Indonesian Islamic Masculinities

Richard Howson, Mike Donaldson and Pam Nilan

Research program: Mobility and Exclusion

The broad aim of this project is to develop an ethnographic understanding of the way Indonesian (adult) men re-configure their conceptions and practices of masculinity within contemporary Australian society and against the anglo-Australian hegemonic model of masculinity following immigration. This knowledge will then be used to understand both Islam and masculinities in a way that will inform social policy on men and masculinities in areas such as, religion, family, sexuality, leisure and work. The importance of this research to future masculinities studies is that it will contribute to:

• thinking gender relations on the world scale;
• addressing issues of “public” concern;
• developing a more explicit understanding of the process of change (or ossification) in masculinities and;
• to explore the ‘patriarchal dividend' as a feature of masculinities politics.

This project investigates Islamic Indonesian masculinities and Australia. Indonesia is viewed as a threat, previously for Communism, now for Islamist radicalism. Yet Australia has close links with Indonesia. The majority of Indonesian migrants are Islamic men. Research in Australia and Indonesia aims to: establish the characteristics of hegemonic Indonesian masculinity; describe how these men engage with hegemonic Australian masculinity; and grasp the role of the mosque in the construction of their masculinity. The project will advance the masculinity studies in relation to religion and social capital. In 2006 this project team was very active, producing 3 conference papers and 1 article submitted to a journal – Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs (RIMA). The team obtained a positive response to a book proposal sent to the Monash Asia Institute and this will result in a collection edited by the three team members on Indonesian Masculinities. During 2006 an ARC Discovery Grant application was prepared for this project by the team members and submitted in February 2007.