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 Ardiansyah, 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 below

In 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

On January 2nd, 2026, Indonesia entered what officials are calling a "new era" of criminal justice. The country implemented a completely new Criminal code – KUHP - and a new Criminal Procedure Code—known as KUHAP—that changes what counts as a crime and how crimes are identified, investigated and punished.

The government says this marks a shift toward "restorative justice" that prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment. Officials describe it as "more humane, modern, and just". But civil society groups are sounding the alarm. They're calling the new law "draconian and illiberal"—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 Murtala

In 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.

On 10 November 2025, Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto made a controversial decision that reignited divisions in Indonesian society: he posthumously designated former President Suharto as a pahlawan nasional or a ‘national hero.’

Suharto seized power in 1965 during a period of violent upheaval and ruled Indonesia for over three decades until 1998, presiding over what he called the "New Order" 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