Paper short abstract

The paper explores how legal aides in Indonesia effectively manipulate atmospheres in police and court situations to support clients of patriarchal violence in the thicket of affective governance. It shows how aides’ affective practices open legal possibilities that otherwise remain inaccessible.

Paper long abstract

Saving medical evidence, going to the police to file a charge, and giving testimony at a court hearing is extremely stressful for women affected by patriarchal violence. It can result in secondary trauma in the affected person due to disbelief, victim-blaming, and repetitive confrontation with violent experiences. The process can leave victims in an uncanny and ambiguous state in often patriarchal-woven atmospheres, displayed in the selective enforcement.

Atmospheres at the court and police are not just subjectively experienced by those involved, but also effectively manipulated by legal pendamping (aides) in favor of their clients to make conflicting dynamics (un)experienceable and to successfully support them. Therefore, legal pendamping perform a central role in the prosecution process in Indonesia. They fluently move between the spaces of the crisis center, clients’ homes, and legal institutions to sense, mediate, and curate atmospheres of safety before, during, and after victim interviews and testimonies.

The paper draws on 6 months of ethnographic research at a women’s crisis center in Central Java, Indonesia. It examines pendamping’s subjective experiences of police atmospheres through the lens of their affective labor, which requires them to feel, observe, and effectively act upon the situation to create a (harmonious) condition in which clients can break the taboo and give evidence. The paper explores how aides’ affective practices open new legal possibilities in a deeply rooted patriarchal system by owning cultural atmospheric concepts such as harmony, adding to their female agency.