Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia

by Sears, Laurie J.; Tiwon, Sylvia (CON); Stoler, Ann Laura (CON); Suryakusuma, Julia I. (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822316961
• ISBN10: 082231696X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-03-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

The stories of Indonesian women have often been told by Indonesian men and Dutch men and women. This volume asks how these representations-reproduced, transformed, and circulated in history, ethnography, and literature-have circumscribed feminine behavior in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia. Presenting dialogues between prominent scholars of and from Indonesia and Indonesian women working in professional, activist, religious, and literary domains, the book dissolves essentialist notions of "women" and "Indonesia" that have arisen out of the tensions of empire. The contributors examine the ways in which Indonesian women and men are enmeshed in networks of power and then pursue the stories of those who, sometimes at great political risk, challenge these powers. In this juxtaposition of voices and stories, we see how indigenous patriarchal fantasies of feminine behavior merged with Dutch colonial notions of proper wives and mothers to produce the Indonesian governmentrs"s present approach to controlling the images and actions of women. Facing the theoretical challenge of building a truly cross-cultural feminist analysis,Fantasizing the Femininetakes us into an ongoing conversation that reveals the contradictions of postcolonial positionings and the fragility of postmodern identities. This book will be welcomed by readers with interests in contemporary Indonesian politics and society as well as historians, anthropologists, and other scholars concerned with literature, gender, and cultural studies.Contributors. Benedict R. Ors"G. Anderson, Sita Aripurnami, Jane Monnig Atkinson, Nancy K. Florida, Daniel S. Lev, Deacute;deacute; Oetomo, Laurie J. Sears, Ann Laura Stoler, Saraswati Sunindyo, Julia I. Suryakusuma, Jean Gelman Taylor, Sylvia Tiwon, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Diane L. Wolf

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Fragile Identities: Deconstructing Women and Indonesia

Structures of Control

Models and Maniacs: Articulating the Female in Indonesia

A Sentimental Education: Native Servants and the Cultivation of European Children in the Netherlands Indies

The State and Sexuality in New Order Indonesia

Murder, Gender, and the Media: Sexualizing Politics and Violence

Javanese Factory Daughters: Gender, the State, and Industrial Capitalism

Quizzing the Sphinx: Reflections on Mortality in Central Sulawesi

On the Other Hand?

Contested Representations

Sex Wars: Writing Gender Relations in Nineteenth-Century Java

Nyai Dasima: Portrait of a Mistress in Literature and Film

A Feminist Comment on the Sinetron Presentation of Indonesian Women

Gender and Sexual Orientation in Indonesia

S/He Said: The Happy, Modern, Sexy, Indonesian Married Woman as Transsexual

Alien Romance

Selected Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.