In Balinese Worlds, Fredrik Barth proposes a new model for anthropological analysis of complex civilizations that is based on a fresh, synthetic account of culture and society in North Bali and one that takes full notice of individual creativity in shaping the contours of this dynamic culture.

In this detailed ethnography of the Northern district of Buleleng, Barth rejects mainstream anthropological generalizations of Bali as a cultural system of carefully articulated parts. Instead—drawing on many sources, including the sociology of knowledge, interactional analysis, postmodern thought, and his own exceptionally varied field experience—Barth presents a new model that actually generates variation. Barth's innovative analysis of Balinese life highlights both the constructive and the disorganizing effects of individual action, the constant flux of interpretation, and the powerful interaction of memory and social relationships, and knowledge as a cultural resource.

Balinese Worlds is a unique contribution not only to Balinese studies but also to the theory and methods of the anthropology of complex societies.

Beyond Decent Work explores the history of the Indonesian labor movement, using three contemporary case studies to shed light on the development of Indonesia’s labor struggles and trade union strategies. Drawing on extensive and recent qualitative fieldwork, Felix Hauf argues that the economic idea of “decent work” plays a central role in current trade union strategies at the expense of more radical—or traditional working-class—strategies of industrial action, even though the latter have been more effective in fulfilling workers’ demands for higher wages and better working conditions. Hauf’s analysis offers unique insight into the labor dynamics of Indonesia and Southeast Asia more broadly, revealing how genuinely democratic and independent unions—confronted with rival unions controlled by businesses, Indonesian subcontractors, multinational corporations, and the Indonesian state—struggle to create an economy outside the confines of neoliberal capitalism.

Behind the statistics of migration are the life stories of millions of migrants and their descendants. The movement of people out of China is one of the largest movements of humanity in modern times and large numbers of Chinese emigrated to the colony of

Millions of Chinese have left the mainland over the last two centuries in search of new beginnings. The majority went to Southeast Asia, and the single largest destination was the colony of the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. Wherever the Chinese landed they prospered, but in Indonesia, even though some families made fortunes, they never felt they quite belonged.

BitterSweet is the account of one Chinese-Indonesian family whose story stretches over the generations as their fortunes waxed and waned through revolution, riots, war, depression, occupation, and finally emigration to yet another country—Australia.

BitterSweet offers a unique insight into a world rarely seen before. An Sudibjo’s memoir, written from a woman’s perspective, is a valuable resource for anyone studying Indonesian history or the Chinese Diaspora.

A timely ethnography of how Indonesia’s coastal dwellers inhabit the “chronic present” of a slow-motion natural disaster

Ice caps are melting, seas are rising, and densely populated cities worldwide are threatened by floodwaters, especially in Southeast Asia. Building on Borrowed Time is a timely and powerful ethnography of how people in Semarang, Indonesia, on the north coast of Java, are dealing with this global warming–driven existential challenge. In addition to antiflooding infrastructure breaking down, vast areas of cities like Semarang and Jakarta are rapidly sinking, affecting the very foundations of urban life: toxic water oozes through the floors of houses, bridges are submerged, traffic is interrupted. 

As Lukas Ley shows, the residents of Semarang are constantly engaged in maintaining their homes and streets, trying to live through a slow-motion disaster shaped by the interacting temporalities of infrastructural failure, ecological deterioration, and urban development. He casts this predicament through the temporal lens of a “meantime,” a managerial response that means a constant enduring of the present rather than progress toward a better future—a “chronic present.” 

Building on Borrowed Time takes us to a place where a flood crisis has already arrived—where everyday residents are not waiting for the effects of climate change but are in fact already living with it—and shows that life in coastal Southeast Asia is defined not by the temporality of climate science but by the lived experience of tidal flooding.

In 1965–66, army-organized massacres claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia. Very few of these atrocities have been studied in any detail, and answers to basic questions remain unclear. What was the relationship between the army and civilian militias? How could the perpetrators come to view unarmed individuals as dangerous enemies of the nation? Why did Communist Party supporters, who numbered in the millions, not resist?
Drawing upon years of research and interviews with survivors, Buried Histories is an impressive contribution to the literature on genocide and mass atrocity, crucially addressing the topics of media, military organization, economic interests, and resistance.