AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies

Michigan State University is pleased to co-host the inaugural AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies, in collaboration with the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS). The virtual event will be held from June 23 - 26, 2021.

The Program Committee welcomes proposals for panels, roundtables, and individual paper presentations on history, culture, anthropology, sociology, language, and arts related to Indonesia, and research advancing understandings of the ways that historical, sociocultural, economic, and political contexts shape contemporary and historical issues in Indonesia.

Submission Deadline: 31 March 2021 (11:59 pm EDT)

Types of Proposal Submission

Paper Presentation - Regular Session (Individual Submission)

Individuals may submit abstracts for paper presentations. The Conference organizers will form panels based on accepted abstracts submitted. The panel sessions are 90 minutes long with a maximum of 4 live paper presentations (15 minute each), followed by a discussion. A session chair will moderate and monitor time. Presenters are encouraged to volunteer as session chairs for the panel in which they are presenting. Paper presentation submission includes an abstract of up to 300 words. Each person may only submit one individual paper abstract.

Paper Presentation - Flip-Session (Individual Submission)

The organizers will similarly form panels for flip-sessions based on accepted proposals submitted by individuals. Presenters whose proposals have been accepted into a flip-session panel must submit a pre-recorded presentation prior to the conference (as a link to the recording on a cloud storage or a personal online media channel). The length of the presentation should be between 15 to 20 minutes. Flip-sessions during the conference dates are 30 minutes long consisting of a discussion among the audience and the presenters, with the assumption that session participants have watched the pre-recorded presentations prior to attending the session. All presenters in a flip-session panel are highly encouraged to watch pre-recorded presentations of their fellow panelists prior to the session. The organizers may assign session hosts to moderate the discussion, but welcome suggestions from presenters of individuals to serve as hosts. Paper presentation submission for flip-sessions includes an abstract of up to 300 words. Each person may only submit one individual paper abstract.

Panel Session (Group Submission)

A group of presenters may propose a panel session of 3 or 4 presentations based on work that share a set of common themes, issues, or research questions. The panel sessions are 90 minutes long. The panel organizers must identify a session chair and a discussant (who must also register for the conference) in the proposal submission. Panel session submission includes a panel abstract of up to 500 words, and individual paper abstracts of up to 300 words.

Refereed Roundtable Session (Group Submission)

Round-table sessions are intended to foster connections and substantive exchanges among a community of researchers and practitioners on a collaborative project, or a particular issue with implications on research and policy. The roundtable sessions are 90 minutes long and feature up to 4 presentations on the roundtable topic, as such the presentations do not have individual separate titles. Roundtable organizers should identify a session chair who will moderate the discussion. The roundtable session submission includes a brief description of the intended discussion for the roundtable of up to 500 words, and a preliminary list of invited participants (including name, affiliation, and contact information, who must also register for the conference). 

Click below button to submit your abstract!

For any inquiries, please contact us through:

• conference@aifis.org (AIFIS)

• asiansc@msu.edu (MSU Asian Studies Center)

Abstract Writing Workshop for International Journal Articles

Coping with Indonesia’s Mudflow Disaster

An ongoing mudflow catastrophe in Sidoarjo, Indonesia has submerged a vast area and displaced many villagers. Victims have been coping with this disaster by calling it the Lapindo Mudflow after the company deemed responsible, demanding compensations from the government and Lapindo, forming victim groups, commemorating the disaster annually, and writing their stories to fight a collective memory loss. In many of these activities they were helped by volunteer activists. Kanal Newsroom is a media advocacy team setup to provide information for and train some victims to write, broadcast, and publish their stories online and in print. Voicing their conditions allowed some victims to create meanings of their predicament and put up a resilient response to the seemingly unending disaster.

Historical Dimension and Institutionalization of Industrial Disasters: A Distance Observation

This presentation examines the time dimension and institutional evolution of industrial disasters in the world, including Indonesia in the last 70 years. The presenter will review risk management regimes related to industrial disasters in their interactions with intersecting risks, both natural factors and occupational safety and accident factors; as well as how various paradigms of scientific disciplines contribute to the study of industrial disasters. From the perspective of engineering studies, nuclear studies, geology, public health, disaster and disaster studies to social sciences and humanities.

Energy Governance in Indonesia

Celebrating "World Puppetry Day": The Evil Tale of Nyai Jara

Celebrating "World Puppetry Day" (different from "World Wayang Day") UNIMA will put on a wayang kulit with the dhalang Ki Gamblang Carito and the lakon "Kidung Angkara Nyai Jara" (The Evil Tale of Nyai Jara).
English translation supported by AIFIS!
Saturday 20 March 2021
20:00-00:00 in Java

Main Kayu

Morality on the Digital Edge: Social Media Usage and Religious Authority among Indonesian Muslim School Girls

Abstract

Across the Muslim world, the rise of new media and, in particular, the Internet, is credited with having allowed for a greater number and variety of participants in debates about Islamic normativity. This paper is an analysis of digital literacy, religious authority, and morality in two Indonesian Islamic boarding schools for girls. I argue that these young women occupy a “digital double-edge”— their (limited) access to the digital world offers cosmopolitan and entrepreneurial opportunities while also exposing them to gendered scrutiny for their engagement with the morally murky space of the Internet. Within the study of Islam and new media, I argue that greater attention to everyday decision-making surrounding what to post, “like,” and share reveals new spaces where young Muslim women lay subtle claim to religious authority as they engage and interpret alternative messages about Islam and gender that they encounter online.

Speaker’s Bio

Claire-Marie Hefner is a cultural anthropologist and postdoctoral scholar of Islamic studies in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. She is currently developing her book manuscript, Achieving Islam: Women, Piety, and Moral Play in Indonesian Muslim Boarding Schools, an ethnographic study of moral learning and women’s achievement in Yogyakarta.

The Cultivation of Customary Law in Indonesia’s Political Forests

ABSTRACT of the Speaker:

The forests of Indonesia have long been a space of political confrontation. Rich in timber, water, and mineral deposits, they are home to an estimated 40 million people in forest- dependent customary law communities. This paper focuses on the contemporary remnants of colonial- era policies in forest law in Indonesia and how, over its seven decades of rule, the Indonesian state has slowly undermined its own power in these spaces. In particular, this paper explores the way that the confusing, conflicting, and corrupt statutory legal system in Indonesia has undermined itself and its own power over the “political” forests of Indonesia. Contributing to the current literature on legal pluralism, indigenous politics, and land conflicts, I explore how this process has contributed to the persistence of customary law in Indonesia. In order to do this, I use the case study of the Kasepuhan customary law community in West Java and Banten provinces on the island of Java, Indonesia. The historicizing of statutory and customary forest law in Indonesia highlights the limits of state legal ambiguity before citizens start turning away from statutory law and, in this case, look for stability in customary law (or adat in Indonesia) in order to govern everyday life.

SPEAKER

Rebakah Daro Minarchek, Ph.D (Assistant Teaching Professor in the Integrated Social Sciences program and the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington)

CLICK FLYER TO REGISTER

Dutch Colonial Land Use and Governance in Indonesia 1602-1945

The Long Red Thread: Indonesia’s Infrastructure of Impunity from 1965 to the Present

Co-sponsored by the Rutgers International Institute for Peace, the American Institute for Indonesian Studies, and the New York Southeast Asian Network

Background

Impunity is not simply a legal process, it permeates the social, political, legal and cultural contexts. Understanding the repeated performance of impunity as an infrastructure discloses how a number of dynamic systems intersect to compound impunity over time and space. Prof. Drexler will explore how victims, family members, and activists persistently demand justice (most often defined in legal terms) despite repeated failures to achieve accountability and consider how their consistent and creative demands may ultimately subvert the infrastructure in the realm of affect rather than truth and law. 

Speaker: Elizabeth F. Drexler, Director, Peace and Justice Studies and Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University

Speaker’s Bio:

ELIZABETH F. DREXLER is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Peace and Justice Studies. She has been working in Indonesia since 1996 focusing on issues of human rights and state violence. Her research explores how societies address the legacies of political violence, emphasizing the relationships among institutions, transnational interventions, historical narratives, and contested memories in establishing the rule of law and reconstructing social and political life—or failing to do so. She is particularly concerned with the role that knowledge of past violence, whether acknowledged or denied, plays in the present. She is currently working on a monograph, tentatively titled “Infrastructures of Impunity: Millennials and Affective Engagement with New Order Violence in Indonesia” which critiques the belief that documenting history and past state crimes leads to non-repetition, and it demonstrates that affective dimensions of the disclosures of past violence color the social and political present. This work pays particular attention to how youth are engaged and invoked by differently positioned actors and advocates and how youth themselves contribute to knowledge and memory projects about authoritarian violence. Additional research explores current developments in human rights discourse, norms and practice in Indonesia through the lens of criminalization and irregularities of law enforcement. In an ongoing research project, Drexler is exploring the visual and artistic representations of intersectional experiences of structural injustice in the United States. She is the author of the award-winning Aceh, Indonesia: Securing the Insecure State (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, awarded the Cecil B. Currey Book Award).

Register here: https://rutgers.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lcpbxoPpQKi1_11C3q8OrQ

Wayangan Tunggal Ki Purbo Asmoro | Doa Untuk Dunia (With English Translation)

A rebroadcast of Ki Purbo Asmoro renowned "Wayangan Tunggal" performance from the beginning of the pandemic, when he performed solo, with no musicians or singers.

Many of you requested the English translation and commentary of this performance, and you will find a simultaneous translation and commentary (sponsored by AIFIS) here on this occasion!

The performance with English translation will continue to be available after these live re-streamings.

Watch below:

Live Wayang Performance: Rabine Sengkuni

Watch below:

Creativity in the Era of Covid-19—Lockdowns and Solutions

This webinar is meant to simply help gather information for further research into Ki Purbo Asmoro’s creative processes and thinking during this unusual time. Kitsie has been interviewing Ki Purbo Asmoro for 16 years, and their question and answer interactions are understandably somewhat in a pattern. In her future writings regarding Ki Purbo Asmoro’s work during this pandemic, she hopes to include a wider range of consideration that is inspired by a variety of “question-ers” who probably think differently than she does, and she believes that this panel might provide that. She will always ask permission before ultimately using anything that is said by any party during this webinar. Anyone else in the panel is also granted full permission to use anything in their work, as long as they receive permission from Ki Purbo Asmoro and the speaker they wish to quote. We hope this will be a relaxed and fun two hours, listening to how Ki Purbo Asmoro thinks and what he thinks about! 

Watch below:

IGSSCI Culture Technology and Social Transformation in the Quest for Human Dignity

The International Graduate Students and Scholars' Conference in Indonesia (IGSSCI) is an annual forum for academicians, researchers and practitioners to exchange knowledge and information in the broad area socio-cultural, religious, science and technology. The event has a pivotal role in improving research linkages in this region.

This conference invites graduate students and scholars who are doing research or interested in Indonesian issues to present their paper. The presenters from different disciplines of knowledge related to the subthemes are allowed to participate.

For more info: https://igsci.pasca.ugm.ac.id/

International Symposium on the Languages of Java

The island of Java is home to several major world languages. Javanese—spoken mainly in Central and East Java— is the world’s 10th or 11th largest language in number of native speakers. It has one of the oldest and fullest recorded histories of any Austronesian language. It also has been of considerable interest to scholars because of its unique speech level system. Sundanese—spoken in West Java— has over 27 million speakers, and Madurese—spoken on the neighboring island of Madura and throughout parts of East Java—is the third largest local language, with up to 13 million speakers. Geography, history, and typology bind these languages with linguistically related languages on the neighboring islands of Bali and Lombok. Each of these languages displays a range of dialects, isolects, continua, and contact varieties and yet they have received relatively little attention from linguists. With this symposium, we offer an opportunity for scholars working on any aspect of Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Balinese, Sasak, or any non-Malay language spoken on these islands, to come together and share their findings. We aim to encourage and promote continued research on these important and unique languages.

Activity, Date, and Venue

AIFS in coperation with Universitas Negeri Malang, University of Oslo, and University of Maryland will conduct this event on:

Date : 20-22 May 2021

Time : 07.00-21.00 (different time zones)

Venue : online, via Zoom

Keynote Speakers

Ika Nurhayani is an Associate Professor and the head of the Linguistics Master Program at the Department of Language and Literature, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas

Brawijaya. She received a Fulbright scholarship in 2008 and graduated from the Department of Linguistics, Cornell University, in 2013. Her research focuses primarily on Javanese phonology and syntax.

Carly Sommerlot recently completed her PhD from University of Texas at Arlington, USA with a dissertation entitled “On the Syntax of West Kalimantan: Asymmetries and A'-movement in Malayic and Land Dayak languages”. She has conducted fieldwork in western Indonesia. Currently she is an academic staff the University of Texas, Arlington, in the Linguistics and TESOL Department.

For more info:

ISLOJ: https://indoling.com/isloj/isloj-8/

ISMIL: https://indoling.com/ismil/ismil-24/

EDG Course: What is Political Ecology?

Online Course on Environment, Development and Governance in Indonesia Theories, Issues, and Trends

Learning to Navigate the Ethics of Boundaries: Schools, Youth, and Inter-Religious Relationships in North Sulawesi

To enhance the academic atmosphere during the covid-19 pandemic and to support our mission in promoting academic and research collaboration among scholars, The American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) and the Center for Area Studies-Indonesia Institute of Science (LIPI) as the biggest research institute in Indonesia will jointly organize a monthly webinar on Southeast Asian studies. This monthly webinar discusses various topics related to Southeast Asian studies include religion studies, education, politics, society, ecology, culture, and so on.

The webinar is conducted in English, open for the public; broadcasted through LIPI YouTube channel. It is usually held with the first 45 minutes for power point presentation and the rest for discussion.

ORGANIZER AND DATE

This event is jointly organized by AIFIS and Center for Area Studies-LIPI and will be conducted on:

Date                : Wednesday, 24 February 2021

Time : 2.30 – 4.30 PM (Jakarta Time/GMT+7:00)

ABSTRACT of the Speaker:

In this talk, I considers the complex conjunction of ethical frames that youth in majority-Protestant North Sulawesi are exposed to from the national and local political debates, religious teachings, and their social experiences at school that shape their understandings of and approaches toward inter-religious boundaries. In response to national concerns about the moral failings of Indonesian youth and social issues like rising religious intolerance, the revised 2013 Curriculum promised an increased focus on character and religious education. Educational goals toward developing social competencies in youth, including tolerance, have translated into strong imperatives for youth to acquire friends from various religious backgrounds. At the same time, as youth consider possibilities for dating and marriage, Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic religious education courses all stress the importance of marrying someone from the same religious background. In North Sulawesi, inter-religious marriages are often cited as providing a framework of tolerance that sustains harmonious inter-religious relations in the region. On the other hand, discourses about the threat of inter-religious marriages and their association with proselytization also inform fears of religious conversion a de-stabilization of identities. I demonstrate how two broad ethical frames used to make sense of inter-religious encounters depend on alternate understandings of personhood and subjectivity as either individualized or community-oriented.

Online registration can be accessed via the registration page below:

Binding Contestation: How Party-Military Relations Influence Democratization

The American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) & The Jusuf Kalla School of Government -UMY will jointly organize a Online Seminar. The parties supporting the seminar included AIFIS, Faculty of Law, Master of Law, Doctoral Program in Political-Islamic Political Science, and Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, UM Jakarta. The international seminar will discuss the implementation of democracy which continues to experience new paradigm developments. The big theme raised in the international seminar series was "Contestations That Bind: How Party-Military Relationships Affect Democratization".

An international seminar will be held on Monday, February 15, 2021, at 08.30 - 10.30 WIB online via the zoom application. In addition, the event presented three speakers from academia who were concerned about the major themes of the seminar, including Sunarno. SH., M.Hum., Ph.D (Dept. Law, Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University), Darin Self (Dept. of Government, Cornell University, USA), Dr. Maimun Murod-AlBarbasy (Dean of Fac Social & Poliitics Sciences, Muhammadiyah University Jakarta). In addition, the international seminar will be moderated by UMY Masters of Governmental Science Lecturers, Eko Priyo Purnomo, M.Res., Ph.D., who is also a senior researcher at Jusuf Kalla School of Governance.

Online registration can be accessed via the registration page below: