Muhammad Najib

Muhammad Najib Azca was born in Pekalongan, a town in Central Java, Indonesia, on 6 May 1968. He is currently a PhD student at Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR) Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) starts from September 2006. He obtained his B.A. from Department of Sociology at Gadjah Mada University (GMU), Jogjakarta,in 1996 and his M.A. (with Honour) from Southeast Asian Studies Program at Australian National University (ANU) at 2003. From 1996 he has been working — though currently temporarily on leave for study — as lecturer at Department of Sociology and Magister Program of Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies as well as researcher at Center for Security and Peace Studies (CSPS)GMU,Jogjakarta. He was Deputy Head of CSPS-GMU in 2003-2005.

He is working on a research topic entitled AFTER JIHAD: Tracing Personal Trajectories of non-local Jihad Fighters after Their Participation in Jihad in Indonesia under the supervision of Prof. Henk Schulte Nordholt funded by WOTRO. This research attempts to analyse how involvement in jihad war affects the social and political life of non-local Muslim fighters who joined the communal conflicts in Ambon and Poso (Central Sulawesi) during the early stages of democratic transition in Indonesia after 1998. In contrast to most studies that focus exclusively on conflict situations and mobilization processes, this project will focus on the situation and network in the post jihad period. The research will endeavour to trace people who joined the conflict through particular networks with shared identity politics and ideological concepts. It will ask whether they either maintain their previous attributes in the post jihad period or adopt different ones. The research will focus on demobilisation processes in the aftermath of jihad and how these influence the dynamics of identity politics among the actors. The research has an actor-oriented approach as it is primarily centred on Jihad activists. It aims to follow jihad activists after their involvement in Poso and Ambon. The research will apply a biographical approach by investigating the life-histories of actors: before, during and after their participation in jihad. The research will contribute to understanding of the post jihad experience — so far overlooked by academics. It will also contribute to knowledge of demobilization processes and the re-stabilization of identity politics within the framework of social movement studies.

He wrote a study on dual-function, (Dwifungsi) Indonesian military ideology from the sociology of knowledge perspective for his B.A. thesis (with Honour) and published a book entitled Hegemoni Militer (The Hegemony of the Military) by LKIS publisher in 1998. He conducted a research entitled The Role of the Security Forces in Communal Conflict: the Case of Ambon, Indonesia, for his M.A. thesis (with High Distinction) at the Australian National University (ANU) in 2003. As lecturer at Gadjah Mada University, he teaches the following subjects: Political Sociology (for under graduate program), Sociology of Religion (for graduate program) and Security Sector Reform (for Graduate School for Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies).