Idea Brokers: Activism By and For Vulnerable Populations in Indonesia

My dissertation examines Indonesian activists’ political attitudes and strategies to conduct public information campaigns and secure rights protections for their vulnerable stakeholders: I use case studies for organizations that work with or for people who are vulnerable (e.g., disabled people, sexual violence survivors). My methodology is pluralist. In my dissertation, I use computational text analysis and discourse analysis to examine diffusion of words and conceptual frameworks across online news platforms, historical legal and policy research to contextualize activists’ actions, and (most importantly) interviews to understand strategies from the actors working on their behalf. This research was made possible with the support of the National Science Foundation and the Luce Foundation.