ABSTRACT BEYOND ADAT: TRANSWOMEN BOLDLY AND INNOVATIVELY NAVIGATING THEIR COMMUNITIES IN CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA Laurence Anthonie Tumpag, M.A. Department of Anthropology Northern Illinois University, 2016 Judy Ledgerwood, Director The purpose of the following thesis was to investigate how transwomen (otherwise known locally as waria) of Indonesia, navigate their gender identities within their specific locales in central Java. Particularly, I focus how my respondents do this within Yogyakarta, which I define as a cultural hub where local custom and law known as adat predominates and two other field sites located in the periphery of Yogyakarta. Due to the importance of local culture in the general central Javanese region, I hypothesized adat serves to help create space and belonging for my transwomen respondents within each locale. While previous research has focused on the experiences of transwomen living in industrial cities further removed from local culture of Indonesia, I hope to bring to light the contemporary experiences of transwomen living outside the industrial locales of Java in hopes of bringing a more holistic understanding of this dynamic people. More specifically, I sought to investigate how transwomen navigate their identities within their work, social, and religious realms. I did this by conducting primarily qualitative research spanning the course of approximately two months in the summer of 2015. My research found that the trans* community (an umbrella term for many variations of transgender individuals) is a diverse one with individuals holding complimentary and analogous beliefs particularly concerning their identity. While adat does play a role in helping to create space for my transwomen respondents as they navigate their occupational, social, and religious lives of their society, it has not wholly been sufficient due in part to the vying hegemonic gender ideologies that at various periods of time challenge and seek to dismantle local adat. Thus, my respondents have needed to boldly and innovatively carve out space for themselves physically, digitally and even linguistically in order to navigate their respective communities. For instance, my respondents demonstrate various instances of agency in stepping outside of the boundaries and stereotypes ascribed to the waria community. Moreover, these instances may take the form of active engagement in various forms of activist work or simply circumventing or disregarding discriminatory national and religious laws and ideologies in order to achieve their respective wants and desires in society. As briefly mentioned, this research demonstrates the role technology and social media is presently serving towards not only bridging locals with one another but also locals with foreigners. Thus along with the physical space which my transwomen respondents have carved out for themselves through both adat and activism, the digital space also serves as a nexus where transwoman love and community are realized. Additionally, my respondents are actively engaged in direct communication with foreigners via social hangouts, social media, and even travel abroad. Thus, my respondents can even engage in global discourses of gender. My research found that while my respondents live in various unique locales and may be divided by socio-economic class, which may contribute to a sense of disunity, they share many common experiences and modes of navigating their respective communities as transwomen. These shared narratives and various intersectionalities in experience throughout central Java align with Boellstorff’s argument that Indonesia can be considered as a single ethnographic unit. Additionally, waria can be thought of as being “truly national” as they are found across islands, ethnic groups, and yet unified in various instances like language and gender experiences, which they articulate boldly and innovatively. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2016 BEYOND ADAT: TRANSWOMEN BOLDLY AND INNOVATIVELY NAVIGATING THEIR COMMUNITIES IN CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA BY LAURENCE ANTHONIE TUMPAG ©2016 Laurence Anthonie Tumpag A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY Thesis Director: Judy Ledgerwood ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my mother for supporting and raisin3 g me the best she could as a single parent and immigrant to this country. She has worked tirelessly to support and care for me, and I am forever grateful for the sacrifices she has made. I would like to thank the countless people and organizations who supported me during my trials in homelessness and abuse by male parental figures. Thank you for helping me move beyond the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter so that I could pursue knowledge and my dreams to live a full life and appreciate the beauty in this world, and to know small instances of joy, belonging, community, and love. Thank you Mrs. Kathy, Danya, Stephen, Karl & Suzie, Brian and others too numerous to count. Thank you to my wonderful trans* friends who I encountered attending school in a southern rural university. You helped me realize that it is okay to be different in the South, that being Asian American was not something to be ashamed about. Through your boldness to walk the campus as proud transmen and transwomen, I was truly inspired. Rest in peace Taj, your death led me to whole-heartedly pursue this line of research. Thank you to all my mentors and professors especially my thesis director Dr. Judy Ledgerwood and committee members Dr. Susan Russell and Dr. Mark Schuller at Northern Illinois University for your guidance, counsel, and words of encouragement. Concerning the thesis, terima kasih banyak to my friends overseas, Pricilla, Anni, and many others. Thank you for serving as my facilitators into this wonderful community. Thank you to all my respondents who let me into your lives, I am proud to help carry your voices across the ocean. Thank you for your life lessons, your acceptance, strength, and love. I hope I iii did your stories justice. Thank you to my Creator for watching over me throughout my journey. Finally, I dedicate this thesis to all babaylanes both trans* and otherwise, past and present, particularly the local heroes of my ancestral homeland of Negros island -- Papa Isio and Dios Buhawi. Your audacious spirit to fight for dignity and freedom in the face of oppression and your homage to our most ancient and indigenous ancestral ways resonates even into the present for many across the diaspora. Mabuhay! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 Background ................................................................................................................................. 6 How Gender Was Constructed in Early Modern Maritime Southeast Asia .......................... 6 Javanese Concepts of Gender and Power .............................................................................. 8 The Javanese Man & Woman .............................................................................................. 10 The Impact of Foreign Influence and Globalization ............................................................ 13 Issues of Conflict Local Adat and the Hegemonic Ideologies ............................................. 19 Gender Theory & Globalization .......................................................................................... 23 Waria Creating Space & Belonging ..................................................................................... 30 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 32 CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................. 35 FINDINGS .................................................................................................................................... 35 Findings the Cultural Hub of Yogyakarta ................................................................................. 36 Participant Observation in Businesses ................................................................................. 37 Participant Observation in the Streets .................................................................................. 40 Respondent 1: “Just Do You…” .......................................................................................... 45 v Respondent 2: Stay Classy ................................................................................................... 53 Respondent 3: OTW (On the Way) ..................................................................................... 56 Findings in Locale #2 (Mayasog) ............................................................................................. 60 Respondent 4: “Home Is Where the Heart Is” ..................................................................... 60 Respondent 5: Live, Laugh, Love ........................................................................................ 66 Respondent 6: “Be the Change You Want to See in the World” ......................................... 69 CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................