Notes from the Field: Ratri Istania, “Ethnic Power Dynamics and Regional Proliferation - Unpacking Conflict Triggers in Indonesia's Decentralization”

“I traveled from Indonesia to the United States, a journey that marked the start of an extraordinary experience as an AIFIS-Luce Research Fellow. My interactions with renowned scholars and experts in Indonesian, Southeast Asian, and international relations had expanded my professional network to include scholars across disciplines. These encounters, occurring in offices, classrooms, seminars, and even casual lunches or dinners, underscored the immense value of building networks with scholars not only in my field of interest but also across various academic disciplines.” - Ratri Istania, PhD

Meet Dr. Ratri Istania, an AIFIS-Luce research fellows who traveled to the US October-November 2024 to advance research on ethnicity, power-sharing dynamics, and democracy within the framework of Indonesia’s decentralization policy. Her visit first led her to the Southeast Program (SEAP) at Cornell University to explore the collections, observe classes, and collaborate with scholars from the Department of Government, Dr. Thomas Pepinsky (AIFIS Board Member) and Dr. Peter Katzenstein.

From there she traveled to Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb to observe classes and gain research insights from Dr. Scot Schraufnagel (Political Science) and Dr. Eric Jones (History), visit the Founders Memorial Library, and attend a book talk at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (NIU CSEAS). Additionally, Ratri connected with a number of Indonesian scholars conducting research and teaching in the US, including Rafif Imawan (Deputy Executive Director, Populi Center, Jakarta) and Dr. Etin Anwar (Religious Studies, Hobart & William Smith College).

Check out Ratri’s jointly authored publication with Rafif Imawan, "Authoritarian Nostalgia and Democratic Decline in Contemporary Indonesia,"  published online, July 23, 2024

Next, Ratri visited her graduate school and post-doctoral alma mater, Loyola University Chicago. There she attended cross-disciplinary meetings hosted by the Political Science Department to explore potential research collaborations with her home institution, the Populi Center in Jakarta, delivered a lecture entitled Strategic Advocacy in Post-Election Indonesia: Shaping Inclusive Policies for Marginalized Communities, and reconnected with her graduate and post-graduate advisors from the Department of Political Science, Dr. Alexandru Grigorescu and Dr. Olga Avdeyeva, among others.

Finally, Ratri’s research trip concluded with a visit to the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she conducted a guest lecture at the UW-Madison Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Speaking on the theme of “Authoritarian Nostalgia and Democratic Decline in Contemporary Indonesia,” Ratri’s talk was accompanied with opening remarks by Dr. Mary McCoy (Outreach Director, Center for Southeast Asian Studies; Teaching Faculty, Department of Communication Arts) and introduction by Dr. Eunsook Jung (AIFIS Board Member and Assistant Dean, Academic Deans' Services, College of Letters and Science).

Congratulations, Ratri, on a successful research trip to the US! AIFIS is honored to support the scholarly advancement of Indonesian scholars like Ratri, and in turn to advance interdisciplinary scholarship about Indonesia by Indonesian scholars in the United States.

Click here to read More about Ratri’s full research experience.

Notes from the field: David Novak, “Digitizing Popular Music Archives in Contemporary Indonesia”

“My AIFIS project, Digitizing Popular Music Archives in Contemporary Indonesia, is part of my larger ethnographic research on informal sound archives and the influence of far-flung groups of “diggers” – record collectors, cassette dealers, unofficial scribes and protectors of popular culture - on global histories of popular music. The cassettes and vinyl records they hold on to are often considered lost and forgotten, and many remain undigitized and undocumented. They are considered obsolete, and may appear to be things of mere nostalgia, or of niche connoiseurship. Yet diggers keep the material presence of Indonesian sound media, and its historical narratives, in circulation. Collectors expand the conditions of possibility for a decolonial aurality, and offer a way of repairing global music history to address its “forgotten” edges. This project focuses particularly on the impact of the cassette, and its role in preserving and circulation Indonesian popular music history. In contemporary Northern societies, cassettes had a short life: but in Indonesia, the cassette was the first truly public medium of recorded music, and rested at the center of local media industries for decades.

In an ongoing collaboration with the staff of Irama Nusantara, an archival organization that has been digitizing Indonesian sound media and making it accessible online since 2013, I documented the process of archival transfer and preservation through an ethographic study of tape markets, collectors, and cassette dealers in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surakarta, and Surabaya. Cassettes are increasingly threatened objects, devalued for their poor quality, dated contents, and mass-produced ubiquity. Although they have recently developed some cultural capital among an elite core of young listeners, tapes have little status compared with vinyl, and are widely perceived as too common to be collectible. Yet the cassette holds the majority of Indonesian popular music history within its reels. In definitive ways, then, this humble object has shaped the public culture of recorded sound in Indonesia. Its continuing relevance into the musical worlds of the 2020s activates digital networks that open up historical sound media for new public listenerships. Online archives like Irama Nusantara reveal that living histories unspool from cassettes; and the digital cassette archive shows us that historical materials always need to be used to stay alive.”

Notes from the field: Eko Widianto, ”Strengthening the Existence of the Indonesian Language in The United States: An Ethnographic Study”

Meet Eko Widianto, an AIFIS-Luce Fellow Researcher at the Center of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research delves into the history of teaching Indonesian in the United States from the 1940s to the present day. From June - July 2024 he was immersed in field research, primarily conducting oral history interviews at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute, UW-Madison. Eko also explored numerous archives including the UW-Madison Memorial Library and the Olin Library at Cornell University. His work sheds new light on the educational and cultural intersections between Indonesia and the United States.

Check out this interview conducted by Eko Widianto in conversation with Toenggoel P. Siagian, focusing on the history of teaching Indonesian in the United States!

Benny Bascara: “An Ecological View of Religion among the Bajo Community of Central Sulawesi” (Presented in Indonesian)

AIFIS bekerjasama dengan Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Yogyakarta (STAIYO) menyelenggarakan Kuliah Umum “Pandangan Ekologis Agama Masyarakat Bajo Di Sulawesi Tenggara, Indonesia,” dengan pembicara, Benny Baskara, Ph.D. (AIFIS Fellow, Dosen Universitas Halu Oleo, Sulawesi Tenggara).

Masyarakat Bajo adalah kelompok etnis yang unik, karena tidak seperti kebanyakan orang lain yang tinggal di darat, mereka hidup di laut. Oleh karena itu mereka lebih dikenal sebagai orang laut. Pandangan ekologis masyarakat Bajo sangat dipengaruhi oleh kepercayaan asli mereka. Sebagai orang laut yang hidup di laut, mereka memiliki kesadaran bahwa diri mereka, masyarakat mereka, dan kehidupan mereka secara umum adalah bagian dari kehidupan laut itu sendiri.

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