Anthropology

Young Indonesians display considerable resourcefulness in coping with difficult pathways into work, but more comprehensive policies are needed to improve their job prospects. - Editorial introduction, with Suzanne Naafs, to 'Special Edition: Youth Employment Prospects and Aspirations', Inside Indonesia 120: April-June 2015.
With articles by Michele Ford, Thijs Schut, Ben White and Akatiga, Suzanne Naafs, Wenty Minza, Kathleen Azali, and Ariane Utomo.

"A two-part panel on activism in Southeast Asia that engages theories from social movement studies and facilitates comparative perspectives"


Abstract:

Southeast Asia has seen dramatic political and social change in the last decade. Accompanying this sea-change is the ebb and ow of popular protests, including anti- and pro-democracy movements, as well as struggles over issues of identity and the environment. Regrettably, this rich reservoir of bottom-up contention has not been fruitfully tapped by social movement studies (SMS) writ large. Tellingly, from 2010 onwards, the top two SMS  journals (“Social Movement Studies” and “Mobilization”) have featured only four research entries that drew on Southeast Asian examples. When Southeast Asian movements are examined, it tends to be by area studies scholars, uninformed by the SMS literature, or by political scientists, who overwhelmingly focus on overtly political contention. This panel will therefore engage insights from SMS, facilitate comparative perspectives, and in turn, ignite intra-region and border-crossing theoretical debates. New light is then shed upon certain well-studied movements, questioning current orthodoxies, which tend to be elite-centred, and revolve around political economy and civil society frameworks.

Based on empirical research, this panel illuminates novel ways of integrating local studies of grassroots contention with SMS, whether via a culturalist lens, or an institutionalist orientation. Sensitive to local particularities, our papers will address not only the overtly political contention, but also the less obviously political, which is so often overlooked. Amidst the apparent tensions between discipline and area studies, we illustrate their mutual complementarity. The analytical rewards, we argue, are far-reaching; besides contributing to theory development, an integrationist approach reinforces the “synergy between region and discipline”