‘Which Part of Your Work is IR?’ on Western Dominance and the Discipline of International Relations in Indonesia

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the foundations of Western dominance in the discipline of International Relations (IR) in Indonesia. Drawing on a contextualized autoethnographic reflection of learning and researching IR in Indonesia during my undergraduate studies between 2008 and 2013, I argue that Western dominance in Indonesian IR discipline is not simply characterized by imposition of a certain academic tradition from the West but also reproduced in everyday academic discourse and naturalized through institutional practices of power. Drawing on my autoethnographic reflections, Western dominance has been maintained and naturalized through everyday exclusionary practices in IR discipline. I encountered this exclusionary practice through a gatekeeping question that was often asked during my time as an undergraduate student and researcher in Indonesia: ‘which part of your work is IR?’. This gatekeeping practice is rooted in the larger history of bureaucratization and state co-optation of Indonesian academic community, which is still perpetuated by the government. Nevertheless, this Western epistemic dominance has been resisted through non-academic spaces. Through this contextualized autoethnographic reflections, I offer some rethinking of Global IR project by highlighting internal hierarchy and Western dominance in the discipline of International Relations, as well as resistance against it by non-academic communities.