Vol. 3 No. 1 (2021): Journal of Asian Social Science Research

Editors’ Preface
JASSR, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2021

It is with great pleasure that we present Journal of Asian Social Science Research (JASSR) Volume 3, Number 1, 2021. The articles gathered in this issue reflect the intellectual range and public relevance of contemporary social science scholarship, while also revealing a distinctive coherence. Taken together, they examine how religion, governance, education, environment, and democratic life are being reconfigured under conditions of social change. Although varied in focus and method, the contributions share a common concern with the ways institutions, ideas, and collective practices shape the everyday horizons within which people negotiate authority, identity, responsibility, and belonging.

A notable strength of this issue lies in its attention to Indonesia as a dynamic site of social inquiry. Several articles explore questions that are deeply local in their empirical grounding, yet far broader in their conceptual significance. The opening contribution on environmental challenges and the social study of religion invites readers to reconsider the relationship between religion and ecology not as a fixed moral resource, but as a complex and socially constructed field marked by ambivalence, plurality, and practical tension. In doing so, it offers an important point of departure for the issue as a whole. It reminds us that social life is rarely governed by singular logics. Rather, it unfolds through competing voices, layered meanings, and the constant negotiation between norm and practice.

This concern with the contested social life of religion continues in the article on the symbolism of hijab within the Tarbiyah movement in Indonesia. By examining how dress becomes a site of ideological control, gendered discipline, and political symbolism, the article offers a careful account of the relationship between Islamic conservatism and women’s agency. Yet it also points toward the possibility of rearticulation and resistance, showing how feminist engagement may enable women to detach themselves from restrictive meanings and reconstruct the terms through which religious identity is lived. Read alongside the article on religious moderation in higher education, this contribution highlights a central question for contemporary Indonesia, namely how religious life can be negotiated in ways that preserve dignity, plurality, and democratic coexistence in the face of rising pressures toward exclusion and uniformity.

Questions of governance and public authority form another important thread in this issue. The article on the involvement of the Indonesian National Armed Forces in the Citarum Harum project raises a timely and analytically significant question about the boundaries of military participation in civilian affairs. By placing the case within the broader discourse of water governance, the study shows how democratic ideals of participation and civilian oversight may be strained when environmental management is recast through the language of security. Its argument is especially valuable because it pushes readers to think beyond administrative effectiveness alone and to consider the kinds of political regimes and governing assumptions that are normalized when urgent public problems are addressed through exceptional institutional actors.

A related concern with state legitimacy and public trust appears in the article on political participation in the 2020 West Sumatra regional election. Set against the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic and the province’s high vulnerability index, the study explores how public legitimacy was built and maintained in a moment of democratic uncertainty. Its findings point to the importance of coordinated action among local government, election participants, and electoral institutions in restoring confidence and encouraging participation. In this respect, the article offers more than a case study of one election. It speaks to a broader democratic question that remains pressing across many settings, namely how trust in public institutions is cultivated when crisis conditions threaten to deepen civic distance and political hesitation.

The issue also turns, with welcome seriousness, to the transformation of education in an age increasingly shaped by digital mediation and social disruption. The article on the social dimensions of education in the era of the Internet of Things and during the COVID-19 pandemic examines how technological change affects not only modes of delivery, but also the social intelligence embedded in teaching and learning processes. Its emphasis on social sensitivity, social insight, and social communication usefully reminds us that education is never simply a matter of infrastructure or content transmission. It is also relational, affective, and deeply social. This insight resonates strongly with the article on higher education and the religious moderation program, which situates universities as important actors in supporting a more inclusive and tolerant public culture. Together, these two contributions show that higher education occupies a critical space in the shaping of both civic competence and moral imagination.

What emerges from this issue, then, is a rich portrait of a society negotiating multiple transitions at once. Environmental anxiety, religious contestation, technological disruption, institutional trust, and democratic participation are not presented here as isolated themes. They are shown instead as interconnected domains of social life, each revealing how public institutions and lived experience meet, and sometimes collide, in moments of change. This is precisely where social science proves most valuable, because it enables us to see complexity without losing sight of the human stakes involved.

As editors, we are encouraged by the seriousness, range, and timeliness of the scholarship represented in these pages. We hope this issue will be read not only as a collection of individual studies, but also as a thoughtful contribution to ongoing conversations about how societies respond to uncertainty while seeking more just, reflective, and humane forms of common life. We extend our sincere thanks to the authors for their work, to the reviewers for their care and generosity, and to our readers for sustaining this journal as a shared space of inquiry, reflection, and dialogue.

Best Regards,

Asep Iqbal