Other Research Projects

Conflict Transformation and Religious Actors. A Comparative Study of Indonesia and the Philippines

• To what extent and under what conditions have peace and reconciliation efforts by religious actors contributed to conflict transformation in post-conflict communities?  And
• to what extent have these efforts been affected by specific economic, political or social contexts (e.g. constellations of religious groups, socio-economic wellbeing, and local education levels)?

• The first phase entailed a detailed literature review (analysis of the state of the art), a documentation of best practices, and an identification of key findings and lessons (December 2009 - November 2010; Principal researcher: Dr Marcel Baumann).
• The second phase focused on the development and refinement of a methodological concept for empirical field studies (October 2012 – April 2013; Principal researcher: Dr Christian von Lübke).

• The third phase – the actual field study – included the conduct of local survey analyses and in-depth interviews in Maluku/Indonesia and Mindanao/Philippines (April 2015 – October 2016; Principal researchers: Dr Marcel Baumann and Dr Christian von Lübke)

Publication:

• Baumann, Marcel (2013), Kirchliche Beiträge zur nachhaltigen Friedenskonsolidierung in Post-Konflikt-Gesellschaften. Eine Literaturstudie. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Review

Network culture: social integration in Minangkabau communities

The aim of the planned research is to identify the variety of forms of social integration and to analyze their impact on culture. This question is explored by an analysis of social networks in Minangkabau communities in the context of cultural revitalization. Social relationships and cooperation in Indonesian communities have usually been explained in terms of kinship or conceptions of mutual assistance, e.g. 'gotong royong' (a Javanese concept of mutual assistance) or 'arisan' (a form of rotating savings and credit association).

Minangkabau society in particular has been explored in categories of kinship with a strong interest in their matrilineal organization. This study aims to give a new perspective on social relationship, taking into account Minangkabau in West Sumatra and the Minangkabau diaspora in Central Java. It will raise the question how cultural concepts of mutual assistance evolve during migration and in different cultural as well as socio-economic circumstances. On one side there is the “traditional” setting of the countryside in West Sumatra, where economy mainly depends on agriculture and small trade. On the other side there is a “modern” setting as represented by the city of Yogyakarta. The focus will be put on well-educated persons from the fields of academia and commerce. This study will raise the question if people within this “modern” setting refer to traditional conceptions of mutual assistance. One aim of the research will be to identify and analyse the cultural ties of social relationships and social networks in Minangkabau communities in different locations and socio-economic positions.

The cultural basis of social integration in Minangkabau communities will be examined by ways of an ethnographic approach encompassing one year of fieldwork on Java and West Sumatra, namely in the cities of Yogyakarta, Padang and Bukittinggi as well as their rural surroundings.

Social Identities in Contemporary Inonesia

“Social Identities in Contemporary Indonesia; a new framework of studying Asia" is a collaborative project, run by a team of researchers from The Australian National University and University of Freiburg, and sponsored by Australia's Group of Eight universities and the German Academic Exchange Service. 

• Lücking, M. & Eliyanah, E. (2017). Images of Authentic Muslim Selves: Gendered Moralities and Constructions of Arab Others in Contemporary Indonesia. Social Sciences, 6(3).
• Downes, M. & Kobbe, P. (2017): Merantau and Minangkabau Modernities: Stories of Mobilities in Prose and Practice. Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Freiburg, Occasional Paper Series No. 35
• Myutel M. & Sandkühler, E. (2017): (In)Visible Ethnicity: Celebrating Chines and Indian Descent in Indonesia.Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Freiburg, Occasional Paper Series No. 36.

Decentered Theatrical Performances in Cambodia and Thailand

This project examines the decentralization and democratization of two major national theatrical traditions, Khon performances in Thailand and Lkhaon Khaol theatre in Cambodia, and to ethnographically place these performances into a cultural dialogue that transcends the categories of Orient and Occident.  To study, as Walter Benjamin suggests, the participatory and democratic role of performative expression, and the decentralization of deeply-nationalized Khon and Lkhaon Khaol performances requires first an ethnographic understanding of how they are centered in Thai and Cambodian National Fine Arts training and state theatre.  These performances are primarily for Thai and Cambodian audiences, on the stages of their respective National Theaters, and the performers are trained within strict theatrical traditions that invoke nationalized mythologies of monarchy, Hinduism, and competing conceptions of Thai/Cambodian identity.  The performances express the ongoing animosity between closely related Thai and Cambodian cultural identities making them statements about the national self as well as the foreign/Western Other.  As the first Westerner engaged in participant-observation of these two contested national theatrical traditions, studying the training and performance of Khon and Lkhaon Khaol within the context of the unprecedented royal transition in Thailand and continued political consolidation in Cambodia will chart innovative ethnographic territory.

This project concentrates on not only how these performances are decentered and democratized in a variety of Thai and Cambodian contexts (including to a limited extent tourist theatre as well as rural performances, media production, and other manifestations within popular culture), but also addressing Southeast Asian views of the West which go beyond Occidentalism.  By exploring the performencer’s and producer’s vision of the West, and the intended cultural messages behind these national theatrical spectacles and their decentered manifestations, the project will address literatures of both decentralization and Occidentalism.  Further methodological innovations make it possible to theorize beyond Occidentalism while exploring an emergent methodology of observant-participation.  With a methodological focus on participatory research, this project will transcend both the disciplinary fictions of the detached observer as well as Thai/Cambodian conceptions of “farang/barang”. With the methodological goal of creating, with Thai and Cambodian collaborators, decentered/democratized performances informed by Khon/Lkhaon Khaol as well as Western musical and theatrical traditions, the ethnography is inserted into a vibrant cultural dialogue between East and West that addresses the ongoing merger of these two constructed categories of imagined difference.

Reframing Modernity in Contemporary Indonesia; An Ethnographic Study of Ideas on ‘Center’ and ‘Periphery’ on Sulawesi and Java

This project intends to investigate how modernity interacts with local practices – or rather how local agents interact with modernity – and will explicitly examine how contemporary Indonesians perceive and act themselves into their cultural existence. The intended fieldwork areas are Yogyakarta, a centre of progressive student activism on Java, and Manado, a Christian region on Sulawesi. The main focus will be on Manado/Minahassa on Sulawesi as it offers a focus on a significant region outside the Indonesian “centre” constituted by the island of Java, which has long been the centre of political policy making and modernizing influences. At the same time, Manado has a distinct history of modernization and political autonomy, and currently is responding to global influences, seemingly distancing itself from Java and the Indonesian capital. These factors suggest that an ethnographic investigation in the regions may offer new and different insights not only into current changes occurring in Indonesia but also into broader theoretical issues.

The project will identify specific social groups across sections of social strata in both rural and urban contexts in Java and Sulawesi. The main research questions are:

1. What do research participants regard as “Self?” Which significant “Others” do they identify? What is the primary focus for those concerned with foreign influence?
2. How do people see the “Foreign?” And how is it connected to everyday actual behavior?
3. What operates as the Indonesian “Centre” in framing the attitudes of research participants?
4. What is seen as modernity? How is modernity characterized? What is seen as the western, eastern, and global world? What is the perceived relationship between the West and modernity?
5. How do people discuss modernity? How does the discussion differ between people in Yogyakarta and Manado?

"Survival strategies among Negrito on Mount Pinatubo after the Volcanic Eruption"

The project examined the various survival strategies of the Aeta in Zambales, Philippines, a marginal group who were hit directly by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo Volcano in 1991. The research program studied how their traditional economic and social behaviour in some measure determined their adaptation to the radically altered physical environment, as well as how the extent and intensity of interethnic interaction with the lowland population worked in the period of incipient consolidation and gradual stabilization after the dramatic changes.