Scraps of Hope in Banda Aceh: Gendered Urban Politics in the Aceh Peace Process

Abstract

This book and the accompanied video documentaries would have not been possible without the support of a number of people over the past eight years, some going way beyond that, all the way to early 2000s at the Peace Station in Helsinki and dialogue with Acehnese human rights defenders. First of all, I want to thank all those Acehnese who allowed the project team and me to enter your homes and lives-I have a deep gratitude of having gained insights that led research towards appreciating Ilmu Bodoh, subaltern theorising on peace. On behalf of all of us who have formed the Scraps of Hope team during these years, we sincerely hope that we can live up to your expectations of this journey. Any representational biases and mistakes are solely ours. I also want to thank all the Acehnese counterpart organisations and their staff members, directors, researchers, lecturers and, most importantly, administrative staff members facilitating the paper bureaucracy related to foreign researcher visits in Aceh between the years 2012 and 2018. These institutions are the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS), the University of Malikussaleh (UNIMAL) and the Islamic State University Ar-Raniry (UIN). My special gratitude goes to the staff of the Embassy of Republic of Indonesia in Helsinki and in particular the Ambassador of Indonesia in Finland, H. E. Wiwiek Setyawati Firman, for facilitating the filming permissions for 2015, and taking part in the University of Helsinki Think Corner Talk-Poetry-Dance ZUBAIDAH DJOHAR: BUILDING A BOAT IN A PARADISE-FEMINIST LITERATURE THAT RESISTS FORGETTING xii Scraps of Hope in Banda Aceh evening in November 2017. The Scraps of Hope team, daring to dream of a media-embedded, peer-reviewed monograph already in 2015, we truly were ahead of the times! Thank you Seija Hirstiö, Ariyuki Suzuki, Päivi Nikkilä, and Riitta Koikkalainen and Jukka Turunen for being part of Scraps of Hope! My gratitude for all the hard work by Rahmat in Aceh for essential logistics and additional camerawork in recordings in December 2015. Evi Sugianty (ICAIOS) and Mifta Sugesti-your professionalism in going through interview and video recordings, providing transcripts, translations and detailed comments on the draft videos, has provided deepened perspectives to ethnographic moments that could otherwise go unnoticed. My sincere thanks to poet, trainer, researcher and friend Ibed, Zubaidah Djohar and a colleague at UNIMAL campus Nanda Amalia, and all her colleagues who invited me to their classes in 2012. A special thank you to the Creative Minority student group for initiating the creative writing workshops leading to Zubaidah Djohar's edited book Dalam Keriput Yang Tak Usang: Suara Pemuda Dan Jalan Panjang Perdamaian Aceh and similarly, all the voluntary effort that went into writing, editing and publishing the book Bisu yang Bersuara, collection of writings of female survivors of violence in the midst of peace in Aceh after the initial joint writing workshop organized in August 2018. Similarly, the whol...

The Contribution of Shaykh Abbas Kuta Karang in Malay Medical: A Study on Al-Rahmah fi Al-Tib wa Al-Hikmah Manuscript

“…In addition to his contributions to social and religious disciplines, he has also made significant contributions to the field of medical knowledge. In furtherance of his medical profession, he authored a Malay medical manuscript entitled Al-Rahmah fi al-Tib wa al-Hikmah (Mohd Shafri and Muhammad Yahya in 2017;and Jauhola in 2020). This article aims to highlight the great contribution by Shaykh Abbas in the authorship of medical manuscripts in Malay during the 19th century.…”