My dissertation ethnographically examines Indigenous environmental subjectivities and fire governance in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, where recurrent forest fires occur. In particular, my research addresses the issue of governance-oriented tactics by offering an Indigenous-focused investigation. Drawing from environmental anthropology’s approach to human and fires and political anthropology’s emphasis on governmentality, my project seeks to understand how Indigenous people orient themselves between repeated external efforts to transform their lives and disastrous annual fires within their environment. My project attunes to the dynamics of engagement and apathy, care and negligence, as well as commitment and resentment in the everyday life of fire governance. By juxtaposing the analysis of Indigenous environmental subjectivities to current climatic conversations, my project addresses a pressing humanistic concern of what it means to be people whose thoughts and actions, as well as life and moral ecology, are closely knitted with the vibrant fires. 

I am co-PI-ing an interdisciplinary project, FIREPLAY. The research is focused on understanding and documenting Indigenous fire governance in Indonesia. For this initial phase, the project engages with Indigenous Dayak experience in four regencies in Central Kalimantan. This one-year project (2023-2024) is funded by KONEKSI (Collaboration for Knowledge, Innovation, and Technology Australia and Indonesia).

The objectives of the research project are 1) documenting the Indigenous Dayak fire experience at the climate frontier and 2) Informing policy on the lingering impacts of climate injustices on vulnerable groups. We foster interdisciplinary approaches to learn and record how Indigenous Dayak in Central Kalimantan navigate climate initiatives that require them to end their fire practices, find new ways of life, and sustain anti-fire initiatives in their villages through five activities:

1. Indigenous fire studies

2. Community reflection

3. Socio-economic survey

4. Anti-fire policy analysis

5. Media studies on fires

Outputs from this project will include not only written products such as peer-reviewed articles, op-eds, and policy briefs but also multi-modal works, among others: a documentary film, animation, an ethnographic novel, maps, and photo essays.