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Christian R. Warta

WELCOME TO
MY STORY

My Story

Photographer
Digital Marketer
Content Creator

Trained Chef
Tour Director
Educator
Social & Cultural Affairs Officer
Archeological Skilled Worker
OSCE Delegate
Social & Cultural Anthropologist

I believe, that the person you are doing business with is no less important than the actual service offered. This is my story. You can choose among a multitude of service providers, but at the end of the day, you choose not only based on professionalism but also on personality.

As you will learn, my path of life is rather unusual and colorful. I am fortunate that I was given the chance to receive an education and work practice in a variety of fields. My rich experience is the signature of my work. Let's be brave and embrace thinking out of the box.

Dr. Christian R. Warta

My Core Values

In the scope of the universe our planet is a particle, our lifetimes are fractions of a millisecond, and we are insignificantly small, however our actions are impactful, our relationships are vital and our humanity makes us significantly bigger.

EMPATHY

There is no future without compassion for our planet, the animal kingdom, humanity, different ethnic groups, cultures, beliefs, world views and opinions.

ETHICS

Whatever project you take on, do it as well as you can, regardless whether you are cleaning someone's house or changing the world for good.

REALITY

There are as many realities and truths as there are people and none of them is absolute or should be forced upon others.

Photography & Marketing

Since my early childhood days, photography has always been prominent to me. Over the decades, my interest grew stronger and I started seeing the world with a photographic eye. Some of my friends would call me a bit 'fanatic,' well, I call it passion.

My digital marketing and web design career started with an accountancy firm in Sydney. I managed all IT and marketing functions there for many years. During this time, word of mouth referrals led to establishing my own creative agency for small businesses.

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I first started out with web design and digital marketing in the year 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

9

Years of
experience

Previous Experiences

I started my professional life in the kitchen, when I was 15 years of age. Three years of a military style cooking regime in French and other classical European culinary traditions, shaped not only my taste but also taught me discipline, coordination and working on a team.

Various tour operators hired me to guide their young and elder American customers through Europe. Leading groups with up to 50 college students or high school kids is one thing, but up to 50 retired educational travelers is another.

I led approximately 30 tours between 2 and 4 weeks each across Europe. It was fun, challenging, exhausting and rewarding. I am still in touch with many of those folks. 

My regional specialization in social and cultural anthropological studies was Indonesia. Over the years, I developed strong ties to this island nation, its cultures, and its people. Consequently, I took on an assignment at the Indonesian embassy in Vienna/Austria.

The job profile for my role as social and cultural affairs officer was appealing and diverse. Besides becoming the embassy's webmaster, my responsibilities included video and photo documentation of cultural, social, and economic events, diplomatic meetings, and delivering daily press summaries and translations. I was also managing booklet and brochure publications, and last but not least, I played a role in deepening Indonesian diplomat's and visitor's insights into Austria.

At a later stage, I joined evening classes to catch up to pave my way into university.

This experience helped me decide to become active as an educator myself. Besides university lectures and public speaking events, I taught computer courses at the Viennese adult education center.

To finance daily living costs, traveling, and field research trips during my studies, I engaged in seasonal and part-time jobs wherever an opportunity opened.

It was colorful and my experiences ranged from digging for the Institute of Prehistory and Historical Archeology in lower Austria to being head chef at the Cafe/Bar/Restaurant Celeste in Vienna, to reading heating meters, cleaning cages in the zoo, conducting interviews for city radio to working in a warehouse. Anyhow, that was a long time ago.

During my scientific engagement with the conflict-driven region of Papua in Indonesia, I completed a few courses in humanitarian assistance, human rights monitoring, international mission preparation training, and so on. Meanwhile, my thematic interest had shifted towards the field of peace and conflict studies in social anthropology.

Although I saw those courses as helpful when working in the field in Papua, they also opened the door for international employment. My international mission experiences included a border monitor position in Georgia and a humanitarian assistance assignment in Indonesia.

Christian R. Warta, PhD. MA.

Grants, Presentations and Publications

Grants and Fellowships

2012 - 2014

Holder of Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship from the FWF - Austrian Wissenschaftsfonds. Research Project: “Contesting Religiosities in Papua. Frictions of the Religious and the National in an Indonesian Frontier Region”

2011

Holder of the École Française d'Extrême-Orient Junior Field Research Fellowship. Research Project: “The Papuan Elite in Jakarta Centre-Periphery Networking in Post- Suharto-Indonesia”

2008 - 2010

Holder of the doctoral grant from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Dissertationsprogramm der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der ÖAW). Dissertation Project: „Religion and Conflict in Papua. An Anthropological Research of Christian-Muslim Relations at the Indonesian Periphery”

Organised and Chaired Sessions

2011

„Ethnizität und Religion als Kapital – Unternehmende Kulturen im heutigen Indonesien“, organized in cooperation with Martin Ramstedt from the Max Planck Institute for Anthropology in Halle/Germany and Martin Slama from the Institute for Social Anthropology (Austrian Academy of Sciences), September 14-17

2010

“Der Wilde Südosten – Südostasiatische Peripherien im 21. Jahrhundert.“ Workshop organised and chaired in cooperation with Dr. Jani Kuhnt-Saptodewo from the Viennese Museum of Ethnology at the annual session „Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie.“ Organised by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Vienna), the Institute for Social Anthropology (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Viennese Museum of Ethnology, April 23

Presentations

2012

“Dancing Koreri in and beyond Jakarta.” Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Conference in San Francisco

2012

“Papuan Imams. Linking Local Communities with Wider Islamic Public Spheres” Invited paper presented at the workshop Mosques & Imams: everyday Islam in eastern Indonesia. The Research School of Asia and the Pacific and the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture History and Languages, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

2012

“Instruksi Kayanmbiak Raja Papua. Religious Dimensions of Freedom” Invited Paper presented at the Department of Anthropology – Monash University

2012

“Food and Terrorism” Invited paper presented at the Centre for Multiculturalism, Democracy and Character Building at the State University of Semarang, Indonesia

2012

“The Birds of Paradise have Landed. Dancing Koreri in Jakarta.” Invited paper presented at the Department of Anthropology - Macquarie University

2012

“We Came From the East. Being Papuan in Jakarta.” Invited Paper presented at the Department of Anthropology - Macquarie University

2012

“The Birds of Paradise have Landed. Dancing Koreri in Jakarta.” Invited paper presented at The Research School of Asia and the Pacific and the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture History and Languages, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

2010

„Religious Dimensions of Conflict in Indonesian Papua. The (Re)making of Religious Identities.” Paper presented at European Association For South East Asian Studies 6th EuroSEAS Conference. Organised by the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg.

2010

“Lebensraum Papua: Soziale Konsequenzen durch rohstofforientierte Wirtschaft.” Paper presented at the annual session „Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie“. Organised by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Vienna), the Institute for Social Anthropology (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Viennese Museum of Ethnology.

2009

“Dehumanization and Discourses of the ‘Primitive.’ Different Paths to Violence in Indonesian Papua.” Paper presented at the Second biannual meeting of the EASA (European Association of Social Anthropologists) network PACSA (Peace and Conflict Studies in Anthropology), titled “Continuities and Ruptures between Conflict, Post-Conflict and Peace.” Held at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Peace Center Burg Stadt Schlaining.

2009

„Is Indonesian Papua the Future of Indonesia? A Social Anthropological Conflict Analysis.” Paper presented at the “4th Viennese Conference on South-East Asian Studies. National and Transnational Crisis and Conflicts in South-East Asia.” Organised by ASEAS, the Austrian Society for South-East Asian Studies.

2009

“Manokwari – Eine ‚Bibelstadt‘: Zur Konstruktion von Christentum und interreligiösen Beziehungen in Westpapua.” Paper presented at the annual session „Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie“. Organised by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Vienna), the Institute for Social Anthropology (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Viennese Museum of Ethnology.

2009

“Conflict Management and Religious Authorities in Indonesian Papua: Challenging Interfaith Cooperation.” Invited paper presentation at the “International Workshop on Religion in Dispute and Conflict Resolution: Cases from Post-New Order Indonesia.” Organised by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in Lembang, Java.

2007

“Religion and Conflict in Papua.” Paper presented at the first international conference of the EASA (European Association of Social Anthropologists) network PACSA (Peace and Conflict Studies in Anthropology) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany.

2007

„Papua – Konflikt der Identitäten? Religiöse versus ethnische Identität.“ Paper presented at the annual session „Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie“. Organised by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Vienna), the Institute for Social Anthropology (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Viennese Museum of Ethnology.

2006

„Reconstruction with Drawbacks.“ Paper presented at the Nias Conference “Traditional Architecture and Art in Nias”. Organised by the Museum of Ethnology and the Institute for Comparative Research in Architecture in Vienna.

2006

“Essen und Identität”. Invited lecture given at the seminar “Anthropology of Food”, at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. University of Vienna.

Publications

2012

The Holy Way, Inc.: Papuas heilige Pfade in Politik und Wirtschaft. In: Ramstedt, Martin and Slama, Martin and Warta, Christian (eds.): Ethnizität und Religion als Kapital: Prozesse der Kapitalisierung von Kultur im Indoensien nach Suharto. In: Asien. The German Journal on Contemporary Asia, Nr. 123, April 2012

2011

Perkembangan Pentingnya Masalah Agama di Papua: Sengketa antar Agama dan Pencegahan Konflik. In: Ramstedt, Martin and Thufail, Fadjar, (eds.): Agama, Etnisitas, dan Kewarganegaraan Pada Masa Paska Orde Baru, Jakarta: Grassindo, 121–147.

2010

Review of Peter Metcalf, The Life of the Longhouse. An Archaeology of Ethnicity. In: Social Anthropology 18 (4), 491-493.

2010

Review of Esther Heidbüchel, The West Papua Conflict in Indonesia: Actors, Issues and Approaches. In: Austrian Journal of South East Asian Studies 3 (1), 112–116.

2010

Not to Be Neglected: The Religious Landscape in West Papua, Oxford Transitional Justice Research, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford (Working Paper Series), www.csls.ox.ac.uk/documents/Warta-ReligioninWestPapua- final.pdf.

2010

Traditionen des Nehmens: Frontier-Geschäfte in Westpapua. In: Gimesi, Thomas und Hanselitsch, Werner (eds.): Geben, Nehmen, Tauschen, Rationalpark Series – Plateaus, Bd. 4, Wien: Lit, 191-205.

2009

Eine neue Dimension im Papua-Konflikt? Zur Bedeutung von religiösen Identitäten in einer indonesischen Peripherie. In: Slama, Martin (ed.): Konflikte – Mächte – Identitäten. Beiträge zur Sozialanthropologie Südostasiens, Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 267–294.

2009

Reconstruction with drawbacks: Small Nias, large Change, in: Petra Gruber und Ulrike Herbig (eds.): Traditional Architecture and Art on Nias, Indonesia, Vienna:. IVA-ICRA, 150-155.

2003

Gönitzer, Gerit; Zoubek, Christine und Warta, Christian. Der (berufliche) Alltag in NGOs: Zwischen Autonomie und finanzieller Absicherung. In: Seiser, Gertraud et al.(eds.): Explorationen ethnologischer Berufsfelder. Chancen und Risken für UniversitätsabsolventInnen, Wien: WUV Universitätsverlag, 163-190.

Thesis & Papers

2011

Religiositäten in Bewegung. Adat, Schriftreligionen und Nationalismen in Papua, Indonesien, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology - University of Vienna, Doctoral Thesis.

2006

Applying Social Anthropology to Human Rights Monitoring. Human Rights Education Association, Cambridge, Examination Paper.

2003

Identität geht durch den Magen. Eine ethnologische Untersuchung zum gastro- kulinarischen Konsumverhalten in der indonesischen Mittelklasse, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology - University of Vienna, Master Thesis.

Previous Achievments

Educating yourself beyond what you think you need to know is among the best investments you can make.

If we want to move forward, we should never stop learning or lose our interest in exploring new things.

Places & People

Lived & Worked, Traveled, Vistited

Travelers embrace the world and connect people. Experiencing other places and cultures widens your horizon and chases your worldview out of the box.

  • Born & Raised
  • 5 - 10 Years
  • 1 - 5 Years
  • 1 - 12 Months
  • 1 - 4 Weeks

Working Online for Living Offline

A Digital Nomad

My two most important tools of the trade are my camera & computer equipment. It all fits in bags and lets me work from virtually anywhere with an internet connection. This lifestyle is also known as digital nomadism. What could be better than working online for living offline?

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