The political downfall of the Suharto administration in 1998 marked the end of the "New Order" in Indonesia, a period characterized by 32 years of authoritarian rule. It opened the way for democracy, but also for the proliferation of political Islam, which the New Order had discouraged or banned. Many of the issues raised by Muslim groups concerned matters pertaining to gender and the body. They triggered heated debates about women’s rights, female political participation, sexuality, pornography, veiling, and polygamy. The author argues that public debates on Islam and Gender in contemporary Indonesia only partially concern religion, and more often refer to shifting moral conceptions of the masculine and feminine body in its intersection with new class dynamics, national identity, and global consumerism. By approaching the contentious debates from a cultural sociological perspective, the book links the theoretical domains of body politics, the mediated public sphere, and citizenship. Placing the issue of gender and Islam in the context of Indonesia, the biggest Muslim-majority country in the world, this book is an important contribution to the existing literature on the topic. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of anthropology, sociology, and gender studies.

This book presents a historical overview of the Indonesian film industry, the relationship between censorship and representation, and the rise of Islamic popular culture. It considers scholarship on gender in Indonesian cinema through the lens of power relations. With key themes such as nationalism, women's rights, polygamy, and terrorism which have preoccupied local filmmakers for decades, Indonesia cinema resonates with the socio-political changes and upheavals in Indonesia’s modern history and projects images of the nation through the debates on gender and Islam. The text also sheds light on broader debates and questions about contemporary Islam and gender construction in contemporary Indonesia. Offering cutting edge accounts of the production of Islamic cinema, this new book considers gendered dimensions of Islamic media creation which further enrich the representations of the 'religious' and the 'Islamic' in the everyday lives of Muslims in South East Asia.

Here, the history of the Indonesian LBT movement is charted, from invisibility, to visibility and now as it moves again into hiding. In the early 1980s, during the oppressive military dictatorship called the New Order in Indonesia, the first organizations of Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans persons were established. They were short-lived, but prepared the ground for a more comprehensive LBT rights movement after the democratic opening of society in 1998. From 2000 to 2015 the visibility of the movement grew, until a vicious state-sponsored backlash set in, driven by majoritarian, fundamentalist Islamist groups. Saskia Wieringa tracks the movement's progress and explores the persistence of the butch/femme model of relationships; the proliferations of identities; family violence and conversion therapy; religion; and the anti-LGBT campaign. In its insistence on the local dynamics of this movement, the book aims to debunk the idea that homosexuality is a Western import. Chapters deal with the many religious and secular phenomena that are linked with gender diversity and same-sex relations traditionally, and the erasure of many of these traditions is explained using the concept of postcolonial amnesia. A Political Biography of the Indonesian Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Movement is also a contribution to the growing literature on decolonization studies, pointing out that its dynamics, its historical course and its present condition, different as they are from the dominant Western view on a global LGBT movement, needs to be considered as valuable as accounts of Western LGBT histories are.

This book offers a critical analysis of gender mainstreaming initiatives in the post-tsunami context in Indonesia. Aiming to challenge the terms of the debate in gender mainstreaming and disaster reconstruction efforts, Jauhola offers an important contribution for the discussion of what ‘feminisms and disasters’ could be. The work provides an in-depth analysis of three governmental practices of gender mainstreaming: the use of the concept pair sex/gender; the use of gender analysis and the use of project management tools and local subversion that challenges the potential normative violence of gender mainstreaming. Providing feminist intersectional reading of gender mainstreaming the book aims to illustrate that this framework does not lack political alternatives, but rather, it offers an alternative focus for feminism and for the re-conceptualisation of ‘political’, and provides tools for practitioners of aid aiming to come to grips with the complexity of gender equality policy agenda and its potential violent social consequences in global politics. Drawing on extensive field research in Aceh, this text is one of the first book length studies, and thus provides a significant addition to Indonesian literatures on intersectional analysis of gender, religion, heteronormativity, and feminist subversive practice. It is a vital resource for those interested in understanding global interconnections of localised disaster and conflict reconstruction.

Southeast Asia, an economically dynamic and strategically vital region, seemed until recently to be transiting to more democratic politics. This progress has suddenly stalled or even gone into reverse, requiring that analysts seriously rethink their expectations and theorizing. The Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Democratization provides the first book-length account of the reasons for democracy’s declining fortunes in the region today. Combining theory and case studies, it is structured in four major sections: Stunted Trajectories and Unhelpful Milieus Wavering Social Forces Uncertain Institutions Country cases and democratic guises This interdisciplinary reference work addresses topics including the impact of belief systems, historical records, regional and global contexts, civil society, ethnicity, women, Islam, and social media. The performance of political institutions is also assessed, and the volume offers a series of in-depth case studies, evaluating the country records of particular democratic, hybrid, and authoritarian regimes from a democratization perspective. Bringing together nearly 30 key international experts in the field, this cutting-edge Handbook offers a comprehensive and fresh investigation into democracy in the region This timely survey will be essential reading for scholars and students of Democratization and Asian Politics, as well as policymakers concerned with democracy’s setbacks in Southeast Asia and the implications for the region’s citizens.

Gender, Sexuality and Islam in Contemporary Indonesia explores gender, sexuality and religion in contemporary Indonesia. It is the first book-length analysis of the experiences of queer Muslims in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country and the world’s fourth most populous nation, as well as the first monograph exploring the voices of their allies vis-à-vis the role of Indonesian progressive Islam and Islam Nusantara. An ethnographic study based on semi-structured in-depth interviews, participant observation and media analysis, the book analyses how queer Indonesian Muslims come to, and navigate, their gender, sexual and religious subjectivities and subject positions, beliefs and practices. This is done by paying attention to their interactions with family, education, media, and peers. It also investigates the emergence of queer religious geographies through the case of an annual camp leading to alternative discussions on gender, sexuality, and religion impacting processes of subjectivity formation among participants. The author draws on recent scholarship that attends to ‘agency’ not merely as a synonym for resistance but also as a modality of action to examine the rise of queer religious agentic systems through the everyday practices of queer Muslims. Finally, the book explores the background of the allies of queer Muslims who have come to develop queer-inclusive strategies from within Islam by considering the processes that shaped their advocacy and the role of Islam Nusantara. The book reflects on the critical role of Islam for gender and sexual minorities in Indonesia. Presenting the voices, practices and activism of present-day Indonesians to explore the position of Islam as a source of emotional strength, guidance, and social support, this book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Religious Studies, Asian Studies and Southeast Asian Studies, Islamic Studies and Queer Anthropology.

Since the publication of the first edition of 'Hate Crime' in 2005, interest in this subject as a scholarly and political domain has grown considerably both in Britain and North America, but significantly also in many other parts of the world. As such, this second edition fully revises and updates the content of the first, but within a broader international context. Building on the success of the first edition, this accessible, cross-disciplinary text also includes a wider range of international issues, and addresses new and emerging areas of concern within the field. The book will be of particular interest to academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students, criminal justice practitioners, and policy-makers working within the area of hate crime and related fields of crime, social justice, and diversity. It will also be of value to others who may hold a more general interest in what is undoubtedly a rapidly evolving and increasingly important area of contemporary and global social concern.

The idea that development projects in poor countries are most effective when they harness the agency of women is a well known theme. Most studies of women’s agency in such projects, however, focus on the role of non-governmental organizations in facilitating women’s agency. This book, on the other hand, based on extensive original research, explores how women can effectively mobilize themselves on their own initiative. The book considers poor people in informal settlements in Jakarta, where government schemes for modernizing the city have often led to forced evictions. The book examines different groups of women, analyzes how they have challenged oppressive authority - their husbands, community leaders and local governments - and provides detailed insights into women’s attitudes and what has motivated them. Overall, the book provides a rich picture of women’s empowerment and disempowerment.