Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Indonesian Studies
At last week's fantastic AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies, I was delighted to join and moderate a panel on "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Indonesian Studies," alongside colleagues from around Indonesia and the US. (Sadly, we also recruited to awesome graduate students from the US and Indonesia to participate in the conversation, but neither of them was able to log in on that day to provide their planned contributions.) I thought it would be worthwhile to reflect on the reasoning behind the panel and on the discussion, given that the concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or "DEI" (especially in the context of higher education) have become such lightning rods. In researching Indonesia, there is an obvious long-standing division between people from Indonesia researching about the country, its people, its…