Welcome Dr Sana Jaffrey

Dr Sana Jaffrey

We are so pleased to welcome Dr Sana Jaffrey to the ANU community of Indonesianists! Sana joined The Australian National University’s Department of Political and Social Change as a Research Fellow in 2023.

Prior to joining ANU, Sana served as the director of Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta (2021-2022), where she led a team of researchers to publish reports on violent conflict and extremism in Southeast Asia.

She received her PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 2019, and her dissertation on vigilantism in Indonesia was awarded the 2020 prize for best dissertation fieldwork from the American Political Science Association.

Sana’s current book project investigates the rise of vigilante violence in Indonesia. Drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence from Indonesia, it shows how vigilantes develop collusive relationships with street-level bureaucrats to obtain impunity. It argues that vigilantism across the developing world is flourishing not because the state is absent but because its growing presence can be leveraged by vigilantes to protect them from the risks of engaging in mob violence.

We’re very excited to have Sana here at ANU, and look forward to learning more about her research in the coming years.