Gender, Islam, Nationalism and the State in Aceh

This book sets out to open up the space for interpretation of history and politics in Aceh which is now in a state of armed rebellion against the Indonesian government. It lays out a groundwork for analysing how female agency is constituted in Aceh, in a complex interplay of indigenous matrifocality, Islamic belief and practices, state terror, and political violence. Analysts of the current conflict in Aceh have tended to focus on present events. Siapno provides a historical analysis of power, co-optation, and resistance in Aceh and links it to broader comparative studies of gender, Islam, and the state in Muslim communities throughout the world.

Jacqueline Aquino Siapno was born and raised in Pangasinan, Philippines. She completed her B.A. degree at Wellesley College and her Ph.D degree at the University of California-Berkeley. She is currently Lecturer in Political Science and the Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies, University of Melbourne

1. Power, Hegemony, and Agency: The Ambiguity of Women's Political Subjectivity in Aceh 2. Women's Political Agency in a Region of Armed Conflict 3. Gender and the Problem of Power in History and Historiography 4.The Poetics of Space and Representation: Women in Traditional Manuscript Literature 5. Women in Oral Traditions and Indigenous Belief Systems 6. The Sacred and the Political: Piety and Militancy in Aceh 7. The Unhappy Marriage of Islam, Nation and State