Dr. Jacob Nerenberg
Affiliated Researcher

Positions
Education
Publications
2021: “‘Start from the Garden’: Distribution, Livelihood Diversification, and Narratives of Agrarian Decline in Papua, Indonesia”. Development and Change, forthcoming (early view).
2019: “Regulating the Terminal Economy: Difference, Disruption, and Governance in a Papuan Commercial Hub”. Modern Asian Studies. 53(3): 904–42.
2013: Review Essay, Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power (Eben Kirksey) and Laughing at Leviathan: Sovereignty and Audience in West Papua (Danilyn Rutherford). The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14(5): 486–95.
2020: “Blocking the Pandemic: Boundary Controls in Indonesia’s Far East”. Medizinethnologie, #Witnessing Corona. May 21.
Conference Organization
2022: “Governance of Labour and the Elusive Home Market”, Biennial conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Belfast, July 26-29. (With Alina-Sandra Cucu).
2021-2022: “Political Economies of Original Inhabitation”. ZMO-Colloquium Winter Series.
2021: “Baby or Bathwater? Conflations of Development and Underdevelopment in Historical and Materialist Perspective”. Annual conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development, Edmonton, June 4.
2017: “20 Years after Krismon: Indonesia’s Economic Change in the Aftermath of Financial Aggression”. (Roundtable). Biennial Conference of the Canadian Council of Southeast Asian Studies, York University, Oct. 28.
Talks
2022: “Une concurrence impossible : Entrepreneuriat autochtone, autonomie et développement en Papouasie, Indonésie”. Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l’Océanie, Marseille, Mar. 11.
2021: “Devancer la crise: Vers une industrialisation à base de minéraux en Indonésie?”. Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, Nov. 11.
2021: “Forestalling Crisis: Mining, Metals, and Resource-Based Industrialization in Eastern Indonesia”. Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Sept. 17.
2020: “’Who Can Compete?’: Debating the Possibility of Indigenous Enterprise in Papua, Indonesia”. Berlin Anthropology Seminar, Freie Universität Berlin, Dec. 16.
2017: “Regulating the Terminal Economy: Difference, Disruption, and Governance in a Papuan Commercial Hub”. Centre for Ethnography, University of Toronto Scarborough, Oct. 19.
2017: “The Playlist”. Ethnography Lab, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Mar. 23.
2017: “Displaced Youth and the Labour of Logistics in West Papua’s Terminal Economy”. Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, Jan. 19.
2017: “Visible and Invisible: Infrastructure and Politics of Cohabitation”. Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, May 8.
Fellowships
Awards
Teaching
Teaching
2018: Anthropology of Markets (Topics in Emerging Scholarship, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto)
Research Supervision:
2022: Supervisor to Visiting PhD Student Researcher from Dept. of Anthropology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia), at ZMO
Field Course Teaching:
2011: Course Coordinator, University of Toronto and Universitas Gadjah Mada, Independent Experiential Study Project
2010: Course Assistant, University of Toronto and Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia Independent Field Research Course
Professional Service
- Article review, International Journal of Human Rights; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute; Dialectical Anthropology; American Ethnologist; Oceania; Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde (Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of
- Founding member, Ethnography Lab – Infrastructures Group (Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto), 2014-2018
- Organizing committee member, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies (Asian Institute, University of Toronto), 2016-2017
- Coordinator, Development Seminar (Faculty of Arts & Science, University of Toronto), 2015-2016
Other Research Positions
Languages
- English: fluent
- French: fluent
- Indonesian: fluent
- Spanish: intermediate
- German: basic
- Grand Valley Dani: conversational
Memberships
- Association for the Anthropology of Social Change and Development (France)
- Canadian Anthropology Society
- Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies
- European Association of Social Anthropologists