Departing from Java: Javanese Labour, Migration and Diaspora

Diasporas and transnational communities have attracted much academic attention in the past three decades, and the resulting stream of literature is not diminishing. The Indonesian diaspora is by no means at the centre of global academic attention. There have been, however, noticeable changes in Indonesia since the first Congress of Indonesian Diaspora was held in 2012, and the Indonesian Diaspora Desk, headed at the ambassadorial level, was established in 2013. While the Desk has focused on the potential future economic contributors to Indonesia, subsequent Indonesian Diaspora Congresses have concentrated on the historical diaspora and people of ‘Malay stock’. Departing from Java offers a rich assemblage of the experience of the largest subsection of the Indonesian diaspora, past and present—Javanese labour migrants. The Javanese diaspora has a longer history than that of what we now understand to be the Indonesian diaspora. This book has arisen from a workshop held in late 2013 by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, and it has nine chapters and an introduction that embeds the book in the wider fields of labour, migration, and diaspora studies. It is a balanced compilation from a range of contributors, including senior and junior Indonesian and non-Indonesian scholars with expertise in disciplines such as history, Indonesian language and literature, geography, psychology, international relations, and gender studies. Contributions cover Javanese temporary and permanent migration within and, to a greater extent, beyond the Indonesian archipelago, as far as the Arabian Peninsula, Suriname, and New Caledonia.