Dr Petra Mahy completed the Flexible Language Immersion Program in 2002 as part of her Arts/Law degree at Monash University.
Petra Mahy is now a Senior Lecturer at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, where her research bridges two legal worlds. She teaches Australian law whilst producing scholarship on Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. The skills that make this dual focus possible were forged during a semester at Universitas Gadjah Madah with Acicis over two decades ago.
By 2002, Indonesia had already woven itself into her academic path. An exchange year in Banda Aceh during high school and an intensive language course at UGM meant that “signing up for Acicis for my third year of university studies seemed inevitable” she says.
Petra chose full immersion, enrolling in law and anthropology subjects taught entirely in Indonesian. The academic environment at UGM proved unorthodox by Australian standards. Lecturers who arrived late or not at all, unexpected tests, and students memorising facts for exams. “The lecture rooms were basic with rows of uncomfortable wooden chairs with blackboards and chalk,” she recalls. Navigating this system demanded flexibility. She passed with distinctions.
 Petra with the late Lestari Widyastuti, Acicis program officer. |  Petra meeting with Sultan Hamengkubuwono X |
The Bali bombings in October 2002 cut the semester short, and her cohort was evacuated. Back at Monash, Petra organised special assessment to complete the semester, writing extended research projects on Indonesian law. What seemed like an improvised solution proved formative. “In hindsight that may have been the start of developing the individual research design and writing skills that I now rely on in my work,” she says.
The academic trajectory that followed kept Indonesia at its centre. After completing her Arts/Law degree, she moved to the Australian National University for honours in Asian Studies, writing her thesis on Indonesia. A PhD scholarship at ANU took her into fieldwork on mining, gender and development in a remote coal mining area of East Kalimantan. Then came a research fellowship at Monash on an Australian Research Council-funded project producing comparative legal histories of labour and corporations law in Asia. “While Indonesia was not originally in the project design, I added it in,” she notes.
That research also opened doors internationally, including at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, and SOAS, University of London.
Her path intersected with Acicis again in 2017-18, when she became an Academic Program Officer for the inaugural Law Professional Practicum. Designing a program that would introduce Australian law students to Indonesian legal practice felt like closing a circle. “It was very rewarding to design the program and introduce a cohort of students to Indonesian law,” she says.
The Indonesian language skills that Acicis extended remain central to her professional life. Spoken fluency can rust between visits, but her reading and listening comprehension stay sharp. “For research purposes, I frequently read Indonesian legislation, case decisions, news articles and academic texts, and when I get time, Indonesian literature,” she explains. This capacity to work directly with Indonesian primary sources distinguishes her research from scholars who rely on translations or English-language materials alone.
Petra with another Acicis student at Imogiri, Yogyakarta
Her current work spans jurisdictions. Teaching Australian law to Melbourne students whilst researching Indonesian legal systems requires constant code-switching, not just linguistically but conceptually. More than two decades after that UGM semester, the Indonesian dimension of her academic identity remains indispensable.
