Staff Profiles
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Dr Ian Chalmers
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- Role:
- Senior Lecturer
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- Department:
- Department of Asian Languages
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- Location:
- Humanities 407
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- Telephone:
- +61 8 9266 7081
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- Email:
- i.chalmers@curtin.edu.au
Dr Chalmers currently teaches Asian Studies, Indonesian Studies, and the religions of Southeast Asia. He has taught on the international relations of East Asia, focusing on development-related issues, and has published extensively in the areas of international political economy and Southeast Asian politics, particularly Indonesia. He currently has two research projects: one on the religions of Borneo, and the other on radical Islam in Indonesia.
His books deal with the political economy of industrialisation in Indonesia (1996), Indonesia’s changing economic policies since the 1970s (1997), and a study of social and cultural change in contemporary Indonesia (2006).
Research Projects
Ian Chalmers is currently overseeing a project on 'cultural and botanical regeneration in Bali'. Its immediate aim is to preserve dozens of tropical plants endemic to Bali, some of which are critically endangered. Working with Udayana University in Denpasar and Chris Brown, a student of Indonesian Studies at Curtin, the project will initially codify the plants of various botanical regions, establish various sites for their regeneration, and then make these plants available to local communities.These plants are mainly used for religious ceremonies, and the project will thus also preserve local cultural practices. Within Curtin, various departments such as Environmental Biology and the Australian Sustainable Diversity Institute (ASDI), are also involved.
Ian Chalmers is a member of a multi-university research team that is currently implementing a two-year research project on 'life stories of Indonesian jihadists'. Through an examination of the experiences of former members of terrorist organisations, this project will provide a comprehensive account of how various individuals in Indonesia became involved in terrorist activities, and why some later disengaged. We also aim to develop a better theoretical framework for analysing the factors that might lead religious activists to become engaged in terrorism, and will thereby contribute to the counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation programs of various agencies. The study is carried out by a research team of academics from Curtin, Monash, UNE and Pennsylvania State University, working in conjunction with the Muhammadiyah University of Malang, East Java.
RESEARCH GRANTS
The making and unmaking of Indonesian terrorists: individual life stories
U.S. Embassy, Canberra; U.S. Ambassador's Fund for Counterterrorism;
Publications
Books (Authored, Research)
- Chalmers, I. 2006. Indonesia - An Introduction to Contemporary Traditions. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.
Book Chapters (Authored, Research Quality)
- Chalmers, I. 2009. Intersecting Islamic and ethnic identities in Kalimantan, Indonesia. In People, Place and Power: Australia and the Asia Pacific, eds D. Bennett, J. Earnest and M. Tanji, 80-110. Perth: Black Swan Press.
Refereed Articles (Scholarly Journals)
- Chalmers, I. 2007. The Islamization of Southern Kalimantan: Sufi Spiritualism, Ethnic Identity, Political Activism. Studia Islamika - Indonesian Journal for Islamic Studies 14(3): 371-417.
Fully written papers (Refereed Conference proceedings)
- Chalmers, I. 2006. The Dynamics of Conversion: the Islamisation of the Dayak peoples of Central Kalimantan. 16th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 26/06/2006. Wollongong: The Australian National University.
