Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism

An Australian Research Council funded project researching transnational human rights activism and uses of memory in activism related to three cases of historical injustice in Indonesia.

Since the 1990s there has been a boom in memory and in human rights activism relating to historical injustice in Indonesia. Using an innovative framework of the concept of ‘regions of memory’, this project examines how human rights activists located within and outside Indonesia use memory for the purposes of achieving human rights outcomes. Through national and international collaborations the study analyses why transnational activism concerning crimes from the Japanese occupation, the independence struggle and the 1965 mass violence escalated at particular points in time, and interrogate the relationship between memory and human rights.

The project tracks how journalists, activists and survivors of violence have increasingly used memory in struggles for historical justice in Indonesia. By analysing the use of memory in transnational human rights activism this study offers a new understanding of the relationship between memory and human rights outcomes.

By analysing memories and contemporary Indonesian debates about these historical episodes and related transnational human rights struggles and communicating this research to broad audiences, this research project will improve Australian understanding of the society and culture of our largest neighbour.

Publications

2023

  • Katharine McGregor, Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia, Wisconsin: Critical Human Rights Series of the University of Wisconsin Press, 2023, https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/6126.htm
  • McGregor, Katharine, 'Japanese War Memory and Transnational Activism for Indonesian Survivors of Enforced Military Prostitution During World War Two' in Trajectories of Memory: Excavating the Past in Indonesia / Melani Budianta, Sylvia Tiwon, Editors. 2023. Palgrave Macmillan. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=29af3fd9-2cd2-3a48-9887-23e784c29e85.
  • McGregor, Katharine 'International Organisations and Memory Activists Across and Beyond the Asian Region' in Jenny Wustenberg and Yifat Gutman (eds.), Handbook of Memory Activism, Routledge, London, 2023.

2022

  • McGregor, Katharine, 'Human Rights Regions of Memory: The Case of the International People's Tribunal on Crimes Against Humanity in Indonesia 1965' in Simon Lewis, Joanna Wawrinka, Jeffrey Olick and Malgorzotta Parkier (Eds), Regions of Memory: Transnational Formation, Palgrave, 2022, pp. 49-70.

2020

  • McGregor, K; Loney, H and Dragojlovic, A (eds.). Gendered Violence Across Time and Space in Indonesia and East Timor, Women in Asia Series (ASAA). Routledge, 2020.
  • McGregor, K, 'Living in a Conflict Zone: Gendered Violence During the Japanese Occupation of the Netherlands East Indies,' in McGregor, K; Loney, H and Dragojlovic, A (eds.). Gendered Violence Across Time and Space in Indonesia and East Timor, Women in Asia Series (ASAA). Routledge, 2020 pp. 39-58.
  • McGregor, K and Loney, H. 'Introduction: Gendered Violence and the Making of Modern Indonesia,' in McGregor, K; Loney, H and Dragojlovic, A (eds.). Gendered Violence Across Time and Space in Indonesia and East Timor, Women in Asia Series (ASAA). Routledge, 2020 pp. 1-18.

2019

  • McGregor, K and Setiawan, K. 'Shifting from International to “Indonesian’ Justice Measures: Two Decades of Addressing Past Human Rights Violations,' in Journal of Contemporary Asia, Volume 49, pp. 837-861.
  • McGregor, K, 'The World Was Silent? Global Communities of Resistance to the 1965 Repression in the Cold War Era,' in Russell, A (ed.). Truth, Silence and Violence in Emerging States: Histories of the Unspoken. London: Routledge, pp. 147-168.

2018

  • McGregor, K and Mackie, V. 'Transcultual Memory and the Troostmeisjes / Comfort Women Photographic Project,' in History and Memory, March Issue Volume 30 (1), pp. 116-150.
  • McGregor, K, Melvin, J and Pohlman, A (eds.). The Indonesian Genocide: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies. London: Palgrave McMillian Genocide Studies Series, 2018.
  • McGregor, K, Melvin, J and Pohlman, A. 'New Interpretations of the Causes, Dynamics and Legacies of the Indonesian Genocide,' in McGregor, K, Melvin, J and Pohlman, A (eds.). The Indonesian Genocide: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies. London: Palgrave McMillian Genocide Studies Series, 2018, pp. 1-26
  • McGregor, K, 'Heads from the North: Transcultural Memorialization of the 1965 Indonesian Killings at the National Gallery of Australia,' in McGregor, K, Melvin, J and Pohlman, A (eds.). The Indonesian Genocide: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies. London: Palgrave McMillian Genocide Studies Series, 2018, pp. 235-252.
  • McGregor, K. 'Historical Justice and the Case of the 1965 Killings,' in Hefner, Robert (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia. Routledge, 2018, pp. 129-139.
  • McGregor, K. 'The Making of a Global Activist: The Indonesian Human Rights Campaigner, Carmel Budiardjo,' in Berger, Stefan and Scalmer, Sean (eds.). The Transnational Activist: Transformations and Comparisons from the Anglo World since the Nineteenth Century. London: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in the History of Social Movements, 2018, pp. 165-191.

2017

  • McGregor, K. 'Exposing Impunity: Memory and Human rights activism in Indonesia and Argentina,' in Journal of Genocide Research, 19 (4), pp. 551-573.

2016

2014

  • McGregor, K. 'Emotions and Activism for Former so Called "Comfort Women" of the Japanese Occupation of the Netherlands East Indies,' in Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 54., Jan-Feb 2014, pp. 67-78.
  • McGregor, K. 'From National Sacrifice to Compensation Claims: Changing Indonesian Representations of the Captain Westerling Massacres in South Sulawesi (1946-1947),' in Luttikhius, Bart and Moses, Dirk (eds.,). Colonial Counterinsurgency and Mass Violence: The Dutch Empire in Indonesia. London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 282-307.
The headstone placed on the renovated gravesite in Solo, Central Java of the first Indonesian woman to testify as a former ‘comfort woman’
The headstone placed on the renovated gravesite in Solo, Central Java of the first Indonesian woman to testify as a former ‘comfort woman’, a woman subjected to enforced military prostitution by the Japanese army. The headstone which was installed with support from Japanese citizens reads “We the people of Japan respect the great spirit and the determination of Tuminah as an historical actor, an Indonesian ‘ianfu’ (comfort woman). Photograph by Katharine McGregor with thanks to Indonesian activist Eka Hindra for showing me the site.

Project details

Sponsors

ARC Future Fellowship: Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism

Researcher

Associate Professor Kate McGregor, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies

Host institutions

The University of Gajah Mada
The University of Wollongong

Key collaborators and Key hosts throughout project

This includes persons who hosted Associate Professor Kate McGregor for conferences and fellowships and oversaw edited books within which her work was published as well as authors who co-wrote or co-edited with Kate or whose work she edited which has connections to her research topics.

Professor Vera Mackie (University of Wollongong)
Professor Bambang Purwanto (University of Gajah Mada)
Professor Marieke Bloembergen (Leiden University)
Professor Martijn Eickhoff (NIOD, Institute of War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies)
Dr Ana Dragojlovic (University of Melbourne)
Dr Hannah Loney (University of Melbourne)
Dr Jess Melvin (University of Sydney)
Dr Annie Pohlman (University of Queensland)
Dr Ken Setiawan (University of Melbourne)
Dr Rachel Diprose (University of Melbourne)
Dr Aidan Russell (Graduate Institute Geneva)
Dr Joanna Wawrzyniak (University of Warsaw)
Dr Baskara Wardaya (Sanata Darma University)
Dr Abdul Wahid (University of Gajah Mada)
Dr Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem (Veteran National Development University)
Dr Mariana Lis (Polish Academy of Sciences)
Dr Wulan Dirgantoro (University of Melbourne)
Dr Monika Winarta (Latrobe University)
Roro Sawita, activist Taman 1965
Eka Hindra, activist Indonesia
Koichi Kimura, activist Japan

Research assistants

Paula Hendrikx (translation assistance)
Faye Chan (translation assistance)
Dr Mayuko Itoh (translation assistance)
Dr Hani Yulindrasari (field work assistance)

Contact

Associate Professor Kate McGregor