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The 2019 documentary film They Call Me Babu utilises historical film footage including the home movies of one Dutch family with a voiceover in Bahasa Indonesia to narrate the fictionalised experiences of a former female domestic worker in the colonial Netherlands East Indies in the closing decades of Dutch colonial rule from 1939 to 1949. By centring the experiences of 'babu', women who worked as nannies and nursemaids for families holding European status, the Dutch-Indonesian director Sarah Beerends endeavours to make these women visible and to narrate their viewpoints. In this paper we argue, however, that the director's aspiration to centre the women's stories is haunted by the spectres of the colonial matrix of power. This leads to the unintended replication of nostalgic images of, and tropes about, the colony that has characterised earlier Dutch memory work. The film does not offer a critical engagement with colonial violence and the colonial structures of power are instead positioned as contributing to the nanny's gendered emancipation. Furthermore, we reflect on why, in the context of recent vociferous debates about colonial violence, a film which serves to soften images of Dutch colonialism, was generally well received. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood poverty matters—not only because of the disturbingly high number of children affected, but also because of the deleterious impact on their human flourishing, both now and in the future. Effectively addressing child poverty requires clear identification of the nature and causes of the problem, as well as an understanding of how it is experienced. This paper aims to deepen understanding of child poverty, by drawing on key elements of a capability approach, rights-based approaches, and feminist standpoint theory, and empirical research. It is grounded in the findings of rights-based, participatory research with children aged between 7 and 15 years in Indonesia and in Australia, which cast new light on the dimensions of poverty that are most egregious from a child-driven standpoint. It presents a three-dimensional typology of material, opportunity, and relational poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the evolution of the Riot Grrrl movement. A feminist punk movement that profoundly impacted popular culture in the West during the 1990s, Riot Grrrl is generally regarded as an important but short-lived phenomenon. This paper explores the political relevance of Riot Grrrl within both feminism and popular culture, but also debunks the myth that Riot Grrrl faded away by the turn of the century. Exploring specific cases in Russia and Indonesia, the paper illustrates the ways in which Riot Grrrl has become a global movement and remains active today, influencing people's subjectivity and agency, helping transform people from passive consumers to active feminist cultural producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the need to re-imagine multiculturalism and feminism in order to better accommodate women in minority cultures who are religious. It begins and ends with comments about multiculturalism and ‘difference feminism’ in Australia. In the body of the paper I use anthropological field-work in Indonesia, first to show that culture and religion are not separate and immutable, and secondly to show how Muslim women in the women's movement in Indonesia are using Islam to build a multicultural discourse. Finally I apply my findings about Muslim women activists in multicultural discourse in Indonesia to multiculturalism in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Indonesian Communist Organization Gerwani was banned in 1966. It had been associated with sexual perversions during the 1 October 1965 putsch in which senior figures within the Indonesian army were killed. These accusations helped fuel the massacre of over a million people and brought General Suharto to power. Yet in many ways Gerwani's ideology was puritanical and geared towards strengthening the monogamous family unit. It breached traditional gender ideology only in its insistence that women should be political actors and militant mothers. More recently, the organization has been accused of 'promoting lesbianism', when it in fact has never discussed the issue. This paper analyses Gerwani's ideology to explore the link between political activism and sexuality. The women's organization can be regarded as one of the forces of 'modernity' which stimulated homophobia. It is suggested that Gerwani's political activism was considered such a breach of traditional gender ideologies that it triggered a fear of social disorder in which women would be free from male heterosexual control - either as loose, perverted women who were seen as liable to castrate generals, or as lesbians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores women's issues and Islam in the Reformation Era in Indonesia which started after the attack on women in a mass rape in May 1988. Topics include the women's struggles to regain their rights during the era, some of the approaches employed by the women's movement to counter Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia, some of the achievements gained by the Indonesian women's movement, and issues being negotiated in the context of increasing anti-rights activities in the country.

Copyright of Asian Studies Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the transnational links Indonesian women made with women abroad by means of participation in the WIDF (Women's International Democratic Federation) from 1946–1965. Drawing on Indonesian women's speeches at WIDF congresses, contributions to WIDF publications and documents from Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, the Indonesian Women's movement) national congresses the article argues that the WIDF provided an important political compass for Indonesian women on the political left and directly influenced the form and content of its campaign for women's rights. At the same time Gerwani women were able to draw attention and attract support from the extensive membership of the WIDF for domestic challenges, which they positioned as connected to broader struggles against imperialism. With a rapidly rising membership Gerwani was assuming increased importance and influence in the WIDF by the early 1960s and had begun to shape the direction and causes of the WIDF. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Indonesia has been haunted by the “spectre of communism” since the putsch by military officers on 1 October 1965. That event saw the country's top brass murdered and the military attributing this putsch to the Communist Party. The genocide that followed was triggered by a campaign of sexual slander. This led to the real coup and the replacement of President Sukarno by General Suharto. Today, accusations about communism continue to play a major role in public life and state control remains shored up by control over women's bodies. This article introduces the putsch and the socialist women's organisation Gerwani, members of which were, at the time, accused of sexual debauchery. The focus is on the question of how Gerwani was portrayed in the aftermath of the putsch and how this affects the contemporary women's movement. It is found that women's political agency has been restricted, being associated with sexual debauchery and social turmoil. State women's organisations were set up and women's organisations forced to help build a “stable” society, based on women's subordination. The more independent women's groups were afraid to be labelled “new Gerwani ” as that would unleash strong state repression. This article assesses the implications of these events for the post-1998 period of Reformasi and reviews some recent analyses of 1965, state terrorism and violence and reveals blind spots in dealing with gender and sexual politics. It is argued that the slander against Gerwani is downplayed in these analyses. In fact, this slander was the spark without which the bloodbath would not have happened and would not have acquired its gruesome significance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]