Dr. Victoria Kumala Sakti

Victoria Sakti is a social and cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching explore transnational mobilities, ageing, displacement, gender, political violence, and social transformation, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia—particularly Indonesia and Timor-Leste. Drawing upon long-term ethnographic fieldwork, her work foregrounds perspectives, practices, and experiences emerging from the Global South.

Victoria’s research centres on three interconnected areas: the experiences of ageing in contexts of forced migration and protracted displacement; the dynamics of care, everyday life, and inequality within urban environments; and the emotional and social dimensions of memory and violence, including processes of social repair. Her approach combines ethnographic, multi-modal, and creative methods to examine how individuals and communities navigate shifting social and political landscapes.

Her forthcoming book, Boundaries of Repair: Memory, Emotion, and Mobility across Timor-Leste and Indonesia, explores how memory, care, and irreconciliation shape everyday efforts to rebuild relationships in the shadow of impunity. She is also the co-editor of Aspiring in Later Life: Movements Across Time, Space, and Generations (with M. Amrith and D. Sampaio, Rutgers University Press, 2023).

Before joining the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster, Victoria has held positions at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen and the “Languages of Emotions” Cluster at Freie Universität Berlin. 

She is a member of the Editorial Boards for the Journals of Ethos and International Quarterly for Asian Studies 

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