Indonesia Study Group 2025
26 November - Andini Pramono
Economic and Environmental Costs of Commercial Milk Formula in Indonesia: Evidence from the Mothers’ Milk and Green Feeding Tools
About the seminar
The health importance of breastfeeding for infants, young children and their mothers is increasingly acknowledged but the economic and environmental impact of suboptimal breastfeeding is less recognised. Breastfeeding has been declining, and sales of commercial milk formula (CMF) are rising rapidly in East Asia Pacific Region, including Indonesia. This study aims to analyse the economic and environmental impacts of CMF in Indonesia, using Mothers Milk Tool (MMT) and Green Feeding Tool (GFT). These tools estimate countries’ production of human milk, and carbon and water footprints using UNICEF datasets on births and infant and young child feeding practices. The MMT analysis reveals a substantial economic loss from CMF displacing breastmilk in Indonesia: at least 62.4 million litres of breastmilk were lost in 2020 due to introduction of CMF among infants aged 0-6 months. The monetary value of breastmilk is US$45.5 billion annually. In 2020, 27,200 tonnes of CMF were sold in Indonesia, and the estimated loss of economic value was US$6.2 billion. The GFT estimated a carbon footprint of 214-272 million kg of CO2 and a water footprint of 92,460 million litres.
Thus, the current breastfeeding practices in Indonesia are associated with substantial economic production loss, as well as carbon and water footprints. We recommend including breastmilk in national food balance sheets to facilitate its inclusion in GDP and strengthening advocacy for breastfeeding as a measure to improve the environment.
This paper is authored by Nabila, as part of Future Research Talent program, supervised by Assoc Prof Julie Smith.
12 November - Karina Tucunan
The landscape of emotion and memory: Negotiating borders and boundaries in postcolonial Java’s sacred space
About the seminar
Across the globe, heritage sites are not preserved solely through policies or monuments; they endure through ritual, longing, and lived emotional connection. This paper explores how spaces imbued with memory, blessing, and spiritual continuity challenge formal heritage and urban planning systems rooted in materiality, regulation, and state control. It examines how acts of ziyarah (pilgrimage) and haul (commemoration) sustain sacred cultural landscapes that resist rationalized interventions and colonial logics of space. Building on critiques of authorized heritage discourse and expanding beyond Western-centric understandings of space, the paper proposes the Landscape of Emotion and Memory as a conceptual framework for negotiating tensions between technocratic planning and humanities-informed interpretations of sacred urban landscapes. Sacred Islamic graveyards are examined as emotional landscapes that defy linear historicism. This research identifies and analyses three critical types of boundary negotiation observed within emotional landscapes: crossing disciplinary boundaries to recognize memory and ritual as legitimate urban knowledge; carefully navigating epistemological divides between technical data and lived experience; and respecting spiritual boundaries.
14 May - Tanya Jakimow
Who benefits from gender electoral quotas? What women bear and men gain in Indonesia’s elections
About the seminar
The percentage of female members in Indonesia’s national legislature (DPR-RI) reached 22.1% in the 2024 election: an increase of 1.2 percentage points from 2019. Despite candidate gender quotas, progress in female representation has been slow. This paper asks not only whether Indonesia’s quota system is fit for purpose, but more critically, is it doing more harm than good. We answer this question from data generated during the DPRD-Kota Medan election in 2024, in which 281 out of 289 female candidates lost. We followed the experiences of 24 female candidates through participant observation and in-depth pre- and post-election interviews. We find that the biggest beneficiaries of women’s campaigns, and hence quotas that increased demand for women candidates, were most often party elites and other (mostly male) candidates. In drawing attention to the significant costs of candidate quotas for women, against limited (but not insignificant) benefits, we make a case for reforming Indonesia’s quota system. The Indonesian case suggests new lines of enquiry in gender and politics research, namely examining how quotas change the terms of women’s (inequitable) incorporation into party-political systems.
30 April - Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan
The benefice as a key economic institution in ancient Java (700–1500 CE)
About the seminar
The civilisation of ancient Java was among the wealthiest of premodern Southeast Asia, attested by the major temple complexes of Borobudur and Prambanan, the vast hoard of golden artefacts at Wonoboyo, among other evidence. The monumental architecture of ancient Java was underpinned by a complex economic system, which we can reconstruct only through a limited corpus of primary sources from the period. Such sources consist mainly of official documents inscribed on stone and metal. These inscriptions reveal the central importance of the institution of the benefice (sīma), a bounded piece of land whose revenue and labour was diverted to a specific beneficiary, often a religious foundation. Many questions remain about the fiscal system of ancient Java, and how it interacted with the royal government, agricultural land use, and commercial trade. This talk investigates these questions about the Javanese economy through a study of the benefice as it evolved over eight centuries. It therefore offers a long-term context for an understanding of Indonesian economic history, as well as inviting engagement from a variety of disciplines to help develop, for the first time, an integrated account of the ancient Javanese economy.
26 March - Hilman Palaon and Robert Walker
Indonesia’s industrial policy: downstreaming and EV supply chain
About the seminar
The recent iteration of Indonesian industrial policy is likely the most successful in Indonesia’s history and has aligned with the net-zero transition by focusing on downstreaming in critical minerals and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. A combination of trade, investment and tax policies has incentivised a surge in foreign investment into these industries. As a result, Indonesia is now the largest nickel producer in the world and the largest recipient of EV supply chain investments in Southeast Asia. However, there have been significant negative impacts on the environment and local populations from intensive downstreaming industrial activity and the concentrated growth from downstreaming has not translated into broad-based job creation or poverty reduction. EV manufacturing is also nascent and not generating notable growth opportunities yet. In order to secure large and broad economic development gains, Indonesia will need to diversify economic partners, improve governance to reduce negative externalities and improve the manufacturing sector’s competitiveness.
5 March - Dewi Bukit
Meet the Makers: Invisible maestro, an encyclopaedia of women and ulos on Batak Country
About the seminar
Dewi Bukit is a photographer and lecturer who first began researching ulos weaving traditions of the Batak people in 2017, while taking part in the Badan Ekonomi Kreatif’s (BEKRAF) Seniman Mengajar (artists teach) program. Since then, she has developed a strong relationship with the weavers themselves and has led many research and entrepreneurial activities in an effort to empower the weavers to continue their art form in an economically sustainable way. In 2024, she will travel to Canberra with several ulos weavers, who completed a residency at the Australian Tapestry Workshop earlier in the year, to launch her second book documenting ulos creation. The book, titled Ensiklopedia perempuan dan ulos di Tanah Batak (An encyclopaedia of women and ulos on Batak Country), contains 30 profiles of women weavers, their works and stories of their struggle to maintain their culture in its entirety.
The process of creating ulos, like other weaving and dyeing traditions in Indonesia, is highly intricate, time-consuming, and labour-intensive, often competing with cheaper, mass-produced alternatives. As part of her research and advocacy, Dewi has produced a documentary film highlighting Batak weavers’ extraordinary skill and dedication. Additionally, she has created a series of large-scale black-and-white portraits celebrating these women as “maestros”—masters of their art form, deserving of recognition comparable to the status traditionally given to great (white, male) painters.
19 February - Sudirman Nasir
Climate crisis, socio-health vulnerability and resilience
About the seminar
Many areas in Indonesia, including Wallacea region in the eastern part of the archipelago, are increasingly suffering from climate crisis and various climate-induced disasters. Flood, drought, extreme weather and extreme heat become more frequent and severe, worsen the livelihood of people in the region. The series of disasters severely damaged basic infrastructures such as water and sanitation, roads, health, education and agricultural facilities. These disasters facilitated significant environmental and social changes and produced multiple shocks that associated with various health problems as well as deteriorating people’s quality of life. Based on several interdisciplinary studies examining the intersection of climate crisis and health in Wallacea region that I led/co-led, we explored how climate crisis and climate-induced disasters intersect, triggered and worsened socio-health vulnerability and affect people’s health and wellbeing differently in the region. The studies found that some groups of people are more vulnerable (e.g. women and young girls, people with disability, the elderly, indigenous population) and therefore need to be supported and prioritised in climate and disaster mitigation. However, these vulnerable groups are by no means passive agent in facing climate crisis and climate-induced disasters. In most cases they showed various coping strategies and resilience to survive and to mitigate the impacts of the crisis and disasters. To be more effective, their resilience should be more supported by comprehensive Government policies and programs. To do so, our ability to work with and to learn from the lived experience of these vulnerable groups is essential.