Nurul Muthmainnah or simply called as Unu, was born and raised in Tolitoli, Central Sulawesi, before moving to Makassar, South Sulawesi, in 2018 to pursue an undergraduate degree in English Literature at Universitas Hasanuddin, which she completed in 2022. After her studies, she deepened her research practice through a decolonial approach, focusing on collectives, folklore, disasters, archives, women’s leadership, food sovereignty, and Southeast Asia as an entry point to interrogate and dismantle colonial legacies in knowledge production.

 

Her work centers on amplifying knowledge rooted in her homeland, positioning herself as a storyteller so that references are not solely drawn from Western frameworks, while also advancing cultural development in Eastern Indonesia. In 2023, she joined Riwanua as a researcher, a year later, she co-founded Musyawarah Arsip, a platform dedicated to preserving and activating archives across multiple media, both project initiatives are based in Makassar.

 

She also participated in the 2024 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School, Manila, Philippines, where she explored the notion of the archipelago that views the sea not as a divider but as a connector between colonized regions.