On Wednesday (8/8/18), Professor Hak-Soo Kim from the Faculty of the School of Communication of Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea attended the UGM PSSAT Library to provide material about Community & Communication: A New Perspective in SEA Talk # 22.
The crisis in Rakhine State has been there since a long time. Since 1962, during the military regime, the violence on behalf of ethnic and religious has been occurred and caused a miserable tragedy in the Rakhine State, Myanmar. Around 2.000 people have been killed and more than 140.000, approximately, became homeless. Therefore, Myanmar government has violated Human Rights toward the Rohingya. (Human Rights Watch)
Recently, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since the end of August year 2017 to escape violance and persecution in Myanmar. Previously, The Fact Finding Mission of the United Nations showed that approximately 1,3 million people have moved to the Bangladesh border. The rest of Rohingya refugees are trying to move out to another country such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. (United Nations, 2018)
On Friday (7/19/18), Zachary Frial, Annemarie DiCamillo (Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States students & USINDO) and Pemetik Buah Khuldi were present at AOA Resto & Creative Space to provide material on Trans-Forming Body and Space: Motion, Movement, Momentum in SEA Chat # 9.
Before starting the presentation, Frial, DiCamillo, and the Pemetik Buah Khuldi played their own film which told about the unique gender expression of each individual. In the discussion session, the three presenters and attendees discussed how in different places (in this case are city and state), people’s tolerance for non-normative gender expression was different.
On Friday (22/06/18), Faculty of Liberal Arts students from Thammasat University arrived at the Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) of Universitas Gadjah Mada for SEA Gate 2018 program for the next three months. The opening of SEA Gate 2018 program was held at PSSAT UGM Library, opened by Dr.phil. Hermin Indah Wahyuni as the director of PSSAT UGM and Dr. Hamam Supriyadi as lecturer of ASEAN Studies, Thammasat University.
In her speech, Dr.phil. Hermin Indah Wahyuni together with Aditya Indra Nugraha, S.Ant. as SEA Gate 2018 Program Manager, said that the program is expected to further strengthen the relationship between PSSAT UGM and Thammasat University which has been collaborating in two programs: SEA-GATE and Visiting Program.
Whilst the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are now frequently heard in a number of contexts, whether that be in a professional environment, the classroom, or in your Facebook newsfeed, it can sometimes be difficult to understand why such notions are so alarming – the opportunist may just see these changes as an excuse to flaunt their favourite t-shirt for a few more days a year. However, the ramifications of climate change go far beyond a jacket collecting more dust in your wardrobe. Changes in climate induced by a warming planet are anticipated to spark challenges in social, economic, and political conditions across the globe, particularly within the ASEAN region. In light of this, as a simple game theory model suggests, collaboration of partners within ASEAN, although not always perceived as the easiest and most lucrative path in the short-term, will ultimately be the most rewarding approach, and will play an essential role in harnessing future regional stability and prosperity.
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.
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.
Indonesia as one of the countries that is very vulnerable to natural disasters is considered to require socialization to handle them. In fact, not all sections of society in this country are able to accept the socialization held by the government. Therefore, PSSAT UGM held a discussion titled “Community Resilience on Maritime Disaster in Indonesia” with Dr. Rahman Hidayat, assistant deputy of Assistant Deputy of Infrastructures for Shipping, Fishery, and Tourism of Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs, and Dr. Widjo Kongko at PSSAT UGM Library (16/03/18). The discussion in the afternoon was also attended by Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe, Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Freiburg, Germany, some researchers from PSSAT, and academics.
As a form of cooperation between CESASS UGM with University of Freiburg, Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe accompanied by a researcher from CESASS UGM, Vissia Ita Yulianto, shared their knowledge in the form of workshops (08/03/18). The workshop held in the Indonesian Room of CESASS UGM Library presented the topic of waste management which is still one of the problems in Indonesia. This problem is certainly very influential with the stability, including the stability of undersea ecosystems. Therefore, this study took a case study in the southern maritime area of Yogyakarta which includes part of Gunung Kidul Regency under the title “Waste, Worldview, Morality: An Inclusive Approach”.
Social science has a central position and power to understand social problems, organize the bureaucracy, organize the economy, regulate policies and public communications in support of community life both in regional and global. The problems of social imbalances, multiculturalism, religiosity, racial intolerance, marginalities, practical politics, human trafficking , regional and global power relations, migrant workers, and social aspects of disaster need clear social-humanities academics to understand and provide referrals to policy makers (quoted from Terms of Reference).
The problem is that Indonesia as a developing country still desperately needs help from experts and scientists to do development, especially in the field of physical infrastructure, the ones that are seen to be more able to give practical contribution to society. Without realizing it, the government requires development in physical form and ignores the social infrastructure. Thus, the more days pass, social science seemed increasingly disregarded. It indicates that the government has not looked further into contribution of social-humanities sciences based research.
Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) UGM, supported by Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education, as the Center of Science and Technology in the social field must surely question the waiver of this social sciences. Thus, CESASS invited social scientists to discuss their own discipline and even cross the boundaries of their discipline to attend Series Discussion II titled “Social Sciences: Its Roles and Challenges” (13/02/2018). Prof. Sjafri Sairin & Prof. Djoko Suryo, the head of CESASS, Dr. Phil Hermin Indah Wahyuni, along with other researchers from CESASS namely Muhadi Sugiono, M.A., Dr. Phil. Vissia Ita Yulianto, Putu Yogi Paramitha, M.H., Fatkurrohman, M.Si, and two students of the doctoral program of Department of Public Policy and Management UGM discussed the social science roles and challenges in this era.
