Same-sex relations, transvestism and cross-gender behaviour have long been noted amongst a wide range of Indonesian peoples. 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'.

Women in Indonesia: gender, equity and development.

Anthropologist Serena Nanda has heralded the importance of understanding human similarities and differences throughout her writing and teaching career. This was especially evidenced in her groundbreaking work, Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations, a masterful, far-reaching examination of the relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality and how they are culturally constructed. Rich ethnographic examples representing nine cultures illuminate the need to analyze sex/gender roles and identities on the basis of broad cultural patterns and distinct cultural features, including social class, ethnicity, age, religion, urban or rural residence, and exposure to Western cultures. The latest edition incorporates new material on hijras in Bangladesh, three gender alternatives in Indonesia, and global changes related to migration, health, and communication. Concept-reinforcing questions have been added to each chapter. Gender Diversity, Second Edition encourages readers to think in new ways about what they consider natural, normal, or morally right. As a concise supplement with multidisciplinary appeal, the enhanced edition is sure to energize the undergraduate classroom.

In The Made-Up State, Benjamin Hegarty contends that warias, who compose one of Indonesia's trans feminine populations, have cultivated a distinctive way of captivating the affective, material, and spatial experiences of belonging to a modern public sphere. Combining historical and ethnographic research, Hegarty traces the participation of warias in visual and bodily technologies, ranging from psychiatry and medical transsexuality to photography and feminine beauty. The concept of development deployed by the modern Indonesian state relies on naturalizing the binary of "male" and "female." As historical brokers between gender as a technological system of classifying human difference and state citizenship, warias shaped the contours of modern selfhood even while being positioned as nonconforming within it. The Made-Up State illuminates warias as part of the social and technological format of state rule, which has given rise to new possibilities for seeing and being seen as a citizen in postcolonial Indonesia.

In an important social change, female Muslim political leaders in Java have enjoyed considerable success in direct local elections following the fall of Suharto in Indonesia. Indonesian Women and Local Politics shows that Islam, gender, and social networks have been decisive in their political victories. Islamic ideas concerning female leadership provide a strong religious foundation for their political campaigns. However, their approach to women's issues shows that female leaders do not necessarily adopt a woman's perspectives when formulating policies. This new trend of Muslim women in politics will continue to shape the growth and direction of democratization in local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia and will color future discourse on gender, politics, and Islam in contemporary Southeast Asia.

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.

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.

Today, gender inequality and diversity are at the forefront of discussion, as the issue has become an international concern for politicians, government agencies, social activists, and the general public. Consequently, the need to foster and sustain diversity and inclusiveness in the interactions among various groups of people is relevant today more than ever. Gender and Diversity: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications provides a critical look at gender and modern-day discrimination and solutions to creating sustainable diversity across numerous contexts and fields. Highlighting a range of topics such as anti-discrimination measures, workforce diversity, and gender inequality, this multi-volume book is designed for legislators and policy makers, practitioners, academicians, gender studies researchers, and graduate-level students interested in all aspects of gender and diversity studies.

Over the past 20 years, gender relations and the expression of power and authority between men and women in Indonesia have been shaped by the forces of reformasi, decentralisation, a reassertion of central power, and economic transitions. These changes have given rise to policy reform, an increase in women’s political representation, and new expressions of diverse gender identities. But to what extent has the 'gender order' of the New Order, where women’s role as a mother was the basis of citizenship, been challenged or just found new articulations? What shape do contemporary contestations to gendered power take? The chapters in this volume bring gender to the centre stage and provide reflections on the political, economic, social, and cultural progress and barriers in achieving gender equality and diversity in Indonesia.

In the first study of the kind, Susan Blackburn examines how Indonesian women have engaged with the state since they began to organise a century ago. Voices from the women's movement resound in these pages, posing demands such as education for girls and reform of marriage laws. The state, for its part, is shown attempting to control women. The book investigates the outcomes of these mutual claims and the power of the state and the women's movement in improving women's lives. It also questions the effects on women of recent changes to the state, such as Indonesia's transition to democracy and the election of its first female president. The wider context is important. On some issues, like reproductive health, international institutions have been influential and as the largest Islamic society in the world, Indonesia offers special insights into the role of religion in shaping relations between women and the state.