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The Jerieng Tribe’s Efforts to Preserve Their Land and Tradition
For the past few years, there has been a rapid growth of palm and industry plantations in the Bangka Belitung Islands that threatens the culture and tradition of the native Jerieng Tribe. These indigenous people have been tirelessly fighting to keep their land and preserve their way of life.
Highlights
On Media Freedom and Digital Security
Bonnibel Rambatan talks to Damar Juniarto, Executive Director of SAFEnet, about digital rights and digital security, the increasing judicial harassment of expression in the digital space in Southeast Asia, how various countries try to emulate China’s Great Firewall to conduct surveillance and censorship of its people, and how can the people of Southeast Asia fight…
Dredge
In this surreal piece on environmental decay, imageries of monsters, economic collapse, gross ecological excesses, guilty pleasures, and hints of internalised queerphobia all coalesce into a blend of poetic cosmic horror. While not explicitly portraying identifiable elements of queerness and ecology, Yi Feng’s piece manages to capture the ambient strangeness of queer ecology in its…
Queer Ecology: Eight Works of Flash Fiction on the Intersectionality of SOGIESC and Ecological Justice
Nearing the end of 2022, we asked fiction writers to tell us: In what ways do the struggles for queerness and ecology intersect and influence one another? We received close to two dozen submissions, from which we have selected eight pieces to develop. In no particular order, here they are.
A Little Duck’s Longing
It’s not only humans that can feel loss and longing from an unexpected and untimely death. Jing Ying’s work explores the emotional impact of human death on nonhuman animals, subverting the tired ecological trope that nature would be better off without humans. In this beautiful work, a little duck is saddened by the death of…
New Naratif is a movement democratising democracy in Southeast Asia. Our vision is to foster an inclusive Southeast Asia community where all peoples are fully engaging and participating in building democracy. We build capacity for this through our three-step process: engage, educate, and empower Southeast Asians.
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Southeast Asia faces severe challenges to media freedom in the form of hostile regulatory, legal, and commercial environments.
Here at New Naratif, we believe that independent media is vital to building Southeast Asian democracy, and as part of the Media Freedom in Southeast Asia Project, the Media Freedom Network (MFN) is our response to these challenges.
/ba∙ca/ with New Naratif is a reading group series that invites members to come together to discuss selected stories published by New Naratif. Discussions are led by New Naratif team members and feature guest speakers and contributors.
/ba∙ca/ with New Naratif aims to bring our community together to discuss complicated issues and take collective action.
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latest
Engendering Media Freedom: Re-conceptualising Newsmaking in Southeast Asia
Given the increasingly hostile climate for media workers in Southeast Asia, New Naratif’s Media Freedom Insights publications set out to better understand their lived experiences. Building on our past findings,…
Go On
Himas portrays yet another beautiful story of love, loss, and longing. While her previous entry presents a world of potential liberation in the midst of impossible challenges, this current story…
The Lesser Known Part of the Timun Mas Tale
With two stories where one frames the other, Bageur presents yet another exploration of queer ecology within indigenous cultures with his unique retelling of the Indonesian folktale of Timun Mas.…
Making The World We Want
A Manifesto for Media Freedom and Independence in Southeast Asia
podcasts
Taman Rainbow is My Home
A deeply personal narrative written with the vibes of a diary entry, Vio’s story emanates warmth in its nostalgia as well as resilience in its outlook. A truly beautiful piece you wouldn’t want to miss.
Survival of the Fittest
Written in the form of a stage play script, Ara’s work managed to convey the essence of queer ecology as originally theorised by Timothy Morton. In the words of their cockroach character, “Gay penguins, lesbian squirrels, bisexual dolphins, sex-changing fishes… all sorts of things are out there. Nature doesn’t have a label for all these…
Videos
Features
Life with Babirusa: Defending Home from Illegal Logging
Steering away from the city’s hustle and bustle, Ating moved home to live near the forest in Togean Islands, Central Sulawesi. His life has changed in the past eight years, from making friends with babirusa to fighting against illegal logging.
The Indonesian Police’s Obsession with Tear Gas
The Indonesian Police handles most civil society gatherings, from demonstrations to football matches. To control the crowd, they often use an excessive amount of tear gas which leads to high numbers of victims and deaths from tear gas.
See all features in other languages:
Bahasa Indonesia | Bahasa Melayu | ä¸æ–‡ | ဗမာစာ | Tiếng Việt
COMICS
Answering Your Top Three Questions on the Aftermath of Malaysia’s GE15
Ram Anand speaks to Professor James Chin, University of Tasmania’s Professor of Asian Studies, to answer the top questions on what comes next after Malaysia’s fifteenth general elections: the Anti-Hopping Law (AHL), the Unity Government, and the impact of the upcoming six state elections.
Don’t Let Them Kill My Mother: Confusion
Devy Christa receives a call from a friend on a Sunday morning who urges her to look at the television news. It turns out all the news is about her mother, Merry Utami, who is on her way to Nusa Kambangan—a highly secure prison in Indonesia.
Don’t Let Them Kill My Mother: Fragments
Devy Christa remembers fragments of her memory with her mother. Her mother went away for quite a long time to become a migrant worker to provide money for the operation of Devy’s brother, Yossi. And now, Devy sees her mother again on television.
Don’t Let Them Kill My Mother: Scapegoat
Devy Christa discovers the details about the case of her mother, Merry Utami, the same week the state plans to execute her. Her mother was manipulated by a foreign man named Jerry and underwent an unfair process of interrogation, trial, arrest, and detention for over a dozen years.
See all comics in other languages:
Bahasa Indonesia | Bahasa Melayu | ä¸æ–‡ | ဗမာစာ | Tiếng Việt
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