Kurt Stenross

B Asian St (Hons) Murd, PhD(Murd)

My interest in perahu shipping and maritime communities in Indonesia dates back to my first visit to Indonesia in 1974, when I determined to experience as much as possible of this traditional maritime transport world before it disappeared. But on my first visit to Madura in 1983, my interest changed from touristic adventure to more serious inquiry: why were the vessels of Madura so completely different from those elsewhere, how had these fleets of seemingly archaic craft come to take such a key role in indigenous shipping, and why were the Madurese the only major maritime group from central Indonesia, in counterpoint to ethnic groups from Sulawesi? I returned several times to Madura during the 1980s, but deeper investigation had to wait until 1998, when as part of my in-country language year I stayed for a semester in a strand village of West Madura. That experience laid the foundation for my Honours thesis, which focussed on a particular type of traditional vessel. I had by then become aware of the need for a major ethnographic study of the seafaring communities of Madura, placing them in their social and historical context and with a detailed analysis of their maritime economy. These musings and further visits in 1999-2000 and 2001 led to my doctoral research project, and extended fieldwork in Madura, Java and Kalimantan in 2002-3.

Publications and Conference Papers:

'The janggolan of Madura: opportunity and changing perspectives in a pesisir community’, International Workshop on Southeast Asian Studies No. 15, Leiden, 22-25 January, 2001.
'Salt and timber and maritime transport communities: the case of Sreseh, Madura’, International Conference on Maritime History and Heritage, Fremantle, 11-14 December 2001.
'Madurese migration across the Java Sea’, Middle Passages: The oceanic voyage as social process Conference, Fremantle, 13-16 July 2005.
'Review of Dependence on Green Gold: A socio-economic history of the Indonesian Coconut Island Selayar, by C. Heersink'; RIMA, vol. 35, 2, 2001 (publ. 2002).
‘ “Legal” and “illegal” in the Java Sea timber trade’, Asiaview, vol. 15, no. 1, December 2005.
‘Hazards of seafaring’ , in Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, Oxford University Press (forthcoming).(with Carolin Liss)

Research Associate, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, South Street, Murdoch, WA 6150. Fax: 9360 6381, Email: k.stenross@murdoch.edu.au