Sharyn Graham Davies

Linda Rae Bennett

Winner of the 2015 Ruth Benedict Prize for Outstanding Edited Volume Sex, sexuality and sexual relationships are hotly debated in Indonesia, triggering complex and often passionate responses. This innovative volume explores these issues in a variety of ways. It highlights historical and newer forms of sexual diversity, as well as the social responses they provoke. It critiques differing representations of sexuality, pointing to the multiplicity of discourses within which sexuality and ‘the sexual’ are understood in modern-day Indonesia. Placing sexuality centre-stage and locating it within the specific historical context of the Reformasi era, this landmark volume explores understandings and practices across a wide variety of sites, focusing in on a diverse group of Indonesian actors, and the contested meanings that sexuality carries. Beginning with a substantive introduction and concluding with a scholarly reflection on key issues, the volume is framed around the four themes of sexual politics, health, diversity and representations. It seeks both to present new empirical findings as well as to add to existing theoretical analysis. This work fills an important gap in our understanding of the evolution and contemporary dynamics of Indonesian sexualities. It will be of interest to scholars and academics from disciplines including gender and sexuality studies, global health, sexual and reproductive health, anthropology, sociology and Asian studies.

Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations

Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia

Indonesia provides particularly interesting examples of gender diversity. Same-sex relations, transvestism and cross-gender behaviour have long been noted amongst a wide range of Indonesian peoples. This book explores the nature of gender diversity in Indonesia, and with the world’s largest Muslim population, it examines Islam in this context. Based on extensive ethnographic research, it discusses in particular calalai – female-born individuals who identify as neither woman nor man; calabai – male-born individuals who also identify as neither man nor woman; and bissu – an order of shamans who embody female and male elements. The book examines the lives and roles of these variously gendered subjectivities in everyday life, including in low-status and high-status ritual such as wedding ceremonies, fashion parades, cultural festivals, Islamic recitations and shamanistic rituals. The book analyses the place of such subjectivities in relation to theories of gender, gender diversity and sexuality.

Sexuality, Islam and Queer Selves

Gender Diversity in Indonesia

As part of the Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology series, edited by George Spindler and Janice E. Stockard, Sharyn Graham brings us CHALLENGING GENDER NORMS: THE FIVE GENDERS OF INDONESIA. This case study explores the Bugis ethnic group, native to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, that recognizes five gender categories rather than the two acknowledged in most societies. The Bugis acknowledge three sexes (female, male, hermaphrodite), four genders (women, men, calabai, and calalai), and a fifth meta-gender group, the bissu. This ethnography presents individuals' stories, opinions and deliberations, grounding discussions of how gendered identities are constructed in a rapidly changing cultural milieu. The rich ethnographic material contained in this book challenges two types of Western theory ? queer theory, which tends to focus on sexuality, and feminist theory, which tends to focus on social gender enactment. Neither theory is well-equipped for articulating the complexities of multiple gender identities and a multifarious gender system. By unraveling social negotiations and examining both individual embodiment and the impact of global forces on localized identities, the book proposes a new theory of gender which incorporates appreciation of variously gendered subjectivities.

Five Genders Among Bugis in Indonesia

Challenging Gender Norms

Same-sex relations, transvestism and cross-gender behaviour have long been noted amongst a wide range of Indonesian peoples. Based on extensive ethnographic research, this book explores dominant theories of gender and sexuality in relation to gender diversity in Indonesia. It discusses in particular intersexed groups, such as ‘calalai’,‘calabai’ and ‘bissu’.

Sharyn Graham Davies

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