Mr Julian Millie - Researcher Profile

Julian Millie

Address

School of Political & Social Inquiry
Faculty of Arts, Clayton

Contact Details

Tel: +61 3 990 52996

Email: Julian.Millie@monash.edu


Biography

Cultural understanding to bridge Indonesian divide

Bridging the cultural divide between Australia and Indonesia is the aim of Dr Julian Millie’s research into Islamic ritual practices. Indonesia is one of our closest northern neighbours and is also the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Recent international events, including the Bali bombing in 2002, have made some Australians more fearful of Muslims and Muslim countries in general. However, Julian’s research is providing new insight into Islamic culture that will improve Australian understanding and awareness.

Most Australians have little understanding of Islamic culture and Julian says this creates a barrier to better political and social relationships. Incidents such as the Bali bombing and harsh penalties for drug smugglers, including death sentences, have damaged Indonesia’s image in Australian eyes. 

“Researchers can perform an important bridging and mediating role between cultures,” he says. “There’s not much shared cultural recognition between the two countries, and there is not much motivation to create cultural bridges.”

As editor of Inside Indonesia, Julian says widespread interest in the online magazine is an encouraging sign of its value in providing accurate information about Indonesia. Not so encouraging is the uptake of the Indonesian language. Australians have yet to embrace Indonesian to the same extent as other Asian languages such as Japanese and Cantonese.

Julian speaks Indonesian and is a student of other languages of the region, especially Sundanese, the language of the ethnic group living in the western part of the island of Java. He also holds a diploma in Arabic from the University of Melbourne. He says learning new languages has been challenging, but has significantly enriched his research.

Julian first delved into the subject of Islamic ritual practices during his PhD. He focused on large oratory gatherings where Muslims supplicate to Allah by reading the narrative of an Islamic saint’s life, asking the saint to carry prayers to Allah. He examined how this practice and saintliness were understood within the broader Indonesian society. 

Indonesia’s West Java region is the focus of new research. The Australian Research Council has funded a project to further explore Islamic oratory gatherings in this region, which is home to 35 million people, 97 per cent of whom are Muslims. Nationally, 88 per cent of Indonesia’s population is Muslim, with the remainder a mix of Christian and Hindu. 

He has found that progressive Muslims believe that “oratory has this odour of backwardness to it”. He unearthed a significant divide between progressive and more traditional Muslims by exploring their respective attitudes to authority.

“We have a real fault line within Islamic societies where you have the progressive elite understanding religion as a template for reform,” he says. “The progressives identify masses of people from sprawling rice-growing populations in Indonesia as an impediment because their preachers refuse to engage in self-transformation and reflection.”

In other research, Julian is studying people’s regional identity in the context of Islamic society. He has identified a possible trend towards Islamic homogeneity. This project has also been funded by the Australian Research Council and is due for completion in 2012. Julian hopes to broaden his research in the future to focus on questions about the Islamic world that are relevant to other countries.

Keywords

anthropology of Indonesia, ritual, religion, Islamic culture and society, cultures of Indonesian Islam

Qualifications

PHD DEGREE
Institution: Universiteit Leiden, The Kingdom of the Netherlands
Year awarded: 2006
MASTER OF ARTS
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 2000
GRAD DIPLOMA ARTS-ARABIC
Institution: University of Melbourne
Year awarded: 1999
BACHELOR OF ARTS -HONOURS
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 1996
BACHELOR OF LAWS
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 1991
BACHELOR OF ARTS
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 1990

Publications

Books

Millie, J.P., 2009, Splashed by the Saint: Ritual Reading and Islamic Sanctity in West Java, KITLV Press, The Netherlands.

Millie, J.P., 2004, Bidasari: Jewel of Malay Muslim Culture, KITLV Press, Tokyo Japan.

Book Chapters

Millie, J.P., 2012, Preaching over borders: Constructing publics for Islamic oratory in Indonesia, in Flows of Faith: Religious Reach and Community in Asia and the Pacific, eds Lenore Manderson, Wendy Smith, Matt Tomlinson, Springer, Dordrecht Netherlands, pp. 87-103.

Millie, J.P., 2009, Ritual Recitation of Abdul Qadir's karamat: A Social History, in Lost Times and Untold Tales from the Malay World, eds Jan van der Putten and Mary Kilcline Cody, NUS Press, Singapore, pp. 198-209.

Millie, J.P., 2008, "Spiritual meal" or Ongoing Project? The Dilemma of Dakwah Oratory, in Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, eds Greg Fealy and Sally White, ISEAS, Singapore, pp. 80-94.

Millie, J.P., 2004, The narrative potential of the Mi'raj: two contexts for its interpretation, in EPIC Adventures, eds Jan Jansen and Henk M. J. Maier, LIT Verlag Munster, Denmark, pp. 128-139.

Journal Articles

Millie, J.P., 2012, Oratorical innovation and audience heterogeneity in Islamic West Java, Indonesia [P], vol 93, issue April, Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, United States, pp. 123-145.

Millie, J.P., 2012, The languages of preaching: Code selection in Sundanese Islamic oratory, West Java, Australian Journal of Anthropology [P], vol 23, issue 3, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia, Australia, pp. 379-397.

Millie, J., 2011, Islamic preaching and women's spectatorship in West Java, Australian Journal of Anthropology [P], vol 22, Wiley-Blackwell, Australia, pp. 151-169.

Millie, J.P., 2008, Angel sparks controversy, Inside Indonesia, vol 91, issue Jan-Mar 2008, Indonesian resources and information program (irip), Australia, pp. 1-2.

Millie, J.P., 2008, Khariq ul-'adah anecdotes and the representation of karamat: Written and spoken hagiography in Islam, History of Religions, vol 48, issue 1, University of Chicago Press, USA, pp. 43-65.

Millie, J.P., 2008, Non-specialists in the pesantren: the social construction of Islamic knowledge, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs (RIMA), vol 42, issue 1, Association for the Publication of Indonesian and Malaysian Studies, Inc., Australia, pp. 107-124.

Millie, J.P., 2008, Supplicating, naming, offering: tawassul in West Java, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol 39, issue 1, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 107-122.

Millie, J.P., 2008, Where are you (not) from?: Sundanese have a habit of putting each other in their places, Inside Indonesia, vol 93, issue Aug-Oct 2008, Indonesian resources and information program (irip), Australia, pp. 1-2.

Millie, J.P., 2007, We are playing relatives: A Review, RIMA (Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs), vol 41, issue 1, Association for the Publication of Indonesian and Malaysian Studies, Inc., Australia, pp. 193-197.

Millie, J.P., 2006, Creating Islamic Places: Tombs and Sanctity in West Java, I S I M Review [P], vol 17, issue 2, International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Netherlands, pp. 12-13.

Millie, J.P., Syihabuddin, 2005, Addendum to Drewes: the Burda of Al-Bsr and the miracles of Abdulqadir al-Jaelani in West Java, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI), vol 161, issue 1, KITLV, Leiden Netherland, pp. 98-126.

Millie, J.P., 2004, Review Essay a??Three Books on the Literary tradition on West Javaa??, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde [P], vol 160, issue 2/3, KITLV Press, Netherland, pp. 416-423.

Millie, J.P., 2001, The poem of Bidasari in the Maranao language, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI), vol 157, issue 2, KITLV Press, Leiden, pp. 403-406.

Conference Proceedings

Millie, J.P., 2009, Regional preaching scenes and Islamism: A Bandung case study, Proceedings of the 2008 GTReC International Conference, 26 - 27 November 2008, Global Terrorism Research Centre, Australia, pp. 150-168.

Other

Millie, J.P., 2012, Asian Studies Review, Timothy Daniels: Islamic spectrum in Java, vol 36, issue 1, Routledge, Australia, pp. 145-147.

Millie, J.P., 2012, Mulaika, Hijjas, victorious wives: The disguised heroine in nineteenth-century Malay Syair, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol 55, issue 4-5, Brill, Netherlands, pp. 850-852.

Millie, J.P., 2012, Ordinary ethics: Anthropology, language and action, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol 23, issue 1, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia, Australia, pp. 117-118.

Millie, J., 2012, Sufi orders and movements: Indonesia, Encyclopedia, Brill, E, Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, pp. 1-4.

Millie, J.P., 2008, The People's Religion: The Sermons of A.F. Ghazali, A collection of excerpts from sermons by A. F. Ghazali; one of the most beloved preachers amongst the Sundanese ethnic group of West Java, Cupumanik Publishing, Indonesia.

Postgraduate Research Supervisions

Current Supervision

Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Identity, fandom and globalisation: an investigation of Persib Bandung fans.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Joint), Singleton, A (Joint-co).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Islamic performing arts as a 'Negotiation space' between Islam and Sundanese culture in West Java, Indonesia.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Main), Richter, M (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Local community, perspective on foreign direct investment: case study in Aceh Besar, Indonesia.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Main), Wattanapenpaiboon, N (Associate).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Power in the Australian halal food consumption chain.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Main), Harris, A (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Shi'ism in a Sunnite Milieu: the making of Jalaluddin Rakhmat as a popular intellectual in Indonesia.
Supervisors:
Ahmad, I (Joint), Millie, J (Joint-co), Barton, G (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Socio-cultural power struggle seen in Javanese hip hop.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Main), Kartomi, M (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The Salvation Army and The Social Gospel: Reconciling evangelical intent and social action.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Joint), Singleton, A (Joint-co).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The nature of Gulen's Sufism and what differs him from contemporary Sufis?.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Joint-co), Yucel, S (Joint).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The political economy of fertility behaviour in tanjung bunga and adonara districts, indonesia.
Supervisors:
Arunachalam, D (Joint-co), Millie, J (Joint).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Where the Other meets the Other: The Political Paradox of Feminism and Tibetan Buddhism.
Supervisors:
Harris, A (Joint), Millie, J (Joint-co).

Completed Supervision

Student:
Bader, S.
Program of Study:
Intersubjective realities: women dangdut performers and ther lived experience in Indramayu and Jakarta, Indonesia. (PHD) 2012.
Supervisors:
Millie, J (Main), Hough, B (Associate).
Student:
Hindasah, L.
Program of Study:
Islamist politics by other means: Majelis Ulama Indonesia in post-Suharto Indonesia. (Masters) 2009.
Supervisors:
Barton, G (Main), Millie, J (Associate).
Student:
Schottmann, S.
Program of Study:
"Islam, properly understood": Mahathir Mohamad on religion, Malaysian society and politics. (PHD) 2010.
Supervisors:
Vicziany, A (Main), Barton, G (Associate), Millie, J (Associate).