8 th Euroseas conference Vienna, 11–14 August 2015

— Weddings, Yoga, Hookups: Performed Identities and Technology in Bali 
Craig Latrell (Hamilton College)
“Urban spaces and media can become the locations of new publics—stages on which subjects can create and perform 

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transformed identities. Performative interventions in Asia can generate a re-imagining of local publics, both spatially 
grounded and mediated, and help to renegotiate the connection between the local and global.”
From its beginnings as a center for international tourism, Bali has served as a stage for the creation and re-imagination 
of performed identities, generally those of Westerners seeking exoticism, but more recently including those from 
other parts of Asia as well. The increasing presence of technology in the form of the Internet has enhanced this tradi-
tional function for tourists and expats, while at the same time refashioning local culture at an ever-accelerating rate: 
as Kirschenblatt-Gimblett has pointed out, “processes of globalization produce the local, while altering the very nature 
and value of the local.”
I propose to describe my research into three different contemporary phenomena in Bali, and the ways in which they 
have re-imagined and shaped aspects of local culture by renegotiating connections between local and global. The phe-
nomena are: destination weddings, yoga retreats and villas, and gay hookups between Balinese and tourists. All three 
phenomena incorporate the Internet to a large degree, through such websites and apps as BaliWeddingsInternational.
com, AirBnb.com, and Grindr. I will describe how these phenomena incorporate and recreate aspects of local culture 
(in the case of weddings), form new publics and communities (in the case of yoga/villas), and simultaneously chal-
lenge and preserve local values and the brown boy/rice queen dyad proposed by Lim.
— Performing the Food Cultures of Thailand at the 2015 Milan Expo
Will Peterson (Flinders University)
The most striking feature in the planning and conceptualisation for the Thai country pavilion at the 2015 Milan In-
ternational Exposition was its potential to create a total sensorial experience for the participant. Jettisoning the iconic 
Thai temple architecture for an organic design based on the shape and weave of a traditional farmer’s hat, the structure 
itself evokes the country’s natural environment, one where water and rice cultivation will lead the largely European 
fairgoers through a built environment offering both live performance and the consumption of food. With an over-
arching theme of “Feeding the Plant, Energy for Life,” the expo provides a rare opportunity for the food cultures of 
Thailand to leave a lasting imprint on millions of Western bodies with its dedicated pavilion theme of “Nourishing and 
Delighting the World.” This paper will consider the effectiveness of the pavilion in promoting both Thai food and tour-
ism, relying on fieldwork as well as quantitative data while seeking to uncover the ways in which food and memory 
can activate the desire to visit Thailand, to return there, or to re-member prior encounters with culture and place. This 
presentation of preliminary findings will map out ways in which the total sensorial experience of the pavilion may 
both reinforce actual memories and also activate a process that Appadurai termed “armchair nostalgia.”
— Ride Outs, Ceremonies and Moluccan Monuments in the Netherlands 
Fridus Steijlen (KITLV)
In several locations in the Netherlands, statues and markers can be found referring to the presence of Moluccans in 
the country. Recurrent symbols are spices, like clove and nutmeg, or a soldiers family. These refer to the Moluccan 
spices that were the reason for the Dutch (and other European nations) to start the colonial enterprise in Indonesia 
and the colonial military status of the Moluccans upon arrival in the Netherlands. Some monuments were erected in 
places used by Moluccan camps between 1951 and 1960 to remember their early presence in the Netherlands. Other 
monuments were erected in Moluccan Wards where the soldiers were housed from 1960 onwards.
The erection of the monuments and signs was remarkable because for a long period the Moluccans thought of their 
stay in the Netherlands as only temporary, expecting to return home to the eastern part of Indonesia in the future. 
In 1951, 12.500 Moluccan former colonial soldiers and their families came from Indonesia to the Netherlands. Their 
transfer was the result of political developments in Indonesia, where as a reaction to the collapse of the Indonesian 
federation, an independent South Moluccan Republic (RMS) was proclaimed. The conflict around this RMS procla-
mation prevented Moluccan colonial soldiers outside the Moluccas from being demobilized and brought them to the 
Netherlands as a temporary measure, or so they thought. Because of the expectation that they would soon return, 
the policies of the Dutch government on housing, education and work for Moluccans isolated them somewhat. From 
their point of view, the Moluccans themselves were not eager to integrate and focused instead on their rights as former 
colonial soldiers and the political ideals of an independent RMS. This led to an exile community where life and society 
was dominated by the history of the colonial soldiers and especially their abrupt dismissal from the army after arriv-
ing in the Netherlands , as well as by the ideal of a free RMS. The idea of temporality only disappeared some 30 years 

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later after the Moluccans re-oriented their position in the Netherlands and their relation with the Moluccan Islands. 
Moluccans in the Netherlands changed from exiles into migrants, whose future was in the Netherlands. This was the 
moment initiatives were taken to erect Moluccan statues and signs. The initiators came from different backgrounds 
and had different intentions and messages. Some of them were the children of the colonial soldiers wanting to pay 
respect to their parents, others were Dutch wanting to help Moluccans overcome their traumas. Whatever the back-
ground of the monuments, they became rallying points where the Moluccan community could perform ceremonies 
and gather on important days. New traditions developed , with Moluccan bikers organizing an annual “ride out” to 
visit Moluccan Wards and undertake ceremonies at the monuments. These events became performances in which the 
colonial soldiers’ history was intertwined with Moluccan culture and symbols of the RMS. In my paper I will discuss 
the emergence of the monuments and the way they are used in performances by the Moluccan community.
— “Go International”? Islam and Nation in Dangdut, Indonesia’s Most Popular Music
 Andrew Weintraub (University of Pittsburgh)
Dangdut is a massively popular genre of music in Indonesia, especially among the country’s majority middle and 
underclass population. Its upbeat rhythms and plaintive melodies shape the soundscape in homes and alleyways, as 
well as buses and taxis, roadside food stalls, nightclubs, and karaoke bars. The music has roots in a multicultural musi-
cal mélange of Malay, Middle Eastern, Indian, American, and British musical forms, practices, and material culture. 
Performance contexts include election campaign rallies, village celebrations, and eroticized dancing in nightclubs. 
Dangdut enjoys a de facto reputation as Indonesian national music due to the language of its song lyrics (Indone-
sian), its wide circulation across the archipelago, and its appeal among people of diverse ethnicities, genders, and 
generations. On one hand, dangdut’s ubiquitous presence, hybrid repertoire, and adaptability to diverse performance 
contexts point to a kind of social inclusiveness associated with cosmopolitanism. In recent years, it has even attracted 
attention in other parts of Asia, namely Malaysia and Japan, and is often promoted as a form with the potential to “go 
international.” On the other hand, dangdut has become a site for public debates about Islamic morality and regulating 
women’s bodies, which suggest a kind of social exclusiveness or “counter-cosmopolitanism.” From this perspective, 
its Melayu (read: Muslim) roots, predominantly Muslim fan base, and promotion of Muslim values might seem to 
neutralize its potential to “go international.” In this paper, I will address the following questions: How is the world 
imagined in the history, discourse, and practice of dangdut? How does dangdut’s identity as a form of national music 
relate to its cosmopolitan heritage and its potential to “go international”? How does the identity of dangdut as Islamic 
music promote and simultaneously constrain its cosmopolitanism? I will explore dangdut as a particular mode of 
Indonesian cosmopolitanism, which integrates and celebrates foreign ideas and practices, rather than resists them. 
Musical examples from ten years of fieldwork will illuminate the possibility of dangdut as a form of alternative or 
vernacular cosmopolitanism.
VII.   Gender, Youth and the Body
Panel: Are There Women’s Practices? Questioning Women’s Activities in  
Southeast Asian Societies 
convener: Elodie Coffre (IRASEC)
panel abstract
Various studies show that women are involved in specific activities throughout Southeast Asia, be them economical 
religious, political etc. This panel aims to question the relevancy of categorizing them as specifically feminine: how 
and when did they appear? Did changes happen through history? How can we understand, describe and analyze it? 
Are there new actors/agents which participated and promoted the categorization of mainly or only women’s prac-
tices (such as NGOs, national politics etc.)? What is at stake behind such categories? Those questions will be treated 
through an insight in different local practices throughout Southeast Asia brought by the different presenters. Our 
focus will be on women’s professionalization, the historical perpetuation and evolutions of practices considered as 
“traditional” and their contemporary investments, as well as the impact of local, national and international (mainly 
through ASEAN and UN) politics on gender equality and women’s empowerments. By crossing perspectives (politi-
cal, anthropological, economical, sociological, and historical) we hope to contribute more broadly to a critical reflec-
tion about women’s practices in Southeast Asia. 

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— The Arisan and the Cooperative: The Double Scope of Local Economic Management by Women Groups
Elodie Coffre (IRASEC)
This paper aims to show the articulation between formal (cooperatives) and non-formal (arisan system) local econ-
omy held by women in West Java (Indonesia), and how the first one becomes a way for promote women’s economic 
local role within global economic policy.
— Thai Women’s Empowerment Fund: How a National Policy and the Needs of Grassroots Women Find Each 
Other
Kesinee Jirawanidchakorn (Kyoto University)
Women’s Empowerment Fund was a policy of Yingluck’s government, the first government in Thai history having a 
woman served as Prime Minister, back in 2012 and firstly implemented in the same year. The fund offers low-interest 
loan to groups of women that organize themselves under inspection by all-women elected committee in sub-district, 
district and provincial levels. It mainly aims to empower women in terms of economics and to strengthen their lead-
ership and management skills, as well as to offer help to women in difficulties through forms of seminars and small 
welfares. After two years of implementation the fund was claimed to be successful stating that level of women’s leader-
ship and management had enhanced and the loans were being paid back with interest in satisfactory level.
In my research, I examine the scheme not only as an advanced step in national policy regarding women’s empower-
ment, but also the progress of women’s participation in the local context –as in my case study is rural villages in north-
east Thailand. Considering its kinship system, opportunity in education and economic activities, political temperature 
and housewives’ networking, I will analyze what resources they accumulate over periods that consequently provide 
the potential to embrace the opportunity offered by the national fund in a prompt manner. On the other hand, I also 
wish to explore some unsuccessful groups and analyze the factors that hold them back. My research methods include 
interviews, observation during fieldwork, and document reviews.
— Localizing Women’s Role in a Globalized World
Abigaël Pesses (Irasec)
Based on ethnographic data collected among Karen communities and indigenous associations of Chiang Mai prov-
ince within the past 15 years, this presentation aims at questioning the opportunities and limits of women’s empower-
ment through the strategies driven by development actors into the local arena.  
By integrating gender issues in the development discourse, the role and abilities assigned to indigenous women has 
been embedded into national and global political frames: from state integration policies that emphasize women’s role 
as a pillar of the household economy to the contest of world environmental policies and the promotion of women’s 
indigenous skills in the safeguarding of biodiversity.
As observed, this empowerment is continuously negotiated within an institutionalized process which categorizes 
gender field and people. This historical and localized process activates new dynamics in social organization paving 
the way to a range of actors’ strategies in development policies. This paper will question how the promotion of the 
“locality” became one of the main human and ideological resource, by mobilizing together women and development 
actors in civil society debate and economic local arena.
Panel: Is Gender Women? Taking Stock of Southeast Asian Studies on Gender 
conveners: Petra Dannecker (University of Vienna), Martina Padmanabhan (University of Passau)
panel abstract
Gender studies have contributed substantially to our understanding of Southeast Asian societies and their current 
transformations. International and national activists, scientists and feminist gender advocates have created a body 
of academic literature. This initiated many changes in the ways gender as a category has been integrated in research 
projects and policy fields, as for example development in Southeast Asia. However, resonant ideas about gender and 
certain popularizations dominate the discourses and representations of gender respectively women. Therefore we 

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would like to address the theoretical as well as empirical challenge to conduct analysis that gives due attention to the 
relational category of gender. We want to discuss how we can safeguard an encompassing research on the gendered 
structure of society. What new concepts are able to grasp the relational category best and translate it adequately into 
fieldwork strategies? How do we incorporate dimensions of intersectionality like age, ethnicity and class? What are 
the empirical consequences to gain equal access to gendered perspectives? How do masculinity and feminity studies 
inform us?
The aim of the panel is to discuss newer conceptualizations of gender which are able to analyze the complexity of 
women’s and men’s lives in a changing world. We will debate the extent and potential how feminist knowledge, ap-
proaches like intersectionality or queer studies do inform research on Southeast Asian societies. The panel therefore 
invites empirical research on gender relations, theoretical concepts as well as critical reflections on fieldwork and 
failure. We want to reflect on imaginaries and possible essentialisms of the category ‘gender’ in the field of Southeast 
Asian Studies.
— Body, Affect, and Spirituality: The Analysis of Female Flight Attendants’ Narrative
Arratee Ayuttacorn (Chiang Mai University)
The study examines the exploitation of flight attendants’ bodies in postmodern era. It attempts to explore how flight 
attendants create the affective subjectivity under multiple forms of power; and how a particular form of affect is 
formed and mutually communicated within their society. In this regard, I employ Deleuze’s theory of affect to un-
derstand the production process of affect created by flight attendants. Moreover, the concept of ‘affective economies’ 
is applied to describe how affect binds individual body together into collectivities. Flight attendants’ bodies are not 
only shaped by dominant culture and capitalist disciplines; they are the sites of transformation and resistance. Flight 
attendants construct new form of identity by reinforcing dominant discourses for their own ends.
I propose reflexive auto-ethnography as methodological approach to reduce the effects of insider researcher. The data 
is gathered from in-depth interview, participation observation by following short and long-route flight, and engag-
ing with female flight attendants activities. Since I focus on body experiences of flight attendants, narrative analysis is 
employed to understand how flight attendants construct their subjectivity through narrative. 
The study reveals that ‘winyann’ or spirituality as form of affect internalizes into flight attendants’ mind and body 
through everyday life practice and performance. This kind of affect accumulates through body experiences and com-
municates within flight attendants society. ‘Winyann’ is essential form of affect that creates social and economic value 
for airline company. Even though this spirituality is constituted by capitalist disciplines, but at the same time and 
space, flight attendants employ ‘winyann’ to relocate themselves from dominant culture.
— Who is the Female ‘Migrant’ in Asia? Categorizations, Conceptualizations
Petra Dannecker (University of Vienna)
This presentation will discuss the construction of ‘female’ migrants in Asian and the implications this has for espe-
cially labor migrants. Thereby it will be analyzed how ‘female’ migrants developed as an important category in the 
scientific literature dealing with migration processes in Asia and in the political discourses. The focus will be on one 
hand on the naturalization of so called female attributes and qualifications through the different actors involved. On 
the other hand some of the underlying assumptions accompanying these processes will be discussed. The aim of the 
presentation is to show how through the transformation of production regimes conceptualizations of men and women 
are getting produced and reproduced, conceptualizations which are getting through academic studies and political 
programs by a broad variety of actors further or newly essentialized. Feminist and queer approaches are so far broadly 
neglected. The challenges a critical questioning of the dominant categories implies will be further discussed.
 
— Gendering the Human-Nature Nexus in Southeast Asia: Implications of a Social-Ecological Perspective
Martina Padmanabhan (University of Passau)
The relationship between gender and nature has been explored since the seminal paper of Ortner (1974), whether Fe-
male relates to Male as Nature to Culture. Currently, we may even speak of “nature trouble” in contemporary research 
that explores the linkages between gender and nature. Feminists have developed various theoretical approaches and 
concepts in order to explain the human-nature nexus (e.g. ecofeminism, feminist political ecology, queer ecology, 

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feminist critique of natural sciences, feminist ecological economics), ranging from essentialist to constructivist ap-
proaches.
The focus of this paper is the mutual construction of nature and gendered social and economic relations. This implies 
the analysis of the interactions between the social and the physical world. An approach grounded in material expres-
sions of human-nature relations helps guard against simplified and essentializing depictions of harmonious human-
nature relations in Southeast Asia.
The paper aims on the one hand at theorizing and conceptualizing human-nature relations from a critical feminist 
perspective. On the other hand it reflects on current empirical research on gendered human-nature relations in South-
east Asia, embedded in the debate on social-ecological transformation processes.
Panel: Transforming the Environment – Transforming Gender Relations? Women, Men and 
Environmental Change in Southeast Asia 
convener: Michaela Haug (University of Cologne)
discussants: Kristina Grossmann (University of Passau), Giacomo Tabacco (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)
panel abstract
The exploitation of natural resources has increased enormously in Southeast Asia during the last decades as states, 
cities and even small rural communities become more and more integrated into the global economy. This leads to far 
reaching transformations of the environment and local livelihoods. In the forested regions of Indonesia for example, a 
growing coal mining industry, persistent (illegal) logging and the expansion of oil palm plantations and other “boom 
crops” result in vast deforestation, a radical transformation of landscapes and growing pollution. For local populations 
this often implies a change from subsistence strategies to wage labor, from shifting cultivation to more intensive forms 
of agriculture, from self-reliance to increasing dependency and from village life to urban life.
All these transformations (re)produce in manifold ways economic, political and social inequalities. In this panel we 
want to look at these processes from a gender perspective and ask how environmental change impacts on gender 
relations in Southeast Asia. Men and women sometimes possess different environmental knowledge, gender plays a 
crucial role for determining access to and control over natural resources in some societies and it often influences how 
men and women get incorporated into new labor systems. Environmental change and related changes of traditional 
economic systems and social structures can thus lead to new (self)concepts of gender identities, gender roles, work 
activities, control, responsibilities, inclusions and exclusions of men and women.
To explore these processes we want to address the following questions:
•  How do subjectivities, identities and roles of men and women change through new patterns of natural resource 
exploitation? Does the increasing integration into the global economy produce new power relations (asymmetries 
or symmetries) between men and women?
•  Which role does gender play in reproducing existing and creating new political, economic and social inequali-
ties? How is gender thereby intertwined with other elements of multiple and fragmented identities such as class, 
ethnicity, religion and age?
•  Which gender orders and gendered identities are promoted by new development policies regarding natural re-
source management and how are they produced, employed, implemented and contested? Which chances do men 
and women have to influence policies, activities and decision making processes effecting environmental change?