Associate Professor Eva Nisa is an anthropologist, Islamic studies scholar, and ARC DECRA Fellow at ANU. Her work sits at the forefront of the anthropology of Islam, exploring the intersections of religion, gender, economy, youth, and digital life. Trained in Qur’anic Sciences at Al-Azhar University (Cairo), she brings rare depth to the study of Muslim societies. Her academic path spans Leiden University (MA), ANU (PhD), and postdocs at the University of Hamburg and the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of Face-veiled Women in Contemporary Indonesia and has published over sixty scholarly works. Since joining ANU in 2019, after teaching at Victoria University of Wellington, she has received the ANU CAP Award for Teaching Excellence and held a guest professorship at the University of Vienna. Her research is widely cited and featured in leading global media, including The New York Times, BBC, and Al Jazeera, and she was profiled in Womankind Magazine, distributed in 27 countries, for her contributions to gender and Islam. She serves as Vice President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA).
The 2026 Indonesia Update will explore the relationship between Islam and diversity in today’s Indonesia through a wide lens aimed at a few specific themes.
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.
Program and Registration
A draft program will be released in May, and registration will open in June.
About the Indonesia Update
The Indonesia Update is the largest annual conference on Indonesian society outside of Indonesia and dates back to 1983. Held in September, it is organised by the ANU Indonesia Project in collaboration with the ANU Department of Political and Social Change. This year marks the 43rd annual Indonesia Update conference.
The Indonesia Updates are designed to provide comprehensive overviews of developments in Indonesia and to present wide-ranging discussions on a theme of particular interest each year. They cater to an audience that includes government officials, academics, teachers, members of business and non-government organisations, students and others. Each year, an expert group of speakers from Indonesia, Australia and elsewhere is assembled. The Indonesia Update is structured to encourage discussion and questions from the audience. The Update proceedings will appear in the Indonesia Update series. Since 1994, the proceedings have been published by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, in collaboration with The Australian National University.
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.
Eva Nisa
Julian Millie
Julian Millie is Professor of Indonesian Studies at Monash University. His research is about the social and political meanings of Islamic practice in Indonesia. Since obtaining his doctorate from Leiden University in 2005, he has completed several research projects about Islamic practices such as preaching, pedagogy and intercession, doing his ethnographic work primarily amongst the Muslim populations of West Java. He works with academics from universities in West Java including the Sunan Gunung Djati State Islamic University and Pasundan University. His most recent major works are a special issue of Religion, State and Society entitled Islamic Bureaucracies: New Frontiers for Public Religion (2025, with Banu Senay) and the collected volume ‘The ‘Crossed-Out God’ in the Asia-Pacific: Religious Efficacy of Public Spheres’ (2023, Palgrave MacMillan). Julian was appointed Professor of Indonesian studies at Monash in 2020. In 2021 he was accepted into the Australian Academy of the Humanities.