2017 Anthropology Seminar Series, Semester 1

Abstract

I departed for Indonesia in 2014 to research kin and kin-like relations among those referred to as "national transvestites" - waria. While I had figured that this might provide a more tender picture of the life of a group of people who are often characterised as deviant - sex work, homosexuality, street life, flamboyant femininity - what I found instead were complex forms of intimacy influenced, if not completely structured by, the market. Waria integrated these understandings of intimacy and forms of self-making into a process they call jadi (becoming), deeply influenced by the vocabulary of developmentalist capitalism favoured by the Indonesian state. I engaged with a growing literature in transgender studies alongside feminist anthropology to look how the body is implicated in projects of capitalist modernity. Positioned among a healthy amount of literature about gender diversity Indonesia, my distinctive approach weaves together historical and ethnographic research to consider the structures of feeling of authoritarian Indonesia. In this final seminar I present a description of the concept of becoming among waria, reflecting on how it relates to the theoretical concerns with which I hope to engage. In doing so I reflect on the overall process of moving from fieldwork to thesis writing and provide an update on my progress so far.