Sharyn Graham Davies

Gangnam Style versus Eye of the Tiger: people, police and procedural justice in Indonesia

Indonesias police force is the fifth largest in the world, and it is one of the most brutal, corrupt and ineffective. Since the forced resignation of authoritarian President Suharto in 1998, millions of dollars have been funnelled into police reform, with much of this funding coming from overseas donors such as the USA and Australia. Despite good intentions and some limited but notable success, police reform has failed to deliver tangible improvements in policing across the archipelago. There are many reasons for the failure of reform efforts, but a contributing factor is the lack of robust academic research on what kind of reform will work best for Indonesia. Without research-led reform, reform models have relied on the adaptation, or even wholesale adoption, of overseas models. As such, reforms have focused on delivering instrumental change primarily through improving the capacity of police to deter, investigate and solve crime. That reforms have been instrumentally focused presupposes that police legitimacy, fundamental to a well-functioning police service, rests on a public desire for outcome-based policing in preference to procedurally just policing. Until now there has been no research to contribute an empirical base to this assumption in Indonesia. To begin filling this void, long-term ethnographic fieldwork was conducted by the first author to examine public perceptions of police. In evaluating citizen narratives, our research shows that the procedural justice model of policing dominates assessments of police over and above instrumental concerns. Part of the reason for the importance of procedural justice vis-à-vis instrumentality relates to kinships of shame that configure respect as a foundation of social legitimacy. A large-scale quantitative study is needed to extend our findings beyond its ethnographic base, and if our findings are supported, reform efforts will do well to acknowledge that procedural justice policing will improve police legitimacy in Indonesia more substantively than instrumental policing.

Pursuing equal pay: The perspectives of female engineers and potential policy interventions

The gender pay gap of higher paid women working in traditionally male-dominated sectors has received less analysis in equal pay research than low paid, female-dominated and undervalued women’s work. This article explores equal pay from the perspectives of female engineers, well paid women working in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) sector in New Zealand, who perform work of the same or like nature to male engineers but who are paid less for doing so. It explores the gender pay gap against the complex intersections of labour market de-regulation, family demands, work and the ‘cost of being female’ that women in engineering must constantly navigate. The research uses quantitative pay data in the sector disaggregated by gender, and new qualitative data from focus groups and interviews with 22 female engineers. It finds a surprising lack of transparency around pay and remuneration in the sector at the individual level which negatively impacts on women. The article concludes by recommending new public policy initiatives for equal pay in sectors like engineering, where individualised negotiation and bargaining is embedded in neo-liberalism.

Rationalizing pay inequity: women engineers, pervasive patriarchy and the neoliberal chimera

Abstract This article argues that neoliberalism with its pervasive patriarchy and co-option of feminism, renders women tacitly complicit in gendered pay inequalities. We show that in New Zealand, one of the world’s most neoliberal nations, women who might precisely be best equipped to argue for equal pay – engineers – do not do so because neoliberalism makes many feel responsible for, and accepting of, their lower salaries. In interviews and focus groups, many women engineers talk of deserving less pay than men because of their ‘choices’, their ‘personality’ and their lack of ‘responsibility’. In a disempowering environment, some women show agency by disavowing gender as a reason for the pay gap. Such narratives of individualized shortcomings reduce hope of collective action that might uncover and dismantle the systemic causes of pay inequity, which are not due to a woman’s choice or personality but rather what we frame as the neoliberal chimera.

Skins of Morality: Bio-borders, Ephemeral Citizenship and Policing Women in Indonesia

Abstract Indonesia’s policewomen were rarely in public (or even police) consciousness prior to 2013. Yet the succeeding five years saw an explosion in visibility. Public furore concerning forced virginity testing of recruits, national debate over permitting women to veil on duty, and social media sites consumed with beauty concomitantly propelled policewomen into the limelight. I draw on these three examples to illustrate how various forms of power are levelled precisely at the borders of a woman’s body, what I frame as bio-borders. I focus on three bio-borders: hymens, veils and beauty. Drawing on Franck Billé’s (2017) work on skin and geopolitical boundaries, I analyse these bio-borders as sites where Indonesia’s neoliberal moral authority is asserted and contested. As an enforcer of state law, a policewoman’s virginity, purity and appearance signify Indonesia’s moral standing and mandate overt surveillance and control. Policewomen thus undergo intense daily moral labour to conform to expectations. As good moral ephemeral citizens showcasing Indonesia’s public face, policewomen: feel unable/unwilling to contest forced virginity testing; are empowered to demand the right to wear the veil on duty; and are complicit in accepting (and enjoying) beauty as a recruitment requirement while simultaneously expressing regret that they are judged on appearance.

A cultural constraints theory of police corruption: Understanding the persistence of police corruption in contemporary Indonesia

Despite a decade of reform, Indonesia’s police continue to be plagued by systemic corruption. This article examines the reasons for the persistence of police corruption by firstly establishing that corruption is rife and then discuses Indonesian police reform post-Suharto. The international understandings are explored with a view to developing a definition of police corruption that accounts for sociocultural and historical factors in Indonesia. There is an examination of the relevance of international theories of police corruption for Indonesia. It is argued that these theories are only partially applicable to Indonesia and the authors posit the ‘cultural constraints theory of police corruption’, which accounts for invitational, slippery slope, noble cause, and predatory theories, but recognizes the distinct nature of Indonesia.

Contestations of Gender, Sexuality and Morality in Contemporary Indonesia

Abstract This special issue explores morality agendas in the recent Indonesian context and in doing so, reveals the dynamism of morality debates as they occur in Indonesia and in broader Southeast Asian perspectives. In this Introduction we illustrate how morality (or the perceived lack of morality) acted in part as the impetus for reformasi (reformation), which forced an end in 1998 to the authoritarian New Order era. Subsequently, we discuss how reformasi influenced morality debates in Indonesia by both opening and foreclosing opportunities for tolerance around gender and sexuality. Specifically, we consider the impact of increasing democratisation and how various moral panics have been articulated in the widening space for social and moral critique. The articles in this special issue make a significant contribution to expanding three key themes – morality and boundaries, moral threats, and morality and subjectivity – and shows how these themes intersect with the conceptualisation and functioning of morality in contemporary Indonesia. We then tease out how the five articles in this special issue engage with these themes. Finally, we comment on our observations regarding the increasing visibility of morality debates in Indonesia in the past two decades, and the increasing social currency attributed to morality issues and debates in the public sphere.

Surfing tourism and community in Indonesia

ABSTRACT While surfing tourism brings many advantages to isolated communities, it also brings unwanted side-effects. This article explores how people in the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia, perceive surfing tourism, taking particular note of how people talk about both the positive and negative influences on their daily lives. The article draws primarily on fieldwork undertaken between July and September of 2010 but incorporates further data in making its arguments. The article explores ways people in Mentawai talk of improvements in their livelihoods due to surfing tourism, including increased employment opportunities and the ability to learn English. The article also shows, though, that people in Mentawai express concern about surfing tourism, particularly concerning issues of alcohol, drugs and the disrespectful behaviour of surf tourists. The article concludes by arguing that more research needs to be conducted to ensure the views of Mentawai people are incorporated into policy developments and surf tourism growth. The article uses a sustainable livelihoods model to evaluate the impact of surf tourism in Mentawai.

Muay Thai: Women, fighting, femininity

Women fighting challenges conventional notions of femininity in many ways. A bleeding nose, bruised eyes and swollen lips embody perhaps masculine success but, for many, constitute failed femininity. Yet women fighters, who are attracting unprecedented media attention, are in novel ways forcing a re-imagination of femininity. This article draws on 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with professional and amateur female Muay Thai fighters based in Thailand to explore the subversion and reinvention, and also reinforcement, of feminine norms. Theoretically, we advance the debate around fighting and femininity by developing the concept of bio-borders to investigate the presentation, protection and penetration of bodily femininity. We conclude that women fighters inspire a femininity recognising physical and emotional strength alongside conventional feminine norms of beauty, relationality and compliance.

Gender and power in Indonesian Islam: leaders, feminists, Sufis and pesantren selves

The nine concise chapters in this volume explore in different ways the position of Muslim women within Islamic boarding house (pesantren) settings. Pesantren have attracted limited scholarly attent...

A Disinterested Press: Reporting police in a provincial Indonesian newspaper

Abstract This article constitutes the first analysis of newspaper coverage of police in Indonesia. Analysing 63 articles that appeared in the print version of the Lombok Post between September and October 2011, we were curious to see whether recent media liberalisation meant that the press were now critical of police corruption, brutality and ineffectiveness, or whether there existed a close relationship between police and media such that the press worked as a public relations mouth piece for the police. We also wondered whether the Lombok Post reported about police in a sensationalist way in order to sell more newspapers. What we found were articles that generally failed to criticise police or promote police interests in any enduring way. We also found that articles reported on police in a benign way by simply describing characteristics of the incident, victim, and suspect, and discussing the status of an investigation or trial. What our article suggests is that the Lombok Post is largely disinterested in police and policing, and in a circular way both reflects and sculpts public opinion of police. Media significantly shapes public perceptions of police, and as the most widely read newspaper in Lombok, the Lombok Post has the potential to spark critical debate about policing in the region. Until media across Indonesia recognise the importance for democracy of reporting favourably and critically on police, citizens will remain largely disengaged from police, allowing poor policing practices to persist.