Joshua Barker

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Dean, School of Graduate Studies

Vice-Provost, Graduate Research and Education

j.barker@utoronto.ca

416-946-3305

www.anthropology.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/joshua-barker

AP 228
19 Ursula Franklin Street

Areas of interest

Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology
Urban Anthropology
Political Anthropology
Media and Technology: Crime; Policing

Biography

Main bio

Joshua Barker is an Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Vice-Provost of Graduate Research & Education, University of Toronto. He received his B.A. from Trent University, his M.A. from SOAS at the University of London, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has taught and conducted research at the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia and has been a post doctoral fellow at Twente University, the Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), and the Department of Anthropology at Stockholm University (with support from the Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies). His research focuses on Indonesia, where he has examined various themes relating to his three main topics of interest: urban studies, crime and security, and new technologies.

Barker is currently conducting a multi-year research project funded by SSHRC and the Connaught Foundation. The project is entitled “Engineers and Political Dreams: Indonesia’s Internet in Cultural Perspective.”

Select publications

2022. Gibbings, S. L., Frey, B., & Barker, J. New frontiers in the platform economy: place, sociality, and the embeddedness of platform mobilities. Mobilities, 17(5), 633–644.
2021. Barker, J. Postscript: Material Itineraries in Southeast Asian Urban Transformations. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 15(2), 233–237.
2019. Klinken, G. & Barker, J. Introduction: State in Society in Indonesia. In G. Van Klinken & J. Barker (Eds.), State of Authority: State in Society in Indonesia (pp. 1-16). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2019. Barker, J. Negara Beling: Street-Level Authority In An Indonesian Slum. In G. Van Klinken & J. Barker (Eds.), State of Authority: State in Society in Indonesia (pp. 47-72). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2018. Barker, J. Interkom in Indonesia: Not Quite an Imagined Community. In J. Siegel & A. Kahin (Eds.), Southeast Asia over Three Generations: Essays Presented to Benedict R. O'G. Anderson (pp. 383-396). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2018. Barker, J. State of Fear: Controlling the Criminal Contagion in Suharto's New Order. In B. Anderson (Ed.), Violence and the State in Suharto's Indonesia (pp. 20-53). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2018. Barker, J. Surveillance and Territoriality in Bandung. In V. Rafael (Ed.), Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam (pp. 95-127). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2018. Gibbings, S.L., Lazuardi, E., Prawirosusanto, K.M., Hertzman, E., & Barker, J. Yogyakarta’s Colt Kampus and Bis Kota Transit Systems: Infrastructural Transitions and Shifts in Authority. Indonesia 105, 127-153.
2017. Barker, J. STS, Governmentality, and the Politics of Infrastructure in Indonesia. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 11(1), 91–99.
2016. Barker, J. Looking Back: An Inverted Telescope and an Oblique Gaze. Indonesia 101, 1-6.
2016. Barker, J. From ‘Men of Prowess’ to Religious Militias: Informal Sovereignties in Southeast Asia. Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 172(2-3), 179-196.
2015. Barker, J. & Tagliacozzo, E. Writing the Past, Writing the Future of Indonesia. Indonesia, 100, 1–3.
2015. Barker, J. & Tagliacozzo, E. Writing the Past, Writing the Future of Indonesia. Indonesia 100, 1-3.
2014. Barker, J. & Lindquist, J. Indonesia. In J. Barker, E. Harms & J. Lindquist (Eds.), Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity (pp. 130-169). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
2014. Barker, Joshua. Epilogue: Ethnographies of State-Centrism. Oceania Vol. 83, 3: 259-64.
2013. Barker, Joshua, Erik Harms, and Johan Lindquist (Eds.). Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. 302 pp.
2013. Barker, Joshua, Sheri Gibbings, and Mieke DeGelder. Special Issue: Figuring the Transforming City. City & Society 25, 2.
2012. Barker, Joshua. The Ethnographic Interview in the Age of Globalization. In Richard Fardon, Olivia Harris et al (Eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology. London: Sage Publications, pp. 54-68.
2009. Barker, Joshua. Introduction: Street Life. City & Society Vol. 21, 2 (December): 155-62.
2009. Barker, Joshua. Introduction: Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Fear. Anthropologica Vol. 51, 2: 267-272.
2009. Barker, Joshua and Johan Lindquist et al. Figures of Indonesian Modernity. Indonesia Vol. 87 (April): 35-72.
2009. Barker, Joshua and Gerry van Klinken. Reflections on the State in Indonesia. In Gerry van Klinken and Joshua Barker (Eds.). State of Authority: State in Society in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: SEAP Publications, pp. 17-46.
2009. Barker, Joshua. Negara Beling: Street-Level Authority in an Indonesian Slum. In Gerry van Klinken and Joshua Barker (Eds.). State of Authority: State in Society in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: SEAP Publications, pp. 47-72.
2009. Klinken, Gerry van and Joshua Barker (Eds.). State of Authority: State in Society in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. 218 pp.
2009. Barker, Joshua. Special Section: Street Life. City & Society Vol. 21, 2 (December): 155-267.
2009. Barker, Joshua and Tania Li, Gavin Smith. Thematic Section: Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Fear. Anthropologica Vol. 51, 2: 267-366.
2008. Barker, Joshua. “Beyond Bandung: developmental nationalism and (multi)cultural nationalism in Indonesia.” Third World Quarterly 29(3): 521-540.
2008. Barker, Joshua. “Playing with publics: Technology, talk and sociability in Indonesia.” Language and Communication 28: 127-142.
2005. Barker, Joshua. “Engineers and Political Dreams: Indonesia in the Satellite Age.” Current Anthropology vol 46 no 5 (December), Pp.703-727.
2004. Barker, Joshua. “Whose Path to Modernity? Nationalism and the Christian Minority Elite.” Indonesia 77 (April). Pp.157-165.