The captivating stories of his travels – Seen & Unseen, is part treatise, part personal remembrance, part genealogy, part travelogue, part intellectual autobiography and part coming-of-age novel. Darnley unpicks the intriguing myths of Southeast Asia, a region that he has loved and chronicled his whole academic life. Let yourself be taken along on this writer’s eye-opening and introspective journey of discovery that began from the moment he first stepped into Asia more than four decades ago. This evocative and engaging memoir intertwining anthropology, economics, history and terrorism will resonate with all lovers of Asia.”
– Bill Dalton, journalist and author of the original Indonesia handbook

Russell Darnley, cross cultural educator, historian, political buff, spiritual seeker and entrepreneur, shares stories of his life lived to the full, from a boyhood by the sea in postwar Sydney, through deep involvement in Australia’s often stumbling awakening to Asia. This is an absorbing, intriguing, illuminating memoir and, delivered with a fine balance of passion, humour and wisdom, a profound observation of the seen with a growing awareness of the power of the unseen.
– Des Walsh, Executive Leadership Coach.

A sweeping view of Asia and the Pacific through a series of literary essays written by Australian Russell Darnley, who earned an OAM for services he provided after the Bali Bombings.

Malaria, cockfights and magic are confronting realities in the Asia-Pacific region, yet beyond these more remains unseen and misunderstood. These cultures also exert an unacknowledged influence far beyond their borders.

Inspired by one family’s experience over three generations these tales are cradled in real events. Frailty of memory, the natural passing of people and the need to protect others, has rendered some into fiction.

Central to this work is the idea that interactions with people from outside our culture challenge our expectations. Meanings and understandings must often be negotiated in intangible, non-rational and unseen ways. Foucault’s notion of the third space has influenced this work, as has the Balinese belief that reality is an interaction of Sekala (the Seen) and Niskala (the Unseen).

The unseen also has a political dimension here – “the elephant in the room”. Choosing not to see, comforted by one’s own culture alone, is to ignore that regional and global events are unfettered by such introspection.

Russell Darnley OAM

Born in 1947 Russell Darnley had grandparents who were children at Federation, lived through World War I and struggled as parents through the Great Depression. His parents had their first jobs as World War II broke out. Growing up in Sydney with a seafaring father gave him an interest in what lay beyond. His childhood saw the birth of multicultural Australia, which he embraced, and ended with Conscription and the Vietnam War, both of which he resisted. As a young adult he travelled the world and discovered that his interests lay in South East Asia. Working respectively as teacher, administrator, researcher, director of a field study centre in Indonesia, consultant to the Australia Indonesia Institute, educational writer and digital education pioneer he was awarded the OAM for his voluntary work after the 2002 Bali Bombings. Russell’s outlook is eclectic and interdisciplinary, passionately scientific, yet profoundly spiritual.