Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Vol. 168, no. 1 (2012), pp. 130-160 URL: http://www.kitlv-journals.nl/index.php/btlv URN:NBN:NL:UI:10-1-101723 Copyright: content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License ISSN: 0006-2294 Book reviews Chie Ikeya, Refiguring women, colonialism, and modernity in Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011, xii + 239 pp. ISBN 9780824834616. Price: USD 45.00. HENK SCHULTE NORDHOLT Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) [email protected] This book came into being by accident. In 2002, Chie Ikeya arrived in Burma to do research on the Japanese occupation. While she was waiting for official permission to enter the archives, she started reading newspapers from the period 1910-1948 and became fascinated by the appearance of ‘the modern Burmese woman’ and the discussions about her. She never did receive per- mission to conduct her research on WWII, so thanks to the Burmese authori- ties we now have a wonderful book on the relationship between colonialism, modernity, and gender in Burma. In contrast to conventional and male biased histories focusing on nationalism or plural societies, Ikeya uncovered stories about the contested role of women in the nationalist movement, the extent to which ethnic boundaries were crossed, how modernity was manifested, and how ‘modern women’ emerged in colonial settings. Chapter 1 sketches the far reaching changes that took place in Burma under colonial rule, such as the massive influx of male migrant workers that accelerated racially mixed relationships. While in practice ethnic boundaries were blurred, the colonial regime fostered a plural legal system. Together with institutions which offered secular education, new print media help to lay the foundation for mass consumption and new discourses about modernity. Chapter 2 looks at the modest participation of women in modern education and the appearance of ‘the modern women’ in public discourse. Despite their small numbers the role of women in nation building and mod- ernization became a key issue in the local press. Chapters 3 and 4 contrast the role of women in the nationalist movement – and the image of women as both housewife and mother of the nation – with the image of self-conscious women as consumers of modernity. Chapter 5 further explores the tension between the role and image of women as custodians of tradition, who are expected to preserve Buddhist culture, and the modern women, for whom hygiene, beauty, and self-fulfilment was central, but who were also accused of being engaged with foreign men and decadence. The last chapter compares two novels which look in different ways at the colonial experience, illustrat- Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:00:18AM via free access Book reviews 131 ing the conflicting ways urban middle class men and women coped with the constraints and possibilities offered to them under colonial rule. Discussions about modernity and self-realization should also be seen against the back- drop of the idea of the emasculation of Burmese men who had lost control over their country as a result of colonial intervention and mass immigration. Ikeya argues that Burmese men felt humiliated and marginalized due to the economic effects of colonialism and the Depression in the 1930s, which were compounded by the social and psychological disgrace of foreign men’s access to the bodies of Burmese women. This book is part of a growing body of literature that explores modernity and gender in Asia during the colonial period and after. Following the exam- ple of The modern girl around the world: Consumption, modernity and globalization (Weinbaum et al. 2008), it is time to start a broader comparative project on this topic. Chie Ikeya is well equipped to play a central role in this endeavor. References Weinbaum, Alys Eve, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurthi, Uta G. Poiger, Madeleine Yue Dhong and Teni E. Barlow (eds) 2008 The modern girl around the world: Consumption, modernity, and globaliza- tion. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Next Wave.] Thomas J. Conners, Mason C. Hoadley, Frank Dhont, Kevin Ko (eds), Pancasila’s contemporary appeal: Relegitimizing Indonesia’s founding ethos. Yogyakarta: Indonesia History Centre, Sanata Dharma University, Yale Indonesia Forum, 2009, iv + 380 pp. [International Conference Book Series 2.] ISBN 9789791088563. R.E. ELSON University of the Sunshine Coast [email protected] Meekly submitting to the demands of an apparently outcomes-obsessed world, scholars often feel a binding obligation to commit the proceedings of their various conferences and workshops to print, as if to show that, yes, they really did achieve something worthwhile. This volume provides compelling evidence, however, that they should usually ignore any such claim upon their consciences. It brings together seventeen papers presented at a conference at Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:00:18AM via free access 132 Book reviews Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta in 2008 under the theme of ‘Pancas- ila’s contemporary appeal’. Most of the papers are bland, fluffy or foggy, and nearly all of them inconsequential; only one, that by Kevin W. Mogg, would survive, in my opinion, a cursory first cull were they to be subjected to any reasonable refereeing process for a reputable journal. This outcome is disappointing. While Pancasila has often been mocked by scholars and commentators as vague and meaningless, there can be no doubt that the concept has played a key role in the vocabulary of Indonesia’s politi- cal and intellectual history since it first emerged in 1945. It provided, partly because of its inclusivist and universalist pretensions, a key piece of idiom to represent the values of mutual tolerance, openness and plurality which seemed to underpin the Indonesia project at its outset (in that sense alone it stands in sharp contrast to the virtually forgotten and ignored Rukunegara of Malaysia). Thereafter, of course, at the hands of Soekarno and especially Soeharto, it became itself a tool of highly partisan social and ideological management. In the reformasi period, its abuse at Soeharto’s hands seriously dimmed its centrality, but it has since regained some of its earlier potency as a symbol of an energetic, if sometimes embattled, Indonesian desire for unity, freedom and tolerance. This book should have made much more of the potential richness of its subject matter. But one looks in vain for a serious and rigorous analysis of, for example, the ways in which a certain kind of Pancasila rectitude was con- structed as the ideological bedrock of the New Order, or how Soekarno’s par- tisan appropriation of the concept in the lead-up to and process of the Konstit- uante’s deliberations might have damaged that body’s capacity to deliver a broadly acceptable outcome, or how contemporary (liberal) intellectuals have harnessed and deployed the concept in their attempts to circumvent Islamist efforts to impose their views upon everyone else. Unfortunately, the book contains far too much airy and meaningless blather about identity and too much vacuous, wordy and unproductive theorising to take us much distance towards fulfilling its objective. I Nyoman Darma Putra, A literary mirror: Balinese reflections on modernity and identity in the twentieth century. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011, xiv + 378 pp. [Verhandelingen 271.] ISBN 9789067183703. Price: EUR 29.90 (paperback). Dick van der Meij Center for the Study of Religion and Culture Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta [email protected] Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:00:18AM via free access Book reviews 133 The book contains seven chapters and six appendices and gives us an exten- sive view of Balinese literature in Malay/Indonesian and its relation to past and present issues. As far as I know, this is the only comprehensive exposition of a ‘regional’ literature in a national and international context. The chap- ters trace the position of Balinese literature from Balinese to Indonesian, and continue to Balinese cultural identity, contesting caste identity, female iden- tity, and the relation between Balinese and Westerners. The six appendices (biographical notes on authors and poems in Indonesian and English trans- lation plus their sources) give us information and tools for further research that would otherwise have been difficult to find, considering the scarcity in libraries around the world of the older magazines and journals he mentions. It is a rich book that approaches the subject from a large variety of angles. Nevertheless, it does give rise to the following observations. In the early part of the twentieth century, Balinese writers started to write in Malay in poetic forms but also, in the 1930s, they started to write novels. These remarks give rise to various questions, but let me just mention one: who are these writers? Are we talking of just a handful or of a substantial number? Looking at Appendix A, ‘Brief biographical notes on some Balinese writers’ (pp. 277-384), there cannot have been many, as only two are included here: I Putu Shanty (1925-1965), and Anak Agung Panji Tisna (1908-1978). I think it would therefore have been better if the author had mentioned the names of the authors he is talking about rather than talk in abstract numbers, leading to notions of scale that cannot be substantiated. After the war, the number of Balinese authors writing in Indonesian increased rapidly and includes such names as Putu Wijaya, Oka Rusmini, and Cok Sawitri, and we may indeed speak of ‘many’. In the introduction, the author mentions that ‘the 1920s not only marked a new phase in literary life on the island but also the beginning of Balinese writers taking part in the development of the national literature’ (p. xi). I have trouble accepting this because I don’t think there was such a thing as ‘literary life’ as Darma Putra conceives of it, but rather people engaging in literary activities for ritual or other purposes.