Passionate Aesthetics and Symbolic Subversion: Heteronormativity in India and Indonesia

Abstract

Passionate Aesthetics and Symbolic Subversion; Heteronormativity in India and Indonesia[Please change all ize, ization, to ise, isation to follow our journal's style] Saskia Wieringa KeywordsHeteronormativity, India, Indonesia, sexual rights, same-sex relations, sex workers, lesbians, widows, divorced women AbstractBy exploring the life stories of women in same-sex relations, sex workers and widows/divorced women in Jakarta and Delhi, this article analyses the way heteronormativity marginalises these women, both those who identify as heterosexual and those who do not. To counter the physical, material and subversive forms of violence they experience, they engage in various forms of agency, including symbolic forms of subversion. The focus is on the major concepts developed in this study, passionate aesthetics and symbolic subversion. The narrators in this study deploy overlapping yet distinct strategies to carve out their lives. The subversion of heteronormativity ranges from political, activist intentions, to more invisible, symbolic acts, sometimes self-defeating. These forms of subversion are rooted in both embodied and social, public practices. In this article I discuss some of the major symbolic forms of subversion of heteronormativity that lie in between the ultimate defiance of (self) destruction and the struggle for human/women's/sexual rights. Five strategies will be discussed: seeking economic stability; finding sexual partners; glorifying motherhood; negotiating religious peace and claiming sexual speech. In the last section the embodiment of subversion is discussed.

Balancing benefits and harm: Chemical use and bodily transformation among Indonesia's transgender waria

“…A number of recent studies have addressed non-heteronormative subjectivities in Indonesia ( Blackwood, 1998, 2005; Boellstorff, 2005, 2007, 2008; Wieringa, 1999, 2012 ). Blackwood (1998) has focused on the construction of masculinity and erotic desire among tombois in West Sumatra; Blackwood (2005) has examined how lesbi in West Sumatra access and appropriate the discourses of the global queer movement to shape their gendered and sexual subjectivities.…”

“… Blackwood (1998) has focused on the construction of masculinity and erotic desire among tombois in West Sumatra; Blackwood (2005) has examined how lesbi in West Sumatra access and appropriate the discourses of the global queer movement to shape their gendered and sexual subjectivities. Boellstorff (2005) has addressed how transvestites in Indonesia experience dissonance between their male bodies and female jiwa (souls), while Wieringa (2012) has discussed some of the major symbolic forms of subverting heteronormativity in Indonesia.…”

Heteronormativity and sexuality politics in Singapore: the female-headed households of divorced and lesbian mothers

“…We suggest that the very pronounced heteronormative cultural and policy context of Singapore, deepened by the illegality of homosexuality and a lack of recognition of same-sex families, provide a common and compelling context to bring the female-headed households of lesbian and divorced mothers into one analytic field. In so doing, this study sustains a nascent scholarship which examines how women, both homosexual and heterosexual, have been the main targets of punitive and pedagogical heteronormative policies and discourses of the family in the context of Asian societies (see Wieringa, 2012).…”

“…The ‘double-sided social regulation’ (Jackson, 2006 :105) of heteronormativity has not always been captured; the concept is more commonly understood as society’s valorisation of heterosexuality over homosexuality, which are taken as oppositional monolithic entities. Contemporary critical approaches in feminist and queer sociology have pointed to a need to reiterate the limits and complexity of the concept and provide more nuanced analyses (Wieringa, 2012; Wilkinson, 2014). Drawing on our study of lesbian and divorced mothers in Singapore, this article demonstrates the working of heteronormativity on specific heterosexual and homosexual lives.…”

COVID-19 and the Fourth Burden of Women in Developing Countries: A Mini Review

“…In many developing countries, women are often regarded as responsible parties in the traditional role, which are: Productive, reproductive, and social sectors [9]. This occurs because the practices of patrilineal norms do not provide space for women to have sufficient autonomy over themselves [10], [11]. This patrilineal norm maintains the ideal things that must be done by women throughout their life.…”