In Search of Allah: Queer Spiritual Space in Bissu Community, South Sulawesi

Wednesday Forum – 12 October 2022

The proliferation of conservative Islam has affected non-normative gender and sexuality groups’ experience and construction of identity, as it has impacted the Bissu community in South Sulawesi. Bissu can be categorized as pan-Indigenous, including gender, sexual, and/or spiritual identity. Within Indigenous communities with androgynous concepts in their cosmology, Bissu have culturally-specific ceremonial and social roles in Bugis culture. In this ongoing research, I seek to understand how Bissu have encountered confrontation and acceptance within their queer indigenous body and spiritual space and how it has impacted their ability to partake and learn their religion and culture.

Petsy Jessy Ismoyo is a PhD Candidate at ICRS UGM. She is also a lecturer at International Relations Study Program, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. Currently, she joined Secularity, Islam, and Democracy in Indonesia and Turkey (SIDIT), Humboldt University of Berlin, as part of a fellowship with the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA).

The full poster of this event is available here.