Binary Oppositions and Gender Power in Indonesia
Kathryn Robinson, Australian National University
In an extensive corpus of work on symbolic systems, social relations and ritual language in eastern Indonesia J.J. Fox develops a complex and nuanced understanding of symbolic operators, in particular a corpus of symbolic oppositions, of which male:female is pervasive and significant. This paper draws on his arguments concerning the non-commensurability of a range of relations between oppositional pairs and his insight that these symbolic and linguistic constructions do not axiomatically translate into social structural principles. Placing Fox’s work on binary oppositions into conversation with R.W. Connell’s approach to the study of gender relations offers new understandings of gendered power in Indonesia.
