Suchergebnisse

Smith-Hefner reviews 'Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia' edited by Laurie J. Sears.

In the early 1980s, tens of thousands of Cambodian refugees fled their war-torn country to take up residence in the United States, where they quickly became one of the most troubled and least studied immigrant groups. This book is the story of that passage, and of the efforts of Khmer Americans to recreate the fabric of culture and identity in the aftermath of the Khmer holocaust.Based on long-term research among Cambodians residing in metropolitan Boston, this rich ethnography provides a vivid portrait of the challenges facing Khmer American culture as seen from the perspective of elders attempting to preserve Khmer Buddhism in a deeply unfamiliar world. The study highlights the tensions and ambivalences of Khmer socialization, with particular emphasis on Khmer conceptions of personhood, morality, and sexuality. Nancy J. Smith-Hefner considers how this cultural heritage influences the performance of Khmer children in American schools and, ultimately, determines Khmer engagement with American culture

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Approaching Java in a Time of Transitions -- 2. Islam, Youth, and Social Change -- 3. Varieties of Muslim Youth -- 4. Conceptualizing Gender -- 5. Gender Shifts -- 6. Sex and Sociability -- 7. The New Muslim Romance -- 8. Conclusion. Islamizing Intimacies -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

One of the great transformations presently sweeping the Muslim world involves not just political and economic change but the reshaping of young Muslims' styles of romance, courtship, and marriage. Nancy J. Smith-Hefner takes up the personal lives and sexual attitudes of educated Muslim Javanese youth in the city of Yogyakarta to explore the dramatic social and ethical changes taking place in Indonesian society. Drawing on more than 250 interviews over a fifteen-year period, her vivid, well-crafted ethnography is full of insights into the real-life struggles of young Muslims and framed by a deep understanding of Indonesia's wider debates on gender and youth culture. The changes among Muslim youth reflect an ongoing if at times unsteady attempt to balance varied ideals, ethical concerns, and aspirations. On the one hand, growing numbers of young people show a deep and pervasive desire for a more active role in their Islamic faith. On the other, even as they seek a more self-conscious and scripture-based profession of faith, many educated youth aspire to personal relationships similar to those seen among youth elsewhere—a greater measure of informality, openness, and intimacy than was typical for their parents' and grandparents' generations. Young women in particular seek freedom for self-expression, employment, and social fulfillment outside of the home. Smith-Hefner pays particular attention to their shifting roles and perspectives because it is young women who have been most dramatically affected by the upheavals transforming this Muslim-majority country. Although deeply personal, the changing aspirations of young Muslims have immense implications for social and public life throughout Indonesia. The fruit of a longitudinal study begun shortly after the fall of the authoritarian New Order government and the return to democracy in 1998–1999, the book reflects Smith-Hefner's nearly forty years of anthropological engagement with the island of Java and her continuing exploration into what it means to be both "modern" ...

this article explores changing attitudes towards courtship and marriage among educated muslim javanese youth, as seen against the backdrop of islamic resurgence, growing educational achievement and socioeconomic change. through a comparison of earlier forms of courtship and marriage with emerging trends, it sheds light on some of the tensions and ambivalences surrounding the new social freedoms and autonomy modern javanese women have come to enjoy.

The Domestication of Desire: Women, Wealth, and Modernity in Java. Suzanne April Brenner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. 302 pp.

Tengger Javanese are an ethnic Javanese people who live in the rugged uplands surrounding Mount Bromo in eastern Java. Tengger are unique among modern Javanese in that they alone trace their religious traditions back to a non-Islamic, Hindu-Javanese priesthood thought to date from the time of the last of Java's great Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms (the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). Specialists of Java's ancient Hindu traditions, however, have generally concluded that liturgical manuscripts from the Tengger region can tell us little about Old Javanese religion. The eminent Dutch historian Th. G. Th. Pigeaud writes that the people who preserved the religious texts among the Tengger never belonged to the class of cultured ecclesiastics so prominent in Hindu-Javanese times. Many of the Tengger manuscripts in museum collections are written in a rustic and non-standard,budhascript, and do not contain any learned Sanskrit slokas or other easily identifiable references to classical Hindu-Javanese traditions. These facts led Pigeaud to speculate that the Tengger population had always formed a separate community, only superficially influenced by Hindu tradition, and primarily involved in the worship of Mount Bromo, the volcano located at the centre of the region.