In disentangling how morality shapes the role and position of women and LGBT subjects in Indonesia, this talk will discuss policewomen as moral arbiters.
Paper long abstract:
In disentangling how morality shapes the role and position of women and LGBT subjects in Indonesia, and the more specific question 'How is morality leveraged by and against Indonesian (police)women in efforts for selfhood and control,' this talk will discuss how packaging policewomen as moral arbiters justifies overt moral control. Understanding how morality is currently deployed helps us understand the power of moral discourse over the bodies of women and LGBT subjects, and of how women and LGBT draw on this discourse to pursue their own ends. I will use an analysis of the construction of the virginal, pious and beautiful policewoman to explore Indonesia's expansive moral surveillance, and through deployment of the notion of kinships of shame will argue that morality discourses have been so effective in the archipelago because the shame accrued to particular acts (e.g. homosexuality) imbricate not only extended kin but the whole nation.