Masculinities and muted gender in Bali and Kalimantan

Abstract

This chapter begins with a brief side trip to urban Balinese masculinities. These observations, my first introduction to Indonesia, were recorded in the summer of 1979. The core of the chapter focuses on the remote community of Long Segar, in East Kalimantan, inhabited by Uma’ Jalan Kenyah Dayaks who practised swidden agriculture and lived within a dense humid tropical rainforest. Unlike the American loggers, the Kenyah saw men and women as quite similar, with very little emphasis on gender differences. The chapter lays out the differences that did exist, in terms of values most commonly expressed and enacted by men (though often sought by women as well). The research was undertaken with a human ecological approach, looking at resettlement, indigenous rationality and swidden agriculture (1979-1980, with continued periodic involvement until the present).