Talking Indonesia

Twenty-five years since embarking on its reform era following the fall of the New Order, observers, scholars and global democracy indexes agree that Indonesian democracy is in a state of regression.

Recent challenges levelled at key institutions including the Constitutional Court, the Corruption Eradication Commission, and threats to freedom of speech brought by the Information and Electronics Law (ITE Law) are evidence of significant degradation of the quality and integrity of democracy. Further, over the past two decades influence and control across the four branches of power – politics, media, civil society and business – is increasingly centred in the hands of just a few.

With the elections next year set to deliver a new government and new president, what must be done to halt further damage to Indonesia’s democracy and rule of law? What are the risks if it fails to do so?

In this week's episode Jemma Purdey chats with Professor Jimly Asshiddiqie, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Indonesia and a member of Indonesia’s senate, the Regional Representatives Assembly. Professor Jimly was founding Chief Justice of Indonesia’s first Constitutional Court, an adviser to presidents and ministers, was head of the Presidential Advisory Council, and former head of the Advisory Council of Indonesia’s National Commission of Human Rights. He is one of Indonesia’s leading jurists and distinguished legal thinkers, with more than 70 books to his name.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.

Photo: KPU staff carry out drills in Banyuwangi in preparation for the general elections. Antara Foto/Budi Candra Setya.

The project of bureaucratic reform has now been ongoing for over 20 years. But what issues remain and what is the government doing to try and curb corruption and boost efficiency?

In this episode, Dr Elisabeth Kramer speaks to Dr Kanti Pertiwi about how effective efforts to improve the bureaucracy have been. They discuss the design and implementation of incentives to reform the civil service and how disparities between different ministries can impact the psyche of civil servants.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.

Photo by Rendra Oxtora for Antara.

In January 2021, a case that became known as ‘digital-nomad-gate’ gripped both Indonesia’s social and conventional media channels and was also reported around the world. An American woman living in Bali was deported following a series of tweets in which she described her enviable and ‘elevated’ lifestyle there, encouraging others to follow. Amid a pandemic that had hit Bali’s economy particularly hard, her tweets went viral and led to a public backlash condemning her for a lack of cultural sensitivity and awareness of her own privilege. The woman was eventually deported for flouting immigration rules, although she claimed the true reasons were related to her sexuality and race.

This is just one of many cases in recent years which, due in great part to the prevalence of social media, have caught out foreigners in Indonesia for breaking laws and flouting or ignoring social and cultural norms and sensitivities. These range from taking inappropriate photos at sacred sights to ignoring pandemic protocols and refusing to abide by laws and acknowledge the right of local authorities to enforce them.

At the same time, in order to boost economies ravaged by the pandemic, government authorities have sought to attract more foreigners as so-called ‘digital nomads’ or ‘mobile professionals’ to live and work in Bali and elsewhere in the country.

So, who are these new expatriates and what is their motivation for coming to Indonesia? What can the history of expatriates in Indonesia tell us about these more recent conflicts related to cultural awareness and privilege? And do the recent tensions reflect the stresses brought by the pandemic, or are we witnessing a real shift in how Indonesians perceive foreigners living and working in their country?

In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Anne-Meike Fechter, Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, and author of 'Transnational Lives: Expatriates in Indonesia', Ashgate Aldershot, 2007. Her article 'Expatriates, privilege and racism', is published in Inside Indonesia, Apr-June 2021.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.

Photo by Matt Oldfield from Flickr.

Many of the big challenges humanity faces today – especially when we talk about environmental problems – can only be understood from a global perspective. This is definitely the case with sand. According to a report from the UN, sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after water. About 40-50 billion metric tons of it are used every year.

Indonesia, as an archipelago, has an abundance of sand. These sand deposits vary in quality and are used to create industrial products like concrete, asphalt or glass. It is also used in construction and reclamation projects, such as the controversial Jakarta Bay project, where sand is laid as a foundation for further development. Indonesia’s sand is even being exported to places like Singapore.

But sand mining operations can also wreak havoc. Done without care, sand mining can cause coastal areas or even whole islands to disappear. Some fishing communities in Indonesia, for example, are at risk of losing their livelihoods as well as their cultures when sand mining operations are literally erasing their lands.

In this episode of Talking Indonesia, Tito Ambyo from RMIT University talks to Febriana Firdaus, who is the managing editor of a global journalism organisation Environmental Reporting Collective and Krisna Pradipta, Digital Content Producer from Tempo Magazine. Febriana and Krisna have been a part of a global collaborative journalism project that looks at sand mining around the world called Beneath The Sands which uses a range of journalistic storytelling formats to convey the impacts of sand mining.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from UNSW and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.

Photo by Anggri Pernanda from Flickr.

Jarrah Sastrawan - Natural Disasters and Ancient Beliefs

Indonesia is no stranger to natural disasters and it is not surprising that societies throughout the ages have attached political and social significance to these displays of natural power.

In this episode, Dr Elisabeth Kramer speaks with Dr Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan to understand how societies in Java and Bali have understood the significance of natural disasters throughout time.

Natural disasters are seen as markers of shifting political power. But whether they celebrate the emergence of new rulers or old dynasties losing divine favour is a matter of interpretation. Jarrah discusses this and contemporary interpretations of natural disasters in this episode. You can learn more about Jarrah's work at his website, www.wayanjarrah.com.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University and Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of NSW.

Photo by Yosh Ginsu on Unsplash

In 2015 and 2019 massive forest fires in Indonesia shrouded its neighbours in smoke. The haze caused respiratory and other heath problems for residents of Singapore and Malaysia, and the carbon and heat emitted from these fires pushed the achievement of Indonesia’s international greenhouse gas emissions targets further out of reach. 80% of Indonesia’s total emissions come from forest degradation and misuse. 

The fires and the haze they caused are the consequence of decades long industrial-scale destruction of the forests and carbon-rich peatlands of the world’s third largest tropical forests, which constitute a vital carbon sink in the race to reduce global emissions.  

In September last year Indonesia signed a new deal with Norway committing it to a significant reduction in emissions from forest degradation by 2030. This will be no easy task, because while a moratorium on deforestation covers most of the 90 million hectares of natural forest, millions of hectares remain under threat due to plantation expansion and new developments, including the national Food Estate Project and the new Capital City.  

With these competing interests at play, reducing the threat of fires and their high carbon emissions, has become more critical than ever. So, as we look towards an El Niño and a very dry season ahead, what is being done to reduce the risk of fires? Why do they happen in the first place? Why have they become so large in recent times? And what needs to be done to protect not only the forests, but the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous people who live in them? 

In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Sofyan Ansori, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University in the US whose ethnographic research is focused on the Indigenous Dayak in Central Kalimantan and their relationships with fire in a changing environment. He has written for The Conversation Indonesia and Indonesia. 

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.

Photo by Rhett A. Butler from Mongabay

Indonesia's general election in 2024 will be a big one.  Young voters have helped decide the last two general elections. It was millennials behind online movements, like Kawal Pemilu, which helped young Indonesians closely monitor the election results in 2014 and 2019. 

However, this time, a new generation comes of age: Generation Z. And with them, a new online movement has emerged in the form of Bijak Memilih, a website helping young Indonesian's better understand the political landscape - its parties, its candidates, and their track records and policies - before they vote. It began as a partnership between the public policy advocacy platform Think Policy and the youth media outlet What Is Up Indonesia. They are also building communities around Indonesia, through online and offline events, to help young Indonesians find their voices and vote based on objective facts. 

Abigail Limuria, co–founder of What Is Up Indonesia, and Dharmadji Suradika, founder of Pemimpin.Id, are both core members of the Bijak Memilih team, which just launched the first phase of its website. They chat with Tito Ambyo about their motivations for building the website, the problems they are trying to solve and their plans for the future. 

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University and Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University.

Photo by UN Women from Flickr.

Indonesia is an important global hub for minerals and resource extraction. The value of its metallic minerals and coal industry in 2020 was the ninth-largest in the world. Indonesia’s extractive sector accounts for 25 percent of exports and it is also an important source of economic growth, government revenue, employment and technology transfer. But, at the same time, scholarship has documented how extractive industries have generated social conflict, from armed separatism to political protest and high-profile legal disputes. From Aceh to West Papua’s notorious Grasberg mine, extractive industries have been called out for environmental destruction, land dispossession and human rights abuses.

Much has been written about the extractive industries, but today'sguest, Dr Lian Sinclair from the School of Geosciences at the University Sydney, takes a unique angle. Lian focuses on how corporations, governments, community groups and non-governmental organisations contest the uneven costs and benefits of extractive industries. Today she chats with Dr Jacqui Baker about how groups embrace, adapt to or resist mining projects. Her book, Undermining Resistance: Extractive Accumulation, Participation and Governance in Global Capitalism is contracted with Manchester University Press and an Indonesian version will be released simultaneously by Insist Press. Her latest research project examines the political economy of the new critical minerals required for the global transition away from carbon.

You can find more of Lian’s work on her profile or on Twitter. Also keep an eye out for announcements about the publication of her book later this year.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, Tito Ambyo from RMIT, and Dr Jemma Purdey from Deakin University.

Photo by Richard Erari.

Talking Indonesia’s guest this week, Kevin O’Rourke, has been watching Indonesia closely for many years. He dodged tanks in his Toyota Kijang during the May 1998 riots, started the Reformasi Weekly newsletter in 2003, and launched the podcast Reformasi Dispatch with journalist Jeff Hutton in 2021.

Podcasting is becoming an important medium in Indonesia, and we like to think Talking Indonesia and Reformasi Dispatch are both pioneering podcasts about Indonesia. In February this year, Jeff and Kevin kindly invited Talking Indonesia co-host Tito Ambyo to join Reformasi Dispatch. In this episode Tito introduces Kevin to our Talking Indonesia listeners.

In this chat, we speak about many issues: the fragility of Indonesian democracy, Indonesia as a country of two systems, politics and football, Anies Baswedan’s presidential electability and the super coalitions that Indonesian political parties are currently forming.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Dave McRae from the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, and Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University.

Photo by Ananto Pradana for Antara.

Indonesian literature in translation

In recent years the international profile of Indonesian literature has been given a substantial boost. Indonesian authors and their work was highlighted at major book fairs in Europe and given a special place within the cultural and commercial programs at these events, and also backed by funding from the Ministry for Education and Culture and the Agency for Creative Economy (Bekraf). It was hoped that an international boon for Indonesian literature would follow. Indeed, in the past decade the names of Indonesian writers such as Ayu Utami and Eka Kurniawan have joined those of Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Rendra as being recognised and read by readers all over the world.

Undeniably, the publication of work in English translation is imperative in order to achieve such a global readership. In early March, Tiffany Tsao’s translation of Budi Darma’s 'People from Bloomington' (Orang-Orang Bloomington) won the prestigious PEN Translation Prize, potentially marking another significant moment for Indonesian literature internationally.

What does the future look like for Indonesian literature in translation? Who and what is being translated and published? And what expectations do publishers and readers have about the stories they will encounter?

In this week’s episode of Talking Indonesia, Dr Jemma Purdey chats to Tiffany Tsao, author and translator of fiction and poetry, including the winner of the 2023 PEN Translation Prize, 'People from Bloomington'.

In 2023, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre, Dr Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University, and Tito Ambyo from RMIT.

Photo: cover image, 'People from Bloomington', Penguin Classics, 2022