Ayu Kusumastuti

Profile

I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology in 2009. Then I became a Program Assistant for PLaCID (Public Policy Analyst and Community Development) in the Averroes Community. Working as a program assistant, I conducted tasks to assist the head of the program in holding informal schools to increase political literacy for the local actors through training. This program is a collaboration between the Indonesian Community for Democracy and the Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party Democracy. In 2012, I continued my Master in Management of Infrastructure and Community Development. The master's science degree was a collaboration between Universitas Gadjah Mada, University of Twente, and Keypoint Consultancy. I became a full-time lecturer in 2013 and joined the Research Group "Mobility and Social Security", which formulates a road map for conducting research activities, community services, and publication in the area of sociology of development, migration, social security, and demography issues across rural, peripheral, and urban areas.

Research interests

Currently, I have an opportunity to become a member of a research group in the Department of Sociology, Universitas Brawijaya named ‘Mobility and Social Security’. This research group focus on research, community empowerment, and publication in migration issues. This issue has become my studies concern since 2015 when I was invited to join in migration research group. I contributed to design an instrument to identify social, economic, and environmental aspects and their effect on the origin area of migrant workers. Besides, I assisted in a community empowerment project for ex-migrants to promote per capita income based on small and medium-sized micro-enterprises. I produced research about Indonesian migration, for instance; Indonesia Migrant Worker’s Strategy Toward COVID-19: Study of Migrants’ Knowledge and Host Countries’ Policy, Sociological Dimension of Indonesia Domestic Worker Migration and Social, and Economy and Environmental Assessment of Migrant’s Household in A Rural Area.

My research thesis is titled Migrant Political Transnationalism of Indonesia Female Domestic worker. Indonesia female migrants have dispersed in East Asia like Singapore and Malaysia in East Asia like in Hong Kong and Taiwan and the Middle East like Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. As their numbers are enormous particularly for domestic workers, they do not have specific educational background and skills. These are the reasons why they frequently get discrimination, violence, and a death threat. Paradoxically, in political field, their voices play a big role as a presidential election happened Indonesian female workers actively participated and have the vote. As a huge number of female workers in the domestic sector, from 2017 to 2019 accounted for 275.643 persons, should be given more attention to improve gender equality and protection.

Objectives of my thesis are as follows: 1). Mapping and measuring political transnational of Indonesia migrant female worker. 2). Providing a recommendation to related stakeholders like Indonesian political party, Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection Agency, Non-Government Organizations which have been concerned with political issues, home countries, and host countries and 3). Generating formulation of advocacy model for a female migrant worker to increase their capacity in political literacy. As a result, they are more politically literate to erase the stigmatization as passive voters.

Qualifications

• B.A Sociology, Brawijaya University, Indonesia
• M.Sc Management of Infrastructure and Community Development, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia