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Assoc Prof Michele Ford

PhD (U. Wollongong), B Asian Studies (Indonesian) (Hons 1) (ANU); BA (Asian Studies) (UNSW)
Associate Professor
Room 648, A18 Brennan MacCallum Building

+61 2 9351 7797

Michele teaches in the department of Indonesian Studies 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 the repoliticisation of Indonesian trade unions with Associate Professor Teri Caraway of the University of Minnesota. She has recently completed two others, one on union-NGO collaboration around migrant labour issues in the major destination countries of East and Southeast Asia and one on relationships across the Singapore-Indonesia border (with Lenore Lyons). Michele has served as President of the Indonesia Council (2005-2010) and as Secretary of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2006-2011).

Research Areas

Labour, Labour Movements and Labour Migration

  • International labour migration and international migrant worker 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.

Current Projects

  • 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 Teri Caraway and Hari Nugroho).
  • Organised Labour in Aceh (with Thushara Dibley)

Selected Publications

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

Books

  • Ford, M. (ed). Social Activism in Southeast Asia. Abingdon and New York: Routledge (in press).
  • Ford, M., L. Lyons and W. van Schendel (eds). 2012. Labour Migration and Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia: Critical Perspectives. Abingdon and New York: Routledge
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons (eds). 2012. Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
  • Michele Ford. 2009. Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Trade Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement. Singapore: Singapore University Press/Hawaii University Press/KITLV.
  • Robert Cribb and Michele Ford (eds). 2009. Indonesia beyond the Water’s Edge: Managing an Archipelagic state. Singapore: ISEAS.
  • 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.
  • Adrian Vickers and Darma Putra with Michele Ford (eds). 2000. To Change Bali: Essays in Honour of I Gusti Ngurah Bagus. Denpasar: Bali Post.

Recent Journal Articles

  • Ford, M. and T. Dibley. 2012. Experiments in Cross-Scalar Labour Organizing: Reflections on Trade Union-Building Work in Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami. Antipode 44 (2): 303-320.
  • Ford, M. and T. Dibley. 2011. Developing a Movement? Aid-Based Mediated Diffusion as a Strategy to Promote Labour Activism in Post-tsunami Aceh.Asian Journal of Social Science 39: 469-488.
  • Weiss, M. and M. Ford. 2011. Temporary Transnationals: Southeast Asian Students in Australia. Journal of Contemporary Asia 41 (2): 229-248.
  • Ford, M., L. Lyons and W. Palmer. 2010. Stopping the Hordes: A Critical Account of the Labor Government’s Regional Approach to the Management of Asylum Seekers. Local-Global 8: 28-35.
  • Lyons, L., M. Ford and S. Williams. 2010. Legal Issues Associated with the Study of Sexual Content on the Internet in Australia. Australian Feminist Law Journal 33: 143-159.
  • Michele Ford. 2010. A Victor’s History: A Comparative Analysis of the Labour Historiography of Indonesia’s New Order. Labor History 51 (4): 523-541.
  • Lenore Lyons, Michele Ford and Sophie Williams. 2010. Legal Issues Associated with the Study of Sexual Content on the Internet in Australia. Australian Feminist Law Journal 33: 143-159.
  • Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2010. ‘Where are your Victims?’ How Sexual Health Advocacy came to be Counter-Trafficking in Indonesia’s Riau Islands. International Feminist Journal of Politics 12 (2): 255-264.
  • 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

  • Ford, M. Developing Societies – Asia. In A. Wilkinson, G.Wood and R. Deeg (eds).The Oxford Handbook of Employment Relations: Comparative Employment Systems. Oxford (in press).
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons. Labour Migration, Trafficking and Border Controls. In T. Wilson and H. Donnan (eds). A Companion to Border Studies, Oxford: Blackwell (in press).
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons. Smuggling Cultures in the Indonesia-Singapore Borderlands. In B. Kalir and M. Sur (eds).Illegal but Licit. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (in press).
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons. Working for a Day Off: Advocating for the Rights of Migrant Women in Southeast Asia. In D. Caouette and D. Kapoor (eds). Beyond Development and Globalization Projects: Critical Perspectives and Social Movements. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press (in press).
  • Ford, M. 2012. Contested Borders, Contested Boundaries: The Politics of Labour Migration in Southeast Asia. In R. Robison (ed). Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Politics. London and New York: Routledge, pp.305-314.
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons. 2012. Counter-Trafficking and Migrant Labour Activism in Indonesia’s Periphery. In M. Ford, L. Lyons and W. van Schendel (eds). Labour Migration and Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia: Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp.75-94.
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons. 2012. Introduction: Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. In M. Ford and L. Lyons (eds). Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge, pp.1-19.
  • Ford, M., L. Lyons and W. van Schendel. 2012. Labour Migration and Human Trafficking. In M. Ford, L. Lyons and W. van Schendel (eds). Labour Migration and Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia: Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp.1-19.
  • Lyons, L. and M. Ford. 2012. Defending the Nation: Malay Men’s Experience of National Service in Singapore. In M. Ford and L. Lyons (eds) Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge, pp.139-158.
  • Williams, S., L. Lyons and M. Ford. 2012. Homosociality and Desire: Charting Singaporean Sex Tourists’ Online Conversations. In M. Ford and L. Lyons (eds) Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge, pp.68-85.
  • Ford, M. 2011. International Networks and Human Rights in Indonesia. In T. Davis and B. Galligan (eds). Human Rights in Asia. Edward Elgar, pp.38-55.
  • Ford, M. and L. Lyons. 2011. Narratives of Agency: Sex Work in Indonesia’s Borderlands. In K. Adams and K. Gillogly (eds). Everyday Life in Southeast Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp.295-303.
  • Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2011. Travelling the Aspal Route: Grey Labour Migration through an Indonesian Border Town. In Aspinall, E. and van Klinken, G. The State and Illegality in Indonesia, Leiden: KITLV.
  • Michele Ford. 2010. Constructing Legality: The Management of Irregular Labour Migration in Thailand and Malaysia. In M. van der Linden (ed) Labour History Beyond Borders: Concepts and Explorations, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt.
  • Michele Ford. 2010. Laboring Practices: Southeast Asia. In Suad Joseph (ed) Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures. Brill Online. http://www.brillonline.nl/
  • Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2010. “Lavoro del Sesso e Soggettività: Storie dalle Isole Riau (Indonesia)”. In Silvia Vignato (ed) Soggetti al Lavoro: Etnografia della Vita Attiva, Milan : UTET, pp. 109-128.
  • Lenore Lyons and Michele Ford. 2009. Singaporean First: Challenging the Concept of Transnational Malay Masculinity. In Derek Heng and Syed Muhd Kairudin Aljunied (eds). 2009. Reframing Singapore: Memory – Identity – Trans-regionalism. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp.175-194.
  • Robert Cribb and Michele Ford. 2009. Indonesia as an Archipelago: Managing Islands, Managing the Seas. In Robert Cribb and Michele Ford (eds). 2009. Indonesia beyond the Water’s Edge: Managing an Archipelagic State. Singapore: ISEAS, pp.1-27.
  • Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2009. Fluid Boundaries: Modernity, Nation and Identity in the Riau Islands. In Robert Cribb and Michele Ford (eds). 2009. Indonesia beyond the Water’s Edge: Managing an Archipelagic State. Singapore: ISEAS, pp.196-212.
  • Michele Ford. 2009. Trade Unionism in Independent Indonesia. In C. Phelan (ed). Trade Unionism since 1945: Towards a Global History, Volume 2: The Americas, Asia and Australia. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 99-126.
  • 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.
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Teaching and Supervision

Teaching

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

Supervision

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

Conference Activity

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:

2009

  • Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2009. Smuggling Cultures in the Indonesia-Singapore Borderlands. Paper presented at the Indonesia Council Open Conference. Sydney University, Sydney, 15-17 July.
  • Michele Ford and Thushara Dibley. 2009. Blurry Boundaries: Supervisory Relationships in a Collaborative Scholarly Community. Paper presented at the Transmission of Academic Values in Asian Studies Workshop. The Australian National University, Canberra, 25-26 June.
  • Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2009. Sovereignty, Territory and Jurisdiction in Indonesia’s Maritime Borderlands. Paper presented at The State of Sovereignty. Durham University, Durham, 1-3 April.
  • Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2009. State Power at the Margins: Thinking about Sovereignty and Jurisdiction in Indonesia’s Borderlands. Paper presented at Continuity and Change: (Re)conceptualising Power in South-east Asia, Cambridge University, Cambridge, 26-28 March.

2008

  • Michele Ford. 2008. The Challenges ahead for Organised Labour. Paper presented at 21st Century Indonesia - Challenges Ahead, ISEAS, Singapore, 13-14 November.
  • Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons. 2008. Travelling the Aspal Route: State-Sponsored ‘Grey’ Labour Migration through Indonesia’s Transit Provinces. Paper presented at State and Illegality in Indonesia, ANU, 22-24 September 2008.
  • Michele Ford. 2008. Thinking about Union-NGO Collaborations on Migrant Labour Issues in Southeast Asia. Paper presented at the First ISA Forum on Sociology, Barcelona, 5-8 September.
  • 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.

Other Professional Contributions

  • Member, Indonesia Project Advisory Board
  • Co-ordinating Editor of Inside Indonesia
  • Editorial Board Member, Labor History; Labour and Management in Development; and Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs
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