIDS Research Centre, Atma Jaya Catholic University. Gambit completed his doctorate 2010 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and has been a recipient of the UIC-AIDS International Training and Research Program Scholarship from the US National Institute of Health. Gambit was recently in Melbourne for a series of talks. He sat down with Talking Indonesia as the Covid-19 outbreak was gathering momentum.
In 2020, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo: @AP 2018
Indonesian officials routinely highlight the success of the Indonesian ride-hailing unicorn company GoJek, whose founder Nadiem Makarim became Education Minister in President Jokowi’s latest cabinet. The green jackets of GoJek’s motorcycle taxi drivers and its regional competitor Grab have become ubiquitous in Indonesia’s cities - both companies also offer online taxis, food delivery, and a range of other services through their apps. Companies like GoJek and Grab claim to provide a platform to more efficiently bring service providers and customers together, but across the world their critics claim such companies have eroded worker rights and made the nature of work more precarious. But how do these dynamics play out in Indonesia, a country where tens of millions of people have always worked in the informal sector under very adverse conditions?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, who has interviewed dozens of GoJek and Grab drivers for her research on the gig economy. Her research on the gig. Economy is also featured in. the inaugural edition of Melbourne Asia Review, a new online publication being launched by the Asia Institute next week.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Agus Bebeng for Antara Foto
In this belated Chinese New Year special, Charlotte Setijadi chats with Dr Josh Stenberg about the little known topic of Chinese Indonesian performance arts, and how their histories represent the strategies of Chinese minority self-representation over time.
Talking Indonesia: Regulating Islamic Preachers? Growing religious conservatism in Indonesia has turned some Islamic preachers into minor celebrities and influential political powerbrokers in recent years. The government has expressed concern about these developments, especially after some radical preachers took leading roles in the 2016 protests against former Jakarta governor Ahok. Are these concerns warranted? What role do preachers actually play in local communities? And how realistic are proposals to regulate preaching in Indonesia? In today’s podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Professor Julian Millie, an anthropologist and Professor of Indonesian Studies at Monash University in Melbourne.
Photo credit: Julian Millie
Beginning on New Year's Eve, torrential rain caused some of the worst flooding in and around Jakarta for more than a decade. Residents of this low-lying city are used to heavy rain and flooding at this time of year, but as a spokesperson for the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said, this was "not ordinary rain". More than 300mm fell in a single day – the most since 1996, when records began. Up to 100,000 people were reportedly forced to flee their homes and more than 60 people died.
Fixing Jakarta's problems with flooding has been a fraught political issue for decades. In the wake of these floods, and with so many Jakartans from all walks of life affected, people were again looking for a target for their frustrations. Informal settlements along the Ciliwung River have long been a focus for politicians and policymakers, with their removal a key policy of both former governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama and current governor Anies Baswedan. But what do we know about the people who live in these settlements, sometimes for decades, risking constant threats of floods and eviction? Who are they? What has brought them to live in such precarious conditions? What is their everyday experience of living with regular flooding? Can they be part of the solution to better tackle this problem?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to anthropologist Roanne van Voorst, who lived for more than a year in a settlement on the banks of the Ciliwung River. They discuss the histories of these settlements and the complex social structures within these communities, their warning and recovery systems after flooding, and how residents negotiate their vulnerabilities everyday. In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey(link is external) from Deakin University and the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi (link is external)from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa(link is external) from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes(link is external) or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
During December 2019 and January 2020, Indonesia and China have again become involved in a series of periodic confrontations over fisheries to the north of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands. Chinese Coast Guard vessels have accompanied a fleet of fishing boats in an area China says is part of its traditional fishing grounds, but which Indonesia claims as its exclusive economic zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Indonesia has sent naval and civilian patrol vessels in an effort to force the Chinese craft to leave, and Indonesian president Joko Widodo has personally visited the Natunas to underline the importance of the dispute to Indonesia, as he did in the aftermath of a previous confrontation with China in 2016. What do such incidents tell us about the implications of China’s rise for Indonesia, and how is the Indonesian government tackling the challenge of China as an ever larger strategic and economic power on its doorstep?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, the first episode for 2020, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Emirza Adi Syailendra, Associate Research Fellow in the Indonesia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, who has written extensively on Indonesia and its foreign policy approach to China.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: M Risyal Hidayat for Atara Foto
With rapid urbanisation and rising inequality in Indonesia, levels of urban poverty have also increased, and people living and working in informal circumstances face ongoing threats of eviction. Periodically, the urban poor’s activism to defend and advance their interests has taken centre stage in Indonesian politics, never more so than in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial elections, when the issue of evictions became entwined with Islamist opposition to the incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or Ahok, in the massive mobilisation against him. What is the lived experience of urban poverty in Indonesia, and what forms of activism do the urban poor engage in? How have various Indonesian governments responded, and what prospects do the urban poor have to carve out a place for themselves in Indonesia’s cities?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Ian Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Terrorism and Count-terrorism Studies at Murdoch University and the author of The Politics of Protection Rackets in Post-New Order Indonesia: Coercive Capital, Authority and Street Politics.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Rivan Awal Lingga for Antara Foto
So much is still unknown about China-Indonesia relations during the Cold War, and in particular China’s role in the pivotal events of 30 September 1965. In a new book “Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia and the Cold War” (Cornell University Press), Dr Taomo Zhou analyses the nature of China’s involvements in the immediate periods leading up to 30 September. Using materials such as then-declassified archives of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taomo pieces together the movements of various Chinese and Indonesian actors that contributed to the diplomatic and political dynamics at the time. She also shows how state-to-state diplomacy was influenced by transnational ethnic ties and the political practices of the ethnic Chinese.
The Indonesian media is heavily politicised. Many TV stations are owned by political power brokers or party leaders. During elections, these ownership structures place significant restrictions on the independence of journalists and media freedom more broadly. But how exactly do media bosses interfere in the daily lives of Indonesian journalists? What forms of intimidation do journalists face? And what are the implications of Jokowi’s victory for the Indonesian media?
In today’s podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Hellena Souisa, a former journalist and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/Indrianto Eko Suwarso
Since its formation in 2003, Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has established itself as one of Indonesia’s most trusted and popular institutions, owing to its prosecution of a string of powerful figures for graft. Indicative of the Commission’s strong public support, in 2014 Joko Widodo initially courted then KPK chairperson Abraham Samad as his vice-presidential running mate, although ultimately the pairing did not proceed. Once Jokowi was elected, he also asked the KPK to vet potential members of his cabinet, resulting in the exclusion of several potential ministers.
But much has changed over the course of President Jokowi’s five years in office. No invitation was extended to the KPK in 2019 to vet Jokowi’s second term cabinet. The president also agreed in September to amend the KPK’s founding statute, significantly curtailing the KPK’s distinctiveness and independence. What accounts for this shift? And what are the prospects for the KPK and Indonesia’s fight against corruption more broadly?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Laode Muhammad Syarif, one of five commissioners of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Appointed in 2015, Dr Syarif will complete his term in December 2019.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: Novrian Arbi for Antara Foto
Indonesia has recently seen widespread protests against proposed changes to the Criminal Code (KUHP), which threatened to tighten restrictions on human rights and freedoms, particularly those of religious and sexual minorities. In the latest episode of the Talking Indonesia podcast, we reflect on the progress made by persecuted and vulnerable minorities since the fall of the New Order more than 20 years ago. For the LGBTIQ community in particular, what gains have been made since 1998 and where are the threats to these gains coming from? How do we explain increasing intolerance for the rights of minorities and what do the recent protests across the country tell us about Indonesian democracy and the protection of vulnerable groups within it?
To talk about these issues and more Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Dede Oetomo, renowned scholar, activist and founder of the Gaya Nusantara Foundation. Dede was recently in Melbourne and sat down with Talking Indonesia as the protests against the Criminal Code and other controversial bills were gaining momentum.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo: ANTARA FOTO/Akbar Nugroho Gumay/ama
Freedom of expression is under attack in Indonesia. Under President Jokowi, protests against the government have been routinely met with repression and intimidation. In 2019 alone, the space for public dissent has shrunk dramatically, as was evident during the presidential election campaign, during demonstrations in Papua and, most recently, during widespread student protests that occurred shortly after this podcast was recorded.
What explains these increasing restrictions on freedom of expression? How does the government justify them? And how do Indonesian human rights activists respond?
In today’s podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dr Ken Setiawan, a lecturer in Asian and Indonesian Studies at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/Novrian Arbi/foc
President Jokowi increasing highlights the digital economy and technology as central to Indonesia’s future, quipping during one of the presidential election debates in 2019, ‘In the future, strong countries won’t control weak countries. Fast countries will control slow countries.’ In line with this focus, digital start-ups such as ride-hailing company Go-Jek and e-commerce company Bukalapak have become some of Indonesia’s best known companies. At the same time, there are concerns about potential disruptive and divisive effects as the digital sphere becomes ever more pervasive. How will Indonesia change as the digital economy expands? And what role will government and the private sector play in this transformation?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Putri Alam, head of Government Relations and Public Policy at Google Indonesia. She spoke at the Indonesia Development Forum in July 2019 on the digital economy and the changing nature of work.
Today’s episode is the third in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo credit: Aprillio Akbar for Antara Foto
Not long after winning a second term, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that the nation’s capital will be moved from Jakarta to a new site in East Kalimantan. Jokowi said that the decision was mainly motivated by the fact that Jakarta is literally sinking from over-development and it can no longer handle the burden of being Indonesia’s centre of commerce and government. The government has argued that moving the capital to East Kalimantan will also help to redistribute economic development to regions outside of Java, particularly in eastern Indonesia.
The news was received with both excitement and caution. A move of this scale will take many years to complete, and the costs will be astronomical. There are also questions about the environmental and social impacts of building a new city from scratch in an area that was formerly a tropical forest with rich biodiversity.
To discuss the planned capital city move, I speak with Dr Martin Siyaranamual, a microeconomist and lecturer in the Department of Economics at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, and Dr Rita Padawangi, a Senior Lecturer at Singapore University of Social Sciences.
Indonesia is one of the world’s leading emitters of carbon dioxide and the fifth largest producer of coal, both for export and its own domestic use. Recently, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo reiterated his commitment to reducing Indonesia’s dependence on fossil fuels and has set ambitious renewable energy targets. Indonesia is a signatory to the Paris Accord for climate change.
But with Indonesia’s economy growing at a rapid pace and its energy needs increasing at around 5 per cent annually, are these goals realistic? How can Indonesia wean itself off coal and protect its electricity supply at the same time? With renewables currently making up only 7 per cent of its energy output, what is the future of this sector?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey discusses these issues and more with Emanuel Bria, the Indonesia Country Manager at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). Emanuel is a fellow at he Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), in Bonn, Germany, and teaches energy policy at the Paramadina Graduate School of Diplomacy.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo: JasonParis @Flickr Creative Commons
Talking Indonesia: Social Mobility
Moving up the social ladder is a clear aspiration for many Indonesians – public opinion surveys show a large proportion of those who self-identify as being in the bottom two income quintiles predict they will have moved on within five years. But what are the prospects for young Indonesians today, as they and their peers become better educated and stand to live longer? And what social change are we seeing as important demographic characteristics of Indonesia’s population shift.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Ariane Utomo, a social demographer from the School of Geography in the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: Yulius Satria Wijaya for Antara Foto
Like elsewhere in the world, violent religious extremists in Indonesia are mostly male, but in recent years more and more female extremists have made headlines as they traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State and planned or perpetrated bomb attacks. What drives women to join extremist religious networks? What roles do they play in these networks once they are fully immersed in them? And what can we learn from existing patterns of radicalization to formulate more effective policy responses to the spread of violent extremism? In today’s podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Nava Nuraniyah, a terrorism expert from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta. In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app. Photo by AP.
The Constitutional Court has been firmly in the headlines in Indonesia over the past month, because of its role in adjudicating – and dismissing – Prabowo Subianto’s challenge to President Joko Widodo’s victory in the 2019 presidential election. But the influence of the Constitutional Court in shaping the outcome of Indonesian elections is much broader – through various of its decisions, it has reshaped various important aspects of Indonesia’s electoral systems. Indeed, it was a decision of the Constitutional Court that required the presidential and legislative elections to be held on the same day for the first time in 2019. What rights and requirements does the Indonesian Constitution set down for elections, and how has the Constitutional Court interpreted these? Should we be surprised at the degree of change the Court has required to Indonesia’s electoral system? What grounds also did the Prabowo camp advance to challenge Jokowi’s victory, and how did the Court consider them? Are changes required to the process for the Court to hear electoral disputes ahead of the next round of elections in 2019.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Professor Simon Butt, Director of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney Law School and author of The Constitutional Court and Democracy in Indonesia.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo Credit: Dhemas Reviyanto for Antarafoto
Over recent years, concerns about Indonesia's food security have seen a sharp increase in industrial-scale agriculture across the country, including into the forests of West Papua. At the same time, the environmental and social ramifications of monocropping, particularly palm oil, are becoming well-known.
Are the customary rights of indigenous peoples being respected in negotiations over land for agribusiness? What exactly is "sustainable palm oil"? And what are the impacts of palm oil plantation expansion on the forests and peoples whose culture and livelihoods are inextricably linked to the forests?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey speaks to anthropologist Dr Sophie Chao, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney’s School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and an honorary postdoctoral fellow at Macquarie University, about her research with the indigenous Marind peoples of Merauke district in West Papua.
Dr Chao previously worked for indigenous peoples rights organisation Forest Peoples' Programme and has undertaken consultancies for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo: David Gilbert/RAN
The Indonesian Council of Ulama(MUI) is one of the most influential religious actors in Indonesia. In 2016 and 2017, for example, the organisation was instrumental in orchestrating the protests that led to the downfall of former Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama. The appointment of MUI head Ma’ruf Amin as President Jokowi's running mate in the 2019 presidential election indicated unprecedented access to formal power for the MUI.
How did this organisation, which has neither a mass basis nor a charismatic leader, establish itself so close to the centre of power in Indonesian politics? How does it interact with other prominent Islamic organisations such as Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah? And what does its growing influence mean for the future of Indonesia’s increasingly fragile democracy?
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other issues with Dr Saskia Schäfer, a Senior Research Fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University and the Australia-Indonesia Centre, and Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image credit: ANTARA FOTO/Basri Marzuki/nz
This year Indonesia was a featured country at the London Book Fair, which followed a similar showcasing of its literature at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015. Is this a reflection of an expanding and globalising literary scene in Indonesia? Are more diverse voices being heard inside and outside the country, and what are the challenges for making sure that the stories are not lost in translation?
To talk about these topics and more our guest this week is the young writer and poet Norman Erikson Pasaribu. Norman won the 2015 Jakarta Arts Council Poetry Competition and was a finalist in the 2017 Khatulistiwa Literary Award for Poetry. In 2017, he received the Young Author Award from the Southeast Asia Literary Council. His book of poetry 'Sergius Seeks Bacchus' translated by the award-winning translator, Tiffany Tsao, is published by Giramondo Publishing (2019).
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
PIC: 'Sergius Seeks Bacchus' cover / Leopold Adi Surya
The past few years have seen repeated questioning of the independent workings of police, the prosecutors and the courts in Indonesia, ranging from accusations that prosecutions have been used to limit opposition or coerce support for the government, to suspicions that the outcome of high profile cases such as the blasphemy prosecution against then Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama had as much to do with societal pressure and political considerations, as it did with the letter of the law. Are such perceptions justified regarding the politicisation of law enforcement, and how do the government and other external parties intervene in legal cases? What are the implications for the rule of law in Indonesia?
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, ] Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dian Rositawati, Chair of the Board of the Indonesian Institute for an Independent Judiciary (LeIP). Dian has been closely involved in judicial reform in Indonesia for two decades, and is currently also undertaking a PhD at Tilburg University.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog, or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Reno Esnir for ANTARA FOTO
With a huge local market and growing production power, the Indonesian film industry has enormous potential. In recent times, Indonesian films, directors, actors, and other industry professionals are becoming more well-known around the world, not in small part due to a more integrated regional and global distribution network and web-based streaming services such as Netflix. Could films be utilised as a soft-power tool to increase Indonesia’s influence in regional and global cultural scenes? Furthermore, what are some of the market trends that may define the growth of the industry in the coming years? To discuss recent trends in the Indonesian film industry, I speak with Associate Professor Thomas Barker from University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.
An important part of recent Islamic activism in Indonesia has been the rise of conservative women’s groups such as the Family Love Alliance (Aliansi Cinta Keluarga Indonesia, AILA). Moreover, several conservative female activists joined the 2019 legislative elections as candidates. Campaigning against what they perceive as threats against traditional morality and religious values, these women position themselves as anti-feminists, thereby challenging conventional notions of women’s political activism.
Who are the women at the forefront of this new wave of conservative female activism? What motivates them and what are their main aims and strategies? How does their increased sense of agency relate to broader trends of growing religious conservatism in Indonesia?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dyah Ayu Kartika, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Religion and Democracy (Pusat Paramadina) in Jakarta and currently a Correspondent Fellow for New Mandala.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image credit: Dyah Ayu Kartika
In today's episode, the final in the Election 2019 series, we gather the Talking Indonesia team to look back over the presidential and legislative polls and the key developments. What were the key factors in Jokowi's apparent victory? What can we anticipate after Prabowo's claims of victory, despite all reputable quick counts showing him to have lost the election by a clear margin? What were the legislative outcomes? Were there irregularities? Would we expect Indonesia to continue to hold the presidential and legislative elections on the same day in the future. Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Dirk Tomsa and Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues and more.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast fortnightly. Catch up on previous episodes the Indonesia at Melbourne blog, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Dave McRae
With less than one week until Indonesia’s simultaneous presidential and legislative elections on the 17th of April, candidates are going all out in a final push to get votes. Running concurrently with the arguably more exciting presidential election, the legislative elections have largely faded into the background and under-analysed. However, there are many important questions about this round of legislative elections that need to be addressed. For one, what does the socio-political landscape look like this time around? What issues matter to voters at the local level? Also, what can we expect this time around in terms of youth participation and the voting behaviour of the so-called ‘millennial voters’? To discuss about what is at stake in this round of legislative elections, Charlotte Setijadi speaks to scholars Ben Bland and Liam Gammon, and young politicians Rian Ernest and Faldo Maldini.
Recent months have seen a series of claims by political figures in Indonesia that the 2019 polls may be marked by significant irregularities. Senior political party figures and social media influencers have claimed that the electoral roll has been manipulated or could be hacked, cast doubt over the likely reliability of the vote count, and claimed that the civil service and security forces are being mobilised in support of particular candidates. These claims have come in particular from figures within the coalition supporting Prabowo Subianto, the challenger to President Joko Widodo. Is there evidence to support these claims? What safeguards are in place for the Indonesian polls? What role will civil society, electoral bodies and the government play in ensuring a fair election?
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, the latest in the weekly Elections 2019 series that will continue until after polling day on 17 April, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Titi Anggraini, executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy, Perludem, and Dr Fritz Edward Siregar, a commissioner from Indonesia’s Elections Supervisory Board, Bawaslu.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast weekly until after the elections, an every fortnight thereafter.
Photo credit: Galih Pradipta for Antara Foto
To celebrate the 100th episode of Talking Indonesia, co-hosts Dave McRae, Jemma Purdey, Charlotte Setijadi and Dirk Tomsa come together to revisit some of the major themes of the first 99 episodes. As Indonesia is deep in election mode, they discuss what impact these themes – Islamism, corruption, fake news, economic development, foreign policy, gender – are likely to have on the 17 April elections.
Image: Joko Widodo @Instagram
As Indonesia’s 2019 elections are drawing closer, public opinion surveys about the electability of Jokowi and his challenger Prabowo Subianto are released with increasing frequency. Though there are some differences between the results, virtually all pollsters agree that Jokowi is currently on track to win a second term. Why has Jokowi been able to maintain his lead in the polls so easily? What obstacles has the Prabowo campaign faced so far? And why are there no renegade pollsters who are trying to contravene the consensus for political purposes?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dr Djayadi Hanan, a lecturer in political science at Paramadina University in Jakarta and executive director of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), one of Indonesia’s leading political research and polling institutes.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: Djayadi Hanan/SMRC.
With the 2019 elections now just weeks away, the economy has become a key issue in the campaign. In comparative terms, Indonesia's current GDP growth of over 5 per cent is healthy. However, this is below the 7 per cent President Joko Widodo pledged to deliver during the 2014 campaign. The president's opponents also claim that the government's huge expenditure on major infrastructure projects and social welfare programs has failed to deliver benefits for all Indonesians.
What is the current state of Indonesia's economy and what are the key economic issues for voters? Has Jokowi's Indonesia Maju (Indonesia Progress) program paid off?
Our guest this week is economist Lana Soelistianingsih. Lana is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Economics at Universitas Indonesia and Head of Research at Samuel Asset Management.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Flickr/Creative Commons.
Indonesia’s five-yearly elections are now just over a month away, and Talking Indonesia is switching to a weekly format until after polling day on April 17, to cover the key themes, important groups and pivotal developments that will shape the outcome. The first of our pre-election episodes focuses on labour and politics in Indonesia. Unlike many other countries, no labour party or party of the left represents Indonesia’s working class in parliament, increasing the challenge for Indonesia’s labour movement to secure favourable outcomes for workers. How will the result of the 2019 elections matter to labour unions, and how can they influence the result?
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Professor Michele Ford, director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre at the University of Sydney and a leading expert on the labour movement in Asia. Professor Ford’s new book, From Migrant to Worker: The Global Unions and Labor Migration in Asia, has just been published by Cornell University Press. Her study of labour and politics in Indonesia has been jointly conducted with Professor Teri L. Caraway and will be published next year by Cambridge University Press.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: Akbar Nugroho Gumay for Antara Foto
While it is true that Indonesian maids abroad often face terrible conditions, they have more agency than the public often give them credit for, and many also have creative pursuits like fiction writing. Recently, a new genre of literature has developed, one in which – often in short stories – these women reimagine their experiences as domestic workers in foreign lands.
What do these literary works reveal about their lives abroad and the challenges they face?
To discuss the agency and creativity of Indonesian foreign domestic workers, Dr Charlotte Setijadi chats with Dr Jafar Suryomenggolo who is an Assistant Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, Japan. He is also the editor of an upcoming collection of 23 short stories written by Indonesian female foreign domestic workers titled ‘At a Moment’s Notice: Indonesian Maids Write on Their Lives Abroad’ published by NIAS Press.
In contrast to various neighbouring countries and various Western democracies, the collection and use of citizen’s data remains largely unregulated in Indonesia. Civil society groups are pushing for a Private Data Protection Law to be passed, but this will not be in place prior to April’s legislative and presidential elections, in which political candidates and parties are expected to use big data to more effectively target their campaigns.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Wahyudi Djafar, Deputy Director for Research at The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, ELSAM . Freedom of expression and privacy is one of ELSAM’s focus areas.
Today’s episode is the second in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.
Photo credit: Irwansyah Putra for AntaraFoto
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Some of the most pressing environmental problems in Indonesia today are plastic pollution and the consequences of large-scale land reclamation projects. In recent years, protests against these problems have increased in size and impact, especially on Bali, where the ubiquity of plastic garbage and a controversial reclamation project in Benoa Bay have galvanised a large and diverse protest movement. What are the strategies and goals of the movement? Who is involved? And what role do music and visual art play in the movement’s engagement with residents and other activists beyond Bali? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dr Edwin Jurriens, Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Indonesian Studies program at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute. In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: Edwin Jurriens
With Indonesia's general elections less than three months away political campaigning and the push to win over voters is reaching high gear. Our guest this week is Ward Berenschot, co-author with Edward Aspinall, of a timely new book that takes a close look at the informal politics of elections and patronage democracy. Democracy for sale: Elections, Clientelism, and the State in Indonesia (Cornell University Press) delves behind the scenes of local election campaigns, their ubiquitous success teams, systemic vote buying and exchange of favours, to reveal a complex social network based on reciprocity and identity politics. What are some of the key elements of informal politics? What role do the political parties play? How does Indonesia compare to other similar democracies? Is Indonesia's democracy really for sale?
Ward Berenschot is a postdoctoral fellow at KITLV, Leiden University researching local democracy, clientelism and identity politics in India and Indonesia.
In 2019, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image: Ikhlasul Amal/Flickr/Creative Commons.
Rice is Indonesia’s most important staple food, with consumption estimated at more than 100 kilograms per person per year, in a country of 270 million people. Although rice consumption is in long term decline, a common saying in Indonesia nevertheless holds, “if you haven’t eaten rice, you haven’t eaten”. How to provide such an immense quantity of rice to the population – whether through imports or domestic production – is a perennially thorny question in Indonesia, and one tightly bound with the country’s domestic politics. For decades, successive Indonesian governments have set rice self-sufficiency as their goal, albeit a goal that has been devilishly difficult to achieve.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, the first for 2019, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Associate Professor Jamie Davidson from the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore, whose current research compares the politics of rice policy in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo Credit: Setkab
In early December, at least 16 civilians and 1 soldier were killed, with 5 others missing, in attacks on workers constructing the Trans-Papua Highway in Nduga district in the Papuan highlands. The armed wing of the pro-independence Free Papua Movement has claimed responsibility, as part of the protracted conflict between the Indonesian government and sections of Papuan society. Indonesian police and military have launched joint operations in response, reportedly also causing several fatalities.
The two Papuan provinces - Papua and West Papua - have the lowest human development index scores in Indonesia, and the Jokowi government has placed infrastructure projects like the Trans-Papua Highway at the centre of its approach to the area. In the wake of this attack, questions inevitably arise however regarding Papuan attitudes to such development projects, their likely impacts, and regarding Papuan's perception more generally of the Indonesian nation and their place within it.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Dr Jenny Munro , an anthropologist from the University of Queensland's School of Science, and author of the book Dreams Made Small: the Education of Papuan Highlanders in Indonesia . Today's episode is the final instalment of Talking Indonesia for 2018. The podcast will return on Thursday 17 January.
The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: Indrianto Eko Suwarso for AntaraFoto
When Indonesians go to the polls in April 2019, they will see an unprecedented number of female candidates competing for seats in the House of Representatives. Around 40 percent of candidates will be women, but if results from previous elections are anything to go by, the chances for many of these women to actually win a seat are rather slim. While female representation in political institutions has gradually improved over the years, Indonesian women still face a range of socio-economic, socio-cultural and political challenges in their struggle to achieve gender parity.
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these challenges and the prospects of overcoming them with Ella Prihatini, a journalist and PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia in Perth and the author of the recently published article ‘Women’s Representation in Asian Parliaments: a QCA Approach’.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Wahyu Putro for Antara
Disparities in development between different regions in Indonesia can be stark. Urban centres on Java like Jakarta and Yogyakarta have human development index scores in the high 70s and low 80s, whereas eastern Indonesian provinces like Papua, West Papua and East Nusa Tenggara score in the high 50s to low 60s. President Jokowi has repeatedly touched upon such disparities in his political rhetoric, pledging to move away from a Java-focussed development model to a so-called Indonesia-centric approach. But what are the drivers of regional disparity, what are its broader impacts, and what policy levers are available to the government to lessen differences between regions.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Professor Bambang Brodjonegoro, Indonesia's Minister for National Development Planning and Head of Indonesia's National Development Planning Agency, Bappenas. You can read Professor Brodjonegoro’s presentation on regional disparities at the 2018 Indonesia Development Forum here: https://goo.gl/jbK83d (Bahasa Indonesia).
Today's episode is the first of a "Policy in Focus" series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Flickr user Australian Embassy Jakarta under CC BY 2.0 license
Bandung-based Pemuda Hijrah has amassed a huge following among young Muslims but has largely escaped the attention of the mainstream media. Led by charismatic young preachers such as Hanan Attaki, Pemuda Hijrah is followed by millions of young Muslims on social media. It presents a cool, hip image that combines youthful energy with revivalist Islamic teachings.
What does Pemuda Hijrah and other groups like it tell us about the type of Islam that appeals to young Indonesian Muslims?
To find out more about Pemuda Hijrah, Dr Charlotte Setijadi chats to Dr Quinton Temby from ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute who has spent most of the last year living in Bandung researching the group.
Young politicians
Indonesia is undoubtedly a young nation. The median age of the population is just 28 years. In the 2019 elections, 45% of eligible voters will be between 17 and 36 years of age. More than ever, Indonesia’s youth play a key role in the country’s politics. In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey talks to Rian Ernest, a senior member of the Indonesia's new 'youth' party, Indonesia Solidarity Party (Partai Solidaritas Indonesia, PSI). Ernest (31 years) is a first time candidate for the party in the 2019 legislative elections. He is a lawyer and former adviser to then Governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.
What motivated Rian to join to enter a career in politics at this moment in Indonesian history? As a young Indonesian, what are the most pressing issues for the future? What role will Indonesia's youth play in that future? Will it be a politically active one
2018 has been a year marked by large-scale natural disasters in Indonesia. A series of earthquakes from July-August in Lombok lefts hundreds dead, and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Another massive earthquake on 28 September then devastated Central Sulawesi's capital city - Palu - and nearby Donggala district. The quake triggered both a tsunami and destructive soil liquefaction, killing thousands of people. These events are consistent with a broader pattern of disaster vulnerability in Indonesia - one recent study ranked the country as suffering the fourth highest frequency of natural disasters in the world, and the eighth most deaths.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae speaks with two of Indonesia's leading experts on disaster management to ask how Indonesia anticipates and responds to disasters on this scale, and whether more could be done to mitigate the risk and impact of such disasters ahead of time.
The first guest is Professor Kuntoro Mangkusubroto , who from 2005-2009 headed the national government's Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency, or BRR, formed in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Professor Kuntoro was also head of the Yudhoyono government's Presidential Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight, and is currently chairperson of the board of the School of Business and Management at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).
The second guest in this week's episode is Dr Rahmawati Husein , deputy chair of the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Centre, and a member of the advisory board of Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB). She has also been elected to the advisory board of the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Photo credit: Imang Jasmine(Imam Syafrudien As)
It is more than two years since Indonesia passed the landmark Law 8 of 2016 of People with Disability, but implementation has been slow and prejudices and discrimination against people with disability remain widespread. In the education sector, for example, access and opportunities for learning are still limited. Some Islamic universities, however, have taken important steps toward improving accessibility for students with disability and enhancing awareness among staff.
What prompted these universities to act? What is the likelihood that others will follow? And what kind of obstacles stand in the way of more far-reaching reforms? In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dr Dina Afrianty, Research Fellow at the La Trobe Law School, and a founder of the Australia-Indonesia Disability Research and Advocacy Network (AIDRAN).
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favorite podcasting app.
Image credit: Center for Disability Studies and Services (CDSS) Universitas Brawijaya.
Religious intolerance is on the rise in Indonesia, and the state has reacted strongly from a security point of view, with initiatives such as a law passed last year that allows the government to disband any civil society group deemed to disrupt national unity. Many civil society groups support the law, declaring it as necessary to combat radicalism, terrorism, and intolerance. However, is this hard-line stance really the best approach to tackle the issue of rising religious intolerance in Indonesia? Is there a more nuanced way to confront rising religious intolerance?
In January 2016 the Minister for Technology, Research and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir stated that universities must uphold standards of ‘values and morals’ and should not support organisations that promote LGBT activities. What followed was a social and political furore that has since seen a surge of intolerance and attacks on LGBT. While persecution of sexual minorities is not new, homosexuality is not illegal and in large part within Indonesian society have been accorded tolerance, and at times acceptance.
What does the strengthening of conservative voices in Indonesia mean for sexual expression more generally and the rights of minority groups in particular? Why do morality issues and debates have such social currency? What part is this debate likely to have in the forthcoming election campaigns? What does the future look like for the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Indonesia?
In early August, Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto registered as the only candidates for Indonesia's April 2019 presidential election, repeating their head-to-head showdown from 2014. Much though, has changed in Indonesia's political landscape over the past five years. Both men have new running mates for one thing. Nor is Jokowi an unknown new entrant to national politics any longer - he will enter 2019 with a five year track record to defend focused on infrastructure and social spending. The massive Islamist mobilisation in 2016 against then Jakarta governor Ahok also continues to reverberate through the political system. Moreover, 2019 will be the first time that the legislative and presidential elections will be held on the same day - 17 April - owing to a Constitutional Court decision ordering that these elections no longer be held several months apart.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses the electoral landscape nine months out from next year's polls with leading political observer Associate Professor Marcus Mietzner from the Australian National University's Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. Marcus is currently a visiting fellow at Kyoto University.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University. Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight.
Photo Credit: Puspa Perwitasari for AntaraFoto
The issue of Chinese investment is a controversial topic in Indonesia. Viewed with suspicion and even animosity, Chinese investments are often associated with the ideological threat of communism, as well as a reminder of negative stereotypes of the ethnic Chinese business elites in the country. As such, Chinese investments are considered to be a political liability, especially during and around election times. Yet Chinese investments in Indonesia is on an upward trend. China became Indonesia's second-biggest source of foreign direct investment in 2017, and it seems only a matter of time before China becomes the biggest foreign investor in Indonesia. In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Charlotte Setijadi chats to Dr Siwage Dharma Negara from ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore about trade and investment relations between Indonesia and China, and how Jokowi's political opponents may use the issue of Chinese investments against him in the 2019 presidential election.
Local elections held in June 2018 brought victories for a number of candidates who in the last few years have made a name for themselves as innovative and reform-oriented. But can this new breed of local executive leaders really change entrenched patterns of doing politics in Indonesia? How do they navigate established patronage channels? And how do they see their place within the broader political environment in Indonesia today?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with one of these young politicians, Dr Bima Arya, the recently re-elected Mayor of Bogor.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo courtesy of Bima Arya.
In October 2017, the Indonesian legislature passed a new law strengthening protection for the millions of Indonesians working overseas - more than half of whom are women and many in vulnerable sectors. According to the World Bank, migrant workers comprise 7 per cent of Indonesia's work force (only China and the Philippines have larger proportions of migrant workers) and, in 2016, remittances from these workers accounted for 1 percent of Indonesia's gross domestic product. The sector is controlled by a few powerful groups in business and politics and the rights of workers have often been neglected.
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey talks to Anis Hidayah, co-founder of the nongovernmental organisation Migrant CARE, about the lengthy process leading up to the adoption of Law 18 of 2017 on the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, the changes it will bring for migrant workers, and what still needs to be done to ensure they get full protection.
(Photo: Antara)
On 27 June 2018, Indonesia held elections for mayors and governors in 154 districts and 17 provinces - referred to as pilkada - the third and final such round of regional elections in this five year electoral cycle. This year's round of elections was particularly significant, though, for several reasons. It included gubernatorial elections in five big provinces that between them account for more than half of Indonesia's population: West Java, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra and South Sulawesi. It was our first chance to observe how the divisive dynamics of the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial elections might affect other future elections. And with the national legislative and presidential elections now less than a year away in April 2019, these local elections have been closely watched for any clues as to how next year's political contests might play out.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses this round of local elections, their results and their broader implications with a panel of leading political observers: Dr Charlotte Setijadi (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute), Dr Philips Vermonte (Executive Director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies) and Dr Eve Warburton (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute).
Photo credit: Darwin Fatir for Antara Foto
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Indonesia has seen steady economic growth over the last two decades, but the manufacturing sector has continuously underperformed. The decline of the sector is particularly evident in low employment figures and a lack of productivity. Regionally, most industries remain concentrated in just a few provinces, despite efforts by the Jokowi administration to address this disparity through improvements in infrastructure.
What explains the decline in manufacturing in Indonesia? Is the country in the midst of a process of premature deindustrialization, as some observers have claimed? And what can be done to strengthen the manufacturing sector in the future and transform Indonesia into an industrialized economy?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these and other questions with Dr Mohammad Zulfan Tadjoeddin, a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Western Sydney.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight. Catch up on previous episodes here, subscribe via iTunes or listen via your favourite podcasting app.
Image Credit: ANTARA FOTO/Risky Andrianto/aww/18.
Twenty years after the beginning of military reforms, Talking Indonesia speaks to Dr Jess Melvin about the state and position of the military in contemporary Indonesian society. Has the military come terms with some of the darkest chapters in its past? Looking at current trends, are we seeing a progressive 'return' of the military in the political sphere?
More than 50 years on from the 1965-66 mass killings and 20 years after the fall of the New Order authoritarian government, how is Indonesia facing up to this violent past? How does this past impact on the present? What is being done to resist enduring impunity in democratic Indonesia?
Jemma Purdey explores these issues with Galuh Wandita, Director and co-founder of non-government organisation, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), a Jakarta-based NGO working on human rights and accountability in the Asia-Pacific region. Galuh previously worked with the International Center for Transitional Justice, an international NGO based in New York, and was Deputy Director of Timor-Leste’s Truth Commission (CAVR).
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Image: Anne-Cécile Esteve courtesy AJAR.
Two decades after the fall of Suharto, the nature of Indonesian democracy and the trajectory of political reform remain a matter of animated debate in Indonesia and abroad. Undeniably, fundamental change has taken place since the end of Soeharto's authoritarian New Order regime. By the same token, the continued prominence of political and business figures who rose to the prominence during the New Order is just one reminder that the long shadow of the Suharto era has never entirely lifted. What have been the key achievements of the reform movement that toppled Suharto, what are the key obstacles to further reform, and what lies ahead for Indonesia over the next ten years?
Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Usman Hamid, Director of Amnesty International Indonesia and one of Indonesia's most senior human rights activists. Among his many previous roles, Usman has previously also served as coordinator of Kontras, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, and in 2012 co-founded the Indonesian branch of online petition platform change.org
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Indonesia’s blasphemy legislation gained global attention during the trial of former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in 2017. But apart from Ahok, many other Indonesians have also faced blasphemy charges in recent years, even though the constitutionality of the law has been challenged repeatedly. Why is blasphemy such a serious offence in Indonesia? What do recent blasphemy cases have in common and where do they differ? And how do they fit into broader legal developments and political trends in Indonesia? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these issues with Dr Melissa Crouch, currently a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow at the Melbourne Law School, and a Senior Lecturer from the Law Faculty of the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/Mohammad Ayudha/nz/18
The mass demonstrations against former Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama in 2016 and 2017, and rising intolerance against religious and sexual minorities have raised concerns about the growing influence of more conservative forms of Islam in Indonesia. The popularity of radical and conservative clerics such as Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab and celebrity preacher Felix Siauw have also led to questions about new forms of religious authority in contemporary Indonesian Islam. Amid these trends, mainstream Islamic organisations such as Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah have been criticised for not speaking out enough against rising conservatism and radicalism.
Are we seeing a conservative turn in Indonesian Islam? What are some examples of new Islamic organisations, and what challenges do they pose to well established Islamic organisations such as NU and Muhammadiyah? What is the role of television and social media in this new contestation for religious authority?
Dr Charlotte Setijadi discusses these questions with Dr Ahmad Najib Burhani, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
Indonesia's environmental challenges are vast and the impacts of forest degradation, in particular, have implications globally as well as locally. For many years within civil society environmental groups and academics have worked at all levels - international, national and local - to raise awareness, enable local communities and lobby government. The search for solutions involves negotiating a complex web of cultural, geographic, economic and structural political forces.
How is Indonesia balancing its environmental challenges with its economic interests? What are the roles of government, business and civil society? How has the Joko Widodo government responded?
Jemma Purdey explores these issues with Professor Suraya Affif, from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Indonesia. Photo by Suraya Affif.
Indonesia's current criminal code dates to colonial rule, with efforts to complete and enact a new draft of the code consistently foundering. Under the administration of President Jokowi, the drafting process has gained new impetus, however, and a sense is growing that a new criminal code will be enacted this year. At the same time, civil society activists and legal experts have lined up to criticise regressive aspects of the present draft, including a proposed criminalisation of all extramarital sex and new restrictions on freedom of expression.
Why have revisions to the criminal code been stalled for so long, and what are the deficits in Indonesia's criminal law that the new draft seeks to address? Who are the main actors in the revision process, and how have the controversial regressive articles emerged? Will a new criminal code finally be enacted, and what will the implications be for Indonesian democracy if the current draft passes into law unamended.
Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Anugerah Rizki Akbari, a criminal law expert and lecturer at the Indonesia Jentera School of Law in Jakarta . Mr Akbari wrote his Masters thesis at Leiden University on the control of Indonesian society through criminalisation, and has extensively researched the promulgation of new criminal offences in Indonesia throughout the democratic era.
**Correction: Anugerah Rizki Akbari has confirmed that the new proposed maximum penalty for defamation will be one year, not five years, as stated during minute 22:00 of the conversation
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Image by Moch Asim for Antara
Violent Islamist extremism has been a serious security threat in Indonesia for nearly two decades now. But while terrorist networks continue to recruit new members, there are also former militants who have turned their back on violence and terror.
What prompts such acts of disengagement? Why do some terrorists quit, while others don’t? And what can governments and peace activists learn from previous patterns of disengagement?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these issues with Associate Professor Julie Chernov Hwang, a specialist in terrorism studies and Islamist politics from Goucher College in Baltimore, and the author of ‘Why Terrorists Quit’.
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Image by Adeng Bustomi for Antara.
Young Indonesians are often misunderstood. The older generations perceive them as entitled, unmotivated, apathetic, and narcissistic, a far cry from the image of the pemuda, or the revolutionary youth who fought for the country’s independence. But what do Indonesian young people actually think about the social, political and economic issues around them? Do they care about social inequality and environmental degradation? How do their consumption patterns reflect their values and aspirations?
Dr Charlotte Setijadi discusses these issues with Dr Meghan Downes, a Melbourne-based cultural studies scholar with a special focus on the everyday politics of consumption in contemporary Indonesia.
Image: Johanes Randy Prakoso on Flickr.
Ethnic Chinese make up an estimated 1-2 percent of Indonesia's population. Of this group, a tiny minority are Muslim. As such, ethnic Chinese Muslims occupy a unique and significant position where the religious majority intersects with this ethnic minority, which has long assumed a role of economic middleman and been used as political scapegoat. In many ways Chinese Muslims in Indonesia disturb both their religious and ethnic identity groups. At its best, their position in society serves to highlight the inclusivity and diversity possible within Indonesian nationalism, and at its worst, to expose the undeniable limitations therein.
Who are Indonesia's ethnic Chinese Muslims? What is their history and situation in contemporary Indonesia? Is there a Chinese way of being Muslim? What can their story tell us about religious tolerance and cultural diversity in Indonesia today?
Jemma Purdey explores these issues with Dr Hew Wai Weng, a fellow in the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, National University of Malaysia (UKM). Photo by Masjid Cheng Ho.
The prohibition of pornography has been a hotly debated and controversial area of law in Indonesia, attracting the attention both of Islamic conservatives and activists promoting freedom of expression. Several public figures have been investigated and prosecuted under questionable circumstances, raising concerns that the law is being applied arbitrarily. Most recently, The police investigation of Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab and his female follower Firza Hussein has put prohibitions of pornography back in the headlines, after police sought to question them over leaked screenshots purporting to show salacious Whatsapp chats between the two. The case has gained attention both because FPI have typically been one of the main groups pushing for pornography prosecutions, and because the investigation has been widely perceived as politically-motivated following Rizieq's role in the anti-Ahok protest movement.
How does Indonesia in fact regulate pornography, in what manner and how often have its anti-pornography laws been applied, and what determines who gets charged and convicted? How do debates over pornography reflect broader questions of morality and Islam in Indonesian society? In the first Talking Indonesia podcast episode for 2018, Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Helen Pausacker , Deputy Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS).
In 2018, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Image by Herka Yanis Pangaribowo for Antara.
Vigilantism made headlines in Indonesia in 2017 owing to a spate of so-called "persecution" incidents, entailing physical intimidation or violence against online critics of prominent religious figures. But these incidents are just one manifestation of the broader phenomenon of vigilantism, which remains widespread in democratic Indonesia. How pervasive is vigilante violence, and what patterns do we see in its distribution, its perpetrators and its targets? What drives this phenomenon, and how does the state respond when citizens turn to vigilantism?
In the final Talking Indonesia episode for 2017, Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Sana Jaffrey , PhD candidate at the University of Chicago’s Department of Political Science and a visiting fellow at the Center for Study of Religion and Democracy (PUSAD Paramadina). Sana previously led the design and implementation of the National Violence Monitoring System (NVMS) database at the World Bank during 2008-2013.
In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Look out for a new Talking Indonesia podcast every fortnight - the podcast returns in 2018 on Thursday 18 January.
Photo credit: Rivan Awal Lingga for Antara Foto
In the shadow of Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown on drugs, Indonesia has been fighting its own war on drugs. Under President Joko Widodo, executions for drug traffickers were resumed and, more recently, researchers have recorded a growing number of fatal police shootings of drug suspects. As in the Philippines, the government’s hard-line stance toward drugs has broad public support, which makes it difficult for proponents of a more humane drug policy to provide effective counter-narratives. So what prompted Jokowi to declare a drug emergency in Indonesia? Have his hard-line policies achieved their intended results? And what is the future for drug policy in Indonesia? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these issues with Ricky Gunawan, a human rights lawyer and director of LBH Masyarakat, the Community Legal Aid Institute in Jakarta. Photo: Reno Esnir for Antara Foto
October 2017 marked three years since President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo came to power. Elected in 2014 as a symbol of hope for Indonesia’s progressives, Jokowi won support with lofty promises of infrastructure building, better governance, improved welfare, and economic growth, among others. As Indonesia gears up for another round of important elections, the time is right to assess Jokowi’s leadership. Has he lived up to expectations and campaign promises? How does the Indonesian public view his presidency so far? What issues matter to them when determining who to vote for in the next presidential election?
Dr Charlotte Setijadi discusses these questions with Dr Djayadi Hanan, lecturer in political science at Paramadina University in Jakarta and executive director of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), a leading political research and polling institute.
How does support for political Islam correlate with other political attitudes in Indonesia, such as support for decentralisation, choice of a political party, anti-Chinese sentiment, and so forth? How have the correlations between support for political Islam and other political attitudes manifested in the actual political behaviour of Indonesians, and what implications might they bear for forthcoming elections in Indonesia over the next two years?
Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Diego Fossati, research fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, author of the recent paper, Support for Decentralization and Political Islam Go Together in Indonesia. The paper is based on the Indonesian National Survey Project fielded in May 2017 by the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute, where Diego is also an associate fellow.
In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo Credit: Flickr user fra_avo under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license
Last month protesters disrupted a meeting at the offices of the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta)and its national umbrella body, the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI). In what was a first for the NGO, police did not initially prevent the protesters from blocking meeting, an academic discussion on 1965-66. What does this attack signal for human rights and civil society in Indonesia? Is democracy in peril? In this week's podcast, host Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions with leading human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis.
Photo: Muhammad Adimaja for Antara
In 2016, Tempo magazine named Istirahatlah Kata-Kata (Solo, Solitude) its film of the year. The arthouse film attracted acclaim at festivals around the world, and played to packed houses in cinemas across Indonesia. Since its release, it has sparked discussion, especially among younger audiences, about its subject, poet and activist Widji Thukul, and the mystery still surrounding his disappearance in the last weeks of the New Order. The film raises more questions that it answers about Widji’s disappearance and about the unresolved cases of human rights violations from this period in Indonesia. What has been the response to this film in Indonesia? How can storytelling about the past through film provide new opportunities for dealing with histories that remain obscured? In this week's podcast, host Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions with the film's director, Yosep Angi Noen.
In the midst of growing nationalism, the notion of 'food sovereignty' has come to occupy an increasingly prominent place in food policy within Indonesia. But what does food sovereignty mean, and is it being used within Indonesia in similar ways to which it is understood globally? How effective are food sovereignty policies in enabling Indonesia to tackle the considerable challenge of ensuring all of its citizens have access to sufficient food, and is it possible the government might adopt an alternative approach?
Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Jeff Neilson is a senior lecturer in Geography at the University of Sydney and Indonesian coordinator of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre. With Josephine Wright, Jeff co-authored a recent paper on food sovereignty, 'The state and food security discourses of Indonesia: feeding the bangsa' - he will have a chapter on the same topic in the forthcoming proceedings from this year's ANU Indonesia Update conference.
In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo Credit: Flickr user wahyu widhi w under CC BY-NC 2.0 license
Indonesia’s tertiary education institutions have long performed poorly in global university rankings. Among the various deficits that are routinely recorded for Indonesian universities are low teaching and research quality, inadequate levels of knowledge transfer and a lacking international outlook. The Indonesian government has repeatedly expressed its concern about the dismal results in the rankings, but despite a number of initiatives to transform the country’s leading universities into world class institutions, the higher education sector remains riddled with problems. Why do Indonesian universities struggle to deliver better academic programs? What reforms have been attempted and why have they failed? Who are the actors and organizations involved in the politics of higher education in Indonesia?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these issues with Professor Andrew Rosser, Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute.
In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo by Mohamad Sani on flickr
The vast number of Indonesian migrant workers working abroad have long been a prominent feature of Indonesia's labour market. Indonesian government policy on migrant workers tends to come into the public spotlight primarily when cases of maltreatment and abuse towards these workers emerge, not infrequently spurring the government to impose moratoriums on departures to particular countries and regions. For its part, the Jokowi government has voiced an aspiration to halt the departure of domestic workers abroad altogether. But what have been the Indonesian government's longer term policy objectives surrounding migrant workers? How has the government sought to manage the flow of its citizens seeking employment overseas? What effect do these various bans and moratoriums have on the flow of migrant workers? In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Wayne Palmer, lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Bina Nusantara University, and author of Indonesia's Overseas Labour Migration Programme, 1969-2010.
In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo Credit: M Rusman for Antara Foto
The Jakarta gubernatorial election, held earlier this year, was perhaps the most divisive and bitterly fought campaign seen in modern Indonesian politics. Social media and the internet played a large role in the campaign, which was characterised by racism and sectarianism. But how much can we blame the internet for the bitterness of the campaign and how much is it explained by Indonesia’s conservative turn more generally? How did technology impact on this election? Are we seeing a new platform for organisation and political activism in Indonesia, based on a freedom to hate? In this week's podcast, Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions with Associate Professor Merlyna Lim from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
Image: Andreas Atmoko for Antara.
In line with Indonesian President Joko Widodo's vision to establish Indonesia as a global maritime fulcrum, Indonesia in February this year issued its first National Ocean Policy. Drafting of the policy was overseen by the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs, newly formed as part of the Jokowi administration, which in July also launched a new map of Indonesia that alters some of Indonesia's maritime boundaries, and renames part of the area of the South China Sea that Indonesia claims as its exclusive economic zone as the North Natuna Sea. What is the significance of this map and the renaming of this sea area? What are the elements of Indonesia's maritime vision, and how is it attempting to realise this vision?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Arif Havas Oegroseno, Deputy Coordinating Minister for Maritime Sovereignty in Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs.
In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.
Photo credit: M N Kanwa for Antara
Jemma Purdey talks with Deasy Simandjuntak about the latest challenge to the independence and authority of Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), this time from the House of Representatives (DPR),which has initiated an inquiry into the institution. What triggered the inquiry? What are the implications for the KPK?
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
Photo by Aprillio Akbar for Antara.
Jakarta’s urban village (kampung) communities have received considerable attention in the last few months amid the hotly contested Jakarta gubernatorial election. While most of the election coverage focused on race and religious issues, former Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama’s track record of forced evictions of kampungs along Jakarta’s riverbanks also stirred much controversy.
Kampung residents and activist groups condemn these evictions as unlawful and undemocratic. Yet many Jakartans argue that evictions are necessary measures to fix the city’s notorious traffic gridlocks and seasonal flooding. Is there a middle ground? Can Jakarta’s kampungs co-exist with residential, infrastructure, and commercial projects planned for the city?
Dr Charlotte Setijadi discusses these issues with Dr Rita Padawangi, Senior Lecturer at Singapore University of Social Sciences. Rita is a passionate researcher and proponent of participatory urban development, and has worked with kampung communities in Jakarta to get the government to engage in more dialogue with kampung residents in urban planning.
Image by Chris Bentley on Flickr.
Wildlife trafficking is thought to be the third largest illegal trade after drugs and weapons. As a global hot spot for this illicit trade, Indonesia is not only a source country for the rapidly growing international market, but it is also home to a huge domestic market, especially for songbirds. In recent years, the volume in trafficking has risen dramatically and for many of the archipelago’s endangered species, poaching is now as big a threat as habitat loss. Why has wildlife trafficking reached such enormous proportions in Indonesia? Who and what are the main drivers of the trade? And what initiatives exist to combat wildlife trafficking and enhance conservation efforts?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dirk Tomsa discusses these issues with Eleanor Paish, a zoologist and filmmaker from the University of West England, and Adam Miller, executive director and founder of Planet Indonesia, an NGO working on conservation issues in Indonesia.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia at Melbourne blog.
Photo credit: Eleanor Paish
We continue our conversation about the state of women’s activism in Indonesia in the midst of a conservative turn that has seen a particular focus on women’s bodies and non-traditional sexualities. In this podcast we explore the ways in which issues important to women, including sexuality and religion, are being shared and communicated beyond the conventional media.
How has digital media created spaces for a diversity of views written by and for Indonesians? What does an Indonesian ‘feminist’ publication look like? How many 'hits' can an article on 'to wear or not to wear' the hijab possibly get? In this week’s podcast, Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions with Devi Asmarani, chief editor of the online magazine Magdalene, which publishes under the tagline "a slanted guide to women’s issues" and calls itself a feminist publication. Magdalene publishes in both English and Indonesian and has a growing readership inside and outside Indonesia.
Image by Adhitya Pattisahusiwa courtesy of Magdalene.
In May, the Indonesian government announced it would ban the Indonesian branch of Hizbut Tahrir, an Islamist organisation which seeks to replace democratic governments with an Islamic caliphate through non-violent means. Indonesia is not the first democracy to consider a ban of Hizbut Tahrir - the organisation has been banned from public activities in Germany, and Great Britain and Australia, amongst others, have considered proscribing the organisation without ultimately doing so. Banning an extremist organisation is a rare step for the Indonesian government, however, which has generally resisted such calls even for violent groups. What has spurred the government to attempt to ban Hizbut Tahrir, what would be the likely impact of such a ban, and what are the challenges for the Indonesian government in regulating extremist speech and ideology?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a world-leading expert on extremism in Indonesia.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
Photo Credit: Adeng Bustomi for Antara Foto
The past decade has seen increased global interest in Indonesian art and along with it, interest in the long-neglected field of Indonesian art history. Until quite recently, art history resources were limited, particularly relating to lesser known artists and works produced during tumultuous periods.
Today, institutions like the Indonesian Visual Arts Archive (IVAA) in Yogyakarta are doing their best to fill these gaps by building art archives and making them accessible to the public. But much work still needs to be done in cataloguing Indonesia’s extensive collection of old and new art. What are the main challenges faced by those who are trying to build Indonesia’s art archives? What is the relevance of art history to contemporary Indonesian society?
Dr Charlotte Setijadi discusses these issues with Farah Wardani, art historian, curator, author, and assistant director in charge of archives at the National Gallery of Singapore (NGS). Before joining NGS in 2015, Farah was the executive director of IVAA, the first institution dedicated to archiving contemporary Indonesian art.
On 21 April, Indonesia celebrated Kartini Day, commemorating Raden Ageng Kartini, a national hero and pioneer of the emancipation of women. More than a century since her death, gender, sexuality and morality are highly contested issues in politics and society. In recent times, a conservative turn in Indonesia has seen extreme voices come to the fore in mainstream Islam, leading to attacks on non-traditional sexualities and women’s bodies.
What is the present state of the women’s movement in Indonesia? Why have sexuality and the female body continued to be sites for contestation and national anxiety? How have women and other marginalised groups like the LGBT community responded to the conservative turn?
In this week’s podcast I explore these issues with Dr Intan Paramaditha, a lecturer at Macquarie University.
Image: Indi and Rani Soemardjan (Flickr)
What is the state of US-Indonesia relations, amidst rising geo-political competition in Indonesia's immediate region, and following the election of Donald Trump as president? What does President Jokowi's Indonesia seek from the United States on shared concerns such as the South China Sea, the fight against ISIS, and the Palestinian conflict? And will Trump's America First policy be manifest during Vice President Mike Pence's upcoming visit to Indonesia?
In this week’s Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Dino Patti Djalal, founder of the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI). Dr Djalal served as Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Indonesia in 2014, after previously serving as Indonesian Ambassador for the United States from 2010-2013, and presidential spokesperson under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2004-2010.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
Photo Credit: U.S. Army
While the extractive industries sector in Indonesia is particularly well-known for its widespread rent-seeking, opaque licensing rules and assertive resource nationalism, a small but growing number of civil society organizations is trying to alter the sector’s reputation through initiatives that aim to spread global norms and values such as transparency and accountability in Indonesia’s extractive industries. Who are these groups and how do they operate? How are they linked to broader transnational advocacy networks and how do they interact with government and business actors in Indonesia? Are there noteworthy achievements that can be attributed to these groups? What challenges do they face?
To discuss these and other related issues, Talking Indonesia’s new host Dr Dirk Tomsa speaks to International Relations expert Dr Poppy Sulistyaning Winanti, vice dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, and currently a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
Photo Credit: Polgov UGM (Department of Politics and Government/Regina Knowledge Hub)
The recent visit by Indonesian President Joko Widodo to Australia was considered a success, with evidence of a good rapport between Widodo and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. However, the visit came in the wake of yet another tense period in the bilateral relationship, this time because of the discovery of apparently offensive materials related to Pancasila and Papua at an Australian military training centre and the unveiling of the Papuan Morning Star flag by trespassers at the Indonesian Consulate in Melbourne.
Why does this issue remain so sensitive and what is its history in the bilateral relationship? What is the situation in Papua today and what are the challenges facing Jokowi’s government? In this week’s podcast I explore these issues with Dr Richard Chauvel, an Honorary Fellow in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
Photo: Michael Masters for the Australian Embassy Jakarta
The last five years have seen the emergence of volunteer organisations as new actors in the campaigns of some of Indonesia's most important elections. Who are these volunteers, what motivates them and what role do they play in elections. Have volunteer organisations changed the role of political parties, or opened new access for the citizens mobilising as part of them? How will they influence the 2019 presidential elections.
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae explore these issues with Dr Dirk Tomsa, senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and Philosophy at La Trobe University and a new co-host in 2017 of the Talking Indonesia podcast.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo Credit: Dave McRae. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
Fake news has become a big problem in Indonesia. A case in point here is the intense circulation of inflammatory anti-Chinese hoaxes surrounding the hotly contested Jakarta gubernatorial election campaign. What can the government and other institutions really do to curb Indonesia’s fake news problem? Is the proliferation of fake news further indication of greater polarisation of Indonesian society? Dr Charlotte Setijadi explores these issues with Ignatius Haryanto.
Just how much is the controversy around Ahok related to his ethnicity and religion and how much is it about popular politics in Indonesia today? How has Ahok’s own political style played a part? We also discuss what racism looks like almost twenty years after the fall of the New Order and with it institutionalised state racism against this minority. Dr Jemma Purdey explores these questions and more with Professor Ariel Heryanto. (Photo by Hendra Nurdiyansyah for Antara Foto)
What role do political dynasties play in Indonesian politics, including the upcoming Jakarta gubernatorial election? What motivates political families to attempt to establish themselves as dynasties, and how do they do so? Are steps needed to curb the entrenchment of dynasties in the Indonesian political system?
In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, the first for 2017, I explore these issues with Dr Jemma Purdey, Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and the Australia Indonesia Centre. Dr Purdey is the editor of a special edition of the South East Asia Research Journal on political families in Southeast Asia.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2017 by Dr Dave McRae, Dr Jemma Purdey, Dr Charlotte Setijadi and Dr Dirk Tomsa, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo Credit: Widodo S. Jusuf for Antara. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
What are the most important online tools for pro-ISIS groups in Indonesia, and what these groups use them for? How do their online activities differ to fellow Indonesian jihadis who oppose ISIS? How can the Indonesian government monitor and counter extremists’ activities online?
This week's Talking Indonesia podcast explores these issues with Nava Nuraniyah, analyst at the Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta. Nava’s research on online extremism in Indonesia will be published in 2017 as part of the proceedings from September’s ANU Indonesia Update ‘Digital Indonesia’ conference.
Talking Indonesia, co-hosted in 2016 by Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan, presents extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: ANTARA FOTO/Irsan Mulyadi/kye/16. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Indonesian Representative to AICHR. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Sigid Kurniawan for Antara Foto. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Novrian Arbi for Antara Photo. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Dave McRae. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: ILO in Asia and the Pacific via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Dave McRae. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Tim Mann. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Jacqui Baker. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Danumurthi Mahendra via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: eko susanto via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Priscilla Huwae via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Biro Pers Setpres. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Chris Lewis via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Andy Fuller. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: World Bank Photo Collection. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: MVP Pictures. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Syed Afdhal Harits Assegaf. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Monika Winarnita. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Flickr user Bernard Oh. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo: "Flying Angels" (Heri Dono, 2006), credit: Bernard Oh via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Flickr user mlutfi. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Selka via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Tommy Wahyu Utomo via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Richard Geddes. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Antje MIssbach. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Flickr user Ikhlasul Amal under CC BY-NC 2.0 license. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Flickr user sbamueller under CC BY-SA 2.0 license. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Randi Ang under CC BY 2.0 license. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog. Photo credit: Dave McRae
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Migrant Care
Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog. Photo is a derivative work of photo by Steven Fitzgerald Sipahutar.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog. Photo: National Archives of Australia: A1501, A386/2
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog. Photo credit: Dave McRae
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more.
Photo credit: Ken Setiawan
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more.
In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae presents an extended interview each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Official White House photo by Pete Souza