Enduring Otherwise

Minor Compositions Podcast Season 2 Episode 7 Enduring Otherwise 

In this episode, we talk with Ferdiansyah Thajib about his book Enduring Otherwise: Muslim Queer and Trans Worldmaking in Indonesia. Drawing on ethnographic research in Aceh, Yogyakarta and Jakarta, Ferdi explores how queer and trans Muslims build meaningful lives within social, religious and political conditions that often refuse them recognition. The conversation moves through Indonesia’s shifting legal landscape, conservative religious politics, Sharia law in Aceh and the everyday spaces where other forms of life become possible – from trans-run hair salons to more inclusive Islamic communities.

Ferdi also discusses his approach to affective ethnography, the influence of his own experience as a gay Muslim and the importance of care, emotional labour and mutual support within activist communities. Rather than reducing queer and trans life to either victimhood or heroic resistance, Enduring Otherwise asks how people live with contradiction, sustain relationships and make worlds otherwise.

More on the book: https://nyupress.org/9781479839339/enduring-otherwise/

Bio: Ferdiansyah Thajib is a researcher and educator whose work focuses on queer politics, affect, and the intersections of memory, trauma, and collective healing in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Current he is a senior lecturer at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. Since 2007 he has been a member of the KUNCI Study Forum & Collective in Yogyakarta, where he has been involved in developing practices of critical pedagogy, artistic research, and collaborative forms of knowledge production. His writing and projects explore how marginal communities craft modes of survival, endurance, and solidarity.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Five h hh.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Okay, hello and welcome to Minor Compositions. For for this
this week's conversation, we have one of our first uh
repeat visitors, so thank you for coming along again again, Ferdie.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Hey, yeah, thanks for having me again.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah yeah, And this is a good excuse because we're
getting together to sort of have a chat about your
al Can we say the book the book is new
for is it new for like a year or for
our six months or for two years?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Or I think a year maybe, because yeah, I've been
doing so many book talks also in person that it
felt so long already. But actually, yeah, I think still
there're so not that many people that who knows it
the book, so I think it's we can still consider

(01:29):
it new.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Okay, yeah, So so say we're having a chat, but
but Ferdie's new and quite excellent book and during otherwise
Muslim queer and trans transport booking Indonesia. And I will
tell you upfront that that that that my knowledge of
queer politics or transpolitics Indiesia is quite limited, but I
was I found your book super interesting and really really fascinating,

(01:51):
and in part because it's about the world that I
know very little of. But yet as someone who was
raised Catholic and sort of knows a thing or two
about feelings of guilt and how religious world structures your
your affects, It's like, there are things here which I
recognize even though I don't know the world, oh superest.

(02:11):
So maybe as sort of a starting point, let's say,
how would you introduce this book to people who have
it intelligip yet? Like what are you? What are you
exploring here? Such the obvious from the super obvious.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Like what do you? What do you?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
What do you play with your perdie?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah? I think it's important that I describe the book
as like an ethnographic book, so it is basically a
book that looks at different I mean, everyday forms of
life rather than you know, I'm not a political scientist,
I'm not a sociologist. My work is always focusing on

(03:00):
working with people, and this is basically what anthropology is about.
And sorry research base, but my research look at how Muslim,
queer and trans people live in Indonesia, and this intersection between

(03:22):
muslimness and queerness or transness is a particular focal point
that I'm looking at because, in like popular imagination, the
relationship between queerness and transness to Islam has always seen

(03:44):
something as irreconcilable, as something that is difficult to Yeah,
it's incompatible. And so the book actually starts from the
very question on how do people sustain meaningful life when

(04:08):
social and religious and political conditions around them do not
fully accept them or or a firm of who they are.
Basically mm hmm, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Think there's something interesting there in you mentioning being ethnographic now,
because I want to go into people about photography. But
in the sense about that writing a book, getographically means
not just showing up doing a few quick interviews or
have to get chat with people people. It requires in
depth understanding of how world making happens in this place,

(04:45):
how culture operates, how how it regards what's more in
merci level and detail, then you get in most kinds
of writing.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, I mean, I mean people call it like participant
observation basically, so you don't just participate or just observe,
but you also participate in the everyday life, right, every
day flow of life. But as a kind of like

(05:14):
also as a background actually, because I myself coming from
more or less similar background a Muslim queer myself. I'm
from Indonesia, So a lot of the questions that were
strayce as the book starting point is actually also for
me biographical questions because this very question of I mean,

(05:40):
in a simple word, people whether they're Muslims, whether they're
non Muslims, or they're you know, Indonesian or not. When
mostly at that time, at least when I start my
research around fifteen years ago, the question that people ask
is like when when they heard then I'm a Muslim

(06:01):
and I'm queer, as this kind of stereotypical or stereotyping
question asking like, oh, how is that for you? Like
aren't you aren't you experiencing some kind of conflict or
inner conflict? And this very question, rather than trying to

(06:22):
answer it myself, is basically the question that I go
around with with when I meet the the protagonists or
the interlocutors in my filmwork. Basically of course, and not
in a way like not as a kind of like
a horrible question about this conflict, but actually I observe

(06:50):
or I participate in a situation where this conflicting situation
came up, and basically how they deal with it.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, And that's probably interesting part of if anything, I
think that that that that being participant kind of helps
you and that the people you're talking with a sense
that that this is this is for you isn't some
sort of abstract question but somebody you also have had
to wrestle with yourself about this completing you know, relationship
between religious values and sort of personal ethics and and

(07:19):
how these two fit together and how you live.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, because yes and no, because I think one one
additional dimension that that also actually it's become actually a
key Like my main approach uh is what I call
as effective ethnography. So it's very much looking at like

(07:48):
the emotional life, the feel like the various types of feelings,
atmospheres that that that emerge in their life in the
context of Muslim square and transporlt making which actually allows
me hm how to say it. Like in Indonesia we

(08:11):
have this term when when people you don't have to
be close friends, but sometimes when people met and they
have I don't know, some kind of problems which is
more like caused by emotional conflict and so on, Uh,

(08:32):
they would kind of pour out their hearts out. This
is the term like tudahan Hatti to pour out on
one's heart basically is it is a way of interacting,
interacting usually in intimate settings. But this is also something
that I adopt as as a way of talking with

(08:56):
the interlocutors in a way that I don't interview it.
I don't prepare, you know, questions in advance and then
go to see them and ask questions, but rather just
fully becoming a listener basically, Yeah, and by listener meaning

(09:18):
like to really listen to. And somehow there is a need,
a dire need in a community to be able to
be heard or to be listened to. And some of
the stories, although maybe to say it flows naturally is

(09:41):
a bit simplifying, I would rather say that there's enough
closeness between us or report between us that allows that
makes them comfortable enough to tell basically their life stories,
their what what, what they're thinking, what they're dealing with,

(10:02):
using this so called churanhatty to an extent that sometimes,
because I work with different communities, they would tap my
shoulder and call me, hey, what are you doing? Are
you not doing anything? Can we talk? You know, like
let's let's have a tough because the our last stuff

(10:22):
has been very nice and and and yeah, so it's
becoming almost like for my part it is like a
service to listen to their stories. But also the tricky
partook because also this is part of research, and of
course they are all aware about this.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Might be an aspect and maybe maybe sort of speculating
here where they start to treat you as like that
like nice slightly older brother that people wish they had,
that they could talk to, that they didn't have in
their own families, or like just you.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Know, mm hmmm, I mean, of course not everyone. Yeah,
I went, I think out of I met quite a
few people in during my film work. I'll explain later
in which which locations, but uh, and some of them
are new locations. One of them is actually a new
location and the other two is uh. The new location

(11:15):
is in ache Uh, which is in the northernmost part
of Sumatra and Indonesia, and then in Jio Jakarta where
actually this is my chosen hometown, and in Jakarta, which
is the city where I'm born or where I grew up.

(11:35):
But still even of course, especially in ache is not
easy to to because the situation there is already very
difficult for sexual and gender minorities because they have their
own legal system since a while since Yeah, there's a

(12:00):
long history of conflict and natural disaster the tsunami that
changed the whole landscape there, including legal ones, and they
implementary allow basically since two thousand first in first being
discussed two thousand and five, and I think being installed
in thousand and six, which make it very difficult for

(12:23):
for for sexual and general minorities even just to be
to be just to be there basically, So when I
came there with my research topic, with my research idea,
of course not a lot of people are welcoming to that.
But when they do, then the relationship is kind of

(12:45):
what translates into the book basically. But when when you
said it, whether they they they treat me as a
brother or a sibling, I guess it's more about they
don't have anyone to really listen to. Like of course

(13:09):
they have friends and maybe families and even partners, but
sometimes actually the problems that they're having is actually with
the people who are around them and with me, I guess,
because I'm also a stranger in some way, but but
a weird stranger who goes to all the way, you know,

(13:32):
to to to listen to their stories. For them is
also something. Yeah, they also make take use of it.
They make then they try to gain as much from
from the encounter as I do.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
I mean, we're a stranger, but we're who also shows
up in the book on people's motorcycles. At times or
like late nights, discussions at the salon or at the
at the coffee shop or other places places feel more
part of the world.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, exactly, right, when you go to a bar and
you're speaking to strangers and then you're more open and
you're more generous in your stories rather than when you're
talking with people around you. Yeah, are you're intimate with
mm hmmm. So yeah, I wouldn't even I wouldn't even
frame my relationship with them as friends or you know,

(14:22):
or siblings or brothers, because that's what I am. I'm
there as a researcher, and I think most of them
fully realize of my what my role is. Yeah, mhm.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
We talked about a little bit about the title. I
think it's quite evocative idea about and and during otherwise,
so it's not it's not necessarily very heroic sounding, but
that's not the point. It's almost like finding ways to
almost like get on despite great adversity or how how
do you how do you? How do you think about it?

(14:59):
I'm like, what is it come from?

Speaker 1 (15:00):
For you?

Speaker 3 (15:02):
From different places, but like from for for the more
like conceptual I as. I was inspired by the works
of Povinelli about late liberalism and endurance, also the work
of abdu ma Ale Simone, who talks about improvised life

(15:23):
and how in the urban global South, endurance has become
a way of not only surviving but also kind of
tapping into unlived or unrealized potential potentialities, right, because there's

(15:46):
a waiting involved there, but also there is some gain
in the process of this enduring or waiting for something
to happen, and only it is on the other hand,
for for the otherwise. Actually, I'm inspired by the work
of Ashan Crawley, who with black study researcher scholars whose

(16:14):
work was or is about for their particular term is
from his book Black Pantacostal Breath, about the the breathing
as a space of possibility, right, and then he defines

(16:35):
otherwise there as something that this multiple possibilities that already
exists in our lives is just not being tapped into,
or it's not just seen as possibilities as such. And
this reminds me all the way go to this whole

(16:56):
form of pre pre prefigurative politics and how basically work
with what is around us when we're thinking about, you know, change,
when we're thinking about transformation, we're not starting from this
kind of fixed destination, but rather than working with the

(17:19):
relationship that we have, the materialities that that that that
is sometimes become resources, but sometimes becomes a challenge.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Right, So let me see if I if I understand
saying the important thing here is not here's a narrow
nel salon. It's almost like, what does this nail salon
allow in terms of world making? How it operates means
material support or a safe a safe space of refuge

(17:50):
or of course of friendship. It's more like what it
does for the people there, rather than what it is.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean this is a hair salons the
correct I had run by transwomen in actual basically, this
is what Steven was telling about in my book, which
is run by Maya, one of the main protagonists. And
uh yeah, at the beginning she made theo or basically

(18:18):
she created the Solon hair salon of course as a
means to survive right to to to have a livelihood.
But also this is not just decision that came or
I have some money or I have some investors and
make hair salon. But this is something decision that came
after going through live so yeah, so so like filled

(18:46):
with violence. Basically she was a sex worker. At some
point she was abused by her family members. She moved
different to different cities. She works in different hair salons
as well, and when she came back to her hometown,
she felt that she wanted to make a hair salon

(19:06):
that let basically doesn't reproduce all the other violent experience
that that that that she she experienced before. And so
that's why it's from the outside it looks like a
normal running hair salon and the the workers there are

(19:28):
mainly transfomen because in in Indonesia in general, UH, it
is difficult for trans people to to have like this
kind of like stable office job. So the only options
UH that they have if they have skills, then they
would either work or own a hair salon or maybe

(19:52):
work in fashion design. But those who are who have
no access at all, than a lot of them working
as as a sweet busker right singing for money from
door to door or sex workers. So these are mainly
the forror uh forms of employment that that could access.

(20:16):
So having this salon is as a place for livelihood,
not just for her but also for her community. But
because actually, as I told you, it's a special location
in a way that it's impossible for these women to
be in public uh more than they need to because

(20:41):
they're subjected to ridicule, subject to there's a moral police
there who who And then also they're kind of trying
to blend in with other women wearing his job right.
But also this also creates another insult of them trying

(21:01):
to you know, play with religion and so on. So
what initially started as a hairsalon slowly becomes this kind
of what you said, this community. I wouldn't say safe space,
but this is because exactly by hanging out there on

(21:21):
a daily basis, it's also made it made it made
it easier for them to be targeted like more by
moral police or police officers who maybe doesn't want to
arrest them, but you know, like for getting some cigarette

(21:42):
money and so on, just to you know, like, so
they have this place which they they can interact. But
also it's quite quite fragile the safety mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
One thing interesting is so, for instance, you talked a
little bit about and you're talking about this in the book,
how like there was political changes I think you said
starting in two thousand and six, which was the nine
that allowed the introduction of shrial law. But then you
also remember, correct with the reading, like these outbursts of
let's say more like kind of quasi vigilante community policing

(22:23):
don't happen immediately. They happen at different points in times.
But I'm not clear like what what like what causes
that or it.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Was just.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
I mean different different because I think on one important
turning point was the nineteen ninety eight reform Indonesia where
basically after Suharto, the authority Energyma Suharto, they basically managed
to silence all sides of society from the right and leaf,

(23:00):
from the Islamis and from human rights movement, from environmentalists
to women movement. And when the head is chopped off, right,
but so Arto is gone, basically there's this kind of
window of openness, right, everyone was like, oh yeah, let's

(23:21):
bring back Marxist left, this knowledge that has been censored
for such a long time. Let's bring back conversation around
gender and sexuality that is not you know, following the
models that is made by the state and for the

(23:43):
Islamist also there were there were for a long time
being oppressed. They're being the politicized basically, which doesn't there
so they didn't have a lot of channels to express
their opinions and voices as well. So with this opening,
what happened is then you have a lot of groups

(24:05):
from left as well as from the human rights from
queer rights are forming mobilizing. But at the same time
also people from the conservative side become more active right
And since then then basically you have this kind of
continuous frictions in public spaces. But I think one of

(24:31):
the I said one of them, because there's a new
development that I will also share later. Another turning point
was in twenty sixteen when there was a time I
remember where a lot of Western country start to embrace

(24:55):
legalized same sex marriage basically and this also translate into
new circulations, but also you know, opinions debates in social media.
I think one of the I remember when US legalized
same sex marriage in twenty fifteen, there was a filter

(25:19):
in Facebook right when people can use rainbow filter as
their profile pictures and I think a lot of because
Indonesia have a lot of Facebook users at that time,
and a lot of people are using it, and that
kind of surprise the conservative they didn't realize actually how

(25:44):
many how much support there is for if not allegedly
queer themselves, you know, for for same sex, legalizing same
sex basically, and this creates a lot of pushback from
from the conservative, one being at that time the Minister

(26:07):
of Education and Research who tweeted that he he's banning
uh student Queer Initiative in University of Indonesia and Jakarta.
And because because of this statement, of course a lot
of human rights activists, core activists kind of respond back.

(26:32):
But actually the counter response from the conservative is much moresive, massive,
and it translates into physical spaces as well. There's kind
of like you see in different big cities in Indonesia
and like banners, posters with slurs, with anti LGBT slurs

(26:56):
basically and campaign and yeah, and then and then it
kind of it's not gone, but it's kind of like
because the impact continues consept like sequent like sporadically through
police rates also vigilanti raids to housings, to fall on us,

(27:20):
to parties, and actually just last month, the heat is
cranked up again with the Indonesian Lama console. Oh so sorry,
my story is long because this is also a long history.

(27:41):
So recently Indonesia adopt or changed their pinal code. Right, Initially,
before homosexuality was not was was was not criminalized basically,
but since twenty twenty two we have a new penal code.
Still homosexuality is not penalized, but same sorry sex outside

(28:05):
of marriage is so meaning Stephen, if you are not married,
then you are hesterosexual. You're still going to be criminalized
based on this new penal code. Right. But also and
this is like an umbrella clause that the women also

(28:27):
same sex same sex sexuality is also criminalized because it's
outside of marriage or same sex marriage is not legal
in Indonesia, So it's kind of like this whole logic.
Yea twenty twenty two we have that, and apparently the

(28:48):
conservative or the Islamic console is not happy that there
is no actual clause that criminalize LGBT. So as Pride
season recently again activate the whole social media scene. Uh,
the Ulama consil come up with a plan to now

(29:11):
or they're working together with the parliament member to to
to to to criminal to come up with the new
law basically against lgbt which UH too little that we
know they're actually they they have a legal basis for
that because our new president, the military general or the

(29:34):
former military general probable in their National Defense Scheme under
presidential regulation define different national threats and UH divided into
military and non military threats, and with non military threats,

(29:57):
for instance, atheism consider as non military threats. Online gambling
is considered as non military threats, and LGBTQ culture is
also considered as non military threats. And because of this
is this official document. Now more and more like conservative

(30:19):
institutions are tapping into that, and then they're really really
trying to push now to change the whole yeah situation.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
I mean, that's kind of evilly clever that you're yoking
yoking together things which could cause actual harm, like the
abjective gambling to something which is just not harmful at all.
But it still reminds me of the way someone like
David Gribber, borrowing from bits and talks about the idea
of skisble genesis, where you define yourself against the other
that you're not. So so this is bad here because

(30:53):
this is also of spending time in Singapore and talking
to queer friends there and the way they talk about
how how oftentimes conservatives in Singapore with Frank quitness as
being the sort of like this Western import and then
we're like, well, no, actually the thing that's important was
not queerness, but was actually homophobia.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
And gender binary. Yeah, yeah, because of this binary. Actually,
I think the core of it is actually binary, that
that that really tried to define something that that is
in sexual Sorry, in Southeast Asia or Global South is
much more fluid, right, you have different different roles and

(31:36):
positional at positionality you don't have. I mean, you can
be a woman, a man, a trans woman, transman even
like other kind of configurations of gender and sexuality that
basically are being impovourished by this model of gender binary.

(31:57):
And then comes to the hierarchy in it, right, So
the masculine is kind of the highest in the hierarchy
in comparison to the feminine. And where patriarchy comes in,
where homophobia comes in, frotophobia comes in as well. So, yeah,

(32:17):
homophobia is a Western important I agree with you, it.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Does seem a certain way, which what what's underlying kind
of anxiety that makes Frga discussire is almost like fluidity
is bad. Stay in a box, whatever the box is,
just stay there and no no, no, you can't move
you keep you over here as well. No no, no, no,
stay in your thing. Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, that's that's the thing. That's why I also I
like this concept ambivalence a lot, right, Like, because people
always the question is always either this or that right?
But how about both this and that right? People could
be have much more dimensions than two or even just

(33:05):
one right. And with ambivalence, I guess it's something that
because it describes the reality of the relationships and attachments
that we have, Like some of our attachments, our desires
can be contradictory, but it doesn't mean that we're not,

(33:28):
you know, desiring both right, because people rarely experience things
as purely positive or negative ways. They can love their
families while feeling hurt by family expectations. They can value
religious traditions while questioning certain interpretations. So you have all

(33:52):
these sites in the human experience, and why do you choose?
Why do you have to choose between those two.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Right, I suppose that's what I was trying to get
out my brief perhaps not well thought through much at
the beginning, about but understanding similar issues from being raised
Catholic and the moment there is that like you might say,
if a religion or social world is condemning of your
desires or your reality or your living, just leave. But

(34:24):
like just saying just leave kind of glasses over the
fact that that it created a world and expected and affects.
Then one is basically possible to just magically exit suddenly
two one of those things you still value in that world.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
H I do, I do have one of the plug
whenis Ana actually she identified herself as an ex Muslim
quare like a former so she left Islam practically. But again,
like if you read her story, even after the deciding
to leave the things that she finds problematic, there are

(35:05):
still many other problems that she's dealing with as a
human as from like a spiritual perspective, but also from
like relationship perspective. It's almost, Yeah, that's what I think,
that's what makes life possible to to to to be

(35:25):
in these imperfect situations with at the same time always
imagining different possibilities.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Did you happen to come across any sort of let's say,
like parts of the Muslim community, like institutionally that were
more accepting or welcoming of query trans folts.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
So maybe just like that, just to give a context
of time, when I start these research, it was two thousand,
I mean, I have this idea of doing or I
apply here and there for my PhD proposal. Since twenty ten,
I think, so at that time there wasn't that many

(36:07):
So but slowly, as I start doing my research, more
and more initiative are being organized. In Jukja Karta, for instance,
you have in Indonesia, or in Islamic tradition, you have
a so called Pasan trend, which is basically a religious

(36:30):
a school to learn about Islam. Right. And also this
is a very popular educational practice in whole Indonesia where
people either fully go on through the Pasan trend system
or they combine it with formal education, so they would

(36:52):
go to circular school during the day and then study
study in the Pasan trend during the evening and also
spend the night there. But the thing is it's very gendered,
meaning only male students go to the male Centran and

(37:12):
then the female students go to the female center. And
this doesn't give a lot of space to trans people,
right because so in Jojja actually they initiate the pasandrain
for for for transfer for trans women, inviting also clerics

(37:34):
who are quite progressive. I would say, uh. And because
there are more and more progressive interpretations of the Qur'an
because basically in Islam, the thing, the very thing that
that made homosexuality a big no no is there is

(37:55):
a there's a the story of lot right, I think
you have it also in Bible uh. And with the
progressive interpretation is basically the the frame uh, the the
city of Sodom, right, Uh, The inhabitant of Sodom was

(38:15):
not punished by God because of their committing homosexuality, but
because they were basically practicing a lot of uh inhuman
like slavery, uh, sex without consent and so on. So
so this initiative for instance, and then actually when I

(38:40):
a few years back, there is a very open transman
uh also cleric uh his name is Amar Alpha Car
who uh initiate uh Quranic uh reading online or queer

(39:02):
people again with more empowering, more affirmative interpretation of Quran.
So yeah, it's becoming more and more, I would say,
especially among the younger generations, but not during the time
when I did my research, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
I mean, it was not so surprising that when world's changed,
they had to change either very slowly or all at once.
So maybe you only saw a little bits of things
happening here and there.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Yeah, I managed to capture the moment when Yeah, this
transitional moment, I guess, because I think what happened with
internet and information is I think more and more people
like you have a lot of this kind of initiative
as well globally in South Africa, in the US, right,

(39:59):
so people catch up with that quite quickly.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Mhm. Oh, this is gonna be a strange question. But like,
how do the spaces that you're you're visiting from trans
folks relate to other kinds of say marginal spaces that
might be talking about like like punk kids or like

(40:25):
weird artists, or is there any sort of overlap between
the world or they takenally separate.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
It's different in different cities. I think the capital of
Mandace there's a lot of punk kids communities as well,
but also they are actually quite very marginalized as well
from the moral perspective, from the ria perspective. So there
are quite a few I wouldn't say coalition, but like

(40:58):
they they they hang out together sometimes here and then,
but not really like at that time. Also, there's not
really more mixed organizing. I would say, again, this is
a different with the current times because they are more
and more punk slash queer. They spaces emerging in Georgia

(41:23):
in Jakarta. But during that time, I think again because
it was a transitional time, it felt like each are
fighting on their own, you know, like because they're all. Yeah,
intersectionality at that time wasn't so much being a thing,

(41:44):
So people still struggle in silos. Basically, I would say,
even among the gay men and the trans women, they're
quite clear separation and sometimes they're also quite some conflict
there due to the gay man doesn't want to be
seen around trans women because they want they don't want

(42:07):
to be you know, found out in a way, and
the trans women doesn't like the guts of the gay
men because they think there are arrogant and so on
and so forth. So these little kind of fractions happening
that to an extent that actually in Actually I had
to do my field work with the gay men in

(42:28):
one town and with the trans woman in another town.
They're one hour away from each other, but still like
American effort that so then there's no kind of because
gossip and rumors, this is always something about the queer
trans I think in any community it has become the

(42:49):
bane of like in every interaction.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Basically, I think this is the one thing doesn't think
well is recognized with there's well of of of of gossip,
which is category sociologically aren't just throwaway but actually are
important key parts of how communities bind themselves.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But also what is interesting a
lot of in this rumoring and gossiping, some of them
also use it as a as a space to kind
of practice their moral judgment. I would say, So there's

(43:35):
a lot of moralizing, so a lot of borrowing from
religious religious teachings and values and sometimes also othering that
is happening within the community. And this is what I'm
also I wanted to say this earlier about how a
lot of members of the community that I saw or

(43:56):
that I met also felt that they were born as
Muslim first, and then they realized that they become queer
or they're queer or their trends right, So for them
having kind of like religious identity is also as as

(44:18):
important as having sexual and gender identity, because myself also
included I I'm not a practicing Muslim. Now I'm a
nominal Muslim. I'm an id based Muslim aka Muslim in Indonesia.
But but I grew up, you know, with religious teachings

(44:43):
from not only from schools, but also in in in
daily practice at home from my parents. So this is
something that felt. Yeah, sometimes it's a bit for others
who who who who have the opinion, yeah, you can

(45:04):
actually leave a religion, but actually, in the context of innesia,
I don't think it's sponssible. I mean, of course you
can convert always, but there's so many, so much social
sanction that comes with it, if not legal sanction. So
being convert or being at this as I told you

(45:24):
it was written in the regulation that it's it's right,
mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
I mean, there's there's a certain sense which the convert
is always going to be kind of a stranger, let's say,
the most the most social aspects of the world that
you're brought into because because you're you're joining it rather
than have always been there.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah yeah, I mean it's different. Like in Malaysia, even
it's it's it's illegal to convert, like so the law
says that every Malay are Muslims, so if they are
born in Malayan family, then they have to be Muslim
with no possibilities of moving to other religion. And Indonesia

(46:07):
is less strict than that, but still there's a lot
of risk that come.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
I mean, we could get into into a very interesting
discussion about the very weird history of British colonial categories
around racist religion like Fredistan. Correctly, the British Empire used Malay.
They basically mean any dark skinned Muslim person. So first
in seventeenth century British Empire code, a person from Saudi

(46:37):
Arabia was Malay m M, which of course is completely
nonsensical because what happened that's thousands of miles away.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. In Malaysia it is kind
of continued until now this kind of racial racial segregation.
Indonesia doesn't have that because we although we are Muslim
majority country, especially in eastern part and central to eastern

(47:11):
part of Indonesia, we have also Christian majorities, right, But
again doesn't mean that if you're a Christian living in
Christian majority region in Indonesia and they are queer, that
you would be saved as well, because within the minor,

(47:34):
within this minority minority, there's also quite a strong conservative power.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Working mm hmmm, and that conservative resident can compress itself
and some of the ways even though it's not the
same religion.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Mm hmm. I had I had this, I had this,
I had this audience question. I think it's his uh,
his European. So his question after my book presentation was like, oh,
so what are you saying? So is it the fault
of Islam or is it the fault or Indonesian culture

(48:12):
that people are homophobia, because like, is there any in
my presentation that suggests that. No, it's not my point
at all. It was like, you have homophobia across religion,
you have homophobia across cultures. Right, And then this person said, well,

(48:32):
but what about Bali because I was in Bali and
they're quite open. It was like, well, you went to
a tourist area. If you go to Balin to go
to I mean, if you are locals, you'll see that
being queer and friends. Also they have a difficult life
there because also there's a lot of rejection.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
It seems to me the I mean, I don't want
to say that you don't have your own political or
ethical values here, but excuse me, this book is less
about like understanding the root causes of homophobia, orph war,
but war. It's like, here are people making the world,
getting on themselves, and this is how it works, what

(49:17):
what it makes for them, and you're still exploring that
and being with that more so than like trying to say, Okay,
here's why it happened. It's almost like saying this is happening.
These things do continue regardless of what the law says
or what the state says. These worlds exist.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Mm hmm. A friend of mine, uh, a colleague of
man told me, because there's no there's nowhere if I
refer to Marx, there right in my book. But he said,
my book is really Marx's way, because there's this constant
like I approach my study always.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
Maybe because I don't know if all anthropologists agree, but
I found as someone who worked with people on the
grassroots and struggling against or struggling within the context of oppression,

(50:18):
struggling against states, struggling against passive institutions. Is that it's
like a dialectic rather than forever, like there's no win,
there's never any long win. There's and there's also never
any long loser. Right with history, it's like things are

(50:43):
like they kind of interrelate, they things things. When things
on the left are becoming more sophisticated, so that's the
right wing, you know, Like so they find new new
ways also to to and is kind of this kind
of back and forth, these dialectics, I think, what is

(51:06):
what defines live and and of course the fights are important,
but if we focus too much on the fights of
the winners and the losers, we forgot like the kind
of like the long run of things.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
So how.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
There are casualties there there that there there are people
also need to breathe, to to to to take care
of each other. So that the so called liberation project
is not it's not a it's not a messianistic movement,
you know, it's not it's not as chathological. It's it's

(51:51):
always it's always there will be always a pushback and
then and then when the times come, then it's time
to like like to reconsolidate, but also to really again
check what we have around us, rather than to just say, oh, yeah,
we all fail uh and then we give uh, which

(52:14):
creates a kind of frustration and anewy and paralysis which
I actually also understandable. But from what I how, I
see it as actually people just need to take some
some rests, some respite, and then they can continue their
strugg fight again uh again for the long run.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Right, I think what I think I find intioning about
the way you wrote the book. This would be difficult
to phrase, but when you see when you, for instance,
watch like media or or read fiction, oftentimes you only
have queer and trans characters who exist to be sort
of fill in for like they have to deal with

(52:58):
the university of being repressed and that's why they're heroic.
And but the old exists to be fulfill that role.
You never get people just they're just there to be
there mhm. And it's almost like you're exploring how these
worlds maybe operates the wrong world, how the practices of care,
of listening, of doing things together, how important they are

(53:23):
not because they're taking part in a heroic quest against
homophobia and all these almostly because They're just important because
they're world and themselves. They have value in themselves, it's
what they are.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, yeah, I think what I'm trying as much as
to do is yeah, because I don't mind heroic stories.
I don't know. I also find some values and stories

(53:54):
of affectinghood. Right. But but the thing is mm hmm.
For me, what is more important is to stay loyal
to to to the stories that are shared to to
to by by the protagonists in a way that, as

(54:15):
I told you, we have all these things together, we
can be careful or sorry, how do you how does
it like compassionate? If not careful, we can be compassionate.
But also at the same time doesn't mean that we
can't disagree with each other, right, And that's the thing,
like if we we we anchor all this this complexity

(54:44):
into certain only certain one value over the other.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Is that.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
It's hard to mm hmm. It's it's too like, yeah,
you you can't be sterile around this, around this, because
this is the the texture of everyday life, right. And
I'm trying to think of an example of this so

(55:13):
called care work. For instance, I think again the case
is Maya. She's been taking her friends queer or not
queer to to to to to the hospital because she
she she has quite some access to the nurses and
the system because she she worked for hivng OH for

(55:36):
a while. But because she was seen very often in
the hospital, people start to gossip that, oh, yeah, MAYA
have HIV, which actually a big stigma still in parts
of Indonesia, including Anji, enough to make people stop going

(55:58):
to her hair salone, for instance. So after hearing that
that story, she she she literally came through the door,
like banging the door, and well like because there's no
one else, she just like start shouting at me. But
she's not shouting at me, she's shouting at the person.

(56:19):
But basically she was like, do you realize what I've
been doing all this time? I'm doing it pro bono
and no one cares. And this is what I got, Like,
this is like people talking bad about me? Right, So
what is the purpose in all of this? Right? That
that's what so even in in like yes, people can

(56:41):
perform care, but also there's a limit to it. If
there's no support, there's no recognition that comes with it,
then it becomes yeah, she is not only a burnout,
but also like yeah, she she she she she, she
quite uestions all of her work. That's far right, what

(57:03):
would actually uh very important I found, But then yeah,
I was also very depleting because there's no one care
for her in the meantime. So the care is again
the resources that we think is uh never ending or endless,

(57:24):
but actually no, there's a limit to it. And if
if there's no effort, no conscious effort, intentional effort put
into that to care is about to be in a
relationship and it's as it requires procality, then what happened
is you have all these burnouts and conflicts and frictions, right.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Mm hmm, Yeah, it seems important that that that almost
like the lack of recognition of what she's doing there
actually another burden because it's almost like but it's not
recognized that has has has has other effects that are
quite bad.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
And this is not recognition from the other side of
the community or those who poser, it's actually recognition from
within the community. Also, sometimes people take tests for granted,
right because this is what activist is supposed to do,
This is what our leader has supposed to do, is like,
so this kind of create this weird hierarchy.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
It's also tricky because you know, I can see it'd
be very easy to assume that like if you have
a very small community, that everyone would know what's going
with everyone else. And then if someone's doing the kind
of support work for years, that everyone else would already
know that. But you know, but but yeah they don't.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, But this is also just one case
in point. I think in general, in general, it is
possible to create this this this how do you call it? Like,
I still not I'm not sure about using safe space,

(59:08):
but there's this space where people could be right. But
at the same time, also as I told you, it's
very fragile because the moment there is politicians saying something
or something came up in the news, and there will
be the ones who will be forst targeted. M Yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
You say, I'm it was a friend or that, But
how did your friend think your book was? Was was Marxist?

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Now? Because of the I don't know, maybe because and
because I have made so much focus on the materiality
of it, right like uh, I uh, maybe she's comparing
it to this more I would say humanistic queer scholarship

(01:00:17):
that tends to look at desire and forms of intimacy,
while I look at more like materiality and how relationships
are kind of mediated by a change of resources, and yeah,
so it's much more. Yeah, I don't know material base.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
I guess it's it's just funny because if I was
gonna reach for comparison and now I'm probably gonna totally
offend you. So you could probably yelp me, I probably
reached loss for marks, which more for like Mitch Donie.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Oh, I'm not familiar with that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
He's Another problem is that does a lot of photographies
like you bo called Limb's Table, which is about the
diner in Chicago, Chicago. Basic summary with books is here
is a martialized community. It turns out they're actually building
a moral community for themselves and here's how it works.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Mmmmmm mmmm yeah I can I can say that. Yeah,
I mean you can say that, of course, but everyone
has their opinion. I'm not saying my work as a Marxist.
This is also just one interpretation. But I guess I'm

(01:01:32):
starting with that, sorry, because I do believe this idea
of like, uh, dialectics and in politics and social life.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Yeah cool, cool, Well, we're getting up into around the
hours a public book with sort of a few things
to nudge you to towards a conclusion or myself conclusion.
What would you say for some of the I, you know,

(01:02:03):
thinks about people who read the book, what would you
ideally like people to take away from having read your
book of Like, here's what I here's what I learned
from from reading Ferdy's book. It doesn't have to be
a big thing. It could be something quite small, because
sometimes the small things are maybe the most important.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
At least for I mean, there are many many kind
of targets, right, I think for the community themselves, I
guess I think it's important because and although this is
also this is something that I got feedback from someone
who read or someone who use the book of parents

(01:02:49):
who has a trend child who has difficulty in talking
about these things, and then they read the book together
and then have a you know, common like have a
conversation around it. It's about Yeah, the for me, it's

(01:03:10):
about creating space for conversation basically about how how difficult
it is actually to build worlds together.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I think it's with Graver who says, like when we
when we're we're we we enter into collective situation, a
collective situation like an assembly, right, Like, we felt very
moved by it, and we want to to to Actually,
what's happening next is that we want to to to

(01:03:45):
It's about trying to recreate the same collectivity again, which
actually most of the time doesn't work because then that's
where all the care work comes in, the administrational work
comes in. So this, this, this very idea of collectivity
is a means for liberation, but it doesn't that doesn't

(01:04:09):
mean that like you can't just rely on this or
objective via collectivity as it is, but it is something
that you need to constantly work on, uh, in an organization,
in a group of people, in a group of friends.

(01:04:31):
So just don't take prevented anything that goes into that, right,
including care, including this agreement, including how to listen to
each other, how to deal with conflict. But for of course,
for the bigger audience that doesn't know much about most
of them trans or trans communities, or about how they live,

(01:04:56):
how they think, I hope this kind of gives them
early way up to to two to understand that that
that uh, having a different sexuality and having a different gender.
Also they are in yeah, we are all human, you know,

(01:05:21):
like uh uh, we have our failures, we have our
success but but at the at the very end, we
are as vulnerable as everyone else. Like as uh, I
think speaking of inner conflict, as you said, you don't

(01:05:42):
have to be a Muslim, you don't have to be
queer to to to have this inner conflict. People have that.
All people have that in different ways. So in a
sense also give so then people could give more grace
to others, uh uh, or their failures and their difference.

(01:06:05):
I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
In certain ways, what's more more interesting is less that
there is an inner conflict and more what people do
as they respond to the inn conflict and how they
make sense of it and how they relate to it,
how they're processing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think, I think even even
when it although its name is inner conflict, it's never
in any individual thing actually because a lot of it
involve relationship, involve talking with others, involved solving it with others,
but also uh the other way around, like attacking out

(01:06:43):
and rejecting others.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
So so yeah, yes's funny. It prefers with like I
don't know, like it like the inner conflict between us
or something were words but an interiority, but the entire
arty is always expressed it relationally.

Speaker 3 (01:06:59):
Mm hmm, yeah exactly. That's also I think what I'm
trying to do, which is not easy because to write
about once interiority. I think a novelist could do that successfully. Also,
a novelist can do that in the kind of like
But because I did this ethnographic research, there's I only

(01:07:22):
see like the tape of the icebergs of what these
people are thinking, are feeling basically mm hmmm mm hm cool.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Cool. Well, I'll ask you just two more things. I'll
say that I really enjoyed the book, and I hope
this conversation will lead more people picking up and having
having a go at reading it. But so the two
things that maybe sort of end with tonight. One mm hmm.
Who do you want to play you in the film version?
Oh no, that's seconitely. Where are you going next in

(01:07:56):
terms of projects or thoughts.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Or I don't know. I'm not good with pop cultures.
Who actors definitely like a white actor. No, it's hard

(01:08:20):
because I also I have very little note of Indian actors. Sorry,
I mean you can.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Also go with like I'd prefer to be an anime,
or I want a cartoon version, or or I'd prefer
to be cartoon animals.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
Or yeah, actually I.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Like this.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Film, right, maybe something around around that pion very cool? Cool,
And you're what was your second question?

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
H distract it by just like what are you doing next?
You're working on the project.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Or So when I did my PhD, I kind of
avoid working with activist groups because this is also by process.
I learned that because of exactly there's a lot of

(01:09:21):
what I call dirty laundry within activist scenes that at
that time I felt that I don't know how to
deal with this like ethically, because there's so much dirty
laundry within the activist scenes. And then I'm not a journalist,
but still as a researcher, I need to to bear

(01:09:44):
witness to it. And so rather than going through that lane,
so I avoid engaging with them altogether. But now ten
years later, uh, confronted by this reality that actually things

(01:10:06):
not only not get better, but also get even more
I call it more sophisticated, like it's more kind of uh. Yeah,
they're also the structure of violence, the so called structure
of violence is also becoming more agile, uh, and more

(01:10:30):
more hard to deal with. I felt that actually I
need to engage with activists more because I guess what
stops them or what what?

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
What contributes to the difficult that they're facing now is
also because they're not engaging or they're not dealing with
this kind of complexity enough. Because activists they want to
be pragmatic, right, they want to have their goals, they
want to have their action points and so on, but

(01:11:13):
they also forget about what goes in between that. Who
who will buy the toilet tissue where the toilet tissue
is it's not there? Who will uh fix them for fridge?
Who will provide the food? No one's taking care of
that because everyone is too busy being at the forefront

(01:11:34):
right But actually, as you know, as you as we
all experience right now, when the so called violent structures
has becoming, it's everywhere almost everywhere you go physically by
from the state, from the institution, from the university, from

(01:11:56):
the corporates, from their writing activists, from the political parties,
even from people you see on the street. We need
that space, We need that space for healing and reparation

(01:12:17):
also within us. So my next project is about exactly
wanting to look at the role of called radical care
environment also care beyond humans in relation to queer and
transactivism in not only in Indonesia but in Southeast Asia,

(01:12:41):
because I want to engage with Malaysia. We mentioned it
already and maybe several other countries.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
M Yeah, that sounds like super interesting and I'll look
forward to hearing more about it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Yeah, I'm not sure about writing a second book because
it took me twelve years to finish the first one.
But let's see, maybe the second one will be faster.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Not all things have to be books, but Dad, I
just can take many forms. Maybe it'll be a laundromat
where you can people do their clothes together, clean, clean
the dirty laundry. Right, but thank you very very much
for that. That was super interesting party.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
Thank you Stefan, and yes, thank you for making the type.
I know you are in a difficult situation now hop everything.
I hope you can endure it and then also have
some otherwise possibilities come up out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
I will find ways to endure otherwise.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Doing the doping bink Doggi