Faculty Associate
akusno15[at]yorku.ca
Professor
Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University
Research Keywords:
Urban cultural studies; history; architectural design; geography
Research Region(s):
Indonesia, Southeast Asia
Research Diaspora(s):
Southeast Asian Diaspora
I am a professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, and a former director of the York Centre for Asian Research (2017–22). My academic work draws upon a range of fields including urban cultural studies, history, architectural design and geography. My research focuses on Indonesia, especially Jakarta, and evolves around the issues of politics, culture and the built environment. I examine the ways in which architecture and urban space shaped culture, environments and political consciousness of different social groups at different moments in the country’s history. My teaching encompasses issues around politics, planning and urbanization in the context global and local power. I also taught (in 2020 and 2021) “The Making of Asian Studies: Critical Perspectives.”
I am currently completing a SSHRC-funded research project: “Inundation and Environmental Politics in Southeast Asia.” It builds on the insights of current scholarship from critical geography and anthropology of infrastructure to make sense of the recent development in Jakarta and its surrounding in which environmental degradation, informality and lack of planning have led to both disaster and opportunities as well as modes of governing society. My research is published in my new book, Jakarta: The City of a Thousand Dimensions (National University of Singapore Press 2023).