Academic Staff: List of Experts

Click on map above for a breakdown of specialisation by country.

Indonesia

The Australian National University has the world’s greatest concentration of Indonesia expertise in any university outside Indonesia. Around forty members of faculty specialise in the study of Indonesia. They include authors of classic texts on the country, as well as initiators of cutting edge research. The ANU’s Indonesia specialists also have a wealth of experience in providing consultancy services and policy advice for business and government.

The ANU College of Asia and the Pacific includes key institutions with major emphases on Indonesia research. They include the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), the Crawford School of Economics and Government and the Faculty of Asian Studies (FAS). For over twenty years the university has hosted the influential annual Indonesia Update conference and for almost as long produced the respected book series by the same name. It is also home to specialist scholarly journals on Indonesia, including the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies and the Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs. Teaching and training is also a focus, with ANU staff offering an unrivalled range of introductory and advanced courses on Indonesian language, politics, economics and society.

Academic specialists

Anthropology

The interface of human communities and resource management. In my work, gender and natural resource management plays an important segment, with special focus on the challenges around mining and water resource in developing countries.

As Research Coordinator of the CSP Snapshot I managed a survey of 300 rural communities across all nine provinces of the Solomon Islands. The reports, maps and database are available on a CD. I undertook similiar work in the Fly estuary for the Ok Fly Social Monitoring Program

The anthropology of contemporary Indonesia and Southeast Asia; environmental management; irrigated agriculture; rural development; development studies.

Cultural Studies

As Research Coordinator of the CSP Snapshot I managed a survey of 300 rural communities across all nine provinces of the Solomon Islands. The reports, maps and database are available on a CD. I undertook similiar work in the Fly estuary for the Ok Fly Social Monitoring Program

Economics

Since 1965, RSPAS has been home to the Indonesia Project. Widely acknowledged as the world’s leading centre for research on the Indonesian economy outside Indonesia, the Project monitors and analyses recent economic developments in Indonesia, informs governments and business about future prospects, and stimulates advanced research.

International macroeconomics; development economics; causes of poverty and links between poverty and growth.

The economies of ASEAN, especially Indonesia and The Philippines; industrialisation and foreign investment in East Asia; and Australia's economic relations with the Asia-Pacific region.

Development and environment, international climate policy, economic mechanisms for greenhouse gas control, economics and policy of adaptation to climate change, Asia-Pacific region in particular Indonesia and Australia.

Comparative political economy, International relations of the Asia-Pacific region, Southeast Asian politics (especially Indonesia), Australian foreign policy

Labour markets; regional development, poverty and economics development in East Asia with special reference to Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Most of my work in recent years has been related to the economic crisis that began in Indonesia in mid-1997, with particular emphasis on analysing its causes, how it has been handled, and how similar occurrences might be prevented in the future. I also have a strong interest in the implementation of monetary policy in Indonesia.

Resource and Environmental Economics; Development Economics; Public Policy; Resource and Environmental modelling; and Inter-regional modelling.

The economies of Thailand and Indonesia, especially as regards measurement of poverty incidence, analysis of its causes and the means by which economic policy may be used to reduce poverty incidence.

Environmental and Resource Management

The interface of human communities and resource management. In my work, gender and natural resource management plays an important segment, with special focus on the challenges around mining and water resource in developing countries.

As Research Coordinator of the CSP Snapshot I managed a survey of 300 rural communities across all nine provinces of the Solomon Islands. The reports, maps and database are available on a CD. I undertook similiar work in the Fly estuary for the Ok Fly Social Monitoring Program

The anthropology of contemporary Indonesia and Southeast Asia; environmental management; irrigated agriculture; rural development; development studies.

Gender and Sexuality Studies

The interface of human communities and resource management. In my work, gender and natural resource management plays an important segment, with special focus on the challenges around mining and water resource in developing countries.

Geography

The interface of human communities and resource management. In my work, gender and natural resource management plays an important segment, with special focus on the challenges around mining and water resource in developing countries.

History

Robert Cribb\'s research interests focus mainly on Indonesia, though he has some interest in other parts of Southeast Asia (especially Malaysia and Burma/Myanmar) and in Inner Asia. The themes of his research are: mass violence and crime; national identity; environmental politics; and historical geography.

Linguistics and Language Learning

Austronesian and Papuan languages of Eastern Indonesia, language typology, syntactic theory, language change.

Languages of eastern Indonesia and East Timor; language description and language documentation; language contact; Austronesian and Papuan linguistics; language typology; linguistic representation of space.

Austronesian languages and culture history, Papuan languages, morphosyntax, phonology, historical and areal linguistics, linguistic typology, human history in Sahul.

The acquisition of second language pragmatics; a secondary interest is the sociolinguistics of Indonesian.

Politics and Security

The ANU is the world’s leading centre for advanced research on political and security developments in Indonesia. ANU staff include leading experts in issues critical to the country’s future. Areas of strength include general politics, political Islam, terrorism, separatist conflicts, democratic institutions and decentralisation.

Indonesian politics, democratisation, social movements, civil society and nationalism. The separatist conflict in Aceh, comparative politics of separatism in Southeast Asia, and the relationship between Islam and nationalism.

Human rights and violence; resource ownership, land rights and autonomy; cross-cultural encounters and concepts of 'race'; agricultural transformation; history, anthropology, archaeology and geography; regional interests in Indonesia and Melanesia.

Southeast Asian politics, especially Indonesia.

Indonesian politics, modern Islamic political history, Islam and civil society, and the impact of globalisation on religion and culture in Southeast Asia.

The nation-state in contemporary Southeast Asia; Indonesian politics; Indonesian Islam; Impact of the West on Indonesia; Indonesian history; Indonesia's Writing Traditions; Javanese theatre; Early Javanese history.

Comparative political economy, International relations of the Asia-Pacific region, Southeast Asian politics (especially Indonesia), Australian foreign policy

The political role of the military in Indonesia; Indonesian political parties, particularly campaign financing issues; elections in Indonesia and comparative electoral politics in Southeast Asia.

Society and Culture

The ANU recognises that understanding of the politics and economics of Indonesia must be rooted in deep knowledge of the country’s societies, cultures, and languages. ANU Indonesia specialists include anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, geographers, demographers and historians with an unrivalled collective knowledge of the deep structures that shape contemporary Indonesia. Key strengths include language and cultural studies, Islamic communities, population, environment and natural resources, and regional cultures, especially Eastern Indonesia and Java. FAS provides high-level training in the Indonesian language and courses on Indonesia’s society, history and culture.

Child labour Human Rights and Policy (especially the human rights of children), Gender Issues (especially gender and social policy; gender and governance), Social Policy for Vulnerable Children, Politics and Social Policy in Asia, especially Indonesia and the Philippines

History and anthropology of Indonesia and East Timor; rural development and resource management; study of social organisation and symbolic systems; linguistic anthropology; comparative Austronesian ethnology.

Islam in Southeast Asia; Contemporary Indonesian political culture; Islam and social change in Indonesia; Islam and the process of regional autonomy in Indonesia.

Development and environment, international climate policy, economic mechanisms for greenhouse gas control, economics and policy of adaptation to climate change, Asia-Pacific region in particular Indonesia and Australia.

Agrarian change and land tenure; Decentralization and environmental governance; Biodiversity conservation and community based natural resource management; Forest management; Natural resource conflict

Agroecosystems and household economic strategies in the upland Philippines; autoethnographies and contended narratives of development; Filipino translocalities and overseas/immigrant communities; theories of place and subjectivity; diasporic Filipina identities.

Timor ethnography, minorities and the state in Indonesia and East Timor, customary land and resource tenures, indigenous religion, applied anthropology in economic development, Australian Aboriginal customary land interests and cultural heritage.

Water management specialist. Analyses of cropping systems and evaluation of irrigation efficiency. Crop water balance modelling. Simulation of social/environmental interactions through a Multi Agent Systems approach. Expertise in Western Africa, Middle East, South East Asia (Indonesia, Thailand).

Colonial and post-colonial environmental histories of Southeast Asia, 1850-2000, especially forests, agriculture and land-use change; environmental issues in modern Indonesia; smallholder commodity production, cultural survival and decentralisation in post-Suharto Indonesia.

The literature and popular culture of contemporary Java; patterns and sites of pilgrimmage in Java and Madura; and the Catholic Church in East Timor.

Indonesia and Southeast Asia; development; gender; traditional architecture; medical anthropology.

The economic, political, and social factors that drive environmental change – resulting in loss of biodiversity and climate change – and their implications for rural livelihoods and poverty.