Culture & Infrastructure: New Ethnographic Projects in Indonesia & Beyond

Ahmad Sadali, Gunungan Emas (The Golden Mountain), 1980. Oil, wood, canvas.

Infrastructures are essential to the everyday workings of contemporary societies in Asia and the Pacific and to their articulation with globalizing forces.  Yet most analyses overlook the profoundly cultural character of infrastructures and their role in the very feel of contemporary human life. “Infrastructure” typically receives analytic treatment as a techno-functional system without cultural dimension.  At the same time, studies of “culture” seldom set their sights on the techno-political operations of built infrastructural networks. These analytic and theoretical dispositions need to be questioned and reframed so as to reveal the aesthetic, political, religious, and experiential dimensions of infrastructural systems.  New studies from Indonesia promise fresh, innovative, and perhaps model ways of bringing “culture” and “infrastructure” into a single frame of description and analysis.
 
This two-day conference and workshop aims to engage scholars, policy-makers, and others interested in Asia and the Pacific with its interdisciplinary emphasis on linking the humanities and qualitative social sciences to policy, public works, technology, labor, diplomacy, education, corporate business, and development. Taking their inspiration and point of departure from ethnographic projects currently under way in Indonesia, our keynote speakers will explore ways to bring humanities-oriented anthropological approaches to bear on the ethnographic depiction and understanding of infrastructures with the aim of revealing their politico-aesthetic power, design, and purpose.
 

Keynote speakers

Joel C. Kuipers, HRC-RSAP Distinguished Visitor
(Professor of Anthropology, George Washington University)
Joshua Barker, Editor, City & Society
(Associate Professor of Anthropology and Vice-Dean, University of Toronto)
Marina Welker, 2015-16 Fulbright Scholar to Indonesia
(Associate Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University)
James B. Hoesterey, 2015-16 Fulbright Scholar to Indonesia
(Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Emory University)
 

Organiser

Prof. Ken George
Professor of Anthropology; School of Culture, History and Language.
 
The conference will be held in the Seminar Room of the Humanities Research Centre, located in the A.D. Hope Building. It is free to attend, and all are encouraged to register. Though it is a free event, guests must organise their own accommodation (useful links below).
 
On Friday April 15th, there will be a concurrent masterclass, an excellent opportunity for any HDR students in CAP or CASS to join visiting anthropologists Joshua Barker, Jim Hoesterey, Joel Kuipers, and Marina Welker in discussing new ethnographic approaches to the study of culture and infrastructure.
 
Registration and attendance are free, and any doctoral students in anthropology and cultural studies wishing to sign up for the masterclass should do so via Eventbrite.
 
This conference is made possible by the sponsorship of the ANU Humanities Research Centre and the Research School of Asia and the Pacific (CAP), with assistance from the U.S. Fulbright Program.
 
 

Accommodation

 
A block booking has been made for the conference with a selection of queen and twin rooms. The code when making your booking is Indonesia: Cultural Infrastructure.      
 
Reservations: +61 2 6125 5275/5276
Free Call: 1800 814 864

Date and Times

Location

HRC Conference Room, A.D. Hope Building

Speaker

Contact