Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, born in Tegal, Java, Indonesia, in 1952. Ph.D. from the Australian National University, Canberra. Director and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social and Cultural Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta.
Fellow (1 September 2000 – 30 June 2001)
For an Indonesian scholar a year at NIAS was a perfect occasion for a kind of ‘deep observation’ of the ongoing social and political turmoil in contemporary Indonesia. During my stay as a Fellow-in-Residence at NIAS (September 2000 – June 2001), I achieved two important goals. Firstly, I finalised my manuscript that hopefully will be published as a book. The book, “From Colonisation to Nation-State: The Political Demography of Indonesia”, represents my research works on the complex relationship of migration, political demography and ethnicity in contemporary Indonesia. In addition to the book manuscript, several articles were prepared as chapters in an edited book or for academic journals. NIAS has provided both a working and living atmosphere that enabled me to concentrate on my research activities, and also to expand my research networks, both in the Netherlands and Western Europe. This is particularly a result of the central location of NIAS in Wassenaar that allows easy access to other research institutes in the Netherlands and Western Europe. At the end of my fellowship period at NIAS I feel that I have achieved not only what I initially planned, but also beyond what I envisioned before I arrived at NIAS.