Sidney Jones is the founder and director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a Jakarta-based organisation that produces minutely detailed reports on violence in Southeast Asia. IPAC’s reports — written by Jones and a team of researchers — often bring to life the stories of those who have turned to violence for whatever ends: religion, revenge, politics or rage. As with great fiction, their stories come alive in the details; sometimes of the drift into violence, sometimes of the determined effort to find meaning. Drawing on interviews, police interrogation records and court documents, as well as contacts built up over decades of work in Southeast Asia, IPAC’s research puts violent extremism into its full social and human context, adding understanding and depth. All too often, outrage strips that away from violent people but understanding their stories and motives is important. We will never rid ourselves of extremism, but vigilance against it — be it white supremacism or apocalyptic Islamic extremism — is essential. Understanding violence is the first step in stopping it.

IPAC’s work has been driven by the intense curiosity of its researchers. They are all deeply connected with various parts of Indonesian society in a way that separates their assessments from the often superficial examination of violence by outsiders. Terrorism has spawned legions of instant experts but Jones’s expertise comes from decades working on Indonesia, originally with the Ford Foundation, back in the 1970s, which she joined after getting a BA and MA from the University of Pennsylvania. Work with Amnesty International on Indonesia and the Philippines, and Human Rights Watch on Asia more generally, brought her back throughout the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, the Suharto regime was jailing many of its political opponents, including Islamists who called for an Islamic state. Jones was one of the few international human rights experts who took an interest in their cases. Many had not advocated violence and were classified as prisoners of conscience.

• Tags: Issue 16, Robert Templer, Sidney Jones