Sociology

Through theoretical readings, case studies, this course examines how media practices and representations enable a re-imagining of national belonging, identity and community in the context of global relocations. Students will read and critique current events, research and theory drawn from interdisciplinary sources in order to engage with issues of transnational mobility, identity and citizenship. Specifically we will examine how media and technology impact and transform the experience of migration. The city will serve as a backdrop and context to situate our discussions and ethnographic understands of transnational immigrant communities. Expectations Students are expected to come prepared with the readings and actively participate in class and engage in collaborative activities Given the timely nature of our subject, students are expected to keep pace with current affairs and international news about immigration Responsible and honest participation in group project is expected Class...

We, or so we are told, are running out of time, of time to develop alternatives to a new politics of emergency, as constant crisis has exhausted the means of a politics of representation too slow for the state of exception, too ignorant of the distribution of political agency, too focused on the governability of financial architectures. But new forms of individual and collective agency already emerge, as we learn to live, love, work within the horizon of depletion, to ask what it means to sustain ourselves, each other, again. Of these and other knowledges so created, there can no longer be an encyclopedia; a glossary, perhaps. This is its initial iteration, its entries conjoined by a logic of connotation and constellation. <https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-8-depletion-design-a-glossary-of-network-ecologies-2/>

► Fünfgeld, A. (2016). The state of coal mining in East Kalimantan: Towards a political ecology of local stateness. ASEAS – Austrian Journal of SouthEast Asian Studies, 9(1), 147-162. The article aims at expanding political ecology research towards the role and constitution of states by demonstrating how local stateness is negotiated within conflicts over natural resources. It draws on a qualitative field study on the conflict over coal mining in East Ka-limantan's capital Samarinda, Indonesia, where certain characteristics of states, such as the monopoly of violence and the rule of law, are being affirmed, altered, or undermined through practices of state and non-state actors alike. These practices do not only challenge state representations, but also reveal the symbolic importance of ideas about the state. The theoretical framework is developed on the basis of Joel S. Migdal's state in society approach together with a later work of Pierre Bourdieu and Philip Abrams' thoughts about the nature of states.

Es ist ein außergewöhnlich sonniger Morgen im sonst so smogverhangenen Jakarta. Unter dem Schatten der Bäume an einer der Nebenstraßen des Bundaran HI, des bedeutendsten Kreisver-kehrs im Zentrum der indonesischen Hauptstadt, hat sich eine Gruppe von Umweltaktivist*innen versammelt. Bislang deuten nur die Straßensper-ren und das enorme Aufgebot an uniformierten Polizeikräften darauf hin, dass hier schon bald eine größere Demonstration stattfinden soll. Nach einiger Zeit des Wartens treffen unter gro-ßem Jubel mehrere Reisebusse ein, die Demons-trierende aus anderen Regionen Javas in die Hauptstadt bringen. Auch Ibu Sri ist unter den Reisenden. Sie kommt aus Batang in Ostjava, wo die Regierung ein neues Kohlekraftwerk bauen möchte. Auf die Frage, warum sie nach Jakarta gekommen ist, sagt sie: »Ich bin hergekommen obwohl ich schon alt bin. Ich bin hergekommen, weil uns das Land wegen des Kohlekraftwerks weggenommen wurde. […] Ich möchte Jokowi, dem Präsidenten, den ich gewählt habe, den ich unterstütze, mitteilen […], lasst uns bitte wieder auf unser Land, damit wir Essen für unsere Kinder und Enkel beschaffen können.«

The extraction of natural resources is inevitably bound to specific patterns of governance, usually centering on access control regulations. Thus, these governance efforts not only target the resources themselves or the land in which they are located, but also the lives of people living in and around extraction sites. Building on Political Ecology approaches and James Scott’s work on state strategies of rule and control, this paper looks at how governance is exercised in the field of resource extraction in Indonesia today. To this end, it compares historical patterns of governance in the Indonesian timber industry to current practices connected to coal mining in East Kalimantan. The author argues that while the specific approaches to controlling people and land have changed, basic patterns of access control remain intact.

Energy policy is one of today's major challenges for modern societies. The question whether and to what extent we have access to energy highly affects our everyday lives. Moreover, impacts from energy usage – notably from greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions, or from changes in land use – upon living conditions may be tremendous, from the local to the global scale. It is therefore of great importance to further think, speak, and discuss about future trajectories of energy production and supply. From a leftist perspective, it is important that these considerations do not only address economic or ecological issues on a broader scale, but further include ethical considerations of a socially just energy future. Moreover, in view of decreasing production costs for renewable energy technology and rising awareness about climate change impacts all over the world, it is the right time to place the topic of energy justice more prominently on domestic and international agendas and link it to ongoing debates on climate change, development, economic growth, sustainability, and so on. This must be done by applying a broad understanding of social justice, taking into account the full range of justice issues, including the distribution of costs and benefits as well as recognition-related aspects connected to energy production and supply.

Der indonesische Energiesektor basiert zum überwiegenden Teil auf der Nutzung fossiler Energieträger. Dies bringt nicht nur anhaltend hohe Emis-sionsraten mit sich und stellt damit die Klimaziele der indonesischen Regierung in Frage, sondern führt auch zu einer Reihe von sozio-ökonomi-schen Problemen. Besonders bedenklich ist dabei die Förderung und Verstromung von Kohle, welche vor allem die Lebensbedingungen in den Abbau-und Kraftwerksgebieten stark beeinträchtigt.

‘[...] it is the right time to place the topic of energy justice more prominently on domestic and international agendas [...]. This must be done by [...] taking into account the full range of justice issues [...]. The transformation needed thereby not only tackles the energy sector itself, but needs to be understood as a more general change in production
and consumption patterns.’
ANNA FÜNFGELD

Regional cooperation can be a means to enhance energy security, but it also faces many challenges in a diverse region like Southeast Asia with different geographical conditions, energy demands and resource availabilities. The most recent effort of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) towards enhancing cooperation in the energy and infrastructure sector was its inclusion in the region’s connectivity agenda. It builds on earlier transnational energy projects and pushes for the realization of transnational infrastructures, including an ASEAN gas pipeline network and a regional power grid.
Based on document analysis and qualitative interviews, the paper sheds light on how ASEAN’s connectivity master plan relates to regional energy cooperation and vice versa. It addresses the question of in how far ASEAN’s connectivity approach bears the potential to meet the region’s energy-related challenges. On a general plane, this is to evaluate how regional integration may contribute to addressing energy challenges.
The paper concludes that ASEAN faces several challenges: diverging needs and priorities of member states, the reliance on external funding sources, competing connectivity agendas, and social and environmental impacts from energy production and consumption. In order to secure regional energy supply in a socially and ecologically sustainable manner in the long run and reduce external dependencies, ASEAN needs to elaborate a common strategy to address these issues. It is particularly important to develop a common approach on how to deal with competing connectivity agendas, decrease funding dependencies on private companies, dialogue partners or multilateral banks, raise the share of renewables in the energy mix, and generally work towards a more ‘people-oriented’ energy policy that takes into account country-specific conditions.

Large-scale infrastructural development schemes are currently experiencing a worldwide political revival. Beyond establishing physical connections over distance, enhancing trade relations, and enabling service delivery, such schemes also play a central role in the construction of political entities. For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), infrastructure development is crucial for the advancement of regional connectivity. Its Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) includes large-scale projects such as the trans-ASEAN highway, trans-regional power grids, and a regional gas pipeline network. Linking Henri Lefebvre's conceptualization on the production of space with recent literature on the role of infrastructure imaginaries, this paper explores how the region's future is envisioned in the Southeast Asian dream of connectivity. The study primarily relies on a hermeneutic analysis of video releases that promote the Master Plan. It shows that-similar to other infrastructure projects-the connectivity dream is closely related to imaginaries of movement and modernity. However, as it is almost exclusively an urban vision, the connectivity agenda seems not only to interconnect and homogenize regional space but it may also enforce preexisting disconnections and so potentially lead to more fragmentation.

Despite widespread criticism and concerns about their impacts on climate change, fossil fuel energy sources like coal still contribute a significant share to the global energy supply. In emerging economies like Indonesia, they are perceived to play a pivotal role in meeting growing energy demands and ensuring economic growth and development. However, over the past decade, the extraction and use of coal has become increasingly contested by domestic NGOs. Based on a Gramscian approach to rule and resistance, the chapter focusses on the following questions: (1) In how far and how does Indonesian NGOs’ resistance against coal politics relate to (transnational) hegemonic orders of justification? (2) What does this reveal about rule in Indonesian energy politics? The analysis of qualitative empirical data reveals, that there exists a broad variety of contestation in terms of the norms and narratives the NGOs refer to, their protest repertoire, and their collaborations. Assessing how their norms, narratives, and practices of contestation relate to hegemonic orders of justification enables the identification of two different strands of contestation. Moreover, it shows the complex relation between transnational norms, international hegemonic orders, and domestic rule in this case.