In her new book Kirsten E. Schulze examines Islamist, separatist and communal violence across Indonesian history since 1945 through six case studies. She asks why this violence only erupted in some areas of Indonesia despite the shared history. Looking at where the violence is located not just in a geographic sense but above all in a conceptual sense, she explores Islamist, separatist, and communal violence in relation to the notion of the national imaginary as well as in relation to the concept of belonging.
This event was recorded and the video can be watched here.
Speaker and Chair Biographies:
Kirsten E. Schulze is a Professor in International History at the London School of Economics. She is the author of Contesting Indonesia: Islamist, Separatist, and Communal Conflict in Indonesia since 1945 as well as numerous articles on local jihad in Ambon and Poso, Indonesian jihadi training camps at home and abroad, the Free Aceh Movement, and on how Aceh moved from conflict to peace.
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Sidel received his BA and MA from Yale University and his PhD from Cornell University. He is the author of Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (1999), Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Trajectories (2000), Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (2006), The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: A Reassessment (2007), Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines (2020, with Jaime Faustino) and Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (2021).