Publications, events, outreach

Publications

BlueUrban publications

Out now – Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Manoeuvrings (Brill, 2022)
our edited volume, with project partners and collaborators across Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and New Caledonia.

Breaking down the lines that falsely separate land and sea, city and shore, wet and dry, this carefully collated, beautifully curated text provides critical scholars researching coasts, islands, seas and cities a deep reflection of the intersections, relations and entanglements of these spaces: how the urban and the ocean coalesce, crash, creep, collide and create worlds anew – on and offshore and the spaces between. A must-read text at a moment of climate crisis, rising seas, ecological decline and human response – this volume offers profoundly necessary empirical and theoretical contributions to understanding complex social ecologies in the context of postcolonial histories. – Kimberley Peters, Marine Governance, Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity, Germany

This book is a rare and much needed attempt at theorizing life that is both oceanic and terrestrial, the life that dominates and characterizes human and more-than-human assemblages in archipelagic countries. Maritime STS work in Southeast Asia and elsewhere would, therefore, benefit from this book when it needs to examine the limits and porosity of the maritime world, and the material traffics between the ocean and the hinterland. - Fadjar I. Thufail, National Research and Innovation Agency, Indonesia

EDITED VOLUMES

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., K.E.Y. Low, N. Abdullah, A-K Hornidge (eds.) (2022) Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Manoeuvrings. Leiden: Brill.

ARTICLES & CHAPTERS

Herbeck, J., Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2022). Transformations of Urban Coastal Nature(s): Meanings and Paradoxes of Nature-Based
Solutions for Climate Adaptation in Southeast Asia. In: Misiune, I., Depellegrin, D., Egarter Vigl, L. (eds) Human-Nature Interactions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01980-7_6

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. & Hornidge, A-K. (2022). Tidal Turns: Coastal Urbanities in Island Southeast Asia.In Siriwardane-Zoysa, R. Low, K.E.Y., Abdullah, N. and Hornidge, A-K. (eds). Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Manoevrings, Leiden: Brill.

Kunz, Y. and Hornidge, A-K. (2022). Governability of Air: Beyond Water and Land in Coastal Urbanities. In Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. Low, K.E.Y, Abdullah, N. and Hornidge, A-K (Eds.). Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Manoeuvrings, Leiden: Brill.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. & Salleh, J. (2022). Sanded: Sedimented Pasts and Shored Futures in ´Outer´ Singapore. In Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. Low, K.E.Y, Abdullah, N. and Hornidge, A-K (Eds.). Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Manoevrings, Leiden: Brill.

Low, K.E.Y & Abdullah, N. (2022). Reconfiguring Coastal Urbanities – Discourse, Practice and Theory. In Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. et al. (Eds). Coastal Urbanities: Mobilities, Meanings, Manoevrings, Leiden: Brill.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Sondang, I.F., and Ganda Purnama, A. (2021). Opto-Haptic Fieldwork Encounters in Pandemic Southeast Asia. Fieldsights, Members’ Voices. Available online: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/opto-haptic-fieldwork-encounters-in-pandemic-southeast-asia.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Amoo-Adare, E. 2021. The Bi-polar Waterfront: Paradoxes of Shoreline Placemaking in Contemporary Accra and Colombo, In: P. Godfrey and M. Buchanan, eds. Global [Im]-Possibilities: Exploring the Paradoxes of Just Sustainabilities, London: Bloomsbury, London.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Schöne T, Herbeck, J., Illigner, J., Haghighi, M., Simarmata, H., Porio, E., Rovere, A., and Hornidge, A-K. (2021). The ‘wickedness’ of governing land subsidence: Policy perspectives from urban Southeast Asia. PLOS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250208.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Herbeck, J. (2020) Futuring ‘Blue Urbanisms’: Pluralizing the Littoral in Urban Southeast Asia, in International Sociological Association e-Symposium (available online).

EMERSA publications (2017-2020)

Hornidge, A-K; Herbeck, J.; Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and & Flitner, M. (2020) Epistemic Mobilities: Following Sea-Level Change Adaptation Practices in Southeast Asian Cities, American Behavioral Scientist, 64(10), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220947764.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. (2020) Beyond the Wall: Dyking as an object of everyday governance in the Bay of Manila. Marine Policy, Vol. 112, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103661

Simarmata, H., A.-K. Hornidge, Ch. Antweiler (2020) Assessing Flood-related Vulnerability of the Urban Poor, in: Bracken, G., Rabé, P., Parthasarathy, R., Sami, N., Zhang, B. (eds.) Future Challenges of Cities in Asia, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 183-208

Schanze, J., Hornidge, A.-K., Hutter, G., Macke, A., Oberghaus, D. (2020) , in: F. Bösch / N. Deitelhoff / S. Kroll (Hrsg.): Handbuch Krisenforschung, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 179-204.

Herbeck, J., & Flitner, M. (2019). Infrastructuring coastal futures: Key trajectories in Southeast Asian megacities. DIE ERDE–Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin, 150(3), 118-130.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Fitrinitia, I. S., & Herbeck, J. (2018). Watery Incursions: The Securitisation of Everyday “Flood Cultures” in Metro Manila and Coastal Jakarta. International Quarterly for Asian Studies, 49(1-2), 105-126.

Flitner, M. (2017). Grüne Infrastruktur und die Erneuerung städtischer Naturen. In M. Flitner, J. Lossau& A.-L. Müller (Eds.), Infrastrukturen der Stadt (pp. 45-64). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

The research further contributed to the framing of the following introductory chapter of the edited volume:

Hornidge, A.-K., R. Keller, W. J. Schünemann, (2018) Introduction: the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse in an interdependent world, in: Keller, R., A.-K. Hornidge, W.Schünemann (eds.) The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse. Investigating the Politics of Knowledge and Meaning-making, Oxon & New York: Routledge, pp. 1-15.

Presentations

BlueUrban presentations (from February 2020)

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. and Herbeck, J. Infrastructural Futures beyond Sea Level Change Adaptation. National Research and Innovation Agency (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, BRIN formerly LIPI), Jakarta, Indonesia, June 2022.

Herbeck, J. Coastal Infrastructures and Challenges of Sustainability, a Studium Generale lecture at the Department of Civil Engineering at Universitas Islam Sultan Agung (Unissula) in Semarang, Indonesia (on-site), June 2022.

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. 'The Bi-polar Waterfront: The Making of Antipodal Shorelines in Northern Jakarta', in the panel - The Storied Worlds of Asia's Deltas and Estuaries: Pluralizing the Southern Waterfront (co-convened by R. Siriwardane and A. Kadfak as a double panel with 'From Mud to Monsoon'/C. Venkataramani and A. Medrano), ICAS Conference 12, hosted at Kyoto University (online), 25 August, 2021.

Herbeck, J. / Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. 'Speculative Infrastructures: Terraforming Coastal Futures in Northern Jakarta', Socio-Ecological Transformations of the Jakarta Bay (workshop), co-organised by IPB University and Kiel University, 5 July 2021

Discussion Keynote in " 'Fields' of IR: Epistemic Violence, Real Life Encounters, and Methodologies", co-organised by the University of Ghent and the Geneva Graduate Institute (with Millie Lake, LSE; David Mwambari, KCL, and Rapti Siriwardane), June 30, 2021 (online)

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: “Container Practices: Troubling Dualisms during Fieldwork in Pandemic Southeast Asia”, POLLEN Biennial Conference – Contested Natures. ESRC STEPS Centre (IDS/SPRU, University of Sussex) and the University of Brighton (UK), June 24-26 (virtual).
Herbeck, J. /Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: “Futuring Blue Urbanism: Unlayering the Littoral in Northern Jakarta”, Water and the City, co-organised by the Asia Research Institute, and Institute of Water Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, February, 6 2020 (Singapore).

EMERSA presentations (2016-2019)

Workpackage 0 (Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research)

Hornidge, A.-K.: ‘Oceanic Spaces and the Future of Area Studies’, Keynote. Workshop: New Area Studies Theory and Method: Blurring Genres, University of East Anglia, July 11, 2019 (Norwich, UK).
Hornidge, A.-K.: ‘Follow the Discourse. A (methodological) reflection of tracing sea level change related sense-making’, Invited Talk, Workshop ‘Shaping Migrants and Mobile Worlds’, Institute of Sociology, National University of Singapore, February 21-22, 2019 (Singapore).
Hornidge, A.-K.: ‘Epistemic Mobilities. Following Moving Targets in Environmental Risk Discourses of Island Southeast Asia’, International Symposium ‘Translating Sea-level Change in Urban Life’, Universitas Indonesia, September 5-6, 2018 (Jakarta, Indonesia).
Hornidge, A-K./Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: 'Roving Epistemes: Knowledge Circulations in the Study of 'Risky' Coastal Borderlands', 5th Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network (ABRN) December 12-14, 2016 (Kathmandu, Nepal).

Workpackage I: Policies (Sustainability Research Center, University of Bremen)

Herbeck, J.: “Internationale Verbindungen und policy mobilities im Küstenschutz von dreiasiatischen Megacities”, Vortragsreihe Küsten und Meere, Geographisches Institut, Universität Köln, Germany (16 Janauary 2020)
Flitner, M. and Herbeck, J.: “Flying Dutchmen – Internationale Verbindungen im Küstenschutz in südostasiatischen Megacities.” Maritime Woche Bremen, Germany (20 September 2019)
Herbeck, J.: “From Migration to Mobility: Mobile Policies of Adapting to Rapid Coastal Change and Sea Level Rise.” Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), New Orleans, USA (10-14 April 2018).
Herbeck, J/Flitner, M.: ‘Mobile Adaptation Policies? Protecting Southeast Asian Megacities Against Relative Sea Level Rise’, International Symposium ‘Translating Sea-level Change in Urban Life’, Universitas Indonesia, September 5-6, 2018 (Jakarta, Indonesia).
Herbeck, J.: ‘Mobilities and the Adaptation to Rapid Environmental change in Coastal areas: Research Perspectives and Illustrative Examples.’ February 20, 2017, Ateneo School of Social Science Lecture (Metro Manila, Philippines).

Workpackage II (Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research)

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: ‘Sanded: Imaginaries of Shored Place-making in Mainland and 'Outer' Singapore’, Translating Sea Level Change in Urban Life: Policies, Practices, and their Intersections in Island Southeast Asia – An International Roundtable Symposium. September 5-6, 2018 (Jakarta, Indonesia).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: ‘Governing Coastal Defence: Contradictions of Marine Dyking in Metro Manila’, OceanGov Conference, November 14, 2017 (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R./Hornidge, A-K.: 'Beyond the Wall: Imaginaries of Coastal Protection in Coastal Jakarta and Metro Manila’, MARE People and the Sea Conference, July 2017 (Amsterdam, the Netherlands).
Hornidge, A.-K.: ‘Epistemic Mobilities. Following Moving Targets in Environmental Risk Discourses of Island Southeast Asia’, International Symposium ‘Translating Sea-level Change in Urban Life’, Universitas Indonesia, September 5-6, 2018 (Jakarta, Indonesia).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: ‘Governing Coastal Defence: Contradictions of Marine Dyking in Metro Manila’, OceanGov Conference, November 14, 2017 (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R./Hornidge, A-K.: ‘Beyond the Wall: Imaginaries of Coastal Protection in Coastal Jakarta and Metro Manila’, MARE People and the Sea Conference, July 2017 (Amsterdam, the Netherlands).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: ‘Sea Level Change, the Floating Signifier? Perspectives from Metro Manila, oral presentation at University of Asia and the Pacific’, May 5, 2017 (Metro Manila, Philippines).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: ‘Exploring Marine and Coastal Epistemologies: A Roundtable,’ co-organised with Dr. Cormac Walsh, Institute of Geography, Universität Hamburg & Dr. Friederike Gesing, Sustainability Research Center, Universität Bremen, January 20, 2017 (Hamburg, Germany).
Hornidge, A-K./Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R.: ‘Roving Epistemes: Knowledge Circulations in the Study of 'Risky' Coastal Borderlands’, 5th Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network (ABRN)  December 12-14, 2016 (Kathmandu, Nepal).

Roundtable Symposium (EMERSA)

“Translating Sea Level Change in Urban Life: Policies, Practices, and their Intersections in Island Southeast Asia.” September 2018, Universitas Indonesia, Salemba Campus (Jakarta) – co-organised by ZMT, University of Bremen, and Universitas Indonesia.

EMERSA’s mid-term symposium ‘Translating Sea-Level Change in Urban Life’ brought together researchers from the environmental social sciences, the humanities and area studies with practitioners and policy-makers that work across a diverse range of themes relating to the lived and experiential aspects of (relative) sea-level change in Southeast Asia.

The event was targeted at researchers and scholars that work at the science-policy interface spanning a range of disciplines that include geography, sociology, anthropology, political science and environmental history. The event was also opened to members of Universitas Indonesia and other invited guests among our Jakarta stakeholders.

Drawing inspiration from the recent ‘mobility’ and ‘translational’ turns across the social sciences and the humanities, the event seeks to discuss how sea-level change dynamics in island and archipelagic megacities and other urban settings can be empirically studied and re-theorized beyond their mainstream articulations as sources of risk and ‘riskscapes.’

Keynote address: Assistant Professor Dr. Matthew Schneider-Mayerson (Environmental Studies), Yale-NUS College, Singapore
Title: “Feeling Sea Level Rise: Narrative, Perception, and Action”

Public Outreach

Photographic exhibition: “Living with Sea Level Change in Southeast Asia: Images from the Field” (September 2018, Central Jakarta, Indonesia).

The mid-term EMERSA symposium was opened by a public photographic exhibition showcasing fieldwork photographs provided by workshop participants. The 15 frames spanned diverse regions of island Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific. The exhibition ran for three consecutive nights at a public exhibition venue at the Ke:keni Gallery in Cikini, central Jakarta.

Click here to access the exhibition frames and captions (later digitalised).

Together with our partners, ZMT and artec, University of Bremen were pleased to open this photographic exhibition on the 3rd of November 2022, featuring the complex lifeworlds of diverse actors and spaces implicated in coastal care work spanning Bremen, Bonaire, Ecuador (including the Galapagos), northern Java, and Odisha and the Lakshadweep Islands (India). Using voice-voice as methodology, the stunning visuals and oral history narratives of these coastal care workers and activists traversed a multiplicity of contemporary challenges including tidal erosion and flooding, land privatisation and encroachment, marine plastic pollution, mangrove depletion, restoration and more.

The exhibition will take on a digital afterlife post-February 2023 and will remain open access. Click here for more.