Description
Indonesia, a nation that has rapidly evolved from its colonial roots into the world's third-largest democracy, a significant player in the Muslim world, and one of the globe's most influential economies. This joint minor program invites you to delve into this remarkable nation, where tradition intersects with tomorrow.
Picture a nation undergoing a profound urban revolution. Indonesia is committed to the development of 100 smart cities and currently builds a new capital inspired by the United Nations' sustainable development goals. Yet, amidst its impressive progress, Indonesia grapples with disparities, particularly between urban and rural areas, which manifest in infrastructure deficits and limited access to essential services such as infrastructure, health and education. Throughout the program, you'll delve into these complex issues and explore how your insights and ideas can contribute to bridging these gaps.
Indonesia serves as an intricate microcosm of contemporary global challenges, from climate change and sinking cities to biodiversity loss. However, it's also a hotbed of inventive solutions, such as green practices rooted in Islamic traditions and time-tested methods of water management. Our joint minor program revolves around rapidly urbanizing regions in the global South, highlighting the ingenious forms of resilience that these regions exhibit. More importantly, it empowers you, as an LDE student, to think critically about these challenges and take the lead in creating positive change.
This program aligns with the Indonesia – Netherlands Universities Consortium on Sustainable Futures (INUCoST), in which the LDE universities and their Indonesian partners focus on crucial themes such as Energy Transition, Water Quality Management, Biodiversity, Digitalizing Society, Public Health, Heritage and Tourism. Concepts like co-creation and citizen science will be your guides as you explore how Indonesia is shaped by its potential future scenarios. Utilizing mixed methods such as multimodal ethnography, design, and prototyping, you will make the future tangible and engage in meaningful discourse.
For whom?
The Future Challenges LAB is to be held entirely in Indonesia and runs from early September to beginning of December. In executing this joint minor, collaboration is sought with the Faculty of Social Sciences at Universitas Indonesia. The program's coordination is meticulously managed from the LDE-KITLV office in Indonesia and conducted at the Depok Campus of Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, where students will stay for three subsequent months.
Collaborate with fellow students from diverse disciplines to establish your multidisciplinary theme project. Fieldwork takes you to the bustling city of Jakarta, the newly developed capital IKN, or the intricate world of water management in the Surabaya region. This exceptional minor program culminates in a written policy memorandum, offering you a platform to present your insights and solutions to a broader audience.
No prior knowledge of Indonesian language and culture is required and students from different disciplines are welcome. However, an interest in working with students from other disciplines and a willingness to test new methods is a requirement.
Maximum number participants: 25
Type of minor: Non-selection minor
What will you learn
Critical reflective analysis of the ways in which Indonesia and other countries in the global South deal with the major challenges of our time, the often ingenious and resilient answers they manage to find and what we in the global North can learn from them.
Gain an understanding of the challenges of interdisciplinary work using concepts such as co-creation, citizen science and the application of methods from different disciplines, including ethnography, surveys, design and prototyping
Knowledge of country, language and culture, and using this to understand the most pressing problems and communicate about them with Indonesian counterparts.
Learn how to conduct independent research within a multidisciplinary and multinational team. Students go through all phases of the research cycle. This means, among other things, developing a chosen research theme; operationalization based on theory; writing an outline; collecting research data; analysis and reporting of data; presentation in the form of a short policy report at a one-day conference
Course overview
The minor consists of the following courses
10 ECTS course Future Indonesian Challenges
This course looks from different disciplinary perspectives at the major challenges that Indonesians face, from climate change and sinking cities to the loss of biodiversity and what digitalization does to social relationships and inequality. How did we get here, what is unique about the Indonesian case and what applies equally well elsewhere.
5 ECTS Speaking Bahasa Indonesia
An intensive basic Indonesian course mainly focused on simple everyday communication. The course is aimed at those without any prior knowledge of the language.
5 ECTS Designing your interdisciplinary team project
A week-long intensive workshop in which students from the LDE and Indonesian partner universities, and from various disciplines jointly define a problem, formulate questions and then further operationalize this using a mix of methods. The emphasis in the workshop is on the concepts of co-creation and citizen science, while methods are inspired by design anthropology and collective work on prototypes. The outcome is a joint research proposal that can be implemented in three weeks
10 ECTS Fieldwork & Policy Report
Teams of 4 students (multinational, multidisciplinary) carry out their research proposal in situ, receiving regular feedback from the lecturers involved. After returning from the field, a short policy paper (3-4) pages is jointly written that will be presented to an audience of stakeholders during the final meeting
Participating institutions
Faculty of Social Sciences, Leiden University (Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology)
Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft
Register for this minor
PLEASE NOTE: All students (Leiden University, TU Delft and EUR) need to register for this minor via EduXchange
Registration for students of Leiden University, TU Delft and EUR is possible from 15 May 2024 13:00 o'clock up to and including 31 May 2024 23:59 o'clock.
More information on how to apply via EduXchange can be found via this link.
More information
There are additional costs associated with this course:
The contribution per student for local transport costs, accommodation and food is 600 euros (still pending, the final amount will be announced during the information meeting).
In addition, students bear costs for their plane ticket to Indonesia, their visa, insurance (universal health insurance with World Coverage, third party liability, travel insurance) and vaccinations (depending on personal travel history and doctor's advice). The total costs differ per person but are estimated at an average of 1500 euros.
For more information, you can contact Prof.dr. B.A. Barendregt