00074918.2012.730178

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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20

Elizabeth Drysdale: an appreciation

Hal Hill , Chris Manning , Ross McLeod & Budy Resosudarmo

To cite this article: Hal Hill , Chris Manning , Ross McLeod & Budy Resosudarmo (2012) Elizabeth Drysdale: an appreciation, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 48:3, 347-349, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2012.730178

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Published online: 20 Nov 2012.

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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2012: 347–9

ELIZABETH DRYSDALE:

AN APPRECIATION

Hal Hill, Chris Manning, Ross McLeod and Budy Resosudarmo

Australian National University

It has been the good fortune of the Bul-letin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES),

the Indonesia Project and the Australian

National University’s Indonesianist com-munity in general to have Liz Drysdale in their midst as a staff member for a quarter of a century until late 2012. We all worked closely with her over this period. On her retirement we want to offer a grateful retrospective on her wonderful service, recognising a record that is unlikely to be surpassed.

After excelling at languages in high school, Liz enrolled in the Indonesian Department in the then Faculty of Ori-ental Studies at the ANU. She was part of a class that included Virginia Hooker, John Monfries, Helen James, Chris Man-ning and the late Geoff Forrester and Ian

Proudfoot, most of whom went on to life -long engagements with Indonesia in government or academia, and with all of whom she developed lasting friendships. She also developed close friendships with several of her lecturers and their families, including the Johns, Achdiat, Soe-bardi and Supomo families. Liz completed her honours degree in 1967, which included the study of Sanskrit and Old Javanese. In 1971 she completed an MA on Indonesian linguistics, also at the ANU, under the supervision of the late D.J.

Prentice. During this time she had a short stint teaching English at Padjadjaran

University in Bandung.

Following her marriage to Peter Drysdale in 1979, Liz immersed herself in

understanding Japan and its people, studying the language and making many

visits there with Peter before and during her period with the BIES. Her

inter-national interests also extended to Papua New Guinea, where her parents worked

for several years in the 1960s and 1970s.

Before taking on the job of Assistant (later Associate) Editor of the BIES in 1988,

Liz held a variety of jobs teaching Indonesian, at Daramalan College in Canberra,

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348 Hal Hill, Chris Manning, Ross McLeod and Budy Resosudarmo

at Goulburn College of Advanced Education, at the ANU and at Flinders Univer-sity in Adelaide. In 1979–80 she played a central role as research assistant to the Asian Studies Association of Australia’s FitzGerald Inquiry into Asian Studies in

Australia; and in the mid1980s she worked as a research assistant on a major interdisciplinary study of Industrialisation in Asia and the Paciic in the then Research School of Paciic Studies.

Liz quickly settled into the Bulletin’s demanding routine, which its founding editor, Heinz Arndt, aptly termed the ‘four-monthly miracle’. This included man-aging the regular ‘Survey of recent developments’, numerous in-depth articles on the Indonesian economy, the editorial pipeline, the book reviews, extensive correspondence with authors and the in-house publication process. While her intellectual heart remained with language, literature and history, she took to eco-nomics and its quantitative methodology with characteristic enthusiasm – even to the extent of contemplating enrolling in courses in economics and statistics. Although eventually opting not to do so, she kept standard texts on hand, often pondering long and hard on the technicalities of papers, and on occasion seeking a mini-tutorial from one or other of her economist colleagues in order to under-stand better what an author was trying – but miserably failing – to say.

Not all readers of the BIES may appreciate just how much editorial effort Liz

put into the preparation of papers for publication. But nobody who has worked with her could fail to be impressed – ‘astonished’ would not be too strong a word

– by the strength of her commitment. She has produced 72 issues of the journal,

containing over 300 articles, together with countless book reviews and (in recent

years) PhD abstracts.

Her editorial input has always gone well beyond the normal call of duty. The usual editorial polishing and corrections were often a relatively small part of her

work, paling into insigniicance beside her untiring effort to question whether

each and every sentence might be easier to understand with a little – or a lot – of tweaking. She quietly insisted on clarity, sound logic, consistency and proper

ref-erencing of sources, and went to great lengths to doublecheck facts and igures –

even going so far as to look for a better source to support the point that an author was trying to make.

Particularly high on Liz’s list of priorities was minimising the use of techni

-cal jargon so as to make the content accessible to as wide a readership as pos -sible. Countless authors, ourselves included, have been surprised – dismayed,

even – by the amounts of red ink Liz dared to add to our seemingly lawless manuscripts, but few would deny that the inished product was a great improve -ment on the original. Indeed, there have been instances where authors were so impressed by Liz’s editorial contributions that they offered co-authorship – offers that were graciously declined.

Liz’s work on the BIES extended beyond the conines of superb editing. During

her time with the journal she helped manage the transition from printonly cop -ies produced in-house by the ANU to online publication by a global publishing house – thus vastly increasing the accessibility of the BIES to readers worldwide – and to a fully web-based manuscript handling system. Both contributors to and readers of the BIES are deeply in her debt for her enthusiasm to adopt any new

technology or production process that would improve the journal and take it to a

wider audience.

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Elizabeth Drysdale: an appreciation 349

Liz also participated enthusiastically in the general work of the Indonesia Pro

-ject. For many years she was a key member of the annual Indonesia Update con -ference team – no small task as the con-ference grew into Australia’s largest public event on Indonesia, with audiences typically over 300. She regularly attended

the Indonesia Study Group seminars, and was a welcoming presence for Project visitors, several of whom became close friends. For successive Project heads she

was a source of wise counsel. With her institutional memory and her wide intel-lectual and personal networks, she was able to anticipate challenges that might arise in the future. To members of staff she was a close and thoughtful colleague

and friend, and a great source of support and strength in dificult times. She was always very generous to the younger generation of Project members and post

-graduate students, taking time to listen to and advise them as they adjusted to the working environment at the Project and the ANU.

Outside of her regular work Liz was and remains far more than generous in attending to the needs of her family and close friends. Less well known is the time she has always put aside to attend to the needs of complete strangers, by way of her community service activities. Her extraordinarily strong commitment to those in need of emotional or practical support has often been at the expense of her own leisure time – not to mention her blood pressure. But regardless of work and other

pressures, Liz has always made time for her husband Peter and her son Ben – now

a musician and part of the songwriting duo Beth n Ben. When a BIES deadline loomed, Liz would be more willing to give up her ticket to an Australian Chamber Orchestra concert than her seat near the stage at a Beth n Ben gig.

Whatever happened to be going on outside work, one could be sure that Liz would be hard at work when the four-monthly deadline loomed, oblivious to

standard ofice hours. Such deadlines were rarely missed, and never by more than

a day or two, often leading Hal Hill to comment that ‘Liz has yet again delivered

our baby in the nick of time, in the most dificult circumstances, and saved the Project once again!’

Liz invariably adopted a low-key and unobtrusive modus operandi. She has never sought the limelight or recognition for her work, much as she deserves it.

She has truly been the ‘Ibu’ of the Project for well over two decades, and all of us who have been associated with it have beneited immensely from the tireless quality of her efforts. It will be extraordinarily dificult for anyone to match the

enthusiasm, commitment and sheer hard work she has put into making the BIES

one of the most respected journals in its ield. On behalf of present and former

work colleagues, we wish her ‘banyak terima kasih’, and every happiness in her well-earned retirement.