This article considers the experiences of Dutch and Indonesian women in enforced prostitution for the Japanese military during World War Two and the activism of prominent survivors and their supporters from the 1990s. It highlights how and why Japanese activists have continued to support these women and why Dutch and Indonesian women have rarely engaged in joint activism. It analyses how Dutch and Indonesian women's stories are presented together in a 2015-2016 exhibition at the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo and how women's and soldiers' testimonies are used to advocate further redress from the Japanese government and to challenge military sexual violence against women. The article assesses how a sustained focus in transnational activism on Japanese responsibility and the Japanese imperial context potentially leads to overlooking how localised forms of patriarchy and the specific context of this former Dutch colony affected women's experiences and their post war treatment.

Indonesia's last regional conflict remains intractable. We are reminded of this by demonstrations and mass detentions in 2018 around the 1 December anniversary of Papua's ‘Independence’ Day and the killing a day later of at least 16 construction workers in the central highlands district of Nduga with the military operations that followed. These events will be discussed further in the paper after a brief outline of the conflict in Papua.

This article explores popular music of Japan's Cold War era, with a special focus on singing duo The Peanuts and the film Mothra. It argues that Japanese culture of the Cold War must be understood as participating simultaneously in all three networks of the Cold War order—the First World of capitalist liberal democracies, the Second World of the socialist bloc, and the Third World of the decolonizing and nonaligned Bandung Movement.

Dutch recognition of Indonesia's sovereignty in December 1949 ended the constraints of colonialism, invasion, and reoccupation. Unions were free to reorganize and workers were free to take collective action to improve their lot in life. A labor movement that had struggled against a repressive colonial regime now flourished. There was freedom of association, freedom of the press, electoral politics with universal suffrage, and above all, the right to engage in industrial action. Eight years later, hopes for a strong labor movement with deep roots in workplaces were dashed, first, by the imposition of military law and then, by the collapse of parliamentary democracy. It was not until Suharto's ‘New Order’ regime collapsed in 1998 that workers regained the freedom of association and to engage in collective action.

This article examines the forces behind former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purna's recent imprisonment and the subsequent political upheaval in Indonesia. It delves into the murky ties between President Donald Trump's most important Indonesian business partner, multi-billionaire Hary Tanoesodibjo and the latter's relationship with pro-Islamist politicians and the military to evaluate the consequences of political turmoil on the future of Indonesia.

E-commerce applications have significantly changed how people transact with each other. This includes digital advances that drive illegal wildlife trade. In Indonesia, the Conservation Act of 1990 was enacted before the internet revolution and does not, therefore, adequately cover online illegal wildlife trade. In this study we identified wildlife traded illegally through advertisements published by five large national e-commerce companies and one social media platform operating in Indonesia, using 39 keywords. We also analysed data on wildlife cybercrime court case outcomes, associated criminal networks and their modus operandi. Over 12 months, we found 996 advertisements for wildlife and wildlife products, including of 45 nationally protected species, from 421 accounts. Amongst the six platforms monitored, Facebook Marketplace had the highest illegal wildlife trade traffic. We found that those prosecuted for online illegal wildlife trade were given low sentences. Our analysis of wildlife legislation, focus group discussions and expert interviews showed that the Government of Indonesia Trade Law (2014) and Law on Electronic Information and Transactions (2008) cannot be used to prosecute online illegal wildlife trade cases because these laws do not acknowledge regulations for protected species. Our study emphasizes the urgency of revising the Conservation Act and changing the definition of trade to include advertisements of protected species. We recommend development of screening tools for advertisements and accounts on e-commerce platforms, review of community/user guidelines to prohibit trade of protected species, and strengthening the approach of combining multi-context laws with stakeholder cooperation to prosecute online illegal wildlife trade cases.

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Islamic organisation, is renowned for fostering tolerance in Indonesia. However, recent studies have revealed that the degrees of tolerance NU displays are inconsistent, throwing the organisation’s reputation for acceptance into question. By adopting critical juncture and case study analyses, this article finds that tolerance within NU is dynamic for three reasons. First, it evolves depending on the social-political context of the time. Second, NU upholds tolerance within specific limits, extending it to those who do not contradict the Islamic values it upholds and who do not pose a threat to the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). Third, the commitment to tolerance by NU’s membership, the nahdliyin, varies and does not always align with NU’s principles.

The nature of Indonesia’s foreign policy has long been understood as non-aligned. It has been associated with the basic tenet of bebas aktif (being independent and active) and the evolving international relations of the state, which demonstrated continuity in its non-side-taking position in the Cold War. However, recently, new trends in Indonesia’s regional and global conduct have emerged, including the diversification of multilateral engagements beyond ASEAN, the strengthening of various forms of strategic partnerships with major Indo-Pacific powers, and the adoption of normative hedging policies in response to sensitive international issues. What explains these developments? The conception of Indonesian foreign policy as being defined by non-alignment is no longer appropriate. This article argues that Indonesia now employs a partial multi-alignment strategy. Nevertheless, limited national power and persistent threat perceptions prevent the state from pursuing a fully multi-aligned strategy.

Indonesia's volcanoes are places of recreation, aesthetic production, and scientific knowledge-gathering, as well as sites of pilgrimage, spirituality, and natural disasters for locals as well as international travellers. In this article, I focus on volcanoes as historic sites of labour to demonstrate the entanglement of colonial tourism and science with local forms of work and knowledge, and to reveal the origins of the porting and guiding work that takes place on Indonesia's volcanoes to this day. Using Tina Campt's method of “listening to images,” I show how colonial photographs, albeit partial sources, make modes of subaltern labour visible that written sources routinely minimised, restoring porters, guides, and what I call “camp domestics” to histories of service, science and geotourism in Indonesia. Recognising the homosocial setting of the colonial scientific expedition and the peculiar physical challenges of the volcano environment, I also examine the negotiation of Indonesian and European masculinities and their intersection with class and racial hierarchies on the volcano. The article thus reflects on how Javanese workers’ spatial and social mobility entailed the negotiation of opportunity as well as exploitation on tour.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented multifaceted challenges globally, impacting adolescent health. Among these, food security and nutrition are intertwined closely with mental health outcomes. In Indonesia, with its diverse socio-economic landscape, these interconnections may have been exacerbated by the pandemic. This study investigated the relationship between food security, nutrition and adolescent mental health in Indonesia during COVID-19. Longitudinal data were collected from 511 adolescent boys and girls in 2021–2022 in Gunungkidul district, Yogyakarta. Food security was measured using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), and the validated Kessler-10 Psychological Distress Scale (K10) was used to measure adolescent depression. Multivariate linear regression and linear mixed-effects regression were employed to explore associations between these variables, while adjusting for sex, age, pubertal status and household income. Overall, food insecurity score was positively associated with depressive symptoms (β: 0·72, 95 % CI 0·52, 0·92), while BMI z-score was inversely associated (β: −0·31, 95 % CI 0·68, −0·03). We found an increase in strength of association between food insecurity and depressive symptoms over time (moderately food-insecure: β: 1·36 (95 % CI −0·10, 2·83) to 4·63 (95 % CI 2·17, 7·09); severely food-insecure: β: 1·89 (95 % CI 0·36, 3·41) to 3·30 (95 % CI 1·50, 5·10). Enhancing food access, improving nutritional status and providing mental health support are crucial components of adolescent health.

A recent study published in Oryx proposed that the extinct Javan tiger Panthera tigris sondaica may still survive on the Island of Java, Indonesia, based on mitochondrial DNA analysis of a single hair sample collected from a location where a tiger was reportedly encountered. However, upon reanalysing the genetic data presented in that study, we conclude that there is little support for this claim. The sequences of the putative tiger hair and Javan tiger museum specimens generated are not from tiger cytoplasmic mitochondrial DNA but more likely the nuclear pseudogene copies of mitochondrial DNA. In addition, the number of mismatches between the two Javan tiger sequences is unusually high for homologous sequences that are both from tigers, suggesting potential issues with data reliability. The paper provides insufficient details on quality control measures, making it impossible to rule out the possibility that errors were introduced during the analysis. Consequently, it is inappropriate to use the sequences presented in that study to infer the existence of the Javan tiger.

Poisonous birds are rare but on New Guinea, including Indonesia’s easternmost provinces, no less than nine poisonous species, eight pitohuis and one species of ifrita, are found. Pitohuis when handled can cause sneezing with numbness and burning of nasal tissue and nausea in humans. In the bird markets of western Indonesia novelty birds are traded at a premium and overexploitation of popular songbirds leads traders to find replacement species to meet demand. We conducted over 800 surveys in the bird markets of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, and Sulawesi between 1994 and 2023 and from 2015 onwards we assessed the online trade in pitohuis and Blue-capped Ifrit Ifrita kowaldi. We identified the species, recorded their prices and location, and the date when the birds were offered for sale. We analysed temporal trends, volumes, prices, and geographical origin of the sellers. Between 1994 and 2014 we did not encounter a single pitohui in the Indonesian bird markets. In the following years we recorded 113 pitohuis in 12 bird markets and we recorded 199 pitohuis for sale online; 248 were variable pitohuis and 54 were Hooded Pitohui Pitohui dichrous. No ifritas were recorded. Most pitohuis were recorded in eastern Java and Bali. Prices differed between eastern Java (mean of US$93) and western Java and Bali (US$185), possibly suggesting pitohuis arrive from West Papua in eastern Java and from there make their way to the outer markets. Pitohuis are marketed as “Papuan Straw-headed Bulbuls”; the Straw-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus zeylanicus is a very popular and expensive songbird from Southeast Asia, including western Indonesia, that has become rare both in the wild and in the markets due to overexploitation. Discussions about pitohuis on online forums rarely mention “poisonous” but when it is mentioned traders dismiss this as something not to worry about and they claim it to be dietary-dependent. Poisonous pitohuis are novelty, as well as master, birds in Indonesia, where they are marketed for their song ignoring any negative side-effects of them being poisonous. The trade in novelty species, when detected early, does allow for the authorities to intervene in a timely manner to ensure that this trade does not impede their conservation.