Dr Michele Ford

PhD (U. Wollongong), B Asian Studies (Indonesian) (Hons 1) (ANU); BA (Asian Studies) (UNSW)
Senior lecturer and chair of the department of Indonesian Studies
Room 646, A18 Brennan MacCallum Building

+61 2 9351 7797

Michele chairs the department of Indonesian Studies and teaches Asian Studies and Indonesian language at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on social movements, with a particular emphasis on the labour movement, and the Sumatran province of Insular Riau. Michele is currently working on an ARC Discovery project about union-NGO collaboration around migrant labour issues in the major destination countries of East and Southeast Asia. She recently completed another ARC project on relationships across the Singapore-Indonesia border (with Lenore Lyons). Michele is president of the Indonesia Council and secretary of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. She also runs mailing lists for the Indonesia Council and for scholars interested in Asian and Indonesian labour relations.

Labour, Labour Movements and Labour Migration

• International labour migration and international migrant labour organisations.
• Indonesian trade unions.
• Non-traditional forms of labour movement organisation.
• Indonesian women’s work and women’s involvement in labour movement organisations.

Kepulauan Riau (Kepri) and Singapore

• Cross-border interactions and their effects on identity and citizenship in Kepri and Singapore.
• The impact of regional autonomy on relations between Kepri and the Indonesian central government.

• From Migrant to Worker: New Transnational Responses to Temporary Labour Migration in East and Southeast Asia (ARC Discovery project).
• In The Shadow of Singapore: The Limits of Transnationalism in Insular Riau (ARC Discovery project with Dr Lenore Lyons).
• Political Unionism (with Surya Tjandra).
• Organised Labour in Aceh (with Thushara Dibley)

Please follow this link for a more complete list of Dr Ford's publications.

Books

• Robert Cribb and Michele Ford (eds). Indonesia beyond the Water’s Edge. Singapore: ISEAS (forthcoming).
• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons (eds). Masculinities in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge (forthcoming).
• Michele Ford. Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement. Singapore: Singapore University Press/Hawaii University Press/KITLV (proposal accepted July 2005, currently in press).
• Kaye Broadbent and Michele Ford (eds). 2008. Women and Labour Organizing In Asia: Diversity, Autonomy and Activism. London: Routledge.
• Michele Ford and Lyn Parker (eds). 2008. Women and Work in Indonesia. London: Routledge.

Recent Journal Articles

• Sophie Williams, Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2008. It’s about Bang for your Buck, Bro: Singaporean Men’s Online Conversations about Sex in Batam, Indonesia. Asian Studies Review 32 (1): 77-97.
• Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2008. Love, Sex and the Spaces In-between: Kepri Wives and their Cross-border Husbands. Citizenship Studies 12 (1): 55-72.
• Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2007. Where Internal and International Migration Intersect: Mobility and the Formation of Multi-Ethnic Communities in the Riau Islands Transit Zone. International Journal on Multicultural Studies 9 (2): 236-263.
• Michele Ford. 2006. Migrant Labor NGOs and Trade Unions: A Partnership in Progress? Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 15 (3): 299-318.
• Michele Ford. 2006. Migrant Worker Organizing in Indonesia. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 15 (3): 319-334.
• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2006. The Borders Within: Mobility and Enclosure in the Riau Islands. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 47 (2): 257-271.
• Michele Ford. 2006. Labour NGOs: An Alternative Form of Labour Organizing in Indonesia, 1991-1998. Asia Pacific Business Review 12 (2): 175-192.

Recent Book Chapters

• Kaye Broadbent and Michele Ford. 2008. Women and Labour Organizing in Asia. In K. Broadbent and M. Ford (eds) Women and Labour Organizing in Asia: Diversity, Autonomy and Activism. London and New York: Routledge, pp.1-14.
• Michele Ford and Lyn Parker. 2008. Thinking about Indonesian Women and Work. In M. Ford and L. Parker (eds). Women and Work in Indonesia. London and New York: Routledge, pp.1-16.
• Michele Ford. 2008. Indonesia: Separate Organising within Trade Unions. In K. Broadbent and M. Ford (eds). Women And Labour Organizing In Asia: Diversity, Autonomy And Activism. London and New York: Routledge, pp.15-33.
• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2008. Making the Best of What You’ve Got: Sex Work and Class Mobility in the Riau Islands. In M. Ford and L. Parker (eds). Women and Work in Indonesia. London and New York: Routledge, pp.173-194.
• Michele Ford and Nicola Piper. 2007. Southern Sites of Female Agency: Informal Regimes and Female Migrant Labour Activism in East and Southeast Asia. In J. Hobson and L. Seabrooke (eds). Everyday Politics of the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.63-80.
• Michele Ford. 2007. Indonesia’s New Unions. In Phelan, C. (ed.). Trade Union Revitalisation: Trends and Prospects in 34 Countries, Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 533-546.
• Michele Ford. 2006. After Nunukan: The Regulation of Indonesian Migration to Malaysia. In A. Kaur and I. Metcalfe (eds). Divided We Move: Mobility, Labour Migration and Border Controls in Asia. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp.228-247.
• Michele Ford. 2006. Emerging Labour Movements and the Accountability Dilemma: The Case of Indonesia. In M. Dowdle (ed.) Public Accountability: Design and Experience. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, pp.153-173.

Key Reports

• Michele Ford. 2007. Advocacy Responses to Irregular Labour Migration in ASEAN: The Cases of Malaysia and Thailand. Manila: Migrant Forum in Asia – 18,869 words.
• Michele Ford. 2005. Migrant Labour in Southeast Asia Country Study: Indonesia. Manila: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. (Translated as Buruh Migran di Asia Tenggara: Indonesia. Jakarta, Fredrich Ebert Stiftung) – 12,571 words.

Teaching

• Indonesian language
• Social Activism in Southeast Asia
• Human Rights in Asia

Supervision

• Indonesian politics
• Non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• Social movements in Southeast Asia

Michele has presented at over 30 international and national conferences. She convened the Indonesia Council Open Conference in 2005 and was a member of the organising committee for the Annual Conference of the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand for 2006. Recent conference papers include:

2008

• Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2008. In the Shadow of Singapore: The Limits of Transnationalism in Insular Riau. The 17th ASAA Biennial Conference, Melbourne, 1-3 July.
• Thushara Dibley and Michele Ford. 2008. Organised Labour in Aceh. The 17th ASAA Biennial Conference, Melbourne, 1-3 July.
• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2008. Where are your Victims? Or how Sex Work and Labour Migration came to be Trafficking in the Riau Islands. Paper presented at the 8th Asean Inter-University Seminars on Social Development, Manila, 28-31 May.
• Michele Ford. 2008. Thinking about Union-NGO Collaborations on Migrant Labour Issues in Southeast Asia. Paper presented at the 8th Asean Inter-University Seminars on Social Development, Manila 28-31, May.
• Michele Ford. 2008. NGOs, Unions and the Indonesian Labor Movement, 1998-2008. Paper presented at the UCB-UCLA Southeast Asian Studies Conference on Indonesia, Ten Years After – Reformasi and New Social Movements, 1998-2008, UC Berkeley, 25-26 April.
• Michele Ford. 2008. Transnational Responses to Temporary Labor Migration: Union-NGO Collaborations in Southeast Asia. Paper presented at the SSRC International Conference on Inter-Asian Connections, Dubai, UAE, 21-24 February.

2007

• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2007. Sex Work and Class Mobility in the Riau Islands. Paper presented at the Indonesia Council Open Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, 24-25 September.
• Michele Ford and Surya Tjandra. 2007. The Local Politics of Industrial Relations: Surabaya and Batam Compared. Paper presented at the Indonesia Council Open Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, 24-25 September.
• Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2007. Cross-Border Marriage, Riau Islands Style. Paper presented at Workshop on Transnational Marriages in Asia and Europe, IIAS, Leiden, 21 September.
• Michele Ford. 2007. Contending with Class: Feminism and Women’s Labour Activism in Indonesia. Paper presented at the 5th Euroseas Conference, University L’Orientale, Naples, 12-15 September.
• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2007. Collaboration or Cooptation? Transnational Activism around Sex Work and Labour Migration in the Riau Islands. Paper presented at the 5th Euroseas Conference, University L’Orientale, Naples, 12-15 September.
• Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2007. In the Shadow of Singapore: The Limits of Transnationalism in the Riau Borderlands. Paper presented at the 5th Euroseas Conference, University L’Orientale, Naples, 12-15 September.
• Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2007. Masculinities Across Borders: Singaporean Malay Men in the Riau Islands. Paper presented at ICAS 5, Kuala Lumpur, 2-5 August.
• Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2007. Gender in the Border Zone: Constructing Singapore’s Feminised Other. Paper presented at Crossing Borders, Miri, 4-6 February.

• Secretary, Asian Studies Association of Australian (ASAA)
• President, Indonesia Council
• Member, Indonesia Project Advisory Board
• Member, Australian Universities Steering Committee for the Aceh Research Training Institute
• Chair of the IRIP Board and member of the Editorial Committee of Inside Indonesia
• Editorial Board Member, Labour and Management in Development and Labor History