The episode will be presented to you by Levi Masuli, who will be telling the story of former migrants turned riverside vegetable farmers in Santa Ana of the Rizal Province, Philippines.

Levi Masuli is a sound artist and community organiser for Migrante Philippines, whose community work focuses on strengthening local migrants' formations, providing education, and empowering their capacity for political mobilisation and cultural expression.

This Southeast Asia Dispatches special episode was brought to you by New Naratif and made possible by the BEBESEA Story Fellowship.

Find other stories produced in this fellowship, and find out more about what you can do to support migrant workers, stateless people, and other displaced populations at newnaratif.com/story-fellowship.

You can also find this podcast on our website at ⁠⁠⁠https://newnaratif.com/santa-ana-stories-by-the-riverside/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/

One of the key pillars of democracy is the ability to freely criticise those in power. But as we all know, such is rarely the case in Southeast Asia. Whenever journalists criticise any police-related issues, it is no secret that they need to be extremely careful.

Over the last five years, the police have been a major perpetrator in violence against journalists in Indonesia. Worse is that they remain unpunished. Contrary to their explicitly stated principles, often known as Tri Brata and Catur Prasetya, police members in Indonesia contribute to plenty of human rights violations. They clearly do not protect and serve the people – just in case anyone still believes that.

In this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan, Fadiyah Alaidrus, and Ade Wahyudin will be talking about Indonesia’s police brutality and its effect on media freedom, police reform and other related policy advocacies, and how we can contribute to create change.

You can also find this podcast on our website at ⁠https://newnaratif.com/myanmars-new-feminist-narrative/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/

With an increasingly hostile atmosphere towards media workers in Southeast Asia, New Naratif’s Media Freedom Insights publications try to better understand their life experiences. New Naratif’s current Media Freedom Insights series, titled “Engendering Media Freedom,” aims to showcase the gendered experiences of journalists in the region to understand the media ecosystem.

In this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan and Wai Liang Tham we’ll be talking about Research as Activism. But essentially, rather than simply applying a theoretical framework, this approach platforms marginalised voices, researching with people instead of researching people.

You can also find this podcast on our website at https://newnaratif.com/research-as-activism/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/

Bonnibel Rambatan talks to Damar Juniarto, Executive Director of SAFEnet, about digital rights and digital security, the increasing judicial harassment of expression in the digital space in Southeast Asia, how various countries try to emulate China's Great Firewall to conduct surveillance and censorship of its people, and how can the people of Southeast Asia fight back the digital authoritarian practices.

Damar Juniarto mentioned lots of things that us listeners can access for our own protection, as well as to share to everyone in our networks who might benefit from it:

• For the fast response team for those under cyber attacks, go to trace.mu
• For an education on online gender-based violence go to awaskbgo.id
• For an education on digital rights, go to padepokan.safenet.or.id
• For an education on digital security, go to digses.safenet.0r.id
• And finally, to assess your own digital vulnerability, go to pakemdiri.safenet.or.id

You can also find all of these links in our show notes at https://newnaratif.com/on-media-freedom-and-digital-security/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/⁠

It is important for any coalition of democratic allies to play both defensive and offensive roles, promoting resilience to authoritarian digital threats while building an affirmative alternative that diminishes the influence of authoritarian actors over time.

In New Naratif, the Media Freedom Network (MFN) is our response to these challenges as we aim to build a sustainable network of media workers, organisations, and activists to provide support, solidarity, and resources to media practitioners in our region. There are, fortunately, quite a few initiatives with a similar mission across Southeast Asia. One of the oldest ones is the Alliance for Independent Journalists in Indonesia or Aliansi Jurnalis Independen Indonesia (AJI)

In this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan talks to Ika Ningtyas, the current Secretary General of AJI Indonesia. Having been an independent journalist for a number of years herself, she now fights for media freedom as well as the safety and welfare of journalists and human rights defenders alike.

MFN network activities include digital security trainings, legal briefings, and workshops, which you can find out more about at newnaratif.com/mediafreedom.

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/⁠

In this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan talks to Arturo Golong, or Arthur, a trans woman who was also Haiyan’s survivor, and Mavic Conde, a Filipino environmental journalist, about how things are going right now regarding Haiyan’s survivors, the story behind discriminatory laws in Philippines, the Yolanda Permanent Housing Program, and SOGIESC Equality Bill in Philippines.

You can help their initiatives by signing the petition to support the SOGIESC Equality Bill becoming a law in the Philippines on change.org, link in the show notes or in our article at newnaratif.com. Share the article, as well as this podcast, to raise awareness about this issue.

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/⁠

In this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan talks to to Teo S. Marasigan, Filipino activist and New Naratif's researcher, and Zelda Santos, a domestic worker and volunteer of a help desk for distressed OFWs in the United Arab Emirates, about the history of OFWs, how the government ended up aggressively exporting Filipinos, how did people decided to be one, bagong bayani narrative from the government, help desk for OFWs from OFWs, and who are the beneficiaries of this phenomenon.

You can find this podcast on our website at https://newnaratif.com/development-through-distress/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/⁠

In this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan talks with Evi Mariani, one of the co-founders of Project Multatuli, a collective initiative dedicated to carrying out the ideals of public journalism by giving a voice to the voiceless, spotlighting the marginalised, and reporting on the underreported, whose work involves collaboration with other news organisations, research bodies, and civil society groups that strive for democracy, human rights, social justice, environmental sustainability, and equal rights for all.

Evi Mariani has won the 2020 Public Service Journalism Award from the Society of Publishers in Asia and the 2020 Tasrif Award from the AJI, the Indonesian Alliance of Independent Journalists. In this interview, Bonni and Evi talks about what media freedom means and what the ideals of public journalism are, and how we can keep up a good fight despite the increasing threats to our freedom of expression in Southeast Asia

On this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan talks about New Naratif’s Research Department and the idea of research as activism with Lengga Pradipta, Migration Researcher at New Naratif.

Migration research is an evergreen field of study that has only grown in its breadth of topics and range of micro-disciplines. In line with our approach of research as activism, that by conducting and publishing research that draws attention to such systematic failures of countries, and the consequent price that individual communities and people have to unjustly pay for, that we will embody the metaphorical butterfly whose flapping wings causes a cascading effect, changing people's attitudes and raising their awareness until this eventually manifests as the healing winds in a reformatory hurricane of social change, whether this is done through highlighting the environmental degradation resulting from reckless policies, the heartbreaking circumstances that lead Indonesian women to seek to migrate, or the self-destructive ways through which governments can actively encourage their people to desire being exploited.

You can also find this podcast on our website at https://newnaratif.com/myths-migration/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠⁠⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/⁠⁠

On this episode, Bonnibel Rambatan talks about trans liberation in Southeast Asia with Erik Nadir and Nhuun Yodmuang from Asia Pacific Transgender Network, also known as APTN, a trans-led organisation that engages with a range of partners across Asia and the Pacific to support, organise, and advocate for fundamental human rights including gender identity, access to justice and legal protections, and comprehensive gender-affirming policies and healthcare. APTN work to improve the lives of trans and gender diverse people throughout Asia and the Pacific. Over the course of a decade, APTN has grown to become a credible voice for transgender people in Asia and the Pacific, working to ensure that their rights and needs are represented politically, socially, culturally, and economically. The network serves as a platform for transgender people to advocate for access to health, legal gender recognition, legislative reform, social justice and human rights, and to share information and strategies with one another.

You can also find this podcast on our website at https://newnaratif.com/advocating-for-trans-liberation-in-southeast-asia/https://newnaratif.com/advocating-for-trans-liberation-in-southeast-asia/

Our movement needs your support. A movement is only as strong as its members. If you believe in a more democratic Southeast Asia, join New Naratif as a member ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newnaratif.com/product/membership/⁠⁠⁠