The Aceh Punx Compilation: co-creative research, resistance and cultural production in Banda Aceh

The abduction and ten-day internment of 64 punks in Banda Aceh in December 2011 made international news. 

The local government’s portrayal of punk as a ‘social disease’ was shocking – but many observers, even punks, were also shocked to learn of the existence of a thriving punk community in Aceh in the first place. This incident provoked several ‘global punk’ solidarity campaigns, and also precipitated Jim Donaghey’s research relationship with punks in Indonesia and Aceh.

This talk details a portion of Jim’s ongoing research project ‘Failed States and Creative Resistances: the everyday life of punks in Belfast, Banda Aceh and Kosovo’. This co-creative project involves curation of compilation records that represent the creativity, resistance and cultural production of punks – the Aceh Punx Compilation is one such record (included in the triple-set Failed States//Creative Resistances, 2023).

Jim will discuss the project, highlighting the significance of the punk-informed co-creative methodology, and how this marginal perspective sheds a light on Aceh and Indonesia more widely.

About the speaker

Dr Jim Donaghey is a punk working in academia, currently as a Research Fellow at Ulster University, Coleraine. Over the last 10+ years, he has been doing research with punks in Indonesia, and in Banda Aceh in particular. Jim remains actively involved in punk cultural production, has gigged in 20 countries around the world, and has been part of dozens of record releases (none of which have been remuneratively lucrative).

• Organiser: SOAS Centre of South East Asian Studies
• Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk