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.