Indonesia Program

Indonesia has been the focus of several CIES research project. The program was initiated with a joint research project, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR Project No 9449), between CASER (Bogor), CIES (Adelaide), CSIS (Jakarta) and RSPAS (ANU,Canberra).

There are currently two projects underway:

Religious organisations and social capital in Indonesia
Funded by the AIGRP (Australia Indonesia Governance Research Partnership).

This projects focuses in the relationships between religious organizations, the formation of social capital, and democratic performance.
Social capital, defined as the networks of social connections and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them, is an important factor in the formation of civil society. As religious organizations play a significant role in facilitating the community's social capital in many ways. The project focuses on religious organizations' involvement with the community, in particular their provision of Islamic schools, the Madrassahs.

The research finds that Madrassahs serve as a spring of social capital for rural communities. By cultivating trust and social cohesion and facilitating collective action and knowledge sharing, Madrassahs play an important role in shaping local political culture.

Links to disemination material:

www.aigrp.anu.edu.au/docs/projects/1015/nuryartono_en.pdf

www.aigrp.anu.edu.au/docs/projects/1015/nuryartono_pt.pdf

Islamic organisations and women's empowerment in Indonesia
Funded by AusAID.

Women's empowerment is recognized as crucial to development, leading to improved health and educational outcomes of household members. In many Muslim countries, Islamic organisations are involved in many areas of development and are important agents of social change. As many Islamic organisations have activities targeted towards women, a key issue is to understand how they affect women's empowerment.
This research in progress aims to provide a better understanding of the role of Islamic women's organisations in empowering women. The main research question is: How do Islamic organisations contribute to the empowerment of women in Indonesia?
In particular, the study aims to focus on Islamic women's organisations within Islamic organisations and answer the following questions: (i) How do Islamic women's organisations function? (ii) What are the impacts of their activities on various aspects of women's empowerment including education, health, household decision-making, and political participation?

Past Publications