The International Indonesia Forum is a non-profit multidisciplinary community of scholars from Indonesia and beyond. Our goal is to promote the free exchange of ideas and diversity in the academic discourses regarding various aspects of Indonesia, including but not limited to its culture, economy, history, legal system, and politics.
8th International Indonesia Forum Conference “Discourses Exploring the Space between Tradition and Modernity in Indonesia”
Much has been made of the 32 years of development and westernization under Suharto, which were a significant shift from the various efforts at nation-building in Indonesia’s early years. This is not totally dissimilar to the way Dutch colonial development in Indonesia was once heralded as harbinger of modernity in a feudal archipelago rich with tradition, culture and religion. Indonesia has long been, and continues to be, the site of negotiations between tradition and modernity.
The discourses of tradition and modernity are perhaps best recognized at the national level and can be discerned in debates over such varied subjects as the morality of the youth, the value of the national curriculum in facing the challenges of the future, and the fate of traditional culture in the face of a global media, regional autonomy and development, religion and society. However, discourses of modernity and tradition are also carried out every day on a more minor scale: within groups, organizations, families, and even individuals. These discourses may not be recognized or framed in terms of tradition and modernity, but nevertheless cannot exist separately from this wider discourse and fill the space between tradition and modernity in everyday life in Indonesia. Taking various forms, and adopting a variety of positions, in the end these discourses all aim towards striking a balance between the continuity of tradition and the change of modernity in a growing and developing Indonesia.
For the 8th International Indonesia Forum Conference, we call upon scholars of various disciplines to address the how these discourses are carried out in various aspects (political, religious, social, cultural, regional, economic, education, communication, history, law, technology) of Indonesian society. We invite scholars from different fields to once again join the International Indonesia Forum Conference hosted by Sebelas Maret University (UNS) to pool their expertise in order to identify and address the negotiations of tradition and modernity, past and present, as well as the underlying structures, causes, aspects, and mechanisms of these discourses.
The 8th International Indonesia Forum Conference will be held at Sebelas Maret University in Solo from 29-30 July 2015. Persons wishing to present papers at the conference are invited to submit a short CV and one-page abstract in electronic form (PDF or Microsoft Word) to Dr Frank Dhont and Chris Woodrich at frank.dhont@iif.or.id and christopher.woodrich@iif.or.id, respectively, by March 31, 2015. All abstracts must be in English, and papers will likewise be presented in English. For information on the 8th IIF International Conference and on the IIF’s previous conferences and publications, see iif.or.id. Technical details are available, in PDF format, here.[]
Frank Dhont
Hermanu Joebagio
International Indonesia Forum
