Little Women

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A Journey Against Defeat Narratives of Women's Rejection of Poverty
By Lies Marcoes-Natsir & Anne Lockley
Photographs by Armin Hari
Publisher: Insist Press, Yogyakarta

Social researcher Lies Marcoes-Natsir went on a nine-month journey to eight regions throughout Indonesia, and either with photographer Armin Hari or separately, stayed in each region for several weeks on end.

The two undertook a mission to explore the issues of poverty and translate them into either a narrative or capture them into the frames of a photograph-or both. The result is this 257-page coffee-table book, but whose text, written as a series of narratives by women interviewed in the field, is totally engaging.

Lies begins by stating that the poor women she met refuse to simply accept their poverty. Theirs is a tireless struggle, though the word 'poor' pursues them virtually throughout their lives, daily, from birth to old age.

The research idea was instigated by a conversation Lies had with the Director for Analysis of Laws and Regulations at the National Development Planning Agency, who is also Co-Chair of the Board of the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Justice. The idea they settled on was to conduct research on gender, poverty and law enforcement.

The book consists of five parts, divided into 15 chapters. The text follows the stages of women's lifecycles and good practices from the field. After that, Lies explores the forms of gender-based discrimination in the productive years of her subjects in different sectors. Lies admitted to being very much taken by the stories that women of advanced years had to tell her. Through these stories, she portrays the various efforts women take to overcome obstacles, such as discriminatory laws and policies that do not take poor women into account.

One such narrative is that of two sisters, Darsini and Sakini, batik makers in the batik village of Trusmi, Cirebon. Both have made batik all their lives, from childhood until now they are almost in their 70s. They had almost no schooling and are virtually illiterate. They can only read numbers and Arabic letters. Every day they produce one or two pieces of batik, earning Rp18.000-20.000 apiece. With this money, they can meet their own basic needs and give snack money to their grandkids. They also buy food and cigarettes for their spouses. They told Lies they have never thought of retiring, nor have they saved any money. "Yet if they didn't have to spend on their husbands, there would certainly be more left for themselves," writes Lies. For Darsini and Sakini, as long as they are able they still want to work, so as not to be dependent on their children.

At the launch of A Journey Against Defeat-Narratives of Women's Rejection of Poverty held at the Cemara 6 Gallery-Museum, Jakarta, discussant Hari Wibowo pointed out that the book was not nine months in the writing, but 30 years in the making, the time it has taken for gender discourse in Indonesia to be seriously taken into account. Lies Marcoes-Natsir has been at the forefront in making the discourse noticed.

Tempo English discussed with Lies her need to compile the narratives of these poverty-stricken women. Excerpts:

In the Indonesian version of the book, you use the term 'pemiskinan', literally impoverishment. Why was this?

I did my Masters in Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. In fact I had learned about being a researcher under Prof. Martin van Bruinessen in the slums of Bandung, the results of which were reported in Tempo years ago. This research in 1984 to 1985 instigated my interest in the issue of impoverishment. Why women become poor is a process of 'deliberateness', the result of bad developmental policies that are discriminatory with a big gender bias.

And so why write about women's impoverishment now?

At first the book was going to describe impoverishment in Aceh in the context of the conflict, the aftermath of the tsunami and the application of the Acehnese model of Islamic law. I worked in Aceh many years, so I had the opportunity to directly hear the voices of Acehnese women, which rose higher whenever they talked about conflict, sexual violence and policies that unilaterally regulate how women should behave. But when I had a discussion with Diani Sediawati, who is co-chair of the board of the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Justice, we produced some important notes on the need to map impoverishment, gender and justice in a more comprehensive manner. As a result, law enforcement issues in Aceh was no longer a specific study. And poverty in Indonesia is still an important issue to be analyzed.

The book has many beautiful pictures, but in its coffee-table book format, will it reach the target audience of poor women, who would probably feel validation if they could read their own stories in the book?

The book aims at becoming a tool to open dialogue about women's experiences of impoverishment here, and how to deal with them in effective and sustainable ways. A legal system grounded in gender justice is badly needed. Where Indonesia's legal framework demonstrates bias, such as in the marriage law, women's human rights are set back rather than fulfilled. So actually the book aims at having policymakers sit up and take notice and change policies and laws.

Debra Yatim