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This is the first translation into English of this lively, migrant literature presenting 23 short stories by Indonesian domestic workers on their lives working abroad. It gives voice to the hopes, fears and everyday reality of maids' lives and offers startling new insights on female migration.
By offering perspectives from Indonesian female workers, this book discusses the contemporary progress of working-class feminism from the Global South. It presents a critical reading of the socio-political conditions that allow female workers to narrate their lives and work as precariat labor toiling under the forces of globalization. Its analysis centers on their writings which appear in the form of legal documents, personal accounts, essays, and short stories. Thus, the book shows how these women change their situation by challenging the political order and demanding gender justice with their fearless speech.
The years 1945-48 marked the peak of the Indonesian revolution, but they were also formative years for the state-labour relationship in modern Indonesia. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources, Jafar Suryomenggolo reconstructs labour's initial drive to form and orient unions during this critical period. The historical narrative captures early unions' nationalist spirit and efforts to defend members' socio-economic interests, and shows the steps taken by the labour movement to maintain its independence and build institutional capacity within the new Indonesian state. Organising under the Revolution challenges the prevailing assumptions that see labour movements as political arms of the post-colonial state. The author's conclusions provide a comparative lens for the study of labour movements in Southeast Asia, and developing countries in general.
The 1998 Reform has paved ways for the reconfiguration and improvement of Indonesia's institutions to support economic growth. For the last 20 years, however, indonesia is facing the challenges of uncontainable urbanization and rising inequality. During the period 2008-2015, Indonesia's economy grew by more than 4 percent annually, the highest steady rate in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is now transitioning from a lower-middle income country to an upper-middle level one. Meanwhile, Indonesia faces a number of challengesto strengthen its democratic institutions. This book brings together 12 original chapters to discuss the achievements and challenges of Indonesia's transformation after 1998. it exa mines how state institutions and civil society manage the complexities of indonesia's transformations to develop common ground upon which to reach a national consensus.
From 1965 to 1966, at least 500,000 Indonesians were killed in military-directed violence that targeted suspected Communists. Muslim politicians justified the killings, arguing that Marxism posed an existential threat to all religions. Since then, the demonization of Marxism, as well as the presumed irreconcilability of Islam and Marxism, has permeated Indonesian society. Today, the Indonesian military and Islamic political parties regularly invoke the spectre of Marxism as an enduring threat that would destroy the republic if left unchecked. In Ummah Yet Proletariat, Lin Hongxuan explores the relationship between Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) and Indonesia from the ...
North Korea and Myanmar (Burma) are Asia's most mysterious, tragic stories. For decades they were infamous as the region's most militarized and repressed societies, self-isolated and under sanctions by the international community while, from Singapore to Japan, the rest of Asia saw historic wealth creation and growing middle class security. For Burma, the threat was internal: insurgent factions clashed with the government and each other. For North Korea, it was external: a hostile superpower--the United States--and a far more successful rival state--South Korea--occupying half of the Korean peninsula. Over time, Myanmar defeated its enemies, giving it space to explore a form of democratization and openness that has led to reintegration into international society. Meanwhile, North Korea's regime believes its nuclear arsenal--the primary reason for their pariah status--is vital to survival.
Passport Entanglements traces the many tangled threads—political, historical, economic, global, and local—that are tied to the existence of Indonesian aspal or “real but fake” passports that are carried by as many as a third of Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. The book explains how and why the HK Indonesian Consulate’s attempts to regularize or “clean up” (pemutihan) these passports created significant problems for migrant workers. Passports and other types of documentation are said to facilitate migration and to offer migrant workers protection and care yet they can also be instruments of surveillance, control, and exploitation. Anthropologist Nicole Constable...
In an important social change, female Muslim political leaders in Java have enjoyed considerable success in direct local elections following the fall of Suharto in Indonesia. Indonesian Women and Local Politics shows that Islam, gender, and social networks have been decisive in their political victories. Islamic ideas concerning female leadership provide a strong religious foundation for their political campaigns. However, their approach to women's issues shows that female leaders do not necessarily adopt a woman's perspectives when formulating policies. This new trend of Muslim women in politics will continue to shape the growth and direction of democratization in local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia and will color future discourse on gender, politics, and Islam in contemporary Southeast Asia.