Kalimantan news.

Dr. Ian Chalmers, Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies, Dept. of Languages and Intercultural Education, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia, writes that after Christmas (2006) he plans to use his sabbatical leave to go to Kalimantan. There he intends to undertake a project with the working title "The domestication of Islam in Kalimantan." The project seeks to explain why this universal religion takes such different forms in different communities and will basically interrogate the ethnic politics behind the process by which large numbers of Dayaks (perhaps now a majority) have become Muslim. What are the contemporary political implications of this gradual Islamization? The background to this comparative study will necessarily be socio-historical, and will compare the process by which South Kalimantan became almost totally Muslim, much of Central Kalimantan remains Christian and nativist, while the religions of ethnically-divided West Kalimantan tend to be more intolerant. Dr. Chalmers intends to visit the cities of Banjarmasin, Palangka Raya (as well as Sampit), and Pontianak while in these three provinces and plans to write up a research report when he returns to Jakarta in April 2007. Dr. Chalmers can be reached by email at <[e-mail]>.