DARMANTO
Research Fellow, The Oriental Institute,
Czech Academy of Sciences
Nationality : Indonesia
ORCID/WoS : 0000-0002-5327-7658/IUQ-0622-2023
Phone : +420773717288
Address : Chotovicka 1788/12 18000 Praha 8 Czech Republic
Website : www.beyondinsecurity.net; www.darmanto.org
E-mail : darmanto@orient.cas.cz
EXPERTISE
Environmental anthropology, health and food system, indigeneity, political ecology, biodiversity conservation, agrarian change, critical development, anthropological theory of value, Southeast Asia, Indonesia
EDUCATIONS
2016-2020
Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University.
Dissertation: Good to Produce, Good to Share: Food, Hunger and Social Values in a Contemporary Mentawaian Society, Indonesia.
2016-2020
Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University.
Dissertation: Good to Produce, Good to Share: Food, Hunger and Social Values in a Contemporary Mentawaian Society, Indonesia.
2014-2016
Master Research by Training (MRT) in Environmental Anthropology, Murdoch University.
Thesis: Maintaining Fluidity, Demanding Clarity: The Dynamic of Customary Land Relations Among Indigenous People of Siberut Island (Indonesia).
1998-2005
B.Sc. in Biology, Gadjah Mada University.
Thesis: Ecological Succession and Structure of Vegetation of Traditional. Swidden Agriculture on Siberut Island, West Sumatra, Indonesia.
EMPLOYMENT
Academic Position
2022-now Research Fellow, The Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS).
2022 (May-June) Research Consultant, The Australian National University (ANU).
2020 (March-June) Lecturer/Teaching Assistant, Wageningen University and Research (WUR).
2018 Teaching Assistant, Leiden University.
Non-Academic Position
Research Grants
2024-2026
Beyond Insecurity: Changing Indigenous People’s Foodways in Time of Climate Change in Indonesia (BICOFID). The Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). Grant No. 24-13058S: € 140,000. P-I.
2023-2025
Pluralising Value: Network of Anthropological Value Scholars in Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America. German Science Foundation (DFG). Grant No. BE 6942/2-1: € 16,000. Co-I.
2023-2024
Environmental Anthropology for Resilient Society. Strategy AV-21 Czech Academy of Sciences: € 7,800. P-I.
2023
The Indonesian Food Estate and Local Responses in North Sumatra. Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI), The Institute of Social Sciences, Erasmus University: € 3,000. Co-PI.
Scholarship and Awards
2023 Travel grant, St Catherine College, Cambridge University, € 1,000.
2022 Anthropologist-in-Residence Award, Sumatran Orang-utans Society (SOS) and Darwin Initiative.
2019 Conference Fund, Nordic Geographical Society, € 800.
2016-2020 Louwes Fellowship Award for Research of Food and Water in Asia and Africa, Ph.D. Studentship, € 80,000.
2014 Fieldwork and Travel Grant, Australia Award Scholarship, € 3,100.
2014-2016 Australia Award Scholarship, M. Phil Studentship, € 63,000
2006 Individual Excellent Award for Conservation Project “Developing Collaborative Actions for Siberut Island Conservation”, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), € 45,000.
2005 Man and Biosphere (MaB) Award for Young Scientist and Environmentalist, UNESCO Jakarta and Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI).
Publications
BOOKS
Lubabun Niam and Darmanto. 2025. Menerapkan Antropologi dalam Konservasi Orangutan: Refleksi dan Panduan [Integrating Anthropology in Orangutan Conservation: A Reflection and Guidance]. Medan: TAHUKAH and Sumatran Orangutan Society.
Lubabun Niam and Darmanto. 2025. Buku Saku Konservasi [Conservation Pocket Book]. Medan: TAHUKAH dan Sumatran Orangutan Society.
Darmanto. 2020. Good to Produce, Good to Share: Food, Hunger and Social Values in a Contemporary Mentawaian Community, Indonesia. Leiden: Leiden University.
Darmanto and Setyowati. A. B. 2012. Berebut Hutan Siberut: Orang Mentawai, Kekuasaan dan Politik Ekologi (Contested Terrains: The Political Ecology of Siberut Rain Forest). Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Darmanto. (in review). “‘Festivity Without Feast’: Autonomy, Prosperity and Inequality in a Contemporary Mentawai Village.” Antropologi Indonesia.
McCarthy, J., Haug, M, Noteboom, G., Astuti, R., Darmanto, Semedi, P., Siscawati, M., and Kutanegara, P. M. (in review). “Rural Indonesia in the Shadow of Climate Change: Envisioning Rural Climate Politics from Below”. Asia Pacific Review.
Darmanto. 2025. “Eating, Sharing, and Mutuality of Being Among the Mentawai on Siberut Island, Indonesia.” Food, Culture & Society, 28(3): 546-572. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2359773.
Darmanto and Koen Meyers. 2024. Producing Human or Protecting Wildlife? People, Park, and Space on Siberut Island, Indonesia. Suomen, Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 48 (3): 4-30. https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.129520.
Darmanto. 2024. Eating, Sharing, and Mutuality of Being Among the Mentawai on Siberut Island, Indonesia, Food, Culture & Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2359773.
Darmanto. 2023. Rice and the Taste of Modernity in Siberut Island. The Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 54 (1): 64-88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463423000188.
Darmanto. 2022. Good to Produce: Food, Gardening, and Valued Persons in Contemporary Mentawai Society, Indonesia. Indonesia and Malay World, 50 (148): 289-312.https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2022.2089479.
Darmanto. 2014. Environmental Crises, Capitalism, and the Challenge of Political Ecology: A Review Essay, Wacana, 15 (30): 165-182.
Darmanto. 2012. Global Conservation, National Park and Local Practices in Siberut Island, West Sumatra. Journal of Forestry Science, 1 (7): 51-67.
Darmanto. 2011. Penataan Ruang, Penciptaan Subjek, dan Penerapan Kekuasaan di Pulau Siberut 1969-1998 [Space, Subject and Power in Siberut Island 1969-1998]. Wacana, 12 (26):89-124
Darmanto. 2006. Krisis Klaim Kepemilikan Hutan di Pulau Siberut [Contested Claims Over Forest on Siberut Island]. Wacana, 6 (20): 157–182.
Peer Reviewed Edited Volumes
Darmanto and G. Persoon. (in-press). Crocodiles Are Watching: Spirits, Social Order, and Ecological Transformation on Siberut Island, Indonesia. In Water Powers: Sacred Animals of the Asia-Pacific, edited by Aike P. Rots, Florence Durney, Lindsey DeWitt Prat, and Sonja Åman Manoa: University Hawai’i Press.
Darmanto & Gerard Persoon. 2024. Without Forest: Turning Forests into Agroforests on Siberut, Indonesia. In Farmer Innovations and Best Practices by Shifting Cultivators in Asia-Pacific edited by Malcolm Cairns, pp. 200-225. London: Routledge and CABI Publishing.
Darmanto & Irina Rafliana. 2023. The Real Tsunami: Indigenous Survivors Living Between Old and New Settlements After the 2010 Mentawai Disaster. In Community Responses to Disasters in the Pacific Rim: Placemaking in displacement, edited by Liz Maly and Shu-mei Huang, pp.167-199. Singapore: Routledge.
Darmanto. 2009. Pandangan Tentang Hutan, Tempat Keramat dan Perubahan Sosial di Pulau Siberut, Sumatra Barat (Knowledge of forest, sacred site, and social transformation in Siberut Island, West Sumatra). In Situs Keramat Alami: Peran Budaya dalam Konservasi Keanekaragaman Hayati (Natural Sacred Site: The Role of Culture in Biodiversity Conservation), edited by H. Y. Soedjito, Purwanto, dan E. Sukara, pp.130-164. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor.
Non-Academic Publications
Darmanto and Lubabun Niam. 2025. Antropologi dan Konservasi: Panduan Mengintegrasikan Ilmu Sosial ke Konservasi Orangutans di Sumatra Utara (Anthropology and Conservation: A Guideline to Integrate Social Science into Orangutans Conservation in North Sumatra). Medan: Yayasan Tahukah and SOS.
Darmanto and Lubabun Niam. 2025. Panduan Pendampingan Masyarakat dalam Konservasi: (Community Engagement Toolbox for Conservation). Medan: Yayasan Tahukah and SOS.
Darmanto and Mahfud Ikhwan. 2022. Dari Belakang Gawang (From the Back of the Goal Post). Jakarta: KPG.
Darmanto. 2016. Tamasya Bola: Gairah, Cinta dan Luka Dalam Sepakbola (Footbal Excursions: Passion, Love and Pain in Football). Yogyakarta: Mojok.
Translation
Kuasa Eksklusi: Dilema Pertanahan di Asia Tenggara. 2021. Yogyakarta: Insist Press and The Indonesian Institute of National Land (Indonesia translation of Derek Hall, Paul Hirsch, and Tania Li. Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia. Singapore: NUS Press, 2011).
Invited Talks and Guest Lectures
02 December 2024. “More than Journalism: Local Media, Mining, and Environmental Politics in North Moluccas. Guest Lecture for “Media Monday”. Department of Media and Journalism, Charles University, Prague.
29 November 2024. “Climate Politics From Below: Rethinking Indigenous People’s Resilience in the Shadow of Climate Change and Decarbonisation Projects in Indonesia”. Seminar Rethinking Resilience, Climate Justice and Decolonial Perspectives. Czech Academy of Sciences.
13 October 2024. “The Boom and Boost of Commercial Crops and Agrarian Transition in Uplands Indonesia”. Monthly Seminar ‘Society, Economy and Ecology”. Centre of Demography and Population. The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
17 September 2024. “Crocodiles Are Watching: The Water Spirit, Rampant Development, and Ecological Transformation on Siberut Island (Indonesia)”. Environmental Anthropology Seminars, The Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences.
3 June 2024. “Values, Social Totality/Integration, and the Other: A Turnerian Perspective and Southeast Asia Ethnography.” Workshop of Value, Focus on Amazonian Society. Berlin Forum and Museum.
09 January 2024. “Embedding Ethnography for Conservation: Lesson Learn from orangutans conservation in Sumatra and Borneo“. Key-note speaker for the Workshop for Environmental Funders on Embedding Anthropology in Conservation, Sumatran Orangutans Society.
02 October 2023. “Uplands or Hinterland: Some Notes On Out-of-the-Way-Place in Indonesia Ethnography”. The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
5 September 2023. “Mainstreaming Indigenous Voices and Value in Biodiversity Conservation, International“. Keynote speaker for the Symposium on Wildlife Biodiversity Conservation: Planet, People, and Biodiversity Towards Prosperous Future of Humanity. Department of Conservation and Ecotourism, Gadjah Mada University.
24 October 2023. “Environmental Governance in Indonesia Frontier Zones”. Guest lecturer, The Institute of Village Development, Indonesia.
8 December 2022. “Source of Food, Spirit’s Livestock or Protected Animal? Multi-modality of Human-Primates Relationship on Siberut Island”. Keynote speaker for the 2nd Symposium of Primate Studies, Association of Primate Studies Indonesia.
EMPLOYMENT
Peer-Review Conferences
2024
The 9th Asian Primate Symposium. Paper presented: Integrating Anthropology in Orangutan Conservation Programs in North Sumatra, 21-26 November 2024. Paper presented: Integrating Anthropology in Tapanuli Orangutan Conservation.
The American Association of Asian Studies (AAS-in-Asia Conference), 9-12 July 2024. Paper presented: The Performative Development and Agrarian Nightmare in the (Re)making of Mentawai Paradise.
The International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, Bogota, 19-21 March. Paper presented: Is It Just a “Project”? Indonesia Food Estate and Its Effect in North Sumatra.
2023
The 16th International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) Conference, Brno, 7-10 June 2023. Paper presented: The Ancestors Are Watching: Crocodiles, Social Order and Environmental Transformation on Siberut Island, Indonesia.
The Global Lives of Orangutans Conference, Grassroots Political Responses to Agrarian Conflicts and Environmental Degradation in the Southeast Asian Anthropocene, Cambridge, 7-20 April, 2023. Paper presented: Beyond Failure Narratives: Contingent Articulations and Diversity of Actors’ Responses to Large Scale Provisioning Programme in Indonesia.
Finnish Anthropological Society, Rovaniemi, 21-25 March 2023. Paper presented: Whose Domesticated: Change and Continuity of Pigs-Human Relations in Siberut Island, Indonesia.
2022
Climate Change and Agrarian Justice (online), Capetown 26 – 29 September 2022. Paper presented: Rural Indonesia in the Shadow of Climate Change: Envisioning Rural Climate Politics from Below.
The 12th European Association of South-east Asian Studies (EUROSEAS), Paris, 27 June-1 July. Co-chair of Panel, Disaster and Dispossession in Southeast Asia and Beyond. Paper presented: The bad, the ugly and the worst disaster on Mentawai Island.
The 12th European Association of South-east Asian Studies (EUROSEAS), Paris, 27 June-1 July. Paper presented: Renegotiating Extractive Cosmology: Mentawaian Animism, Logging Operation and the Politic of Redistribution on Siberut Island, Indonesia.
The Conference “Aquatic Powers: Divine Animals of the Asia-Pacific”, University of Oslo, June 1-3. Paper presented: Watching from Deep Water: Crocodiles, Social Order, and Environmental Transformation on Siberut Island.
2021
The 11th European Association of Southeast Asian Studies (EUROSEAS). Olomouc, September, 7-9. Paper presented: Conflicted Resources Governance in Making an Indonesia Frontier.
The 11th European Association of Southeast Asian Studies (EUROSEAS). Olomouc, September, 7-9. Paper presented: Resisting the Oil Palm: Why Siberut has not been turned into an oil palm plantation.
The Royal Anthropological Institute, “Anthropology and Conservation Virtual Conference”, 15-29 October. Paper presented: Transforming Forest, Producing Humans: Why the Indigenous Mentawaians Have Resisted Protected Area.
2020
The 2nd AIFIS conference on Indonesia Studies, Jakarta and Michigan, 16-20 June. “Food, Foodways and the Culture of Relatedness in Indonesia”. Paper presented: Pig haters and pig lovers: Food and social difference among Mentawaian and Minangkabau people.
2019
The 10th European Association of Southeast Asian Studies (EUROSEAS). Berlin, Germany, September, 11-13. Panel: Grounding “Alternative Ontologies”: Towards a Political Ecology of Animism. Paper presented: ‘Egalitarian Turn: Animism, Extraction and Politic Ecology of Siberut Island Rain Forest, West Sumatra’.
The 11th International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS). Leiden, July, 15-19. Paper presented: Good to Produce: Food and the Construction of Persons among the Mentawaian in Siberut Island, West Sumatra.
The 8th Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM). Trondheim, Norway, 16-19, June. Paper presented: Cultivating Forest, Producing Food and the Practices of Sustainability in Siberut Island, West Sumatra.
EVENT ORGANISATIONS
Pluralising the Value of Things Workshop 3 in Hamburg (Focus: Andes), 9-11 October 2024.
Masterclass of “Environmental Humanities Masterclass: Doing Research in an Epoch of Ecological Unraveling,” The Oriental Institute, The Institute of Ethnology and the Faculty of Social Sciences Charles University, Prague, 22 May 2024.
Land Deals Politic Initiative Mini-workshop, 11 March 2024.
Chair Panel, “Disaster and Dispossession in Southeast Asia and Beyond”. The 12th European Association of Southeast Asian Studies (EUROSEAS). Paris, 27 June-1 July 2022.
Roundtable discussion, “Food, Foodways, and the Culture of Relatedness in Indonesia“. The 2nd AIFIS conference on Indonesia Studies, Jakarta and Michigan, 16-20 June 2020.
SUPERVISION
Adjunct Supervisor (with Robbie Peters and Sophie Chao), Kevin Abimanyu Jatmiko, PhD, “Building Sovereign Food and Nutrition Resilience through Indigenous Knowledge in the Midst of the Global Pandemic: Experiences of Boti Indigenous Communities in South-Central Timor, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia,” Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney (2024–).
External Supervisor (with Annette Hornbarcher), Lubabun Niam, “Multispecies Relations and Conservation Projects in North Sumatra Uplands”, Department of Anthropology, Heidelberg University (2023–).
Associate Supervisor (with Nico Carpentier), Minanto Ali, Art and Urban Politics in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia”, Department of Media and Journalism, Charles University (2023-).
REVIEWERS
- ASEAS (Advances in Southeast Asian Studies)
- Anthropological forum
- The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
- Suomen: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society
- Indigenous Southeast Asian and Ethnic Studies
- Jurnal Kajian Agraria dan Kedaulatan Pangan
- Jurnal Antropologi Indonesia
Membership of Scientific Societies
- Muslim Foodways Network
- The Association of Southeast Asian Studies (ASEAS)
- Anthropology of Food Network, European Association of Social Anthropology
- Food Studies Research Network (FSRN)
- International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF)
- Australian Food, Society and Culture Network (AFSCN)
- European Association of Southeast Asian Studies (EUROSEAS)
- American Anthropological Association (AAA)
- Australian Anthropological Association (AAS)
- Australian Association of Asian Studies (ASAA)
- Sydney Food and Nutrition Network (SFNN), University of Sydney
- Association of Asian Studies (AAS)
- The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)
Languages
Native Indonesian; Javanese
Fluent English, Mentawaian; Minangkabau, Sumatran-Malay, Papuan-Malay
Passive Dutch, Czech