Dr Ratna Saptari
Profile
Ratna Saptari studied anthropology at the University of Indonesia (MA 1984) and at the University of Amsterdam (PhD 1995). She has lectured at the department of anthropology, University of Indonesia (1984 - 1986); and the University of Amsterdam (MA Course on Asian Studies, 2003-2006). As coordinator of the IIAS-funded Changing Labour Relations in Asia (CLARA) programme (1997 - 2003) she has organized several panels and conferences in collaboration with research/teaching institutions in Europe and Asia focusing on topics such as labour, migration, domestic service, social movements and histories of subaltern groups.
Apart from various published articles and book chapters on these themes, she has co-edited a number of books on: gender and households in Indonesia (2000), on labour (2004) on the politics of Indonesian history-writing (2008).
Her current writing/ research projects are: a) The Making and Remaking of the Cigarette Labour Communities in East Java: a comparative study of three cigarette towns, 1913-2006; b) Decolonisation and Urban Labour in Indonesia (1920s to 1965): Continuity and Change c) The Cultures of Tobacco in Indonesia and India.
Selected publications
- 'The Political Economy of Smoking: The Case of the Kretek Cigarette Industry in Indonesia', in Health and Health Care in Java. P. Boomgaard (ed) (Leiden, KITLV Press, 1996)
- 'Gender Interests and the Struggle of NGOs within and Beyond the State: The Experience of Women Organizing in Indonesia' in Journal Für Entwicklungspolitik, xiii.Jg., Heft 3 (1997).
- 'Women, Family and Household: Tensions in Culture and Practice' in J. Koning, M. Nolten, J. Rodenburg and R.Saptari (eds), The Household and Beyond: Cultural Notions and Social Practices in the Study of Gender in Indonesia. (Richmond, Curzon Press-NIAS, 2000). pp. 10-25.
- 'Production Processes and the Gendering of Industrial Work in Asia' in Asian Studies Review Vol. 24 No. 2. (2000)
- "The Politics of Domination and Protest in Indonesia: 'Marsinah' and Its Aftermath" in Arvind N. Das, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Marcel van der Linden (eds), Work and Social Change in Asia: Essays in Honour of Jan Breman (New Delhi: Manohar, 2003)
- Labour in Southeast Asia: Local Processes in a Globalized World (co-edited with Rebecca Elmhirst). (London, Routledge Curzon Press, 2004)
- 'Studying Asian Domestics Within Global Processes' in Global Labour History: A State of the Art. Edited by Jan Lucassen. International and Comparative Social History, 9. (Bern, Peter Lang, 2006). pp 479-512.
- 'The Politics of Workers Contention: the 1999 Mayora Workers Strike in Tangerang, West Java' in International Review of Social History Vol 53 (2008) pp 1-35.
- Pemikiran Kembali Penulisan Sejarah Indonesia (Rethinking Indonesian History-Writing) co-edited with Henk Schulte Nordholt and Bambang Purwanto. (Jakarta, KITLV/Obor, 2008)