SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Darmanto is a postdoctoral researcher at ISA. He has carried out ethnographic research in Indonesia's outer islands over the last fifteen years, studying indigenous foodways, the politics and poetics of nature conservation, agrarian transition, climate change, and the generative production of social value. His current research examines the relationship between extraction and animism in the age of the critical minerals. At ISA, he will investigate both historical and contemporary encounters between mining companies, indigenous people and animated beings in North Maluku’s nickel frontiers.

Before joining ISA, Darmanto was a junior research fellow at the Oriental Institute, the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS). At the Oriental, he developed two research projects: 1) the impact of climate change on indigenous foodways in Indonesia and 2) the spirits-predator-humans relations in the disturbed ecosystem, funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) [Grant No: 24-13058S] and Strategie-AV21, CAS. The first project, cross-pollinating food anthropology, environmental humanities, and political economy, sheds critical light on the planetary effects of climate change on Indigenous people’s foodways. The other investigates the entanglement of humans, crocodiles, and water spirits on the west coast of Sumatra. It develops the fruitfulness of making more-than-human beings central to anthropological investigations into the crises of the Anthropocene. Since 2023, he has also participated in Pluralising Value Research Network, a comparative project on the diversity of social value(s) and their relations to materiality and social practices across the continents funded by The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and co-lead research on the Large Land Acquisitions and Agricultural Projects in North Sumatra uplands supported by the Land Deal Politics Initiative of the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague.

Darmanto was awarded a PhD from the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Sociology Development at Leiden University. His thesis, “Good to Produce, Good to Share: Food, Hunger and Social Values in a Contemporary Mentawaian Society, Indonesia”, explored the socio-cultural meaning of food-related activities and value production among the Indigenous Mentawai on  Siberut Island, West Sumatra. The thesis engaged with food studies, environmental anthropology, and medical anthropology, examining the morality of foodways and reframing hunger as multiple more-than-human modalities and mutuality of beings and becoming.

Beyond academia, he engaged in ethnographic endeavours with conservation agencies, scholar-activists, and the development sector, believing that anthropology can be both a constructive and a critical ally in any social intervention. His engagement includes consultancies with United Nations bodies and international and local NGOs, supporting Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent in social and technical intervention.

MAIN RESEARCH AREAS

Darmanto’s scholarship is broadly situated within human-environment relations and governance, particularly through the lens of environmental anthropology, food anthropology, and critical agrarian studies. He also combines a theoretical interest in the anthropological theory of value with long, engaged ethnographic research on the island of Siberut (West Sumatra) and Halmahera (North Maluku). His research has been published in various journals: anthropology (Suomen, Antropologi Indonesia, TAPJA), area studies (TheJournal of Southeast Asia Studies, Indonesia and Malay World), food studies (Food, Culture and Society), and other interdisciplinary journals (i.e., Asia Pacific Viewpoints). As part of his applied work, he recently collaborated with biological scientists and conservation practitioners to publish a protocol for conservation and governments agencies on rights-based approaches to conservation practice. 

PROJECT (collaboration)

• Resource spirits: An interactionist approach to animism and extractivism in Southeast Asia