Justin Theodra

Ph.D. Candidate

Education

MSc Development studies, School of Oriental and African Studies

B.A. Economics, University of California, Irvine

Research interests

I am a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) interested in the international historical sociology of southeast Asia and Indonesia. My dissertation, tentatively titled, ‘The intersocietal origins of the Indonesian revolution: The interaction between Indonesian tributary and western capitalist societies in the longue durée, 1400-1965′, challenges the Eurocentric conception of the Indonesian revolution as a mere ‘national’ revolution. I argue that when the Indonesian revolution is situated in its international context (one of ‘uneven and combined development’), it appears clearly as both a ‘national’ and a ‘social’ revolution. National independence was not mere regime change but comprised a reconstitution of the colonial state into an ‘autonomous site of capital accumulation’ capable of driving further ‘combined development’ of capitalist and tributary modes of production in Indonesia.

I am also interested in the international history of the overseas Chinese, trans-civilizational dialogues and the making of southeast Asian modernity, and the world-ecology of colonialism in southeast Asia.

I have published in academic journals such as Review of African Political Economy, Philosophy and Global Affairs, International Critical Thought, and Monthly Review.