Asia Research Centre Universitas Indonesia

Di Hari Buruh 2026 ini, kami mengajak untuk merefleksikan satu pertanyaan yang sering luput: apa hubungan antara demokrasi dan kehidupan kerja sehari-hari?

Melalui lensa interdisipliner, mempertemukan ilmu ekonomi dan sosiologi, catatan ini menelusuri bagaimana prekaritas bekerja di Indonesia dan Thailand. Bagaimana ketidakpastian kerja bukan sekadar nasib individu, tapi hasil dari bagaimana sistem dirancang. Dan bagaimana demokrasi, pada akhirnya, adalah juga tentang siapa yang punya suara dalam menentukan arah ekonomi.

Refleksi ini bersandar pada tiga publikasi artikel:
📄 Vaccaro et al. (2023) — Labour Market Transitions in South Africa and Indonesia
📄 Yasih (2022) — Normalizing and Resisting the New Precarity
📄 Hewison & Tularak (2013) — Thailand and Precarious Work

Ketiga artikel dapat diakses di: bit.ly/prekaritas

[Call for Abstract: Cosmopolitan Imaginations, Pluriversal Futures, and The Making of Local Space]

The 9th International Symposium of Journal Antropologi Indonesia invites scholars, researchers, students, activists, and practitioners to submit abstracts for panel sessions.

The “Cosmopolitan Imaginations, Pluriversal Futures, and The Making of Local Space” Panel engages with the notion that landscapes are intricately connected with paradox, tensions, and competing hegemonic fields beyond their localities through cosmopolitan imaginations of place. We invite contributions that illuminate what unfolds following the imposition of global imaginations onto particular localities.

🗓 Important dates
•⁠ ⁠Call for Abstracts: Deadline May, 18 2026
•⁠ ⁠Acceptance Notification: 1 June 2026
•⁠ ⁠Registration: 2 June – 20 July 2026
•⁠ ⁠Symposium: 4 – 7 August 2026
📍 In-person at Universitas Indonesia, Depok

Submit Abstract:
🔗 https://conference.ui.ac.id/isjai2026

Find more information at:
🔗 simposiumjai.ui.ac.id

We look forward to your contributions and discussions.

[Call for Abstract: Life in Extraction Zones: Everyday Struggles at the Frontiers of a Resource State]

The 9th International Symposium of Journal Antropologi Indonesia invites scholars, researchers, students, activists, and practitioners to submit abstracts for panel sessions.

The “Life in Extraction Zones: Everyday Struggles at the Frontiers of a Resource State” Panel examines everyday life in extraction zones and asks how affected communities navigate corporate intrusion, adapt their livelihoods, and imagine futures within landscapes transformed by mining. We invite empirical studies that illuminate the lived realities and struggles unfolding in resource frontiers.

🗓 Important dates
•⁠ ⁠Call for Abstracts: Deadline May, 18 2026
•⁠ ⁠Acceptance Notification: 1 June 2026
•⁠ ⁠Registration: 2 June – 20 July 2026
•⁠ ⁠Symposium: 4 – 7 August 2026
📍 In-person at Universitas Indonesia, Depok

Submit Abstract:
🔗 https://conference.ui.ac.id/isjai2026

Find more information at:
🔗 simposiumjai.ui.ac.id

We look forward to your contributions and discussions.

Ruang sipil di Indonesia Timur jarang jadi bagian dari percakapan utama. Padahal di sana, organisasi masyarakat sipil bekerja di tengah tekanan keamanan, isolasi geografis, ketimpangan pendanaan, dan ekspansi industri ekstraktif.

Riset terbaru dari ARC UI bersama .ui, PD-Institute, dan Universitas Cenderawasih menelusuri kondisi ruang sipil di Papua, Maluku, dan Maluku Utara; langsung dari perspektif para aktor yang bekerja di garis depan.

Baca laporan lengkapnya di sini:
🔗 arc.ui.ac.id/publikasi/civil-society-in-eastern-indonesia/

Gelombang demonstrasi Agustus–September 2025 mempertemukan beragam subjek yang jarang turun ke jalan bersama; mulai dari mahasiswa, buruh gig hingga ibu rumah tangga. Meski berangkat dari kondisi material yang berbeda, fragmentasi keluhan ini berhulu pada satu sumber: merosotnya demokrasi dan menajamnya ketimpangan struktural di Indonesia selama beberapa dekade terakhir.

Melalui kerangka artikulasi dan re-artikulasi, kami menelusuri bagaimana konsolidasi yang telah tercapai secara organik pada rangkaian mobilisasi ini dapat dilemahkan melalui intervensi elit politik.

Konten ini merupakan pengemasan ulang artikel “Articulation and Re-articulation of Grassroots Grievances in Indonesia, 2025” karya Diatyka W. P. Yasih dan Inaya Rakhmani.

Baca artikel lengkapnya:
Versi Bahasa Inggris di https://positionspolitics.org/diatyka-widya-permata-yasih-and-inaya-rakhmani-articulation-and-re-articulation-of-grassroots-grievances-in-indonesia-2025/

Versi Bahasa Indonesia di https://majalahsedane.org/artikulasi-dan-reartikulasi-keluhan-akar-rumput-di-indonesia-2025/

[OPEN RECRUITMENT]

Asia Research Centre Universitas Indonesia (ARC UI) membuka kesempatan untuk bergabung dalam tim kami sebagai Tenaga Magang Administrasi dan Keuangan, di periode magang Februari - April 2025.

Kirimkan CV dan Surat Lamaran yang ditujukan kepada Kepala Asia Research Centre Universitas Indonesia melalui email berikut [email protected], dengan subjek email: Tenaga Magang Administrasi dan Keuangan – ARC UI.

Deadline: 15 Januari 2025

ARC UI’s Cluster Leader for Producing Knowledge on Asia, Inaya Rakhmani, took part in three panel discussions at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2025:

• Indonesia’s Revolution and Decolonisation
• ⁠Voices of the Global South on the New Order
• ⁠Alternative Knowledge Formation in Indonesia

Connected by a shared effort to rethink decolonisation and produce alternative knowledge, these panels trace a continuous narrative across time; from past, to present, to future.

In the end, it leaves us with a homework: What kind of alternative future can we imagine, and how can we go beyond imagining and produce said future?

“Ideas are not born in isolation but built in dialogue.”

This carousel highlights how a collective of academic workers; Vedi R. Hadiz (University of Melbourne), Diatyka W. P. Yasih, Inaya Rakhmani, Hari Nugroho (Universitas Indonesia), Benni Setiawan (Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta), and Syarif Aripin (Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan Sedane) have contributed interconnected insights that reshape how we understand labour and class formation in Indonesia.

Their studies show that knowledge production is a form of collective labour; grounded in dialogue and in close attention to the layered realities of workers’ lives. Swipe through to follow this constellation of ideas!

Access all featured research articles here: bit.ly/CollectiveLabourReadings

“Pembangunan kota seharusnya ditentukan oleh keterlibatan seluruh warga; bukan hanya segelintir pihak berkuasa, atau melalui tembok beton semata.”

Pada 16 September 2025, ARC UI bersama WatchDoc Documentary menggelar peluncuran dan diskusi film dokumenter Zona Batas.

Film ini menyoroti dampak sosial dan ekologis proyek Giant Sea Wall (Tanggul Laut Raksasa); dengan mengangkat kisah masyarakat pesisir Jakarta yang kehidupannya kian terhimpit di balik tanggul.

Sesi diskusi pasca-penayangan menghadirkan akademisi, peneliti, dan perwakilan organisasi masyarakat sipil, serta dihadiri langsung oleh komunitas nelayan pesisir Jakarta.

Film Zona Batas ini merupakan bagian dari proyek riset “Resilience and Adaptation to Sea Level Rise in Jakarta Bay: Sink or Swim Together (SOS)?”—kolaborasi antara ARC UI, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) Erasmus University Rotterdam, dan Boğaziçi University (BU).

Simak catatan kegiatan di atas untuk melihat dan mendengar lebih dekat bagaimana masa depan Jakarta dimaknai dari balik tanggul.
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Beberapa foto dan video diambil dari potongan film Zona Batas karya WatchDoc Documentary.

Asia Research Centre Universitas Indonesia (ARC UI) will convene a Research Workshop as part of the 2025 Annual Convention on the Global South (Go South 2025), organized by the Institute of International Studies (IIS), Universitas Gadjah Mada:

“Contesting Hegemony: Labour, Ideology, and the Limits of Resistance in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia”

📅 Thursday, 2 October 2025 (16.00 - 18.00 WIB)
📍 FISIPOL Auditorium, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta
💻 Zoom Link: ugm.id/GOSOUTH2025

This research workshop examines the ideological terrain of labour struggles in post-authoritarian Indonesia through a Gramscian framework. It highlights how workerism, gender norms, selective interpretations of Islam, entrepreneurialism, and state paternalism are mediated, internalised, and contested in everyday life—revealing the way hegemonic narratives are both reproduced and challenged across households, workplaces, and organised labour.

Speakers:
Vedi R. Hadiz (University of Melbourne)
Hari Nugroho (Universitas Indonesia)
Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih (Universitas Indonesia)

Discussant: Muhtar Habibi (Universitas Gadjah Mada)
Facilitator: Luqman-nul Hakim (Universitas Gadjah Mada)

The event is open to the academic community and practitioners with an interest in labour, ideology, and politics in the Global South.