Sugar Nutmeg

Miko talks to us about how the vast forests and wide, empty roads of Suriname give rise to ghost stories, the reasons the ghosts in his paintings take classical Greek poses or animalistic positions, the fantasy of prosperity and whitewashing of historical paintings, how cultural signifiers in his paintings carry double meanings, and feeling alienated from art as a child. Plus, we ponder the preval...

Nasrikah and Okui Lala talk to us about their collaboration project, Rasa and Asa , a short film, shot during the height of pandemic via online video platform, capturing the activities and daily meetings of the PERTIMIG members. -- Okui Lala (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is an artist and cultural worker. Her practice spans from video and performance to community engagement. Okui’s work explores themes...

Tao talks to us about urban geography and morphology in Southeast Asia. We discuss historic preservation and patterns of heritage-making in Southeast Asia, touristification, image-making and nationalist architecture, the evolution of neighborhoods and their communities as cities get reinvented, and whether Chinatowns in Southeast Asia are "disappearing and dying" as they are in Western c...

Inspired by her grandfather, who followed the stars to navigate the seas and landscape of Bangka, Janette shares the colorful journey of her astrophysics career. She talks to us about black holes, massive stars, supernova explosions, and how reverse culture shock can almost derail you from your career. Optional: episode to be enjoyed with a plate of pempek. -- Janette Suherli is a PhD student at t...

Damar talks to us about his research on supernatural phenomena. We discuss different elements and even marketing methods used by dukun in Indonesia. Plus, paranormal sensitivities, indigo people, and Ruth's untapped powers. Everything is magic is Southeast Asia. -- Andamar Pradipta obtained his bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology from Universitas Indonesia. He then continued his studies a...

Elliott talks to us about the Rohingya political situation amidst dislocation and mass violence, especially after the coup in Myanmar, and how R-Coin is a new initiative helping stateless Rohingya diaspora in Malaysia. --- Elliott Prasse-Freeman is a political anthropologist studying social movements, violence, and symbolic culture in Burma. As part of a related ongoing project on the Rohingya gen...

Emy talks to us about disinformation challenges in Southeast Asia and its evolving relationship with democracy, civil society participation, and digital maturity. To be enjoyed with a hearty bowl of Sinigang! Emy Ruth Gianan is a full-time professor teaching classes on public policy, governance, and development economics at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila. Alongside teaching,...

Ernst and Veronika talk to us about their process of composing Expedition Content, the augmented sound piece composed from 37 hours of recordings which document the encounter between members of the Harvard Peabody Expedition, particularly Michael Rockefeller of the Rockefeller family, and the Hubula people of West Papua, at the time Nederlands New Guinea. The piece reflects on visual anthropology,...

Ruth and Alexandra often find themselves furious about foreigners coming to the "exotic" islands of Indonesia and using the archipelago as a pretty background for their Instagram photos or YouTube vlogs. With Fred Clapp, they share stories of treading responsibly on foreign lands, deromanticizing distant locales, and finding a home halfway across the world. Plus, feline hierarchies, protesting bab...

Alexandra is in CDMX shooting a film and Ruth is off to Bali to reunite with her boyfriend. We recorded this episode last month to reflect on borders, passports, visas, Indonesian cartels, “forbidden areas” and the Forbidden Fruit. Is this the episode in which we get cancelled? As always, let’s feast and find out. Don't forget to tip: https://anchor.fm/sugar-nutmeg/support And leave us a review: h...

Pailin Wedel talks to us about her Emmy-winning, Netflix-acquired film, Hope Frozen , and her work with Al Jazeera across Southeast Asia. We discuss death, the afterlife, the ecosystem of documentary filmmaking and journalistic work in Southeast Asia, and the power of radical hope. -- Pailin Wedel is a journalist and filmmaker best known for directing and producing the documentary  Hope...

Thi My Lien Nguyen talks to us about Viet-Lao identity, the Vietnamese diaspora in Switzerland versus France, Germany, and the U.S., the types of dishes she cooks to honor the dead, working with folklore and foodways, and starting Mili's Supper Club. Plus, Swiss cheese, chocolate cake, the different funeral processions in Indonesia, and more! Thi My Lien Nguyen is a Swiss-Vietnamese lens-based art...

Sim Chi Yin walks us through her ongoing project "One Day We'll Remember": uncovering family secrets, visiting ancestral villages, collecting artefacts and archival materials, and making counter archives with family members and locals from her grandfather's neighborhood in Gaoshang after he was deported from British Malaya for his anti-colonial resistance against the British occupying forces. She...

We talk about protest-dressing, dopamine-dressing, performance-dressing, all the subtle and unsubtle ways of sales associates, and more! Xingyun is a freelance researcher and writer who advocates for a more humane fashion system through her work. She studied Fashion Sustainability and Digital Fashion Management at the London College of Fashion and is now the country coordinator for Fashion Revolut...

We talk to Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray about her adventures with the Cariocas of Brazil, making films with tsunami survivors in Aceh, working with repatriated migrants in Buenos Aires, syncretism between Afro-Cuban religions and Taoism & Buddhism in Cuba, and interviewing the Southeast Asian restauranteurs of New York City. Plus, surprising similarities that Juliette found between Rio de Janeiro...

Special Holiday Episode! Coinciding with the release of "Happy Stories, Mostly" , we talk to Norman Erikson Pasaribu and Tiffany Tsao about their work as translators of each others work and as individual writers themselves. Between Sydney, Bekasi, Bogor and New York, we discuss cultural untranslatability, creating new languages, building new memories through language, and why it’s difficult for re...

Nay Saysourinho talks to us about heterotopia, folktales and fairy tales, passive resistance and "passive" choices, motherhood, domesticity, and how she learned to find her voice as a writer from listening to her aunties gossip at home. Plus, the impact of the French language, the bond of la Francophonie, the nonchalance of Laotians, and all the things that get lost in translation.... Nay Saysouri...

Nurdiyansah tells us about his trips across Indonesia to explore how spices from the region hold a multitude of stories that transcend the epochal eras: Dutch colonization, Japanese occupation, the national revolution era, New Order era, Reformasi , and the new digital age. The aroma and flavor of traditional dishes and culinary delights offered him personal and political reflections on the hybrid...

Brazilian-Indonesian artist Daniel Lie talks to us about the commonalities and distinctiveness between Brazil and Indonesia, two countries that share latitude lines, equatorial climate, lush rainforests enduring rampant deforestation, emerging market economies, class systems, and a long history of US-backed authoritarian regimes. We discuss the ideas explored in Daniel's trilingual project Toko Bu...

Ragil Huda talks to us about his unconventional journey: growing up in a small village in South Sumatra, working with the transgender community in Yogyakarta, attending Islamic boarding schools in both Java and Sumatra, finding the right support system in Penang, his current work as an academic-activist, methods of knowledge production, community building, grassroots organizing, and how he stays m...

*Note: At 24:00, what Sarnt meant here is a contemporary ethnic segregation amongst Southeast Asians in middle-class milieus, which happens less in the Berlin environment, in comparison to Bangkok. Historically, however, in West/East Germany there had been huge racial segregation imposed by both states, for example, between migrant "contract" workers who weren't allowed to live or interact with re...

Born in Denpasar, Cynthia Dewi Oka grew up as an ethnic minority and religious minority in Bali and Java. These experiences pushed her family to migrate to Vancouver, Canada, where Cynthia faced a whole other beast of diasporic experiences. Now a poet with three Pushcart Prize nominations, she lives in Philadelphia, where she partnered with Asian Arts Initiative to offer Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetr...

In the most dangerous part of the world for activists, Mitzi Jonelle Tan continues to mobilize and organize movements for climate justice. She chairs the Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP) and works with indigenous leaders in most affected areas. Mitzi talks to us about Duterte's infamous anti-terror bill and war of drugs, the right to freedom of speech and the human rights cri...

In his first interview with a Southeast Asian podcast since the launch of his book, Vincent Bevins answers questions about the topics in "The Jakarta Method," which he wrote after extensive research and interviews with survivors throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. We talk about everything from specific tactics & operations in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brazil, and Chile,...

A travelogue exploring the dynamics of ethnic and religious tension throughout the many islands in the Indonesian archipelago, " Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia " is a book by Andreas Harsono that summarizes the reality of Indonesia. He talks to us about why this country is so complex to comprehend and so obscure to the rest of the world, despite bein...