Syukri Hidayatullah is PhD student in anthropology, working on Indonesian and Malaysian border policies, trading communities, and changing legal frameworks on Sebatik Island. In this divided island, he is interested to understanding the legal constellation stipulated by the Indonesia government. The policy-making discourse is not restricted to legal formal issues, but critically how to challenge the policy maker who established borderland as a contested territory which manifested by a couple of patriotic projects have featured on this area; infrastructure and military based.
Regardless of the official border delineation, Sebatik community enjoy the porosity of the boundary and its benefits. The consideration of sharing similar culture, vernaculars, traditions, and kinship relations encourage border trading centers to develop traditionally.
Through this research, he aims to questioning the center periphery paradox, either shaping the agenda of nationalism resurgence or increasing the borderlanders prosperity. Currently, his current ethnography fieldwork take place in several villages along the east coast of Sebatik island.
