Papers

• The Social Democratic Origins of Indonesian Liberalism Windu Yusuf Leiden Institute for Area Studies

  This paper looks at the continuity between contemporary liberalism in Indonesia and Marxist revisionism through the history of Indonesian Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis Indonesia/PSI, 1948-1960) and its extended networks of intellectuals (since the 1960s). It situates both the party and its organizational heirs as a singular element instrumental in the trajectory of liberalism as well as its foremost custodian. In doing so, this paper would delve into the key ideas emerging among the socialist intellectuals in the transformation to liberalism and subsequently map their networks.

• Dawam Rahardjo: A Muslim Progenitor of Revisionist, Populist Socialism Iqra Anugrah Leiden University

  Studies on receptions of Marxism in the Global South including Indonesia tend to focus on revolutionary and counter-revolutionary views of Marxism, proven by the proliferation of studies on leftist and left-nationalist groups and their right-wing rivals.
  But this focus overlooks two major modes of appropriation of Marxism: populist and revisionist readings of Marxism, which emphasises elite-mass distinction in the former and welfare capitalism in the latter. In the absence of a revolutionary leftist tradition during the anti-communist New Order authoritarian-capitalist regime (1966-1998) in Indonesia, such “moderate” interpretations of Marxism became increasingly popular among critical Muslim intellectuals and activists, a major political force during the New Order period.
  By focusing on the lives and thoughts of Dawam Rahardjo (1942-2018), a left-leaning Muslim scholar-activist who combined several streams of Marxisms – Marxist political economy, dependency theories, and Frankfurt School, to name a few – to formulate his own brand of populist, yet revisionist socialism, this study scrutinizes the weird transmutations of Marxist thinking in the context of peripheral capitalism. I ask: How did Dawam Rahardjo use Marxist-influenced ideas to perceive societal problems during the New Order and formulate their solutions? What were the achievements and limits of his localised, left-leaning, yet petty-bourgeois alchemy of political economy prescriptions?

• Shifting Progressives: Catholic Activist in Vietnam from Dialogue to Anti-Communism Susann Pham Bilkent University

  While Vietnam’s one-party Communist state formally allows freedom of religion, political activism is viewed as a challenge to the Party’s authority. Particularly, religious activists engaged in social movements for democratic reform often face prosecution and lengthy imprisonment. This paper explores the potential of Catholic activists in Vietnam to effect emancipatory change. Drawing on original research, it examines how select ‘progressive clerics’ in the 1960s and 70s sought to bridge Christianity with Marxism/Communism in Vietnam. Contrasting this with a contemporary Catholic-led environmental movement from 2016 to 2018, which took an anti-communist stance, sheds light on the evolving dynamics within the Catholic community.
  Although the two instances of progressive Catholic activism are distinct, they both aimed to articulate a political stance centered on addressing the struggles of the working class and the oppressed, advocating for active participation in fostering a more equitable society. Thus, this paper argues that progressive religious practice in Vietnam can evolve either in tandem with Marxism (pre-1975) or in opposition to it, illustrating that the development of progressive religious movements is intricately intertwined with the material realities of state-society relations, transcending mere textual interpretations or theological advancements.

• Insurgent Southeast Asia: Protest, Rebellion, and Resistance Gabriel Facal Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia Tian An Wong University of Michigan-Dearborn

  This presentation provides an overview of a variety of pro-social insurgencies in Southeast Asia. Insurgency is meant loosely, and gestures to the larger field of social relations across which unequal power relations travel and intersect along the various axes of nation, race, class, gender, and sex. Different case studies from the region will give a glimpse on the structural challenges faced by social movements struggling for material survival, political freedom, and social and ecological justice. Through descriptions of latent opposition, overt political claims, and armed struggles, we will highlight the porosities existing between society and the state, the role of mediators, the historical transformation of the nature, and qualification of resistance. Ongoing and future dynamics for social movements will be discussed. The presentation is inspired by an array of national and thematic angles: after-Coup civilian resistance in Myanmar, former communist Lao soldiers, anarchism in Indonesia, environmental justice in Vietnam, evolution of Philippine anti-authoritarianism movements, activism of Indonesian female factory workers, and food induced conflict in Thailand and Indonesia.

Abstract