Panel Proposal, Euroseas 2010: Eastern Indonesia under Reform

C A L L F O R P A P E R S

Eastern Indonesia under reform: New topics, new approaches

Panel accepted for the sixth EuroSEAS Conference, 26-28 August 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden

Panel convenors:

Birgit Bräuchler, University of Frankfurt, birgitbraeuchler[at]gmx.net

Maribeth Erb, National University of Singapore, socmerb[at]nus.edu.sg

This panel is an attempt to update the ethnography of an area that has been described by Josselin de Jong as a field of ethnological study and that underwent tremendous (social) changes in the last few years: Eastern Indonesia. The panel not only strives to get insights into recent developments in this particular area, but also aims to explore new approaches in anthropology that are in use in current research on Eastern Indonesia. In the past, Eastern Indonesia has been the subject of various larger research projects, some of them with a particular theoretical focus: van Wouden's and Josselin de Jong's dualism and structuralism in the 1930s, James Fox's kinship and exchange volume in 1980, a conference organized by Signe Howell on sacrificing in Eastern Indonesia in 1992, and an edited volume on resource management by Sandra Pannell and Franz von Benda-Beckmann in 1998. A volume edited by Sandra Pannell in 2003 on violence, society and the state in Eastern Indonesia focused on one topic, i.e. conflict, in primarily one region, the Moluccas. There has been no joint effort by anthropologists to explore the tremendous and multi-dimensional changes that took place in Eastern Indonesia after the stepping down of Suharto, and the onset of the so-called reformation era. Hence an updated volume with a re-examination of the region, the effect of the massive political, economic and social changes over the past decade, along with possible reappraisals of the earlier studies is overdue.

What we would therefore like to do in this panel is to bring together anthropologists conducting research in various parts of Eastern Indonesia in this new era and thus produce a thematic and methodological update. We would also like to reflect on whether it is still legitimate to conceptualize Eastern Indonesia as a “field of ethnological study”. We encourage paper submissions that deal with contemporary issues in Eastern Indonesia such as decentralization, political reforms, economic developments, conflicts and conflict management, tourism, (new) media, revival of tradition, the increasing importance and influence of the world’s principle religions in the area, and so forth, and with the new methodological approaches these research questions challenge us to develop. Papers should draw on ethnographic fieldwork and be theoretically well-founded at the same time. As stated above, the hopes of the organizers are that this panel will result in a volume that will offer an updated look at this fascinating and vibrant ethnographic region.

Please send your abstract of about 300 words plus a short biosketch to both convenors (birgitbraeuchler@gmx.net and socmerb@nus.edu.sg) by February 1, 2010. This autumn, 2009, the pre-registration process for the conference will start and those who submit their abstracts early can have them uploaded already during the autumn. For more information on the conference and upcoming deadlines please see the conference webpage http://www.euroseas.org/platform/en/content/the-6th-euroseas-conference-gothenburg-2010.