Democracy, Civil Society and Sexual Citizenship

This talk will address the ways in which democracy has impacted civil society and sexual citizenship. When Indonesia became a democracy in 1998, after many decades of authoritarian rule, many in the country and beyond hoped that civil society and sexual citizenship would be given the opportunity to flourish. For the first decade, flourishing was indeed evident in many sectors. New media freedoms encouraged a proliferation of films, many of them dealing explicitly with sexual citizenship. The influence of international human rights organisations saw sexual health care being addressed at a national level. Regional autonomy enabled local provinces to establish their own policies and in some cases, such as East Timor, being granted independence. But with democracy also came a restriction of rights for many. Indeed, as this paper shows, at the time of its writing, August 2017, democracy has not guaranteed the rights of all Indonesian citizens and in fact in many ways sexual citizenship is now more restricted than it was under authoritarian rule. This talk builds on a chapter I am writing with Hendri Yulius for a book edited by Michele Ford. It also builds on a chapter I am writing for a book edited by Robert Hefner. I would like to thank the organisers of this conference and Dzuriyatun Toyibah for inviting me to attend.