Gregory M. Simon
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838300
- eISBN:
- 9780824868413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838300.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
The particular economic, religious, and political history of Minangkabau society in West Sumatra has fueled a moral tension between autonomy and social integration. Minangkabau society, and the city ...
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The particular economic, religious, and political history of Minangkabau society in West Sumatra has fueled a moral tension between autonomy and social integration. Minangkabau society, and the city of Bukittinggi, developed in the image of an Islamic trading society, forged during the social disruption and rapid expansion of trade that accompanied colonial intrusion. In this context, Islam was embraced as a unifying moral framework desperately needed in a fracturing society, but also as one that legitimized individual endeavor. With a social structure rooted in village and neighborhood kinship ties, and an economy emphasizing the competitive marketplace, the resulting moral tensions have carried into subsequent eras of Indonesian statehood, the New Order regime, and the period of reformasi. An overview of daily life in Bukttinggi also reveals these tensions as manifest in a conceptual division of the city—moral as much as geographic—into “the village” (kampuang) and “the marketplace” (pasa).Less
The particular economic, religious, and political history of Minangkabau society in West Sumatra has fueled a moral tension between autonomy and social integration. Minangkabau society, and the city of Bukittinggi, developed in the image of an Islamic trading society, forged during the social disruption and rapid expansion of trade that accompanied colonial intrusion. In this context, Islam was embraced as a unifying moral framework desperately needed in a fracturing society, but also as one that legitimized individual endeavor. With a social structure rooted in village and neighborhood kinship ties, and an economy emphasizing the competitive marketplace, the resulting moral tensions have carried into subsequent eras of Indonesian statehood, the New Order regime, and the period of reformasi. An overview of daily life in Bukttinggi also reveals these tensions as manifest in a conceptual division of the city—moral as much as geographic—into “the village” (kampuang) and “the marketplace” (pasa).
Evelyn Blackwood
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824834425
- eISBN:
- 9780824870461
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824834425.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This book offers a compelling view of sexual and gender difference through the everyday lives of tombois and their girlfriends (“femmes”) in the city of Padang, West Sumatra. While likening ...
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This book offers a compelling view of sexual and gender difference through the everyday lives of tombois and their girlfriends (“femmes”) in the city of Padang, West Sumatra. While likening themselves to heterosexual couples, tombois and femmes contest and blur dominant constructions of gender and heterosexuality. Tombois are masculine females who identify as men and desire women; their girlfriends view themselves as normal women who desire men. The book shows how these same-sex Indonesian couples negotiate transgressive identities and desires and how their experiences speak to the struggles and desires of sexual and gender minorities everywhere. It analyzes the complex and seemingly contradictory practices of tombois and their partners, demonstrating how they make sense of Islamic, transnational, and modern state discourses in ways that seem to align with normative gender and sexual categories while at the same time subverting them. The book reveals the complexity of tomboi masculinity, showing how tombois enact both masculine and feminine behaviors as they move between the anonymity and vulnerability of public spaces and the familiarity of family spaces. It demonstrates how nationally and globally circulating queer discourses are received and reinterpreted by tombois and femmes. Their identities are clearly both part of yet different than global gay models of sexuality. In contrast to the international LGBT model of “modern” sexualities, this work reveals a multiplicity of sexual and gender subjectivities in Indonesia, arguing for the importance of recognizing and validating this diversity in the global gay ecumene.Less
This book offers a compelling view of sexual and gender difference through the everyday lives of tombois and their girlfriends (“femmes”) in the city of Padang, West Sumatra. While likening themselves to heterosexual couples, tombois and femmes contest and blur dominant constructions of gender and heterosexuality. Tombois are masculine females who identify as men and desire women; their girlfriends view themselves as normal women who desire men. The book shows how these same-sex Indonesian couples negotiate transgressive identities and desires and how their experiences speak to the struggles and desires of sexual and gender minorities everywhere. It analyzes the complex and seemingly contradictory practices of tombois and their partners, demonstrating how they make sense of Islamic, transnational, and modern state discourses in ways that seem to align with normative gender and sexual categories while at the same time subverting them. The book reveals the complexity of tomboi masculinity, showing how tombois enact both masculine and feminine behaviors as they move between the anonymity and vulnerability of public spaces and the familiarity of family spaces. It demonstrates how nationally and globally circulating queer discourses are received and reinterpreted by tombois and femmes. Their identities are clearly both part of yet different than global gay models of sexuality. In contrast to the international LGBT model of “modern” sexualities, this work reveals a multiplicity of sexual and gender subjectivities in Indonesia, arguing for the importance of recognizing and validating this diversity in the global gay ecumene.
Gregory M. Simon
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838300
- eISBN:
- 9780824868413
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838300.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
The moral practices and concepts that circulate in Minangkabau society in West Sumatra, Indonesia articulate and help manage tensions between conflicting values and conflicting experiences of ...
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The moral practices and concepts that circulate in Minangkabau society in West Sumatra, Indonesia articulate and help manage tensions between conflicting values and conflicting experiences of selfhood, particularly the tension between social integration and individual autonomy. The book examines these tensions ethnographically in multiple arenas: the structure of the city of Bukittinggi and its economic life, the nature of Minangkabau ethnic identity, the etiquette of everyday interactions, conceptions of the self and its boundaries, hidden spaces of personal identity, and engagements with Islamic rituals and moral conceptions. Applying the lessons of the Minangkabau case more broadly to debates on moral life and subjectivity makes the case that a deep understanding of moral conceptions and practices, including those of Islam, can never be reached simply by delineating their abstract logics or outlining the public messages they send. Instead, we must examine the subtle, sometimes intentionally obscured meanings these conceptions and practices have for the people who live them. Whether in the context of suffering or flourishing, moral subjectivity always confronts the challenge of responding to and managing the enduring tensions of human selves, which necessarily entail bodily, relational, and reflective dimensions.Less
The moral practices and concepts that circulate in Minangkabau society in West Sumatra, Indonesia articulate and help manage tensions between conflicting values and conflicting experiences of selfhood, particularly the tension between social integration and individual autonomy. The book examines these tensions ethnographically in multiple arenas: the structure of the city of Bukittinggi and its economic life, the nature of Minangkabau ethnic identity, the etiquette of everyday interactions, conceptions of the self and its boundaries, hidden spaces of personal identity, and engagements with Islamic rituals and moral conceptions. Applying the lessons of the Minangkabau case more broadly to debates on moral life and subjectivity makes the case that a deep understanding of moral conceptions and practices, including those of Islam, can never be reached simply by delineating their abstract logics or outlining the public messages they send. Instead, we must examine the subtle, sometimes intentionally obscured meanings these conceptions and practices have for the people who live them. Whether in the context of suffering or flourishing, moral subjectivity always confronts the challenge of responding to and managing the enduring tensions of human selves, which necessarily entail bodily, relational, and reflective dimensions.
