Epistemic Infrastructure of Alternative Knowledge: Reflections from Indonesia

This paper theorizes the team's own practice. Written collaboratively by researchers and practitioners working across an independent publisher in Denpasar, a digital knowledge platform for young people, a university research centre, and an open ethnography network, the paper names four vernacular concepts that together form the epistemic infrastructure of alternative knowledge underlying this project:

Ruang alternatif ("alternative space"), a space a claim is allowed to occupy. Not granted, but seized. This frames all of Alter Imaginaries, not just one part of it.

Akal-akalan ("muddling through"), improvisation amid constraint. Taking the back alley because the main road isn't available.

Kediantaraan ("in-betweenness"), the discomfort of being neither fully dominant nor fully excluded: "marginalized because dominant criteria undervalue what we produce, and not fully marginal because we still hold the credentials, income, and audience that make us legible to them."

Pertemanan ("friendship"), not a matter of intimacy but a network built on reliability. The relation that binds the other three concepts together.

The full paper is currently under anonymous peer review at IACS Journal. These concepts have been cleared for release ahead of official publication, and the excerpts above are drawn directly from it. The full PDF is available below to read or download.