Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Eva Samia Dinkelaker, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

PROGRAMME

ABSTRACT

Ethics of Belonging investigates the dynamics of ethical deliberation about religious coexistence in Manado, Indonesia, in the Protestant-majority province of North Sulawesi. Schools are understood as central sites for exchange about the ethics and politics of belonging in the nation. From a focus on multiple schools, each with a distinct method of addressing diversity and a particular understanding of the relationship between religious and civic values, two primary contested frames for belonging emerge in tension with one another. On the one hand, “aspirational coexistence” recognizes a common goal of working toward religious harmony and inclusive belonging. On the other hand, “majoritarian coexistence”, in which the legitimacy of religious minorities is understood as guaranteed exclusively by the goodwill of the Christian majority, also emerges in discourses and practices of coexistence. These two agonistic frames of coexistence stem from both a real pride at having staved off ethno-religious violence that plagued surrounding regions at the turn of the twenty-first century, as well as a concern about whether the area will maintain a Christian majority in the future. The focus on educational institutions provides a connection between interpersonal and public ethical deliberation, elucidating how ethical frameworks for approaching religious difference are channeled and negotiated through educational institutions and link up to the broader political context.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Erica M. Larson is Research Fellow in the Religion and Globalisation Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Boston University, USA. Her research interests include education, religion, ethics, and politics in Indonesia and Southeast Asia more broadly. She has examined how education becomes an arena of deliberation about the ethics and politics of plural coexistence through ethnographic research in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Her current research engages Indonesian university students active in religious organizations and their attitudes and beliefs about corruption as a lens on normative state-society relations and notions of ethics, piety, and responsibility.

Chang-Yau Hoon is Professor at the Institute of Asian Studies, and former Director of the Centre for Advanced Research, University of Brunei Darussalam. He is also Visiting Senior Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. Recently appointed Honorary Director of the Institute of Brunei Studies and Visiting Professor at the College of ASEAN Studies, Guangxi University for Nationalities, China, Professor Hoon specializes in Chinese diaspora, identity politics, multiculturalism, and religious and cultural diversity in contemporary Southeast Asia. Additionally, he also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Asia in Transition book series at Springer Nature. His latest books include Christianity and the Chinese in Indonesia: Ethnicity, Education and Enterprise (Liverpool University Press, 2023), Southeast Asia in China: Historical Entanglements and Contemporary Engagements (with YK Chan, Lexington Press, 2023), and Stability, Growth and Sustainability: Catalysts for Socio-economic Development in Brunei Darussalam (with A. Ananta and M. Hamdan, ISEAS Publishing, 2023).

Abdul Gaffar Karim is Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of Politics and Government at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Indonesia. He completed his undergraduate education in the Department of Politics and Government at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM in 1994, masters in the Department of Asian Studies and Languages, The Flinders University of South Australia in 2000. He then completed his Doctoral Degree in Political Science at UGM in 2018. His research interests include religion and politics, electoral governance, decentralization and democracy studies.

Basri Amin is Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the Gorontalo State University, where he teaches courses on sociology of education, global perspectives, and social studies. His research interests include school culture, historical literacy, and urban youth. He has undertaken qualitative research on student politics in Ternate town, North Maluku, and the dynamics of informal traders in Manado, North Sulawesi. He is the author of several books and journal articles on historical issues of literacy, local leadership, nationhood ideas in eastern Indonesia.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid talk has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to ziqi@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.