Articles - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

Fiction: Pasung

/ Andrea Star Reese for Human Rights Watch

His gaze is fixated on an indeterminate spot behind me, his arms hang loosely by his sides. Wearing nothing but a pair of faded black shorts, his ribs and collar bones rise above his cavernous stomach. His bulging eyes stand out. A ray of afternoon sun penetrates through a few holes on the attap roof above us, shining on some part of his left arm and shoulder. Sitting on the ground of this six-by-eight-metre hut with his back leaning against the wall, his dark brown skin blends in with the soil underneath us and the bamboo wall surrounding us.

Indonesia’s 50-year-old family planning program has been a great success but is struggling to adapt with women’s needs

Indigenous Marind in rural Merauke have traditionally depended on the forest for their subsistence / Sophie Chao

Oil palm projects are causing hunger in Merauke, both literal and symbolic

Refugees protest in Makassar, February 2018 / Ali Froghi

Living in the midst of uncertainty

In the first of a series of articles we present recent work by demographers and genocide scholars at Michigan State University's Asian Studies Centre on the 1965-1966 killings. Their analysis takes the form of a collection of infographics tracing population numbers across East Java at this time.

A woman gazes at the camera as the world moves around her / Ghiffar Ridhwan on Unsplash

The media ignores women’s crucial role in the formation of regional laws in Aceh

Jayapura, West Papua / Alex Drainville @Flickr Creative Commons

A battle is looming between an emboldened pro-independence movement and Papuans who are pro-Indonesia

Student volunteers and the local community collected rubbish and turned it into an ogoh-ogoh for local Balinese festivities. Source/ Sea Communities

Community programs in northern Bali are aiming to avoid negative impacts of tourism so evident in the south

A teacher formerly posted in Nduga, holds her infant while instructing the children in the emergency school / Sorang Saragih

The plight of Papua’s internally displaced persons is not being recognised by the Indonesian government

Fiction: Pasung

Contraception at a crossroads

Hunger and culture in West Papua

Book reviews: Telling the Dutch colonial wars in Aceh and South Sulawesi

Essay: Letter from Jakarta

Mapping the 1965-66 killings in East Java

Challenging syariah

Competing Papuan identities

Alternative tourism in Bali

Untreated trauma in Nduga

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