DATE AND TIME

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

@ 1 -3 PM

VENUE

CRCS, Room 406

Gedung Sekolah Pascasarjana, UGM

Jl. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta

Tel. 544 976

ABSTRACT

In order to advance anthropological theorisation of gender and the family, this paper focuses on the experiential dimensions of kinship among older waria (defined as they do, aged 40 years and over) and their families in Yogyakarta and a small amount of ethnographic data collected in the context of a shelter for elderly waria in Jakarta. In this paper I reflect on some preliminary findings from my fieldwork (from January 2014) and recent theoretical contributions from disability and gender studies. Familiar bodies shape peoples’ experiences of the world—even when the family of birth remains either an ambivalent or perhaps tragic memory, retained only in faded photographs. Exploring transgender experiences in this way—located beyond the body proper—will hopefully allow me to contribute to complex and fraught questions related to the connections between of belonging, gendered violence and intimate kin in Java and Indonesia more generally.  

PRESENTER

Benjamin Hegarty is a PhD candidate in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He is in the early stages of 18 months of fieldwork in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. His ethnographic research explores experiences of the family and claims to motherhood among waria, with a particular focus on older waria. His research interests include transgender studies, kinship and disability studies, and an overarching interest in ethnography as theory and method.

DATE AND TIME

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

@ 1 -3 PM

VENUE

CRCS, Room 406

Gedung Sekolah Pascasarjana, UGM

Jl. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta

Tel. 544 976

 see FLAYER

ABSTRACT

As a Buddhist society, religion and politics are forever interwoven in Thailand. State rituals, bureaucratic life, and even electoral politics often reflect the richness of Buddhist beliefs, Brahmanic practices, and local spirit cults. In a general sense, the country’s decade-long political crisis has been no exception to this pattern. What is exceptional, however, is the extent to which austere Buddhist fundamentalism, in the form of new religion, is influencing the anti-Thaksin movement. The Asoke Group (a.k.a. Santi Asoke), formerly the object of much suspicion by mainstream Theravada sangha, has particularly emerged as a leading defender of culturalist arguments leveled against Thaksin, his political supporters, and democracy itself. The Yellow-shirt movement of 2008 and recent anti-government protests demonstrate the profound new influence of Buddhist fundamentalism on politics. But what is the Asoke Group? How does it differ from mainstream Theravada orders and Buddhist practice in Thailand? What is the prospect for growth of Asoke-style Buddhist fundamentalism in Thailand?   

PRESENTER

Professor Robert Dayley teaches Political Economy at The College of Idaho. His expertise is Southeast Asia and Thailand.  He holds a Ph.D. from Northern Illinois University (1997, Political Science) and an M.A. from the University of Oregon (1992, Asian Studies). He has also taught at universities in Thailand and China. Dr. Dayley is co-author of Southeast Asia in the New International Era (6 ed. Perseus/Westview 2013), a widely-used college undergraduate textbook on all eleven countries in the region. He was named in 2011 by the CASE/Carnegie Foundation as Idaho Professor of the Year and currently serves on the Board of Directors of ASIANetwork, a consortium of 160 liberal arts colleges in the United States.

DATE AND TIME

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

@ 1 -3 PM

VENUE

CRCS, Room 406

Gedung Sekolah Pascasarjana, UGM

Jl. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta

Tel. 544 976

 See FLYER

ABSTRACT

The common characteristic of mainland Southeast Asia is Buddhism, although there are very significant variations across and within countries. But in Indonesia Buddhism is commonly mentioned as one of minority religions during Dutch occupation, although evidences showed that Buddhism had been there but Buddhism was not officially classified as a religion. In spite of this, 1930s period had been pivotal for the development of Buddhism in the archipelago. It was during this particular decade that the West and East appeared to have formed strong network and involved in joint effort to improve the state of Buddhism in the archipelago. Hence, this discussion will be focused on Buddhism in the early 20^th century (1930s) with particular attention given on the networks that Indonesian Buddhists had involved and also established to improve the state of Buddhism in the archipelago.  

PRESENTER

Yulianti is attached to Gadjah Mada University and Leiden University as a PhD-candidate in the project ‘The Making of Religious Traditions in Indonesia: History and Heritage in Global Perspective (1600-1940)’ funded by the Leiden University Fund. She received her BA in Buddhism from international Buddhist Missionary University, Myanmar. She obtained two Master’s degrees, the first was in Religion and Cross-cultural Studies, UGM and secondly Master’s degree in Religious Studies at Florida International University, USA. She is a lecturer at Kertarajasa Buddhist College, in Kota Batu, East Java. Currenly, she research Buddhism in Indonesia in the colonial and early Independence period c. 1930-1959.

DATE AND TIME

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

@ 1 -3 PM

VENUE

CRCS, Room 406

Gedung Sekolah Pascasarjana, UGM

Jl. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta

Tel. 544 976

 See FLYER

ABSTRACT

My presentation is firstly a brief survey of some of the more demanding dilemmas that are today facing women from different countries and religions of the world who are also interested in womens’ rights. Right themselves are under pressure from a number of diverse quarters. The first problem is that there is strong opposition to further progress to womens’ right from religious fundamentalists in a number of religion, e.g. Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Secondly, from another perspective, secularists are also against any extension of rights to women in religions, wanting to keep a firm division between public and private worlds. In addition, postcolonial scholars are critical of human right as simply one more modern Western importation. The basic problem is that in all these inssues religion and rights are positioned as mutually exclusive – in a binary opposition. I will suggest that rights and religion are not necessarily incompatible, and that women from diverse religious backgrounds need to cooperate and begin to dialogue about constructive ways in which religion and womens’ rights can be combined.  This may not necessarily always incorporate the language of the rights, but other terms such as “gender mainstreaming” or gender equity.  

PRESENTER

Morny Joy is a professor in the Dept. Of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, Canada. She received her doctorate degree from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in Religious Studies in 1981. She is a life Member of Clare Hall, University Cambridge, England. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Helsinki in 2011. She serves on the Executive Committee of IAHR (International Association for the Study of Religion). She is also a Past President of The Canadian Society for the Study of Religion.