“Stemming the Tides: Indonesia in the Age of Climate Catastrophe” Yale Indonesia Forum Conference (Council on Southeast Asia Studies)

In recent years, Indonesia saw its cities drowning under the deluge of torrential monsoon rains, its forests blazing in the wake of land clearance for palm oil, its people suffocating under thick blankets of haze, and its capital sinking swiftly beneath the waves. At the turn of a new decade, Indonesia faces a legion of climatic challenges that threaten its population and natural resources. In August 2019, President Joko Widodo announced the relocation of the Indonesian capital in a bid to move the administrative center, partly due to the environmental stresses of pollution, sinking lands, and rising sea levels.

In its Call for Papers, the Yale Indonesia Forum (YIF) called on scholars, activists, policy officials, and other interested parties to present on issues germane to climate in Indonesia at our yearly conference. We sought perspectives that traverse methodological and disciplinary boundaries. What are the politics of moving the capital city? What strategies have different communities used to cope with natural disasters? How have climate challenges reconfigured Indonesia’s rural and urban environments? What economic interests underlie the expansion of renewable energy or the persistence of fossil fuels? How can various forms of art express variegated perspectives towards the country’s climate emergency? What are the lived experiences of climate change in everyday Indonesian lives, both historical and current? How have the Indonesian state sought to control the climate and the natural environment in the past? Through these questions and more, the conference seeks a greater understanding of Indonesia in an age of environmental catastrophe.