AUTHOR

Picture at William & Mary Law School, Virginia, the United States of America (2014)

Yance Arizona is a PhD candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Currently, He is conducting a research about the role of different actors in the fabrication of adat/indigeneity as an alternative argument for land claims by rural communities. He tries to unravel the enigma of adat in contemporary law and practice in Indonesia.

Yance completed his bachelor at Faculty of Law, Andalas University, Padang (2007). Furthermore, He obtained a master in constitutional law at Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia (2012). He completed a second Master of Arts in Socio-Legal Studies at Onati International Institute for Sociology of Law, University of the Basque Country, Spain (2016). Since a student at Andalas University, he actively involved in student organisations such as a chairman of Student Advocacy and Societal Studies Institution (Lembaga Advokasi Mahasiswa dan Pengkajian Kemasyarakatan/LAM&PK), and President of the Student Executive Board (Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa/BEM), Faculty of Law, Andalas University.

Later on, he became a researcher at Perkumpulan HuMa, Jakarta since 2007-2010 and Epistema Institute, a think tank organisation which supports community and ecological-based law reform (2010-2016). His last position was an interim executive director of Epistema Institute. Beside of his role as a researcher and an NGO activist, Yance is also a lecturer at Law-Department, President University since 2011. He teaches different subjects include constitutional law, jurisprudence, administrative law, socio-legal research method, lawmaking and legal drafting.

In 2014, Yance got a fellowship under the Indigenous Leaders Conservation Fellowship Program sponsored by Conservation International. This program supports his research in Kerinci and brings him to participate in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2014) and a short course on indigenous studies summer program at Columbia University, New York, USA. His participation in this program was summarised in the following video.