On Friday (25/5/18), Miranda Traeger, a student of Faculty of Law at The University of Adelaide Australia, presented her views on the education system in Australia and Indonesia at a monthly discussion, SEA Chat # 8.

In a friendly ambience at CESSAS Library UGM, Miranda started her presentation by inviting each participant to share their research and personal interests on Southeast Asia. She then drew their attention on education issues while comparing fundamental and practical elements of Indonesian and Australian education framework. The discussion was fruitful, some participants who used to live or study in Australia for several years remarked on the distinctive teaching method of Australian teachers. read more

On Friday (11/5/18), SEA Talk #21 was conducted on “Corporate Power and Global Governance: Australian Miners in Indonesia” with Lian Sinclair from Murdoch University as the presenter. This topic was based on his fieldwork on Australian Mining companies operating in three different locations in Indonesia namely Kulonprogo, Kutai Barat and Halmahera Utara.

Lian discussed that mining companies tend to be benefited from global governance (UN, WTO, and others) when conflicts with local communities occurred. One of strategy of dealing with those conflicts was CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). CSR helped the companies to reduce possibility of clash with local societies as they indirectly involved in companies’ management process. However, many conflicts still persisted because of the localities of the problems. read more