Yatun Sastramidjaja is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, affiliated with the AISSR program group Moving Matters. She obtained her PhD at the University of Amsterdam, with a dissertation on the Indonesian student movement, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Erasmus University Rotterdam on Indonesia’s globalizing heritage industry. She was a visiting fellow twice (and currently an associate fellow) at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, for research projects on 1) the digitally mediated ecosystem of contemporary youth movements, and 2) cyber troops and online political influencing campaigns, in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. Both topics remain the focus of her current research, which examines the interplay between repression, resistance, and resilience in a world where power, politics, and struggle move into the cybersphere, with real-world effects.

Yatun Sastramidjaja is the director of the Master’s Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. She is also a member of the board of the European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS), and a member of the board of the magazine Inside Indonesia. Her book on the Indonesian student movement and an edited volume on digital technologies and democracy in Southeast Asia are forthcoming.

Expertise and research fields

• Political and sociocultural anthropology
• Political culture and citizenship
• Repression and resistance
• Youth activism, protest movements
• Digital cultures and new technologies
• Heritage and memory cultures
• Indonesia and Southeast Asia studies

Administrative role

• Programme Director Master’s Cultural and Social Anthropology

Research methods

• Ethnography, qualitative methods
• Digital ethnography, digital mixed-methods

Current research projects

• “Cyber Troops and Computational Propaganda in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study of Public Opinion Manipulation”: brings together researchers in social sciences, humanities, and computational science, from Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, to investigate the dynamics and networks of online political influencing.
• “Social Media and the Youth Vote in Indonesia’s 2019 and 2024 Elections”: examines how first-time and second-time voters (aged 18-25) in Indonesia use social media in the upcoming 2024 elections, compared with the 2019 elections. 
• “Digitally-mediated youth movements in Southeast Asia”: examines how youth activism transforms at the interface of virtual and material spaces, focusing on cross-sectoral and cross-national connections.

Research grants & honours

• 2022: Research funding from Onderzoeksfonds KNAW Instituten for research project on “Cyber Troops and Computational Propaganda in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study of Public Opinion Manipulation”, with Ward Berenschot.
• 2021: Visiting Fellowship at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, for research project on “Cyber Troops and Computational Propaganda in Southeast Asia”. 
• 2021: Research funding from the Global Digital Cultures RPA, University of Amsterdam, for research project on “P(R)OTESTAS: The Politics and Aesthetics of Digital Authoritarianism and Protest in the Global South”, with Julienne Weegels and Luisa Gonzalez Valencia.
• 2020: Research funding from the Anticipation Grant Indonesia-The Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), for research project on “Cyber Troops and Public Opinion Manipulation: A Mixed-Method Study of Social Media Propaganda in Indonesia”, with Ward Berenschot, Wijayanto, and Ismail Fahmi.
• 2020: Visiting Fellowship at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, for research project on “Viral Citizenship: Digital Youth Activism and Reconfigurations of Democratic Citizenship in Southeast Asia”.

Involved in Research Priority Area

• Global Digital Cultures

Courses

Current courses:

• Practicing Ethnography
• Designing Applied Fieldwork  
• RMSS Workshop Digital Methods
• (Research) Master thesis supervision 

Past courses:

• Youth Cultures in a Transnational Context
• Contemporary Debates: Youth
• Youth and Health
• Political Anthropology
• Mobility, Migration and Security
• Age, City and Work
• Anthropology in Action

PhD Supervision

• Arifah Arum Candra Hayuningsih, “The Javanese Diaspora in New Caledonia: From Indentured Labourers to a Fractured Community”, completed April 2023
• Saur Marlina Manurung, “Navigating ‘Evil with Spiked Eyes’:  An Ethnography on How the Orang Rimba Hunter-Gatherers Organize their Education to Address Pressures of Assimilation”, in progress.
• Remco Vermeulen, “Colonial Heritage Engagement in Postcolonial Indonesian Cities”, in progress.