Foreign research permit reforms: changes to the role of Indonesian counterparts risk proving counterproductive

Pak Iwan was one of my oldest friends in Indonesia. A politics lecturer in a small, private higher education institution in the Riau Islands, I had first met him as a PhD student. We had since shared many good times, from long chats about politics, religion, and the self, to a handbag hunt when he came to London and wanted to buy gifts for his wife. He had been my counterpart during my postdoctoral research, a collaboration that had seen me delivering guest lectures, graduation speeches, running-capacity building workshops and even launching my book. For me, it was a no-brainer that, when I returned to Indonesia, I would once again team up with Pak Iwan in order to build on those existing links and relationships. But as I have since discovered, Indonesia’s latest arrangements for foreign researchers are putting relations with counterparts under novel forms of pressure – straining them, and sometimes altering them altogether.