This past week has seen what some have argued are the first big mobilisations of the new Prabowo government, with coordinated student protests across 12 cities under the banner of Indonesia Gelap, or “Dark Indonesia”. The students list a number of demands, from human rights to environmental issues, but the trigger for these protests lie in deep budgetary cuts initiated across the public service, to the tune of US$44 billion. The worst ministries and agencies, including the Ministry for Manpower ...
Feb 28, 2025•48 min
Climate Change is well-recognised as a massive challenge facing society today. It is clear that the political, economic and social consequences of climate change will not be felt equally, not only globally but also across Indonesia. Geography, class and—indeed--gender dynamics will influence how individuals Indonesians experience and respond to climate change. But it’s not just the environmental impacts that require navigation. As Arora-Johnson wrote in 2011, within the gender and climate develo...
Feb 10, 2025•34 min
In Melbourne and across Australia, Indonesian diaspora communities are reimagining what it means to celebrate their cultural identity through art, food, and the simple act of "nongkrong" - hanging out. But what happens when these cultural practices become spaces for exploring complex questions about belonging, identity, and ethical settlement on Aboriginal land? What does it mean to maintain connections to Indonesia while building new communities in Australia? How can festivals become sites of b...
Jan 30, 2025•39 min
Art, activism and a cancelled show - Wulan Dirgantoro Late last year news media splashed the image of an elderly artist standing before a locked door at the National Gallery of Indonesia. The sign behind him displayed his name - Yos Suprapto – and the title of his solo exhibition 'Kebangkitan: Tanah Untuk Kedaulatan Pangan' (Revival: Land for Food Sovereignty), due to have opened on 19 December. The headlines explained that the gallery had cancelled the show with little notice. What followed was...
Jan 14, 2025•35 min
Late last month, for the first time its history, Indonesia held simultaneous regional elections across 545 provinces, regencies and municipalities across the country. Across 6000 ballot stations, and 1553 contesting candidates, there were upsets in key regions, like Central Java where the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) lost its provincial stronghold, and Jakarta, where PDIP’s underdog candidate, Pramono Anung, took the governorship from the governing coalition’s favourite, Ridwan...
Dec 18, 2024•41 min
Vannessa Hearman - East Timor’s Great Famine, 1977-1979 Following Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor in December 1975, the forced displacement and mass starvation of its people resulted in what is known as the Great East Timor Famine, 1977-1979. As Indonesian forces moved into the province thousands of people were forced to flee their villages and farms into the mountains and bush, where food sources were scarce. It is estimated that over fifty percent of East Timor’s population of 600,000 was...
Dec 05, 2024•42 min
About 1000km north of Jakarta is a little pocket of paradise, a sprinkle of islands called the Natuna Islands, home to less than 100,000 people. These sparsely populated islands are the gateway to the North Natuna Sea, an area of unparalleled natural wealth. These waters are rich in fish, tuna, mackerel and marine life which sustains fisher livelihoods. This is also an area endowed untapped gas and oil reserves worth many billions of dollars. Indonesia claims the area as within its Exclusive Eco...
Nov 19, 2024•28 min
We often talk hear about the lives and living conditions of Indonesian migrant workers, many of them going to countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and states in the Middle East to find employment. In its 2024 Empowering Migrant Workers report, the United Nations Development Project estimated that 9 million Indonesians are working abroad. With such a large cohort overseas, the rights and welfare of this labour force is a focus of the Indonesia government. And for good reason too, as w...
Nov 08, 2024•29 min
The Papal Visit In early September, Pope Francis visited Indonesia as part of a tour of the region. It was the third papal visit to the country after tours by Pope Paul VI in 1970 and Pope John Paul II in 1989. This trip included Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Singapore. The theme of this visit to the world’s largest Muslim nation was ‘Faith, Fraternity and Compassion’ and appeared to build on an earlier visit to the United Arab Emirates in 2019. On that trip the Pope and the Grand...
Oct 24, 2024•35 min
Corruption in Indonesia is widely acknowledged as a complex issue, with some even suggesting it as something that is deeply entrenched in Indonesian culture. However, this perspective overlooks the generally accepted notion among historians of colonialism that corruption in Indonesia and other post-colonial nations is, at least partially, rooted in colonialism and the abuses of power and wealth during the colonial era. In this episode of Talking Indonesia, we examine the sugar scandal of 1926—a ...
Oct 11, 2024•43 min
Some of the most challenging issues post-colonial societies face involve managing the physical remnants of their colonial histories. In Indonesia, centuries of colonialism left many buildings and spaces with strong colonial identities. While some of these spaces are now abandoned and forgotten, others are being remembered and revitalised. In this episode, Tito Ambyo speaks with Remco Vermeulen, a PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam and coordinator of international cooperation in collec...
Sep 27, 2024•32 min
Starting a Start Up Starting a small business is a challenge in any context, but what about if you're a foreigner looking to establish a restaurant in Indonesia? What's it like to move to Indonesia, knowing little to nothing about the country, and then go on to start a successful online food business? What is it about the business context in Indonesia that facilitates or blocks small businesses, especially those wishing to leverage Jakartans' large-scale online connectivity? In this podcast, Eli...
Sep 12, 2024•32 min
Digital Populism Just as we were recording this podcast, the hashtag #daruratdemokrasi (democratic emergency) went viral across Indonesian social media. The alert was prompted by the latest example of Indonesia’s parliament (DPR) attempting to override or block a ruling by the Constitutional Court related to the eligibility of candidates to run in regional elections. The online campaign quickly turned into calls for real action to take place on Thursday 22 August, in the form of protests at the ...
Aug 29, 2024•38 min
One of the signature campaign promises of the Prabowo Subianto presidency is free lunches and milk for Indonesian school kids. This plan is linked to a much wider set of reforms to the way Indonesia’s produces and organises its agriculture sector, including the modernization of agriculture and converting land to plantations. The details are still pretty scant but this is not a thought bubble, food sovereignty is an issue that Prabowo has spent much of his political career touting. Prabowo served...
Aug 15, 2024•46 min
The Indonesian music scene is currently experiencing a vibrant period of experimentation, where musicians are blending vernacular Indonesian music traditions with elements from diverse global influences and historical periods. This fusion has led to the emergence of groundbreaking acts like Senyawa, who have successfully captured international attention. While the creative landscape pushes forward, however, there's a simultaneous return to older technology in music distribution, particularly the...
Aug 07, 2024•33 min
Antje Missbach - Refugees growing up in limbo Indonesia is currently home to over 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers, a majority of them young people who are stuck in limbo waiting for their futures to be determined. For most, it takes years, sometimes more than a decade, for resettlement to become an option. In the meantime, for those who arrive in Indonesia as children and teenagers this means that much of their youth and formative years - when they look to form relationships, explore their se...
Jul 18, 2024•39 min
Teaching Indonesian as a second language comes with challenges. In Australia, there is a wide gulf between the government's rhetoric about the importance of learning Indonesian and the realities faced by teachers on the ground. In the absence of centralised resources, Indonesian teachers often have to work creatively to devise their own materials and deliver quality instruction. Today's guests on Talking Indonesia, Dr Howie Manns and Dr Jessica Kruk, both discovered Indonesian at a young age and...
Jul 10, 2024•42 min
Bivitri Susanti - Dirty Vote The frenzied final weeks of campaigning leading up to the presidential election on 14 February 2024 were packed with promises, symbols, celebrity and cash. When the dance literally stopped a few days before the polls opened, in the traditional cooling off period, a documentary film, Dirty Vote, dropped on YouTube. The work of activist filmmaker, Dandhy Laksono, the film has a lecture-style format featuring three constitutional law experts as its cast. At just under 2...
Jun 20, 2024•34 min
In November 2023, a unique event occured. Eight gamelan groups - Gamelan DanAnda, Kacapi Suling Melbourne, Mahindra Bali Gamelan, Melbourne Community Gamelan, Mugi Rahayu, Putra Panji Asmara, Talo Balak, Selonding Sapta Nugraha - came together to perform at a small church in Northcote, a suburb in North Melbourne. The gathering was dedicated to the memory of Pak Poedijono, a master Javanese dhalang (puppeteer), musician, dancer and gamelan teacher. He taught in Australia for over 45 years and sa...
Jun 12, 2024•36 min
The talk on the street is all about electric cars and scooters as Indonesia strives to become a regional centre for manufacturing electric vehicles. At the heart of that goal is constructing a national supply chain of locally built battery hubs to drive the transition to electric. But as my current guest reminds us, harnessing electricity has always been at the centre of Indonesia’s dreams of development. Indeed, the very establishment of PLN, Indonesia’s ubiquitous state electricity company, wa...
May 27, 2024•41 min
There are many things that drive migration to other countries, and one of them is romantic relationships and marriages. But Asian women who are developing relationships with men from Western countries, like Australia, be it through snail mails, online sites or other means, often have to face the stereotype of the ‘subservient woman’. This stereotype has a history that still haunts us. In the case of Australia, the history goes way back to the First Fleet, but it also has a lot to do with the way...
Apr 25, 2024•41 min
Indonesia has one of the highest smoking rates in the world - approximately two thirds of Indonesian men are classified as smokers. This is in spite of anti-smoking discourses and tobacco control policies becoming more and more prominent across the globe, at least in many middle and high-income countries. In this episode of Talking Indonesia Elisabeth Kramer chats with Dr Marina Welker about her new book and deep dive on how multinational tobacco corporations impact the lives of ordinary Indones...
Apr 22, 2024•44 min
Indonesians have a saying that you’re not properly satisfied until you’ve eaten rice (belum kenyang kalau belum makan nasi). But in recent weeks the price of rice has hit record highs, meaning that this daily serving of rice is becoming out of reach for some. In 2023 an EL Niño weather pattern across Indonesia made it the hottest year on record, leading to drought conditions and impacting rice production, with delayed harvests and low yields. Since late last year rice prices have continued to cl...
Apr 04, 2024•35 min
How do religious minorities fare under the constitution and blasphemy laws in Indonesia? The Indonesia Constitution seems to guarantee religious freedom so long as you believe in an almighty god. However, there are many real-life cases where it seems this is not enough. Add to this blasphemy laws, which have existed since the 1960s, and we can see that Indonesia has legal tools that can be easily weaponsised against individuals who express views that fall foul of the religious majority around th...
Mar 27, 2024•33 min
In the early 20th century in Sumatra, a movement of young women writers were finding new ways to express their identities, build communities and achieve their dreams. Soenting Melajoe was the first newspaper for women published in West Sumatra during the colonial era in the Dutch East Indies. The newspaper was a part of a larger constellation of people working together to help women find education and employment through writing and crafts like weaving. Tito Ambyo’s guest is Bronwyn Beech Jones, ...
Mar 18, 2024•35 min
Energy transition In the recent national elections, the candidates paid surprisingly little attention to one of the greatest challenges Indonesia and the world at large is currently facing – that of climate change. At the same time, for more and more Indonesians, climate change induced natural disasters like droughts, storms and floods are increasingly impacting their lives. Indonesia has committed to the Paris Agreement to limit global warning to 1.5 degrees Celsius and signed up to achieve zer...
Feb 27, 2024•32 min
Prabowo has exceeded expectations to claim victory in 2024 Indonesian presidential election. What do our Talking Indonesia's co-hosts think about the result? Who are the winners and losers? What were the most interesting aspects of the campaign behind Prabowo’s success? And how did a pack of cigarettes save our co-host, Tito Ambyo, from possible jail time in the Suharto era? In this episode of Talking Indonesia, the co-hosts Jemma Purdey, Lis Kramer, Jacqui Baker and Tito Ambyo get together to c...
Feb 16, 2024•48 min
Faris Al Fadhat - Big Business Conglomerates are the main players in the Indonesian economy, controlling core industries like agribusiness, banking and property and telecommunications. They are often built over multiple generations of a single, often ethnic Chinese, family. Indonesia’s biggest conglomerates - Sinar Mas Group, Royal Golden Eagle, Lippo group and Salim group - and their their owners are household names. Their businesses have an immeasurable impact on the daily lives of Indonesians...
Feb 02, 2024•39 min
With the election just weeks away the campaign for the presidency is in full flight. The three candidates – Prabowo Subianto, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan – are proven campaigners and already familiar faces, but as has been the case in Indonesian politics for a while now, it is the coalitions they form around their tickets that will prove decisive on election day and in the government they ultimately lead. Indeed, Prabowo’s choice of Joko Widodo’s son and current mayor of Solo, Gibran Rakab...
Jan 17, 2024•46 min
Since the most recent conflict erupted between Israel and Gaza following the October 7 Hamas’ attacks and Israel’s subsequent mass bombings of the Gaza strip, the Indonesian public and government have overwhelmingly condemned Israel's actions. Like most Muslim nations around the world, Indonesia’s solidarity with Palestine is long-standing and deeply felt. Large solidarity gatherings held over the past few months and Indonesia’s diplomatic efforts on the world stage, demonstrate the importance o...
Dec 06, 2023•40 min
