Vol. 6 No. 2 (2024)

July-December 2024

In this issue, AIJOSH offers a rich spectrum of interdisciplinary inquiry into the lived experiences, cultural productions, and historical negotiations across the Malay-Indonesian world and beyond. This issue is characterized by critical engagements with tradition, modernity, spirituality, and postcolonial realities—articulated through diverse methodologies and localities.

The issue opens with an exploration of Islamic cemetery complexes in Barus, North Sumatra—once a vibrant node in the Indian Ocean trade network. Wani Maler’s study invites readers to consider how historical Islamic burial sites can serve as both archaeological heritage and potential sites of cultural tourism, with tombstones becoming portals into the religious and migratory histories of the archipelago.

From physical heritage to performative traditions, Mujiburrahman et al. illuminate the challenges of preserving the Seudati dance in Aceh’s Pidie Jaya Regency amid the distractions of digital culture. This ethnographic case illustrates how governments and local actors must navigate the tension between cultural continuity and generational disinterest in traditional forms.

Equally rooted in cultural interpretation is the article by Abd Ganing Laengkang, who analyzes Islamic wisdom in the lyrics of Siti Nurhaliza’s Hari Raya songs. This study foregrounds popular music not merely as entertainment, but as a form of contemporary da’wah, embedding spiritual values such as sincerity, remembrance, and gratitude within accessible lyrical form.

A historical dimension is foregrounded in Yudhi Andoni’s investigation of Minangkabau elites in colonial Bukittinggi, who negotiated Western modernity without succumbing to colonial identification. The article reveals how these new actors positioned themselves between adat, Islam, and colonial power, crafting a hybrid form of intellectual and inclusive modernity in early 20th-century Sumatra.

Finally, the issue closes with a comparative literary analysis by Eva Najma et al., examining environmental postcolonialism in Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses and Fatris MF’s Merobek Sumatra. Using ecocritical theory, the authors reveal how both texts narrate land appropriation and environmental degradation through the lens of colonial and neo-colonial capitalist expansion—bridging Southern U.S. and Southeast Asian contexts.

Through these five articles, this issue underscores AIJOSH’s commitment to advancing critical scholarship that is historically rooted, theoretically informed, and socially resonant. We thank our contributors for their intellectual generosity and our reviewers for their constructive engagement. We hope this edition will inspire further research and dialogue across the humanities and social sciences in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Editor-in-Chief