Pam Nilan

`Dangerous fieldwork' re-examined: the question of researcher subject position:

This article takes two examples of trying to collect fieldwork data in dangerous or difficult circumstances in Bali and uses them to explore some issues central to qualitative research. These issues include shifting researcher subject positions in qualitative sociology approaches, and the coherence and usefulness of data collected in chaotic or risky circumstances. Methodological practices such as reflexivity are considered, as well as the task of writing research accounts up from messy and chaotic data sets. It is concluded that data collected at moments of fieldwork crisis may not be particularly useful, except as a cultural reminder of the insider/outsider status of the researcher, and to inform more productive factual data collected after the event.

Youth transitions to urban, middle-class marriage in Indonesia: faith, family and finances

This paper examines a timely topic in international youth studies – the transition to (middle-class) marriage – in a developing country, Indonesia. While early marriage in Indonesia is still common in rural areas and marriage itself remains almost universal, these trends are moving into reverse for urban, tertiary-educated middle-class young people. Discussion of the data begins with an analysis of survey responses and ‘fictionalised’ fieldwork narratives, and then moves to a discourse analysis of classified personal advertisements in Kompas, the national daily Indonesian newspaper geared to middle-class, urban, secular interests. Some provisional claims are offered about de-traditionalisation and re-traditionalisation trends in contemporary transitions to marriage for urban middle-class Indonesian young people of both sexes. It is concluded that contemporary transitions to successful marriage in Indonesia take place in reference to the three key tenets of faith, family and finances.

Exclusion, Inclusion and Moral Ordering in Two Girls’ Friendship Groups

ABSTRACT This article makes use of informal interview talk data gathered during a longitudinal study of adolescent girls’ friendship groups. Two group‐produced narratives involving categorisation, moral ordering, inclusion and exclusion are examined with the aim of discerning patterns of girls’ friendship networks. Through a detailed examination of the girls’ talk about themselves, their friends, their enemies, the minor breaking‐ups and making‐ups, the declarations of loyalty, the aspersions cast and the motives attributed, it is possible to discern a significant moral and social order which underlies girls’ friendships. This article represents an attempt to view friendship between girls, not in terms of a pre‐determined model of pervasive, yet invisible patriarchal constraints, but in terms of lived moments of interaction between and with girls who are actually getting on with the business of being friends with each other as they are collaboratively describing events in their friendship networks.

CONTEMPORARY MASCULINITIES AND YOUNG MEN IN INDONESIA

This article is on three kinds of contemporary young masculinities in Indonesia. Proceeding through a discussion of three composite profiles of young men assembled from fieldwork data, the argument is made that these three identifiable discourses of lived masculinity correspond to some dominant images of men circulating in the Indonesian media. Theoretically, these seem to be new or alternative constructions of masculinity, if considered against the mens studies literature. Yet there is evidence that these persuasive new forms of cultural leadership for young Indonesian men still constitute a configuration of hegemonic masculinity, even though the patriarchal bapak stereotype is challenged. It is concluded that young men in Indonesia are under various kinds of pressure: to become a good citizen and dependable provider for the family on the one hand, and on the other hand, to match the fantasy images of global ‘hypermasculinity’ – tough, hard and heroic. To a certain extent this applies in both the secular and religious domains.

Young People and Globalizing Trends in Vietnam

ABSTRACT The past 10 years have seen an increasing research emphasis on young people and youth culture. The appearance of this very journal is testimony to a surge in academic interest. However, not much has so far been written in this vein about youth culture phenomena in post-Communist countries undergoing radical change towards a market economy. Yet this is clearly a very interesting investigation as one of the great meta-narratives of history—State Communism—declines. In the complex discursive aftermath of perestroika or doi moi, young people are at the cutting edge of deep social and economic change. Although the generational shift in identity-formation towards greater individualism, and conspicuous consumption, is really only one part of global economy integration, it is an important part, as new kinds of state citizens emerge. This paper examines globalization in relation to cultural shifts in modern youth culture in Vietnam. The focus is primarily on urban life in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Indonesian youth looking towards the future

Selected survey data on future aspirations and expectations from 3565 young Indonesians are presented in this study. Muslim-majority Indonesia is an Asian economic success story. The economy has seen solid growth, leading to an expansion of the private sector. The upward credentialling of the labour market and the rapid growth of the middle class have resulted. Accordingly, the transition to adulthood for working-class and lower middle-class youth has been extended by the necessity to complete schooling and tertiary training before work can be obtained and marriage can occur. Marriage and children still signify adulthood for both sexes. Career preference favoured the professions, especially for girls, despite tight competition for university places. While indicating upwardly mobile aspirations to middle-class life, respondents also demonstrated strong commitment to religious faith and normative family formation in the future. High expectations were tempered by realism though. When asked about obstacles to life dreams, most named material challenges such as family finances. Respondents from more privileged backgrounds were more likely to think non-material factors such as their own laziness would constitute an obstacle, while those lower on the socio-economic scale often indicated they did not have much chance of realising their life dreams due to material and structural constraints.

Adolescents in Contemporary Indonesia

1. Introducing Indonesian Youth 2. From Pemuda to Remaja 3. The Worlds of Young People in Solo, Central Java 4. The Moral World of Minangkabau Adolescents in West Sumatra 5. The Meaning of Education For Young People 6. Free Seks, Moral Panic and the Construction of the Moral Self 7. Leisure and Socializing: Maintaining the Moral Self in Gendered Leisure 8. The Hopes and Dreams of Young People 9. Conclusion

Kazzies, DBTs and Tryhards: categorisations of style in adolescent girls’ talk

One aspect of the work that adolescent girls do in creating and maintaining friendship networks with each other, the process of including some girls and excluding others, is explored using an ethnomethodological framework of analysis. Three adolescent schoolgirls in Australia talk about themselves and the other girls in their school. A close examination of this talk reveals a hierarchy of style categorisations which resonate with the socio‐economic and ethnic composition of the three main feeder areas to the school. The girls rank their own ‘original’ style, which is avant‐garde and eclectic, over the mass‐produced, imitative fashions‐of‐the‐moment displayed by members of other style groups. By social closure Weber means the process by which social collectivities seek to maximise rewards by restricting access to resources and opportunities to a limited circle of eligibles. This entails the singling out of certain social or physical attributes as the justificatory basis of exclusion. (Parkin, 1979, p. 44)

Risk and Risk Management for Australian Sex Workers

In this article, we address the experiences of female sex workers in urban Australia through analysis of interviews using a feminist approach. Although many previous studies have been conducted, our focus was on the voices of sex workers in an area that was rapidly gentrifying, leading to local community tensions. Intensive analysis of interview transcripts was employed to derive thematic codes for understanding how the women viewed and managed everyday risk in sex work. They were well aware of the health risks associated with sex work. For women working on premises, domain separation between sex work and other life domains was an important management strategy for maintaining self-esteem. For women working on the street, instincts honed by years of dangerous work provided a measure of safety. Our findings have implications for health and other agencies dealing with sex workers in situations in which community pressure is exerted to move sex workers away from the area.

Young Men and Peer Fighting in Solo, Indonesia

This article considers peer fighting between lower middle-class Javanese schoolboys with a view to describing the masculine habitus referenced in local collective violence. Acknowledging the long history of heroic warfare and factionalism in Java, the data points to the pleasurable sense of oneself as a kind of warrior fighting with a band of brothers. Four important points emerge about contemporary youthful masculinities here. First, peer fighting is a temporally bounded activity that ends with the school-to-work transition, thus bearing out Messerschmidt’s argument. Second, alcohol plays an important role in amplifying peer conflicts and honor disputes. Third, getting a girlfriend demands the expression of a different kind of masculine habitus from that operationalized in peer fighting. Finally, Muslim school-boy youth squads (geng[s]) are intense formations for the construction of warrior masculinities, employing extensive imagery from the field of global Islamist struggle in battles with boys from secular and Christian schools.