Bridging Connections and Finding Independence: Siti Kusujiarti’s Sociological Journey
Alexandra Gore | March 21, 2024
Siti Kusujiarti had no intention of moving to America permanently. 24 years later, she has completed a postdoctoral fellowship, became Warren Wilson College’s (WWC) Sociology/Anthropology department chair and is currently writing and researching for a book on gender, disaster and climate change.
Kusujiarti earned her bachelor’s degree in Yogyakarta, Indonesia at Gadjah Mada University. Higher education is designed differently there than what many are familiar with in the United States– one must declare one’s major before they can attend, and there is no way of changing it without starting the process over again. But this wasn’t a caveat to Kusujiarti, picking her major was easy– her father was a professor of sociology.
“He socialized us into thinking sociologically,” Kusujiarti said. “When we took a trip as a family, for example, he would be asking questions like, ‘What do people do? Why do they do them?’ He always wanted us to read a lot of books and daily newspapers – he would test us. That helped me start thinking sociologically, but also thinking about social inequality and social injustices that are taking place around me as well.”
Students and professors at her university were quick to refer to Kusujiarti as her father’s daughter, and while she was appreciative of his guidance, she yearned for freedom and independence from her family. Additionally, the societal expectation to marry straight out of college was weighing on her, and she knew she could not further her education the way she wanted if she got married then.
“Because of that expectation to get married right after you finish with your undergraduate studies, not many women then had opportunities to get a master's degree or let alone a Ph.D.,” Kusujiarti said. “And even my own mother at that time was like, ‘Well, be careful, because if you have too much education, nobody will get married to you.’ Because the expectation is that women have to have less education, or at least, you know, similar education as their partner.”
Westernized perception of post-colonial societies also pushed Kusujiarti to pursue her master’s degree in another country.
“Global inequality then also created that notion that education in the European countries and the U.S. are better,” Kusujiarti said. “That is the kind of legacy of colonialism – that knowledge in Western European countries and the U.S. are more ‘advanced’ despite the fact that we do have very, very rich knowledge in Indonesia. So there's encouragement to do, especially your degrees, in those countries, because there is that notion that you will get ‘better education,’ and that it will create advantages for you individually as well.”
With the dream in her back pocket, Kusujiarti knew that her family could not afford American tuition – $1 is equivalent to just over 15,000 Indonesian Rupiahs. Several applications later, she received a full scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development under the women’s program. The scholarship provided a loan to the Indonesian government from the United States government, but with it came interest that they were expected to pay.
With gratitude for the loan, she feels a responsibility to pay it off in a way with the knowledge she was able to receive because of it.
“I see my role here as creating that bridge between cultures,” Kusujiarti said. “Study abroad is one of the ways in which I try to create those connections and that bridge, and when I do study abroad, I do it fairly intentionally, I do not just take them and travel there, but I really want the people and the students from here and there to actually have cultural dialogues.”
Her next study abroad journey will take place next spring semester and centers around artistic expression in Indonesia. The course will use traditional Indonesian art forms – including music, dance, and theater as a lens through which to view social change in Bali and Java.
In the evenings, Kusujiarti spends time virtually guest lecturing sociology classes in Indonesia. She prioritizes fostering connections between her WWC students and students overseas.
“In one of my classes, societies in Southeast Asia, I partner with a class in a university in Indonesia, and the students in that class in Indonesia are working with my students here,” Kusujiarti said. “So they have an online meeting once a week to learn about Indonesian culture, history and language, and then they also learn about college lives here. That kind of connection and dialogue, I think, is very important.”
Earthquakes and tsunamis impacting Indonesia in the past quarter decade have destroyed homes and left several of its islands underwater. Kusujiarti is dedicated to shining light on the intersecting identities that do not get enough recognition in terms of climate change and natural disasters.
“Queer and transgender ecology is one of the topics that hasn't been discussed that much when we’re talking about the environment, when we're talking about disaster, when we’re talking about climate change,” Kusujiarti said. “The social construction of gender has been changing in Indonesia. We do not have ways of thinking of gender in a binary ways. But then with the influence of a variety of different perspectives from the outside, we are moving toward more binary thinking. And then when disaster struck, the transgender populations in my hometown have been totally marginalized, and they didn't get any support any help. So they ended up having to organize themselves, because otherwise nobody would.”
Kusujiarti explains that approaching sociology in terms of social change is her driving force.
“I do not want to juat theorize,” Kusujiarti said. “It’s a privileged position to just think and theorize – I think we need to always think about how our knowledge can be relevant for real lives, real situations. One of the strengths of sociology is that – we can directly create social change; we should think about how we can change social inequality, social injustices. That's my driving force.”
This summer, Kusujiarti hopes to complete her book about gender, disaster and climate change. Those who are interested in taking a course instructed by Kusujiarti can look out for Societies in Southeast Asia, Environmental Sociology and SOC/ANT Research Craft next semester.