About me
I am a political sociologist with over 25 years of experience researching Indonesian politics and society.
A longstanding area of research interest has been the relationship between power, violence and representation, that I have pursued through two major interrelated research agendas.
The first of these agendas has been focused on what colloquially referred to in Indonesia as preman, a thug or gangster, but more broadly understood as a particular kind of relational predatory politics involving coercion and extortion. I have used ethnographic work on national and sub-national preman-linked organisations and networks and their relations to capital and state, to develop a methodological approach towards understanding everyday state power.
My second research agenda has focused on the politics of poverty in Southeast Asia. I approach poverty not as a measure of daily income but as an unequal social relation in which the poor are dependent upon the more powerful for basic needs. This produces particular kinds of strategies, relationships, actions and political logics that are frequently misunderstood, overlooked or exacerbated by interventions intended to alleviate poverty or otherwise assist the poor. In my work I have analysed the distinctive kinds of political praxis that is engendered by the conditions constitutive of poverty, and the multiple strategies deployed by urban poor communities in order to secure necessities. In this work I have collaborated closely with urban poor organisations and communities in Jakarta.
I also have a research interest in tensions between popular participation in electoral democracy and anti-democratic currents within Indonesia's political and economic elites.
I've conducted numerous collaborative policy-orientated projects and fellowships including on ethnic violence in Indonesia (US Institute for Peace), informal and private sector security (Australia-Indonesia Governance Reform Project), patterns of political corruption in budget allocation (with Indonesian Corruption Watch) the political economy of pro-poor public policy and the politics of development in Southeast Asia (AusAID/DFAT), anti-democratic dynamics in Indonesia (Yusof-Ishok-ISEAS) and the experience of climate damage and loss by vulnerable communities (KONEKSI).
I have done consultancy policy work including on the DFAT/Bappenas collaborative program, as part of the Australia Indonesian Partnership for Justice (AIPJ), which included focused policy research work mapping the political economy of countering-violent extremism programming, anti-corruption, gender equity efforts and Indonesian criminal justice reform. I have also provided policy input to the Indonesian Ministry for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, and DFAT, on Islamist militias and threats of religious radicalism and provided expert input to the Jakarta Department of Social Housing on social housing policy.
I regularly provide commentary in national and international media such as BBC, Washington Post, AlJazeera, New York Times, South China Morning Post, The Jakarta Post, Channel News Asia and others.