Shame and Indonesian women victims of domestic violence in making the decision to divorce

ABSTRACT

Studies on divorce and shame in Indonesia have found that shame has been used by the Indonesian government to restrict divorce; however, this built on existing negative cultural constructions of the female divorcee. Although being a widow is also stigmatised by the public, this is to a lesser extent than for a divorced woman. Research has shown that the concept of shame has been one of the barriers that women face when considering disclosing their marital problems, in this instance domestic violence. In general, this concept continues to exert influence on and within Indonesian women as it has been culturally and legally embedded in Indonesian society. Regardless of their identities, all respondents felt shame when they experienced domestic violence. The experiences of Indonesian women in responding to and making decisions dealing with domestic violence differ because their response depends on their needs and interests.     

The Gender Politics of Human Waste and Human‐as‐Waste: Indonesian Migrant Workers and Elderly Care in Japan

Significant decline in mortality and fertility rates has led to a rapid aging population in many parts of the globe. Coupled with a decrease in caring for one's senior parents at home, this condition creates a crisis in elderly care. Most studies on elderly care in Japan, the country with the highest percentage of senior people in the world, employ theoretical approaches rooted in the fields of aging and migration studies. This article offers a new perspective by not only focusing on the voices of the Indonesian women migrant care workers in Japan by way of in‐depth interviews, but also intersecting feminist and waste studies in its analysis. This different theoretical approach allows this article to argue that the politics of disposability in the ‘global care chains’ is a gendered and ‘affective’ phenomenon. Drawing from Jaggar's ‘emotional hegemony’ and Saraswati's ‘affective structure’, this article shows that emotions matter in constructing the disposability of these migrant workers and elderly people, particularly within the capitalist currents that drive the gendered supply chains.