Academy Fellow

My research contributes primarily to the inter-disciplinary field of memory studies. Throughout my career I have pioneered new fields of research on memory and violence in Indonesia and added valuable Asian perspectives to global scholarship on memory, violence, historical justice and activism. My research is distinguished for my sustained attention to the politics of memory within and beyond Indonesia across many different case studies. I have analysed the politics of memory and historical justice around: the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide; transnational activism and memory related to the Japanese occupation of Indonesia from 1942-1945 (in particular the issue of the Indonesian ‘comfort women’); and more recently memories of colonialism. My interest in the Cold War has also led to innovative examinations of the transnational connections and activism of Indonesian women and the role of Indonesians in Afro-Asian solidarity networks during this period. 

My latest book, Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia, published in August 2023 canvasses the history of the experiences and activism related to the ‘comfort women’ of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia. It is the first major monograph on the topic of Indonesian activism for this case and includes comparative reflections on transnational activism. This was the primary outcome of my 2014-2017 ARC Future Fellowship ‘Confronting Historical Justice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism’. Other publications resulting from this fellowship include the edited volumes Gendered Violence Across Time and Space in Indonesia and East Timor, (2020) co-edited with Loney and Dragojlovic and The Indonesian Genocide: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies (2018) co-edited with Melvin and Pohlman. I am currently conducting research and beginning to publish outcomes from the ARC Discovery Project (2021-2024), held together with CI Dragojlovic, entitled “Submerged History: Memory Activism in Indonesia and the Netherlands” focusing on memory activism around histories of colonialism. As an outcome of this grant Dragojlovic and I are setting up a new research international network called “The History, Memory and Decolonial Futures Research Collective” sponsored by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. In addition, I am working on a co-edited book in collaboration with Sadiah Boonstra, Bronwyn Beech Jones, Ken Setiawan and Abdul Wahid entitled Rethinking Histories of Indonesia: Experiencing, Resisting and Renegotiating Coloniality. 

In addition to my research publications, I have contributed to the social sciences by supervising 21 PhD students on topics on Asian history and gender studies to completion. I have also served as President (2021-2022) and Vice President (2019-2020) of the Asian Studies Association of Australia and as a member of the Historical, Justice and Memory Network Steering Committee since 2010.

Professor in Southeast Asian History, The University of Melbourne 2022

Deputy Associate Dean International (Indonesia), The Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne, 2021-2023

President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2021-2022

Vice President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2019-2020

Asian Studies Association of Australia member 2000-2023

1. McGregor, K, 2023, Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia, Wisconsin: Critical Human Rights Series of the University of Wisconsin Press.

2. McGregor K and Dragojlovic, 2022, A “‘They Call Me Babu’: The Politics of Visibility and Gendered Memories of Dutch Colonialism in Indonesia,” special issue on 'Mobilising Affect, Trauma, Memory: The Politics of Gendered Memory and Gendered Silence', Women's History Review, 31(6), 933-952.

3. McGregor, K, Loney H and Dragojlovic A (eds), 2020, Gendered Violence Across Time and Space in Indonesia and East Timor, Women in Asia Series (ASAA), Routledge.

4. McGregor, K and Mackie M, 2018 ‘Transcultural Memory and the Troostmeisjes/Comfort Women Photographic Project’, History and Memory, March issue Vol 30 (1), pp. 116-150.

5. McGregor, Katharine, Jess Melvin and Annie Pohlman (eds), 2018 The Indonesian Genocide: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies (Palgrave McMillian Genocide Studies Series, London).