The Theme of 15th Urban Research Plaza Forum 2017:

“Urban Resilience: Voicing ‘Others’ through Art and Culture”

Cities and urban areas in various part of the world, including in Asia and Japan and Indonesia in particular, are currently facing critical and continuous problems such as population pressure, climate change, social polarization and segregation, high unemployment, unbalanced composition of the population, endemic violence, and chronic food and clean water shortage. These problems have marginalized further powerless group in society and created stresses to all groups of societies that weaken the fabric of a city on a daily or cyclical basis to an extent that cities are no longer livable places. Among those powerless groups in urban areas are those sexually defined as ‘others’, which means among other people with disabilities, elderly people and LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexual and transsexual).
Recently, the idea of urban resilience has a pivotal role in urban growth and planning. Yet, the concept of urban resilience is often applied only to the city as a whole, and put societal problems including the marginalization of ‘others’. Therefore, efforts are needed to include ‘others’ and strategies to give voice for them as part of the idea and practice of urban resilience.
Putting this into consideration, the 15th Urban Research Plaza Forum 2017 takes the following theme: “Urban Resilience: Voicing ‘Others’ through Art and Culture”. The forum invites urban researchers, activities and academia to discuss the role and participation of local government, communities, universities and other related stake holders, who use arts – modern and traditional – and cultural institutions, music, and social capitals in giving voice for ‘others’.
By taking this theme as a focus, the forum seeks to examine the way ‘others’ and its supporters using art and culture to negotiate their socio-cultural position in their respective societies. The forum also discusses the effectiveness of arts and culture as media for voicing the interests of ‘others’ as part of urban resilience. It is believed that arts and culture provide wider access for different agents, institutions and communities to be involved in solving such increasingly complex and sensitive urban issues in Japan as well as Indonesia.

15th Urban Research Plaza Academic Forum
Date : February 22, 2017
Venue : Multimedia Room, Rectorate Building (3rd Floor, North Wing), Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta
Time : 08.30am – 03.00pm

Speakers :
1. Mr. Sohei Yamada. (Osaka City University)
2. Mr. Atsushi Fujita. (Osaka City University)
3. Ms. Yu Ishikawa. (Osaka City University)
4. Dr. Farabih Fakih. (History Dept., UGM)
5. Rahmawan Jatmiko, M.A. (English Dept., UGM)
6. P. Gogor Bangsa, M.Sn. (Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta)
7. Dr. Kurniawan Adi Saputra (Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta)

Public Lecture

Land, Lumber, Labor and Excrement:
The Circular Economy of Nineteenth-Century Tokyo Slums

Jordan Sand, Georgetown University

It has been almost forgotten that like many cities elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo once had large areas of informal and unplanned settlement, occupied by thousands of tiny houses for the poor—little more than shacks. The twentieth century saw a process of formalization of housing accompanied by the expansion of real estate speculation. This presentation takes up the case of a slumlord-builder in late nineteenth-century Tokyo to consider a transitional moment before modern planning mechanisms and a land-centered real estate market redefined the economics of housing. Micro-scale examination of the economic factors in building Tokyo tenements reveals a settlement-building calculus quite different from the patterns often examined in studies of contemporary megacity informal housing. Tokyo’s case thus encourages us to reconsider how unplanned housing develops and how it might be addressed.

The discussion will be held on:
Monday, 16th January 2017
10.00-12.00
Ruang Sidang I, Gd. Purbatjaraka Lt. 1 Fakultas Ilmu Budaya UGM

ALL ARE INVITED, FREE AND LIMITED SEATS AVAILABLE

CONTACT & INFORMATION
U.N. WINARDI [+62 8973736899] | DEDE [+62 85723913590]
Email: sejarah@ugm.ac.id

Javanese batik to the world: Europe, Africa, India and Australia

24 November 2016 ; Ruang Sidang 1 ; 13.00-15.00 wib

From the end of the 19th century, batik of Java – its technique, motifs as well as aesthetics, became a source of inspiration for textile producers, designers and artists across the world. In the early stage, this process was an outcome of colonial encounters when the wax-dyeing technique was introduced to the decorative arts of the Netherlands. In a short time batik became very popular among thousands of Western artists and craftsmen. While at times it was an informed adaptation of the Javanese technique that, in the process, was creatively adjusted to Western conditions, at the other extreme batik was used as an embodiment of Oriental fantasy.
The influence of Javanese batik on African textiles was an indirect process — an outcome of colonial globalisation facilitated by European industrialists. It also started in the last decade of the 19th century, when imitations of Javanese fabrics printed in the Netherlands and United Kingdom, started to be traded to West Africa. Javanese designs have been enthusiastically received by African people and, following a process of extensive adaptation, have become an integral part of the African textile tradition and identity.
To India, the Javanese technique was introduced in the late 1920s, following the visit of Rabindranath Tagore to Java and Bali. The great Indian poet and philosopher was fascinated with the cultural traditions of Indonesia and introduced some of them to the Visva Bharati University courses. Javanese batik helped to revive the old Indian tradition of wax-resist dyeing and provided the impulse to develop a new group of textiles that reflected Tagore’s philosophy and aesthetics.
The most recent of the cross-cultural encounters commenced in the 1970s with the introduction of the batik technique to the Aboriginal communities of the central desert of Australia. In the following years several collaborative projects took place, in which Australian and Indonesian artists worked side by side. In a process parallel to Java, in some cases patterns of Aboriginal batiks became imbued with cosmological meanings.
The great popularity of the batik technique had far-reaching consequences: it stimulated world-wide interest in Javanese culture and led to the organisation of public and private collections of Javanese art as well as numerous exhibitions and publications promoting the culture of this island.

Maria Wronska-Friend
James Cook University, Cairns, Australia
Maria Wronska-Friend is a Senior Research Fellow at the College of Arts, Society and Education at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. She is a cultural anthropologist with a particular interest in Southeast Asian dress and textiles as well as museum anthropology. Batik of Java, analysed as a cross-cultural phenomenon, is the main topic of her studies. Her PhD from the Institute of Arts at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, investigated the influence of Javanese batik on European art at the turn of 19th-20th centuries (Art Nouveau and Art Deco). As a museum curator she has organised several exhibitions, in Australia and Poland, promoting Indonesian textiles. She is the author of several books and exhibition catalogues on Indonesian textiles, as well as of academic papers. In October 2016, in Jakarta, she published a book ‘Batik Jawa bagi Dunia. Javanese Batik to the World’ that examines the influence of the batik technique and aesthetics on textiles made in Europe, Africa, India and Australia.

Conference ‘From Clients to Citizens? Citizenship in Democratising Indonesia’
8-10 December 2016 | Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta | Indonesia
Organised by: Royal Netherlands Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and Universitas Gadjah Mada
Keynote Speakers: Engin Isin (Open University, UK) and Surya Tjandra (the Trade Union Rights Centre)
What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday interactions between Indonesian citizens and power holders? Democratic reforms have led to a much livelier public sphere, freer and more active public debate and more intensive political participation. Yet democratization seems to have done little to end the predatory and clientelistic practices of political elites. The persistence of these practices and the ‘stalling’ of Indonesia’s democratization process cannot be attributed solely to institutional shortcomings or selfish behaviour of elites. Instead, there is an urgent need to study politics ‘from below’ by examining the character of citizenship in Indonesia.
Indonesian newspapers rarely discuss the challenges facing the country in terms of citizenship. Conversely, citizenship studies has also paid surprisingly little attention to the forms that democratic citizenship takes in a postcolonial country like Indonesia. As citizenship is generally studied in the context of a liberal, high-capacity welfare state, there has been relatively little attention paid to the forms of democratic citizenship in the context of a weaker institutionalized state and a predominantly clientelistic political system. As a result the analysis of state-citizen interaction in postcolonial states all too often takes a narrow form of identifying ‘absences’ or deviations of (idealized) western patterns of citizenship. In Indonesia the rights-claiming, autonomous and individualistic citizen – as celebrated in the general literature on citizenship – might be found, but a focus on this particular type of citizen is hindering a much-needed understanding of a more wider range of state-citizen interactions.
Instead, the everyday forms of state-citizen interactions observable in Indonesia can be used as an opportunity to re-conceptualize our interpretation of what citizenship is or should be. Ideas about the proper ‘civic’ behavior of citizens might be shaped by different emphases on, for example, individual vs. collective rights, rights vs. duties, as well as different conceptions of political legitimacy. We need to capture these different attachments to be able to understand the different forms that citizenship may take. What kinds of conceptions and practices of rights, reciprocity and representation are observable in Indonesia? How can we describe the impact of Indonesia’s democratic reforms on everyday interactions between citizens and the state? How do particular features of Indonesia’s history and political economy – e.g. its legal pluralism, weakly institutionalized state, relatively large informal economy and clientelistic political arena – shape these emerging forms of citizenship?
With this objective this conference aims to bring together accounts of how citizenship is being practiced and perceived in Indonesia. In particular, this conference calls for papers on the everyday practices, values and attitudes that can be observed in the way citizens deal with state institutions and authorities. Papers may discuss the historical evolution of citizen rights as well as a wide range of everyday citizenship struggles involving, for example, the way people engage in land conflicts, arrange access to welfare or public services or claim recognition of ethnic identities or religious values.
Panels will be organised at the least around the following themes:
-Social media and citizen participation
-The expansion of welfare rights
-Village leadership and citizenship
-Contentious politics and Land conflicts
-Electoral democracy and citizenship
-Religion and Citizenship
-The politics of Identity
-Theorizing post-colonial Citizenship
-Citizenship and access to public services
-Minorities in Indonesia
-Labour Rights
This conference has grown out of the research program ‘From Clients to Citizens? Emerging Citizenship in Indonesia’, a research collaboration between Universitas Gadjah Mada (fakultas Ilmu Budaya and FISIP), KITLV, Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam funded by the Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and the Indonesian Ministry of Education (DIKTI).
Information for paper presenters
Paper submission is closed. Selected presenters are already notified and are expected to submit full papers by 15 November. Papers and presentations should be in English. The best papers presented at the conference will be selected for inclusion in a peer-reviewed volume on Citizenship in Indonesia. Accommodation will be provided for paper presenters.
Conference registration
We encourage students and scholars who are interested in attending the conference as observing participants to register in advance.The registration fees is Rp. 100.000 for general participants and 50.000 for students. Registration on a first come first basis as seats are limited. You can register by clicking on the registration button.

Conference ‘From Clients to Citizens? Citizenship in Democratising Indonesia’

Sejak berdirinya Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia telah menetapkan dirinya sebagai negara dengan keragaman budaya (multikultural). Hal itu tersurat dan tersirat dalam Undang-Undang Dasar 1945 dengan semboyan Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (‘berbeda-beda tetap satu’). Berbagai upaya telah dilakukan untuk mewujudkan cita-cita tersebut dan telah menunjukkan hasil hasil yang baik. Namun, perjalanan bangsa ini menunjukkan penghargaan dan praktek multikulturalisme selalu mengalami pasang surut. Selalu ada saja upaya untuk mempersoalkan tentang paham multikulturalisme ini. Tidak jarang isu-isu yang terkait dengan suku, agama, ras, dan antar-golongan (SARA) masih diangkat untuk kepentingan tertentu yang bersifat sesaat dan sangat merugikan kesatuan dan persatuan bangsa. Beberapa saat terakhir ini, isu terkait SARA sering muncul di tengah-tengah masyarakat di berbagai tempat di Indonesia. Terkait dengan hal itu, perlu kiranya dilakukan upaya-upaya strategis untuk terus menyebarluaskan pengetahuan dan menumbuhkan semangat untuk menjalan multikulturalisme dalam mempertahankan NKRI.
Fakultas Ilmu Budaya UGM telah menetapkan minat dan kepeduliannya terhadap kajian dan praktek multikulturalisme. Bahkan, topik ini menjadi salah satu unggulan dalam strategi pengembangan penelitiannya. Oleh karena itu, FIB UGM tentu memiliki kualitas pengetahuan yang baik tentang topik ini dan mempunyai kompetensi yang amat cukup untuk menjadi salah satu pusat pengetahuan tentang multikulturalisme. Sudah semestinya, FIB UGM ikut berperanserta positif dalam menyebarkan pengetahuan dan semangat multikulturalisme dalam rangka pembangunan bangsa. Peran serta tersebut dapat diwujudkan dalam bentuk penerapan dan pemanfaatan keahlian maupun hasil-hasil kajiannya untuk kepentingan masyarakat melalui kegiatan seminar dialogis ini.

Kegiatan Diskusi Multikulralisme dengan Organisasi Kemasyarakatan akan dilaksanakan selama 1 (satu) hari dengan melibatkan sekitar 50 orang anggota organisasi kemasyarakatan. Organisasi Kemasyarakatan yang akan diundang kali ini adalah para pimpinan di KNPI, FKPPI, GMNI, HMI, PMII, PMKRI, GMKI, KMHDI, HIKMAHBUDHI, dan organisasi kepemudaan lainnya di Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta. Kegiatan diskusi akan dilakukan di Gadjah Mada University Club, Hotel dan Covention, Yogyakarta, pada hari Sabtu, tanggal 12 November 2016, pukul 08.30 – 12.30 WIB.
Dalam kegiatan itu, FIB UGM akan mengundang 2 (dua) orang narasumber, yaitu Prof. Dr. Heddy Shri Ahimsa Putra, M.A., M.Phil. dan Achmad Munjid, M.A., Ph.D. Masing-masing narasumber akan memberikan presentasi singkat mengenai multiculturalisme sehingga diskusi akan berjalan lancar