INTERVIEW WITH THE GUEST EDITORS
There is at least one essential contrast in their approach to frontier cultures. Intrigued with 'frontiers that move', Freek Colombijn emphasizes the conflict and tensions that arise between groups living along rather flexible borderlines. Those Reed Wadley concerns himself with are more stable in nature, and he prefers to stress the creativity that comes out of the mixture of cultures living in borderlands. He considers his identity as a descendant of Dutch, Cherokee, English, and Northern Irish ancestors on the American frontier, and his own experiences living for a period in a border region between the U.S. and Canada to have some influence on his research.
Freek was born in the Netherlands, a densely populated country with a strong historical relationship with Indonesia, and grew up in Haarlem, North Holland. From a young age he was fascinated with countries and peoples deemed exotic, and his first attraction to anthropology, historical studies, and Indonesia, in particular, was sparked after reading the book Max Havelaar by Multatuli, followed by Clifford Geertz's writings on agricultural issues in Indonesia. This specific interest was reflected in his first undergraduate fieldwork activities, which were performed in Indonesia.
Reed found his way to anthropological studies of Indonesia, specifically the Iban people in West Kalimantan, via quite another route. American born, he grew up moving around a lot throughout rural areas of the western part of the United States. His parents were Peace Corps volunteers whose work eventually took them and their family to Malaysia for two years. Since then, his fascination with Southeast Asia remained but was not pursued academically until he began his PhD He earned his MA at Arizona State University in 1988, for which he wrote his thesis on 'Headmanship and Reproductive Success among the Havasupai Indians of Northwestern Arizona'. His first fieldwork activities in Indonesia were conducted between February 1992 and June 1994, during which time he lived among and studied Iban communities of West Kalimantan, which produced a dissertation entitled Circular Labour Migration and Subsistance Agriculture: A case of the Iban in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Presently he is a researcher at the IIAS working with colonial documents in archives both in The Hague and Jakarta with the intention of writing environmental and ethnohistories of the area where the Iban live.
When asked what relationship they have with the peoples they study, both Freek and Reed made reference to how their research activities and results affect their ongoing contact with their respective groups. Freek pointed out that one of the good things about fieldwork today is that its quite easy for him to maintain contact with Indonesia by e-mail, so he can maintain a dialogue and get information from people after his return to the Netherlands. Not many foreign anthropologists have studied in Riau, on Sumatra, and Freek always shares the results of his research with his informants. He finds that their reactions, at times, are very critical because they like the debate and that he doesn't always concur with their own political activities. Through all of this, there is a mutual respect for each other. Reed hopes to bridge communication of his results with the Iban he has studied over the years by one day having his dissertation and other works translated into Indonesian. In the meantime, he has already noticed one effect his research has had on the Iban; namely, through his access to documentation he is able to tell them stories about their own past. He's noticed that the Iban have started to incorporate his findings into their own stories. It is important to them, he says, that they maintain contact with their past, as many Iban of the younger generations are losing touch with their own language and history because they are schooled outside the area.
Through their work as guest editors of this issue's theme section, Freek and Reed wanted to bring together authors from a broad sampling of regional and disciplinary backgrounds who could offer different perspectives on borderlands.