Gender Discourse within the Application of Islamic Law in Aceh, Indonesia Desy Ayu Pirmasari September 2020 Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion Lancaster University, UK DECLARATION I declare that the thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. 2 Acknowledgements First of all, thank you Allah (SWT) for all this opportunity and great people in my life. I was born in the heart of Borneo, Indonesia where the highest school we have in the village is a high school. Many of my friends never end up went into higher education, some even has to stop at secondary or high school. Thus, I would like to express a great thanks to the scholarship from the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) that has enabled me to pursue my childhood dream of doing a Ph.D. I would also like to thank Vice President Jusuf Kalla for providing me with a recommendation for my Ph.D. scholarship. This thesis would never have been done without the support and kindness of many people throughout my Ph.D. journey. I would like to say thank you to my Ph.D. supervisors, Prof. Alison Stone and Dr. Shuruq Naguib, for their invaluable support and help. I greatly appreciate their support beyond my thesis project, constructive discussion, feedback and comments on my thesis as well as some other papers I was working on, and their understanding towards me as a ‘Ph.D. mama’. I would also like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Sossie Kasbarian for her guidance and constructive advice in the early stage of my Ph.D. I also would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Vina Adriany who has inspired me a lot and given me much advice about academic work and Ph.D life; Dr. Diane Potts for the discussion about CDA; Dr. Steve Wright for his guidance regarding computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software; Carol Bennett, for proofreading my thesis and giving me some constructive comments; and staff at the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, especially Claire Coxhill and Sheila Constantine. Thank you to Jamie Vegad for all the opportunities and experiences I had with International Office. This research would never have been possible without the help and support of many people during my fieldwork in Aceh, including those whose names I could not mention due to the need for anonymity, I thank everyone who has helped and participated in the research. I thank friends in Indonesia, Apriyatie and Harun, ka Ica, ka Bibah, Rachma, ka Fiat, Elyta, Latifah, Meta, Nancy and all my Chevening friends, especially Kanti and Irma. I thank my Bloomberg TV colleague who has always been supportive, Mas Thomas (Alm.), mba Rani, Alia and mba Endah. 3 I am also thankful for knowing many great friends during my Ph.D. journey, Hailey, Yunxia, Ana Porroche-Escudero and Choon Key are just a few of many people who have been great to me. Luciana Mendes, my Ph.D. mama buddy, thank you for being a great friend to discuss our theses and most importantly as someone who shares the same experiences of doing a Ph.D. and having a baby at the same time. I am thankful to all these people who have become a family to me. To Gilang, Bu Ami and Pa Gatot for being such a nice family for me, supporting and helping me in so many ways. To Janet and Mark Wilson, Haidar and Keith whom I have known since my master’s degree here in Lancaster, and who have become like a very close family to me now. I would like to thank a very special and most visionary woman, who was never educated to university level but believed that her children should do. I have always said to her that her ‘little daughter’ will one day study to Ph.D. level abroad. To my mother, Maskaya, for her bravery for sending me out of the village at 11 years old so I could have a better education. Great thanks also to all my family who are always there for me, supporting me and caring for me; my father Firmansyah, my brothers and sister, Hasan Basri, Husin Ansari, ka Trie, Mulia Sri Wahyuni and mas Arie, my nephews and niece, Habibie, Icha, Kenzo, Sidqi, Titan and Dede Alif, as well as my in-laws: David Mitchell, Peter Welfare, Sabrina, Matt, Henry, Charlene and Graeme. I thank my mother in law, Diane Lord, who I feel lucky to call Mum and who has been there for me and helping us by looking after Isaac so I can work on this thesis. A very special thanks goes to my husband, Shaun Welfare, who always believes in me and my capacity in doing anything, as well as my son Isaac Amartya Welfare who always brightens my days and makes me laugh even during hard times. 4 Table of Contents DECLARATION .................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 3 List of Figures and Tables .................................................................................................. 7 Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 8 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 9 Structure of the thesis and Intended Reader .................................................................. 13 Chapter 1. Gender, Conflict and National Identity in Aceh: Background and Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 15 1.1 From a Conflict Zone to Special Autonomy ........................................................... 16 1.2 Gender Discourse in Aceh: An Overview ............................................................... 21 1.2.1 Gender and National Identity ............................................................................................... 22 1.2.2 Gender and Post-Conflict Negotiations ............................................................................ 28 1.3 Feminist Postcolonial Theory ................................................................................... 31 1.3.1 Third World Feminist Concepts .......................................................................................... 32 1.3.2 The Indonesian Feminist ........................................................................................................ 34 1.4 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 2. Research Methodology ................................................................................ 38 2.1 Research Approach and Types of Data ...................................................................... 38 2.1.2 Types of Data ................................................................................................................................. 39 2.2 Approaches to Data Analysis ..................................................................................... 46 2.2.1 Constructivist Grounded Theory ............................................................................................. 46 2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis ....................................................................................................... 48 2.3 Reflexivity: Subjectivity vs. Objectivity ..................................................................... 50 2.3.1 Gender and the Colonial Legacy ......................................................................................... 55 Chapter 3. Women in Historical Discourse and Contemporary Reality in Aceh 62 3.1 Gender Narrative within Aceh’s culture of indigenous matrifocality ......... 63 3.2 Narrative of Women in Aceh History ...................................................................... 68 3.2.1 Women and the Sultanate of Aceh ..................................................................................... 68 3.2.2 Women and the Colonial Era ............................................................................................... 81 3.2.3 Women, the Aceh Conflict and the Tsunami Disaster ................................................. 89 3.3. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 93 Chapter 4. Gender Construction within Aceh’s Shari’a .......................................... 96 4.1 Disciplining Society ...................................................................................................... 98 4.2. Institutionalising the Shari’a ..................................................................................... 109 4.3. Shari’a in Practice ......................................................................................................... 118 4.4. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 125 Chapter 5. Corporal Punishment and Public Caning Ceremony ......................... 128 5.1 Corporal Punishment: An Overview .................................................................... 130 5.2 Colonialism and Judicial System Transformation in Indonesia ................. 132 5.3 Corporal Punishment in Aceh’s Islamic Law (Punishing the Sinners) ..... 143 5.4 Punishment Ceremony: A Public Humiliation .................................................. 150 5.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................