Gender, Islam and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesia

This Open Access volume explores the local-global interactions between gender, Islam and sexuality in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. The authors offer a fresh look at the tensions between the local and the global through a wide range of cultural expressions and productions, including fashion, Islamic dating, popular literature, and videos on YouTube. The book is grouped around three core themes: halal lifestyle, desire and shame, and sexuality, violence and cultural taboos. In the first, the authors bring new insights into how local expressions of Islam, gender and sexuality are negotiated in an increasingly globalised world. They explore forms of a halal lifestyle that include fashion, cosmetics, and an Islamic dating app. The contributions on the second theme, which deal with popular literature, illuminate the realm of emotional worlds, torn between desire and shame. It reveals how different discourses about gender roles and mobility in culturally diverse regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, the US, and Indonesia reinforce protagonists exclusion and precariousness. The third section unpacks how cultural taboos, such as speaking openly about rape, abuse and torture, are handled in Indonesia, speaking to the Indonesian version of the #MeToo movement. This volume is a useful resource for postgraduate students, lecturers and researchers with an interest in gender studies, cultural studies, and literary studies, particularly in Asian and Islamic country contexts.

"This book will be of great value to scholars and observers of Indonesia's changing social landscape. The chapters provide insight both into causes of changes within the socio-political sphere -- such as new laws criminalising forms of sexuality -- and into understanding the impact such conservative changes have on a range of people. The volume is a must-read for anyone wanting to get up to speed on changes in Indonesia's gender, sexuality and Islamic landscape." - Professor Sharyn Graham Davies, Director of the Herb Feith Indonesia Engagement Centre, Monash University, Australia

"A showcase of excellent research, this book is of appeal to Indonesian studies scholars, and to readers in the field of Asian cultural studies. It is also of relevance to the field of Asian gender and sexuality studies, and to scholars in Islamic studies." - Professor Pamela Nilan, University of Newcastle, Australia

"The articles in this anthology discuss and analyse a wide range of gender and sexuality issues in an Indonesia that lives with the "regulatory zeal" of conservative Islamists. Significantly, however, various agencies are also considered, as well as the creative resistance of regulated people and communities. This book should definitely be on the reading list for the study of Indonesian gender and sexuality." - Dr Dede Oetomo, Founder and Trustee of GAYa NUSANTARA Foundation