La partie principale de ce volume (pp. 51-201) consiste en la traduction annotee du Kai Ba lidai shiji 开吧历代史记, chronique de la communaute chinoise de Batavia, redigee vers 1794 par un auteur qui ne revele pas son nom. Elle est precedee d’une partie introductive en six chapitres. Le premier donne un apercu de la situation a Batavia aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles et insiste sur l’idee qu’il y aurait eu une sorte de convivencia, ou coexistence culturelle entre Hollandais et Chinois, laquelle aurai...

Durant plus de trente ans, l’ecriture de l’histoire indonesienne a ete controlee par le gouvernement de Soeharto. Les faits et la perspective historique ont ete construits en fonction des interets du groupe au pouvoir a cette epoque. Cet ouvrage, redige par un collectif, est un livre d’histoire illustre dont le but est de presenter des faits et une perspective historique nouveaux sur un groupe qui a jusqu’a present ete elimine par l’Etat : la gauche. Le livre se divise en quatre chapitres cor...

Cet article présente deux extraits des mémoires de Tedjabayu, qui a passé quatorze ans en prison, à Java, et au bagne de Buru, entre 1965 et 1979. Tedjabayu est l’aîné des huit enfants de Sudjojono et Mia Bustam. Il avait 21 ans lorsqu’il a été arrêté ; il était étudiant en géographie à l’Université Gadjah Mada et membre du CGMI (Fédération des mouvements étudiants d’Indonésie, d’obédience communiste). Les mémoires, inédits jusqu’à aujourd’hui, ont été écrits en 2014-2017 ; ils sont accompagnés d’un journal, tenu à Buru en 1978‒1979. Ce texte constitue un document important sur la vie à Buru, à côté de la douzaine de souvenirs déjà publiés sur ce bagne, où le régime de Soeharto envoya 12.000 hommes entre 1969 et 1979. En dépit de tous les mauvais traitements qu’il a subis, Tedjabayu relate ses années de détention avec la volonté de toujours privilégier la beauté de la nature, le bonheur de l’amitié et l’émerveillement de vivre.

Given the changing environmental realities under colonial rule, Java was believed to have come close to a time of ecological crisis. Drawing upon a number of historical sources, this paper examines the development of nature conservation in a frontier region of Java called the Besuki Residency. It is argued that nature conservation in the region was a reflection of trends in a broader context. The challenges for nature conservation were not only due to the continuing contests over resources between the state and the people, but also to internal issues within the government. Up until around 1970 nature conservation remained very much state-centred and with a strong international thrust, rather than relying on popular support, and the primary problems were mostly encountered in the enforcement of the laws, rather than in the absence of a legal framework. The problems existing in the implementation of nature conservation both during the colonial and post-colonial periods essentially remained very much the same.

Sulawesi has been in the archaeological news recently. In January 2016 a date of more than 100 000 years was announced for stone tools, almost certainly made by pre-modern hominins, from a site in the middle of South Sulawesi. In 2014, cave art from the well-known sites near Maros was dated to about 40 000 years ago, the oldest date for figurative art in the world. This symposium, convened by Sue O’Connor and David Bulbeck, both of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian Nationa...

Historique Le Museum Pustaka Tionghoa Peranakan, est le premier du genre à être consacré aux écrits émanant de la communauté sino-indonésienne. Il a été fondé dans le district de Serpong, Tangerang Sud, en 2012, à l’initiative de Monsieur Azmi Abu Balear, ingénieur de formation âgé d’une quarantaine d’années, reconverti dans la vente de livres d’occasion. Avec son épouse, Madame Fajrieni, il possède et gère deux librairies, dont l’une en face du musée-bibliothèque, et l’autre à Bekasi. Il y ...

In 1999 Aceh province (renamed Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam), in the north of Sumatra, was granted the exceptional authorization to apply sharia on its territory. The process, however, is slow, difficult and conflictive. In such a context the highlighting of compendiums of Islamic law (fiqh) written in Malay at the time of the sultanate tends to confirm the idea, much widespread for a long time, that sharia has always been implemented in Aceh. It happens that a local publisher has released in 2015 two ancient texts: the Mir’at al-Tullab by Abdurrauf al-Singkili (1672) and the Safinat al-Hukkam by Jalaluddin al-Tarusani (1740). The article examines to what extent historical sources—especially about the law in force and more generally the observance of Islam in Aceh in the 17th century—allow us to evaluate in what conditions and for what purpose those two texts were written.

The Old Javanese term lañcingan is analysed in detail. Considered by previous scholars to designate “trousers,” it is demonstrated that Old Javanese literary and epigraphical record does not preclude the possibility that in pre-Islamic Java lañcingan denoted an elaborate variety of loincloth, especially the loincloth used in the context of warfare. It is shown that only in the 14th century CE Javanese texts make a distinction between the loincloth (cavět) and trousers (lañcingan). Yet another term, gadag, denoting exclusively “trousers,” is attested in textual record first in the 14-15th centuries CE. In the second part of the article a hypothesis that the bifurcated lower garment has first been introduced in Java through cultural influences of Islam is questioned. An alternative hypothesis is offered that trousers, related to mounted warfare and increased mobility, were adopted earlier than claimed by previous scholars, already sometime between the 12th-14th centuries CE, as an element of Javanese (battle) dress. The introduction of trousers is seen as part of a complex process of the elaboration of horse-riding techniques and specialized equipment, such as improved saddles.

Ce gros volume collectif, qui reunit les contributions de 15 specialistes (dont 5 Indonesiens), est le fruit d’un symposium intitule Negotiating Interreligious Relationships in Bali and Lombok, organise a l’Universite Georg-August de Gottingen en juillet 2011 sous la direction de Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin et Meike Rieger. L’appel a communications invitait les participants pressentis a etudier la maniere dont le processus de democratisation et de decentralisation mis en oeuvre par la Reformasi...

I discovered Geoffrey Benjamin’s work in the mid-1980s : first, a seminal paper delivered at the 1985 IPPA Conference, and later circulated by the National University of Singapore as a Working Paper titled Between Isthmus and Islands : Reflections on Malayan Palaeo-Sociology (1986). At about the same time, I came across his remarkable “In the Long Term : Three Themes in Malayan Cultural Ecology” (1985). Benjamin’s way of weaving together various disciplines to make sense of history within a b...