Written by Jekonia Tarigan
In the ancient Bugis creation myth, the creator is an androgynous god who gives birth to a male sun and a female moon. Quarrels occur between the two, and they will not live together. Meanwhile, both were capable of self-fertilization, the sun was unable to reproduce, and it was the moon that gave birth to the stars, certain metals (gold, iron), and the first generations of plants, animals and other ‘terrible’ creatures. A reconciliation between the sun and the moon took place shortly after the last of the various creations appeared. This led to the division of power and the union of the two, from which came the gods celebrated at I La Galigo. The Bugis cosmogonic myth counts the web among ‘terrible’ creations, all of which are full of divine powers.[i] However, the prolificacy 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. The Bissu can be categorized as pan-indigenous, including gender, sexual, and/or spiritual identity. Within indigenous communities with androgynous concepts in their cosmology, the Bissu have culturally specific ceremonial and social roles in the Bugis culture. The question then is, how the 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? This question became the main issue of the presentation and discussion of the Wednesday Forum on October 12, 2022, a forum organized by the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) and the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS). The presentation was delivered by Petsy Jessy Ismoyo, a PhD Candidate at ICRS. She is also a lecturer at the 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). read more

Written by Jekonia Tarigan

Work on gender and gender relations in Indonesia has demonstrated that gender matters in the discussion of state, including the country’s politics, religion, and civil society, often because the question of women’s authority[i]. Regarding religion, especially in Islam, the authority and legitimacy as ulama is an important issue because the legitimacy of Muslim women as ulama is always related to the rights that society ascribes to them to interpret religious texts and issue fatwas in response both to the daily concerns of their followers (jamaah) and to urgent social problems. These issues were the topics of discussion for the October 5th Wednesday forum, a weekly discussion forum organized by the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) and the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS). The presenter on this occasion was Nor Ismah. She is a researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her Ph.D. research focuses on women issuing fatwas and community-based authority in Java, Indonesia. She also serves as curriculum review and institute development consultant at Musawah, a global feminist movement based in Malaysia. Recently, she was appointed as the director of LPPPM of Nahdlatul Ulama University in Yogyakarta. read more

Written by Maurisa Zinira

Although the right to expression is guaranteed in the universal declaration of human rights, its practical fulfillment is not always ideal. In the digital era where information disclosure encourages diversity of expression, the fulfillment of the right to freedom of speech is often hampered by regulatory mechanisms made by the state. In four ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), as noted by Soombatpoonsiri and An Luong, for example, this right is restricted by the state’s politicization of “fake news”. Often without clear definition of what constitutes “fake news”, these countries make use of the allegation to silence the opposition and limit citizens’ digital activities considered detrimental to political stability. read more

Public Lecture, 7 November 2022

Wednesday Forum, 2 November 2022

Wednesday Forum, 26 October 2022

Wednesday Forum, 19 October 2022