A virtual workshop from GETSEA.

Are you a first-time attendee of the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting? A PhD student or early career researcher with questions about how AAS works, how to navigate such a large event, and how to build community with people who share your interests? Join GETSEA for an informal discussion with Tom Pepinsky (Cornell) about the ins-and-outs of the AAS for students and scholars of Southeast Asia.

All students and scholars interested in Southeast Asia are welcome to attend.

This lecture coincides with the publication of A History of Photography in Indonesia: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age (Afterhours/Amsterdam University Press 2022). The book is a selection of essays compiled by Brian Arnold that collectively piece together the development of photography in Indonesia, from the inception of the medium in the 1840s to the present day. In compiling the book, Brian worked as editor, contributor, and translator. Two chapters in the book are based on collections in the Rare and Manuscript Collections in the Cornell University Library, and this will be in an informal lecture about these two chapters, emphasizing the importance of archives and a material-based approach to research. The lecture will include both a slide presentation as well as an opportunity for in-person attendees to look at some of the original materials.

2022 > US > Directed by David Siev
With Skyler Janssen, Michael Meinhold, Chun Siev, Jaclyn Siev
David Siev's directorial debut captures a closely-knit Asian American family living in rural Michigan during the pandemic as they fight to keep their local restaurant and American dream alive.
1 hr 40 min

Mr. Nithi Nesadurai, Director and Regional Coordinator of Climate Action Network Southeast Asia

Dr. Allison Chatrchyan, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Multilateral global climate governance is best embodied through the annual UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP), which brings together state and non-state actors yearly to promote and enhance ambition for climate action. Convened in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022, COP27 was applauded for its historic Loss and Damage agreement, yet many forget the work by climate activists for over 30 years beyond the negotiation rooms in pushing for this fund.

On February 3 at 11:45 am, Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Faculty Fellow Dr. Allison Chatrchyan will host a topical lunch on Reflections from COP27. Please join us for this opportunity to interact with a leading NGO in global climate negotiations, the Climate Action Network, gain an understanding of key outcomes from COP27, and brainstorm Cornell’s participation at future conferences.

Guest speaker Mr. Nithi Nesadurai, Director and Regional Coordinator of Climate Action Network Southeast Asia (CANSEA), will share reflections from COP27 alongside members of Cornell’s COP27 delegation, and speak about the important role of civil society actors, such as Climate Action Network, at COP conferences and global climate change governance. He has worked in the climate field for the past 30 years, attending his first Conference of Parties – COP6 – in 2000. As an experienced leader in global climate change work, Mr. Nesadurai will share his observations on the evolution and importance of civil society in global climate governance, especially from the Global South. Examining decisions coming out of global climate negotiations, he will propose what more needs to be done to ensure equitable climate action and financing, in particular for vulnerable regions such as Southeast Asia. Members of Cornell’s COP27 delegation will also be on hand to share their reflections on the conference.

The Carpenter-Everett Family Topical Lunches are hosted by The Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

This event is hosted in collaboration with the Cornell Southeast Asia Program.

If you have any questions, please contact Allison Chatrchyan at amc256@cornell.edu or Joey Diana Gates at jdg43@cornell.edu.

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Denni Purbasari, who will be discussing her work with Indonesia's Kartu Prakerja Program, which is a large-scale program for Indonesians looking to develop the skills which are needed to enter the modern workforce.

About the Speaker

Denni Puspa Purbasari has been the Executive Director of the Project Management Office (PMO) of the Kartu Prakerja Program at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs since March 2020. She is also a lecturer at the Department of Economics, Universitas Gadjah Mada. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2006. Before serving at PMO Kartu Prakerja Program, she was the Economic Deputy Chief of Staff of the Preseident of the Republic of Indonesia in 2015-2020, and the Assistant to the Economic Advisor for the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia in 2009-2014. She is the recipient of the Satya Lencana Karya Satya X, Fulbright Scholarship, Stanford Calderwood Student Teaching Award, James C. Campbell Thesis Research Award, Beverly Sears Student Research AWard, and the University of Colorado Fellowship.

Science & Technology Studies Spring 2023 Colloquium

This lecture by Jenny Goldstein (Global Development, Cornell) argues that Indonesia’s peatlands are experiments with land at a scale that states, scientists, and the planet’s inhabitants are just beginning to grapple with—yet are becoming increasingly common in a warming world.

Over the past several decades these peatlands—deep deposits of decaying, carbon-dense vegetation—have been transformed from forested wetlands to flammable landscapes that emit copious amounts of carbon dioxide. The reasons for such extensive destruction are often described in terms of failure: failed state development projects and failed attempts at land repair. Goldstein argues, however, that these novel landscapes are better understood as laboratories for living with earth system volatility than as failures.

The talk draws on conceptual frameworks from geography and STS and a political ecology of peat soil to unpack the story of the Mega Rice Project, a one-million hectare site of degraded peatland in Indonesian Borneo.

The formerly authoritarian Indonesian state drained the wetlands for rice production in the 1990s; since then, the peat soil now burns on a near-annual basis. In the years since the project ended, the area has attracted attention from development agencies, corporations, financiers, NGOs, and activists around the world.

As a result, the area has been a fulcrum for experiments on how to repair Indonesia’s degraded peatlands, a laboratory for scientific and political-economic practices shaped by climate change politics, and a place where rural communities attempt to live with ongoing ecological volatility.

Speaker

Jenny Goldstein is an assistant professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University, an Atkinson center for a Sustainable Future Faculty Fellow, and a core faculty member of Cornell’s Southeast Asian Studies Program. She is the elected president of the Cultural and Political Ecology speciality group of the American Association of Geographers (2022-24). From 2016-17 she was an Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future postdoctoral associate at Cornell, based in the Science & Technology Studies department.