Call for Papers: 2nd Bandung International Conference on Social Science, 9-10 August 2023

Organized by the Centre for Asian Social Science Research, FISIP, Universitas Islam Negeri Bandung, the 2nd Bandung International on Social Science (BICOSS) will take place virtually on 9-10 August 2023. This year’s theme focuses on the subject of “Digital Society and the Global South: A Critique of Knowledge Production and Future Research Trajectories.”

Digital technology has a significant impact on everyone’s lives and future, but many individuals, particularly those from the Global South, are left out of discussions on the direction of the digital society. This inequality is a structural issue with real-world roots. This issue is known as “digital coloniality.” This conference will explore the problems with current studies on digital society, a critique of knowledge production on digital society, and possibilities of future research directions which recognize global cognitive justice.

Guest speakers will include Prof. Heidi A. Campbell (Director, Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies, Texas A&M University, USA) (To be Confirmed), Assistant Prof. Renyi Hong (Department of Communication and New Media, National University of Singapore), and an Opening speech by Prof. Ahmad Ali Nurdin (Dean, Faculty of Social and Political Science, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Indonesia).

The organizers welcome abstract submissions in the following research areas:

• Critical Analysis of Digital World

• Digital Colonialism

• Cybersecurity

• Digital Conflicts

• Digital Sovereignty

• Digital Sociology

• Development of Smart Cities

• New Forms of Mobility

• E-Citizenship

• E-Democracy

• E-Governance

• E-Commerce

• E-Health and Digital Well-Being

• Environmental Impact of Digital Technologies

• Ethnographic and Anthropological Studies about Digital Cultures

• Online Education and Training

• Political Impact of Social Platforms

• Privacy and Data Protection in Digital World

Abstract Submission Deadline: 2 August 2023*

Conference Date: 9-10 August 2023

Venue: Online via Zoom

Cost: Free. Gratis.

Contact: 0815-7281-7107 (WhatsApp; texts only); email: cassr@uinsgd.ac.id

*Note that selected full papers will be published in the Journal of Asian Social Science Research (SINTA 3; on-going process of Scopus indexing), JISPO Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik (SINTA 3) and Politicon Jurnal Ilmu Politik (SINTA 2)

To register, click here.

AIFIS President Bob Hefner Announces Release of Indonesian Pluralities Films

A note from AIFIS President Bob Hefner:

As the month of May comes to a close, my three year project as executive co-producer (with Zainal Abidin Bagir of UGM)  on seven documentary films on Indonesia is also coming to a close (May 30).  The films, co-created with Watchdoc Documentary (https://watchdoc.co.id/), are available both in Indonesian and in English and they are entirely free of charge. They are also available both on Youtube or, for those wanting digital copies for their libraries, they can also be downloaded online (through Zainal or me).

 As the above flyers make clear, the films deal with a range of topics:

1. In the Name of Belief explores the struggle of adherent of “spirituality groupings” (kepercayaan) to achieve recognition in the face of government policies that do not recognize these mystical groups as full “religions” (agama);

2. Ambon: A Return To Peace examines the role of women and women’s groups in effecting reconciliation across religious divides in the aftermath of Ambon’s bitter Christian-Muslim conflict;

3. Unfinished Indonesia examines the use and abuse of Islamic appeals in Indonesia’s 2019 elections, focusing in particular on the sectarian mobilization against Jakarta’s Christian-Chinese governor

4. Religion in Quarantine examines the role played by religious organizations in responding to the covid pandemic in Indonesia

5. Three Voices examines the experiences and lives of three Indonesian Muslim women: one a feminist, a second a reformist moderate, the third a moderate Islamist associated with the Prosperous Justice Paraty;

6. Indonesian Pluralities today: Seeking Equality in Diversity, examines the challenge of achieving citizen equality for all ethnic and religious groups in contemporary Indonesia.

In early June, our teams will release an English-language version of the seventh and last film on the series, on Chinese Indonesians and Citizen inequality, as seen from the experience of the Chinese community in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Although Zainal and I are just now bringing the films to American universities and the American public, Indonesian versions of the films have been watched at some 300 film events in Indonesia over the past 20 months. We’ve been enormously pleased by their reception. Given Zainal and my pro-pluralist positioning, the films have caused a little controversy; interestingly, however, even the Ministry of Religion and the Ministry of Education have applauded the films. Rather more surprisingly, at the peak of the covid shutdown of Indonesian schools, the national union of teachers and the Ministry of Education actually used three of the Indonesian-language versions of the courses in “belajar di rumah” (“learn at home”) programs run for high school students online, for students otherwise unable to attend school. The films have also been shown at a number of universities and conferences here in the U.S., although we are just now scaling up distribution here in North America. The flyers not only describe the films – they also have embedded hyperlinks that allow viewers to go directly to youtube to watch each film. Finished copies of the films are also available for download by request for individuals or libraries that wish to obtain these free films.

Finally, our film partners in Indonesia (Watchdoc documentaries) have indicated that the English language version of film seven will be available by the end of June. We are excited to offer a screening and discussion of the final Indonesian Pluralities film, Equal Citizens? Chinese Indonesians in Yogyakarta, at the AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies, July 11-15, 2023.

Thanks again, and salam dari Boston,

Bob Hefner

Professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs

Pardee School of Global Affairs

Director, Center for the Study of Asia

President, American Institute for Indonesian Studies

Past President, Association for Asian Studies

Honoring the Life of John MacDougall

John MacDougall, a pioneer of using the Internet as a research tool for Indonesian studies, died in Maryland on May 16. Among his many services, he was editor and publisher of Indonesia Publications from 1984 to 2004; creator and moderator of a bilingual Indonesian and English “Apakabar Project” from 1990 to 2002 which attracted 250,000 readers from 96 countries, now a searchable database housed at Ohio University (http://www.indopubs.com/db.html) ; and creator of a research and learning site on Indonesia, Southeast Asia and the Islamic World, available at  http://www.indopubs.com.

A native of New Jersey, he was a brilliant student. In graduate school at Harvard, he focused on social psychology and taught courses on American race and labor relations, just as the civil rights and anti- Vietnam War movements were reaching a crescendo. These movements left John with a belief that civil society advocacy was a path to political and social reform, a belief that stayed with him until the end. He taught at MIT, the National University of Singapore, Cornell, and other universities before joining the U.S. government as a Southeast Asia specialist from 1977 to 1984. It was in 1984 that he decided to strike out on his own as a chronicler of Indonesia and became an invaluable friend and resource to generations of Indonesian and American researchers.

John used the online bulletin “Inside Indonesia” to publish many of his lists of useful websites by theme: “Justice on the Net”, “Labour on the Net”, “Aceh on the Net”, “Sulawesi on the Net” and so on. Most of these appeared in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Most of John’s thousands of online friends never met him. He worked quietly out of his home, shunning self-publicity, accolades, or any public expressions of gratitude from the many Indonesians and non- Indonesians he helped over the years. He did more for Indonesian studies over the years than many much better-known figures. He was an early fan of Facebook but became one of those quickly disillusioned by issues of invasion of privacy for profit. The explosion of social media and search sites meant that much of John’s pioneering work faded into obscurity. For anyone researching the end of the New Order, however, John’s archives remain invaluable. And as a champion of justice and human rights, he will always be a model of how to use information for anti-authoritarian ends.

Obituary prepared by Sidney Jones (Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict)

On behalf of AIFIS we share our deepest condolences to John’s family at this time. The following are some additional comments from our board members about about John’s impact:

“John Macdougall was a tireless archivist who made available a daily mass of briefings and news reports from around the world on Indonesia from the 1990s to 2004.  I used his free service every day, and could not have written most that I did in the 1990s without John’s selfless work.  He was an institution in his own right, and one without peer. His passing is a reminder to us of how Indonesian studies ‘at the grassroots’ worked in pre-internet days.”

- Bob Hefner (Boston University)

“I have so much gratitude for his contribution to Indonesian Studies.  I archived printed copies of his reports—they were a lifeline during my first decade in Montana, and in the tradition of Ben Anderson’s reports on the military in issues of Indonesia.”

- G.G. Weix (University of Montana)

Rhythms for Living: Sumbanese Islanders’ Changing Relationships with Wai (Freshwater) in Southeastern Indonesia

Atmospheric and oceanic circulations create rhythms for living that reverberate in the relationships Sumbanese Islanders have with wai, meaning “freshwater.” Sumbanese dwell in a hydrologically heterogenous space created by tectonic forces where the monsoonal climate generates strong seasonal variability in water supplies. Given this biophysical backdrop for an evolving situation, what kinds of relationships do people have with freshwater and how have they changed during the past 25 years? The hydrogeological context and its connections with the social context have given rise to bountiful ethnolinguistic diversity for the island’s blended Austronesian-Papuan communities who syncretize their ancestral Marapu religion with Christianity and merge their exchange-based subsistence economy with capitalism. Studying the changing relationships between people and freshwater on Sumba requires a framework that encompasses sequential scales from the ancient to the present, from the ethnic group to the nation-state and accounts for interlocking transformations of the geological and the hydrological, the linguistic and the cultural. Seeing freshwater in Tana Humba (Water Country) as modified by both environmental vicissitudes and human activities means approaching the hydrosocial case as a coupled social-ecological systems.

Cynthia Fowler (PhD University of Hawai‘i 1999) is Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She is co-editor of two monograph series: Global Change/Global Health as and Contributions in Ethnobiology. In January 2023, Cynthia completed a Fulbright US Scholar project which this talk at the East-West Center is based upon.

The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect East-West Center policies or positions.

CSEAS UC Berkeley and the Department of S&SE Asian Studies Present: "Indonesia Out of Exile: How Pramoedya's Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship + film screening" (March 24, 2023)

Indonesia Out of Exile: How Pramoedya's Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship + film screening

Lecture: Center for Southeast Asia Studies | March 24 | 4-7 p.m. | 370 Dwinelle Hall

Speakers: Max Lane; Faiza Mardzoeki

Sponsors: Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies

Max Lane is the translator of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's acclaimed quartet of novels written in the prison camp of Buru : This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass. He will discuss his latest book on Pramoedya's important role in bringing down the military authoritarian regime of Suharto's New Order.

The talk will be followed a film screening of "The Silent Song of the Genjer Flowers" - by Faiza Mardzoeki

This is a filmed stage play highlighting the perspectives and experiences of the women survivors of Suharto's violence against Gerwani, the Indonesian Women's Movement allied with the Indonesian Communist Party.

Event Contact: cseas@berkeley.edu, 510-642-3609

Access Coordinator: Sarah Maxim,  cseas@berkeley.edu,  510-642-3609

SF Consular Talks: 'Home Security 101, Labor Exploitation & Human Trafficking' (6 March 2023)

Penasaran bagaimana peraturan izin tinggal dan ketenagakerjaan di Amerika Serikat (AS)? Hadiri diskusi interaktif bersama the U.S. Department of Homeland Security dalam acara Consular Talks 5 dengan tema “Home Security 101, Labor Exploitation, and Human Trafficking” hari Senin, 6 Maret 2023 mulai pukul 5.00 PM (PT).

Acara ini akan dibuka oleh Konsul Jenderal Prasetyo Hadi dan menghadirkan empat (4) pembicara berkompeten, yaitu: William Anderson, Group Supervisor, Brittany Portez (US Special Agent), Michael Caloway (Victim Assistance Specialist), Robert Sands (US Special Agent), and penyambut pembicara, Sylvia Tiwon (University of California, Berkeley).

Zoom meeting ID: 889 7111 6019

Passcode: homeland