(1961) studied cultural anthropology and history at the University of Leiden. He received his Ph.D. in 1994 with the thesis Patches of Padang- the History of an Indonesian Town in the Twentieth Century and the Use of Urban Space. Since September 2003 he has taught as a university lecturer at the College of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Free Universiy of Amsterdam. Previously he worked as a university lecturer at the College of Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia and Oceania of the University of Leiden, and as researcher at the Centre for Non-Western Studies (Leiden), the Royal Dutch Insitute for the Tropics (KITLV) and the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden/Amsterdam). He works at KITLV two days a week, working with Martine Barwegen on the study The Struggle for the City within the research programme 'From the Dutch East Indies to Indonesia'.

(Bangka, 1961) studied history at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. In 1992 he received his Ph. D. from the latter institution with a study into the indigenous rubber culture on South Sumatra from 1890-1940. His research interests lie in the field of Indonesian historiography and the economic history of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. After having had several posts at the Universitas Gadjah Mada, he was a visiting lecturer at the Thammasat University in Thailand and the University of the Philippines. At the moment dr. Purwanto heads the centre for Social and Southeast Asian Studies of the Universitas Gadjah Mada. He is working on a publication entitled 'Gagalnya Historiografi Indonesiasentris?' in which he treats the success or failure of an Indonesian-centric historiography.