Dr. Victoria Kumala Sakti

Victoria Kumala Sakti is a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Research Group, “Ageing in a Time of Mobility” of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, since May 2018. She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Her doctoral research was a multi-sited ethnography of how communities in Timor-Leste deal with memories of violence and legacies of the Indonesian occupation. She grounds her approach in psychological anthropology, with research interests comprising emotion, memory, transnational and forced migration, social relations, resilience, justice, and reconciliation. Her experience working with displaced communities and survivors of violence spans beyond academia, working on these issues since 2004 with various non-governmental organizations in Indonesia and Germany. Her work has been published in academic journals, such as The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Social Identities, as well as in interdisciplinary edited volumes. She holds an M.A. in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex, United Kingdom and a B.A. in Psychology from Atma Jaya Catholic University, Indonesia.

Research projects

• Ageing in displacement: East Timorese diasporas in Indonesia

Publications

Collected Editions

Amrith, M., Sakti, V. K., & Sampaio, D. (Eds.). (2023). Aspiring in later life: Movements across time, space, and generations. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Link

Special Issues

Sakti, V. K., & Amrith, M. (Eds.). (2022). Living in the here and now: Extended temporalities of forced migration [Special Issue]. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 43(4). Link

Journal Articles

Sakti, Victoria K. (2023). Ageing at the margins: Gendered and southern narratives of displacement among the East Timorese in Indonesia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49(4), 1065–1081. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2115632

Sakti, Victoria Kumala. (2023). Older Refugee Perspectives on Death, Remembrance, and Burial: The East Timorese in Indonesia. Journal of Refugee Studies, fead010. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fead010

Sakti, Victoria Kumala, & Taek, D. Y. (2023). Reflections on Ethics in Research with Older Displaced Persons in West Timor: Considering the “Time Effect”. International Quarterly for Asian Studies, 54(1), 39–58. https://doi.org/10.11588/iqas.2023.1.14992

Sakti, Victoria K. (2022). ‘Here for Now’: Temporalities of Ageing and Forced Displacement Through Pension Narratives. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 43(4), 497–513. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2022.2086227

Sakti, Victoria K., & Amrith, M. (2022). Introduction: Living in the ‘Here and Now’: Extended Temporalities of Forced Migration. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 43(4), 457–463. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2022.2088084

Sakti, Victoria Kumala. (2020). Aging in Timorese Exile: (Im)mobilities of Care and Intergenerational Relationships. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 18(3), 301–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2020.1787039

Sakti, Victoria K. (2017). Im/mobile subjects: Identity, conflict and emotion work among East Timorese Meto diaspora. Social Identities, 23(4), 462–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2017.1281469

Sakti, Victoria Kumala. (2013). ‘Thinking Too Much’: Tracing Local Patterns of Emotional Distress After Mass Violence in Timor-Leste. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 14(5), 438–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2013.826733

Contributions to a Collected Edition

Amrith, M., Sakti, V. K., & Sampaio, D. (2023). Introduction. In M. Amrith, V. K. Sakti, & D. Sampaio (Eds.), Aspiring in Later Life Movements across Time, Space, and Generations (pp. 1–16). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Sakti, V. K. (2023). “It’s like a big family feud!” Researching social trauma and repair through the lens of emotion and culture. In T. Stodulka, A. von Poser, G. Scheidecker, & J. Bens (Eds.), Anthropologie der Emotionen Affektive Dynamiken in Kultur und Gesellschaft (pp. 221–228). Berlin: Reimer.

Sakti, V. K. (2022). Im/mobile subjects: Identity, conflict and emotion work among East Timorese Meto diaspora. In B. Bräuchler (Ed.), Patterns of Im/mobility, Conflict and Identity. London: Routledge.

Sakti, V. K. (2020). The Politics of Loss and Restoration: Massive Bad Death in the Oecussi Highlands. In L. Kent & R. Feijo (Eds.), The Dead as Ancestors, Martyrs, and Heroes in Timor-Leste (pp. 159–178). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048544448-009

Sakti, V. K., & Reynaud, A.-M. (2018). Understanding Reconciliation Through Reflexive Practice: Ethnographic Examples from Canada and Timor-Leste. In G. Millar (Ed.), Ethnographic Peace Research: Approaches and Tensions (pp. 159–180). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65563-5_8

Sakti, V. K. (2014). The act of killing and dealing with present-day demons of impunity – a conversation with Joshua Oppenheimer. In T. Stodulka & B. Röttger-Rössler (Eds.), Feelings at the Margins: Dealing with Violence, Stigma and Isolation in Indonesia (pp. 218–228). Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag.

Sakti, V. K. (2011). Erinnerungsarbeit in Osttimor: Das Living Memory Project. In H. Myrttinen, M. Schlicher, & M. Tschanz (Eds.), „Die Freiheit, für die wir kämpfen ...“: Osttimor in der Unabhängigkeit. Ein politisches Lesebuch. (pp. 89–94). regiospectra.

Sakti, V. K. (2011). Trauern um das Unfassbare. In H. Myrttinen, M. Schlicher, & M. Tschanz (Eds.), „Die Freiheit, für die wir kämpfen ...“: Osttimor in der Unabhängigkeit. Ein politisches Lesebuch. (pp. 101–108). regiospectra.

Other

Sakti, Victoria K. (2024, August 7). “Who Cares for Older Refugees? An East Timorese Healthcare Worker’s Mission.” In “Aging Globally: Challenges and Possibilities of Growing Old in an Unsettling Era,” edited by Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori, American Ethnologist website. https://americanethnologist.org/online-content/who-cares-for-older-refugees-an-east-timorese-healthcare-workers-missionby-victoria-kumala-sakti/

Sakti, Victoria K. (2021, February 9). Die unsichtbare Diaspora. Retrieved from Südostasien—Zeitschrift für Politik • Kultur • Dialog website: https://suedostasien.net/osttimor-die-unsichtbare-diaspora/

Sakti, Victoria K. (2018, December). Portraits of Ageing in Displacement: East Timorese Diasporas in Indonesia. Retrieved from Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity website: https://www.mmg.mpg.de/243919/blog-sakti-portraits-of-ageing

Sakti, Victoria Kumala. (2015). PACSA Bi-Annual Meeting | September 2-4, 2015. Allegra Lab Blog. Retrieved from Allegra Lab Blog website: https://allegralaboratory.net/pacsa-bi-annual-meeting-september-2-4-2015-report/