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. 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