This project has been funded by the British Academy (Award Reference: IWW24\100315) under its 'International Writing Workshops' Scheme to support career development of Early Career Social Science researchers in Indonesia. The project is being led by Brunel University of London, in collaboration with Yarsi University in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Indonesia faces complex and multifaceted challenges of social exclusion and inequalities that continue to impede its journey toward equitable and sustainable development. These issues manifest in stark economic disparities, health inequities, nutritional imbalances, digital divides, and urban segregation, disproportionately affecting marginalised populations. Addressing these deeply entrenched problems demands rigorous academic inquiry to inform effective and evidence-based policy solutions. Indonesia’s unique geographical diversity and socio-cultural complexities including archipelagic infrastructure gaps and culturally embedded social stratification, require context-specific research that captures the nation’s distinct challenges. However, there are currently significant barriers for early career social science researchers working on these pressing issues of social inequality and exclusion to publish their work in leading peer-reviewed journals, secure grants to drive their research agendas and access academic networks. Indeed, it has been pointed out that the vast majority of key social science research on Indonesia are published by researchers based outside the country.
In light of this, the project will bring together 15 early career social science researchers across Indonesia working on issues of social inequalities and exclusion. Social Science ECRs in Indonesia face significant challenges in getting their work published in international peer-reviewed journals and securing grants. The inter-disciplinary project will provide comprehensive support to ECRs from across Indonesia’s diverse provinces to enhance their writing skills, confidence and academic networks. Led by UK- and Indonesia-based academics from multiple social science disciplines with relevant editorial experiences and grant successes, the project will have 3 phases: (a) pre-workshop online induction and training, (b) 3-day residential workshop in Jakarta which will include dedicated support for writing articles and grant applications, and (c) follow-on activities including oneto-one mentorship, draft feedback and peer writing groups. These activities will lead to increased research outputs, boost grant success and build support networks among ECRs in Indonesia, thereby enriching the country’s research capacities.
Dr Utsa Mukherjee - I am a Senior Lecturer and Director of Research at the Department of Education, Brunel University of London.
My research spans the disciplines of Sociology and Social Geography, with inter-connected research interests in the study of childhood, youth and families, social inequality, and leisure. My work across these thematic areas is guided by a commitment to equity and social justice. I am interested in exploring and theorising the way social inequalities are reproduced across time and place, and the way structural inequalities mediate the lived experiences of minoritized subjects.
I am currently PI of two British Academy funded projects:
(i) Centring Families in Iceland’s Just Transition (with Dr Auður Magndís Auðardóttir and Dr Auður Aðalsteinsdóttir) (BA funding contribution: £ 294,842)
(ii) Enhancing Writing Skills and Building Academic Networks: Supporting Career Development of EarlyCareer Social Science Researchers in Indonesia (with Dr Fitri Arlinkasari, Prof Vina Adriany, Prof Emma Wainwright and Dr Indra Yohanes Kiling) (BA funding contribution: £ 21,210)
My first monograph Race, Class, Parenting and Children’s Leisure (Bristol University Press, 2023) was the runner-up of the British Sociological Association's Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2024. I have also solo-edited two interdisciplinary volumes: Childhoods & Leisure (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and Debating Childhood Masculinities (Emerald, 2024).
I am the Associate Editor of two peer-reviewed international journals: Journal of Family Studies and Schole: A Journal for Recreation & Leisure Studies Education. I am also the Book Review editor of Sociological Forum and Children & Society. I am an editorial board member of the following peer-reviewed journals:
British Journal of Sociology
British Journal of Sociology of Education
Sociology Compass
Children & Society
Sociological Forum
Leisure Studies
World Leisure Journal
I am a Trustee of Academy of Social Sciences (the UK's national academy of academics, practitioners and learned societies in social science). I sit on the executive committee of Leisure Studies Association and I am currently an executive committee member cum Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Officer of the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers). Within Brunel, I am a member of the Education, Identities and Society (EIS) research group within the Department of Education as well of the pan-university Centre for Global Lives and Centre for Health and Wellbeing Across the Lifecourse (CHWL).