Lecture Abstract:
A common concern for historians writing in the genre of people’s history, social history, and history from below has been the history of non-elites. The Indian “subaltern studies” group, for example, defined its goal in the early 1980s as the study of ‘the people’ rather than “the elites.” The perennial problem with such an approach is the presupposed analysis of the society as a whole that allows one to determine who is “the elite.” Who is below and above? How have these relationships of power changed over time? This talk will address the various strategies that historians have adopted in the past and could adopt in the future for contributing to a ‘people’s history’ of Indonesia.
Speaker:
John Roosa is a Professor of History at the University of British Columbia (Canada). He is the author of Pretext for Mass Murder (2006), about the September 30th Movement in Indonesia in 1965, and Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres in Indonesia in 1965-66 (2020), which won the George Kahin Book Prize from the Association of Asian Studies. He has co-edited a book about the experiences of Indonesian political prisoners: Tahun yang Tak Pernah Berakhir (2004).
Moderator:
Imran Mohd Rasid is a researcher and an activist working on the issues of the Global South. He is now an Executive Director of Citizens International, an NGO based in Malaysia focussing to contribute to the development of the civic and political infrastructure of internationalism by building international coalitions, strengthening public advocacy on issues and concerns of the developing world, and empowering youth-led networks to mobilize solidarity and collective action towards confronting global injustices and advancing an inclusive and just international system that protects the planet.
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This event is organised by Pusat Sejarah Rakyat (PSR) and Mandiri in collaboration with Under The Banana Tree’s Archival Network in Southeast Asia.