Organizer: Indonesia Project, Australian National University
Type/Location: Hybrid / Canberra, Australia
Description:
The 2026 Indonesia Update explores Islamic diversity in Indonesia, examining the diversity, complexity and changing role of Islam in contemporary Indonesian society.
About the 2026 Indonesia Update conference
The 2026 Indonesia Update will be held at The Australian National University in Canberra on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 September 2026. Hosted by the ANU Indonesia Project in collaboration with the ANU Department of Political and Social Change, this year’s conference will explore the theme Islamic diversity in Indonesia.
Now in its 43rd year, the Indonesia Update is the largest annual conference on Indonesian society outside Indonesia. Each year, it brings together leading scholars, policymakers and practitioners from Indonesia, Australia and around the world to examine recent developments in Indonesia and explore a major theme shaping the country’s society, politics and economy.
The 2026 Indonesia Update is supported by the ANU Indonesia Institute and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). This year's Indonesia Update is included in the 2026 IMMERSIA festival, bringing languages, traditions and contemporary voices from across Asia and the Pacific to the ANU Community, hosted by the ANU School of Culture, History & Language
Islamic diversity in Indonesia
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, is often celebrated as a model of peaceful coexistence. But this image is increasingly being questioned as Indonesia experiences the effects of the conservative turn emerging in domestic politics globally. Rising identity politics, online vilification of minorities, increasing levels of authoritarian governance and economic inequality are creating challenges to diversity both within Islamic society and the wider population.
The 2026 Indonesia Update will explore the relationship between Islam and diversity in today’s Indonesia through a wide lens aimed at four themes. ‘Embracing Differences’ will look at Indonesian concepts of diversity that underpin everyday coexistence. ‘Insisting on Difference’ will examine Islamic positions that identify danger and harm in difference, along with their effects for minority rights, educational choices and national policy. ‘Institutions’ will explore how organisations respond to and shape difference in civil society, the bureaucracy, politics and the private sector. ‘Mediating Difference’ will investigate digital culture, youth engagement, group relations, and the varying understandings of diversity promoted and debated in the media. The conference will acknowledge that Islam in Indonesia is both a platform for an ethics of inclusion and a site for its contestation and will ask what this means for the country’s future.
About the Speakers:
Each year, the Indonesia Update opens with the Political Update and Economic Updates, authoritative, must-hear accounts of the year’s major developments in Indonesian politics and the economy, before turning to the conference’s annual theme.
This year, our keynote speakers will help lead that thematic discussion, bringing their expertise and perspectives to Islamic diversity in Indonesia and some of the key questions shaping Islam and Indonesian society today. Together, the keynote, Political Update and Economic Update speakers set the scene for two days of informed discussion, debate and fresh insights into contemporary Indonesia.
Keynote Speaker: Greg Fealy is emeritus professor of Indonesian politics in the Department of Political and Social Change at The Australian National University. He gained his PhD from Monash University in 1998 and has spent more than three decades specialising in the study of Indonesian politics and particularly Islamic parties and movements.
Keynote Speaker: Professor Alwi Shihab is an Indonesian scholar, diplomat, and public intellectual whose career spans interfaith dialogue, Islamic studies, international relations, and public service. Educated at Al-Azhar University and Ain Shams University in Cairo, he later earned his PhD in Religion from Temple University in the United States and undertook postdoctoral study at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University.
Political Update: Nava Nuraniyah is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of International Studies, Macquarie University, focusing on disinformation and foreign interference in the Indo-Pacific. She obtained her PhD from the Department of Political and Social Change, Bell School, Australian National University, with a thesis on Islamist mobilisation amid state repression in Indonesia.
Economic Update: Dr. Jenny Gordon is an Honorary Professor for the Centre for Social Research (POLIS) at the Australian National University, a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute, and a Non-Executive Director at Natural Capital and Climate (NCCEconomics), part of the Alluvium Group. Jenny chairs the Advisory Committee for the Centre for Population Ageing Research, and is on research committees with the Australian Public Policy Institute and the Centre for Policy Development.
Economic Update: Firman Witoelar Kartaadipoetra is an Associate Professor in the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, where he is part of the ANU Indonesia Project and Lead Editor of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.
Registration:
To attend the event in person, please register here.
To attend the event virtually, please register here.