Article in Press

The articles served on this page have been all reviewed properly according to the Humaniora standards and policies and are accepted to be published in the upcoming issues. However, the articles have no particular publication date yet, until they are officially published on the website in a complete issue or volume.

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Vol. 36 (1), 2024

Class and Gender in Older People Care in Rural Yogyakarta
Ciptaningrat Larastiti1*, Hanny Widjaya2, Ben White3
1SurveyMETER
2Independent Researcher
3Emeritus Professor of Rural Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
Abstract
This article explores care arrangements for older people in rural Yogyakarta, comparing and contrasting the experiences of older people in three agrarian classes: significant landowners, petty commodity producers and ‘classes of labour’. The study was conducted in two villages in Kulon Progo and Sleman Regencies. Qualitative interviews, observations, life histories and information on the changing social and economic contexts are used to analyse older people’s roles in social reproduction, the dynamics of intergenerational dependency, and the practices of older-people care. We found great variation in the age at which engagement in productive and reproductive work declines and people enter the state of dependency. Older people may be receivers, or providers of care for younger dependents. As older people live longer, complex tri- and even quadri-generational care arrangements become more common. Class, gender and intergenerational relations shape care relations and practices. State and community programmes for older people, when functioning properly, can be of great importance to poorer households, even though the access is uneven and they do not always match older people’s care needs. Commodified (purchased) care provision is found in some relatively prosperous households, but rarely in the ‘classes of labour’, the landless and near-landless peasants, and worker households that make up the majority of the population.

Entrusting Children to Relatives: Exploring Care Dynamics Through Multiple Roles of Women in Eastern Indonesia
Lenny Lia Ekawati
Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) Indonesia
Abstract
This paper investigates the practice of entrusting children to relatives in Alor Tengah Utara, Alor Regency, highlighting the socio-economic factors compelling parents to work away from home, often leading them to leave their children in the care of extended family members. Despite the stagnant economic growth in Alor regency, with agriculture, forestry, and fisheries being primary contributors to the local economy, many young individuals migrate in search of better opportunities, leaving their children behind. This study, conducted from June 2021 to July 2022, employed ethnographic methods to explore the childcare dynamics within these households, revealing that the responsibility predominantly falls on women, often leading to them becoming "double mothers" as they care for both their own and entrusted children. The research underscores the challenges and economic vulnerabilities these households face, exacerbated by inadequate care provided by those unprepared or inexperienced in childrearing. The findings call attention to the need for a more equitable caregiving arrangement and support for these families, shedding light on a practice deeply rooted in cultural responsibility yet fraught with economic and emotional complexities.

Feeding Precarity Between State and Capital: Women Workers and Breastfeeding in Cakung Manufacturing Industry
Gusti Nur Asla Shabia
MSc Development Studies Student, SOAS University of London
Abstract
Women constitute the vital workforce in Indonesia's economy, particularly in sectors like garment, textile, and footwear. Despite their economic importance, these industries are characterised by excessive control, pressure, and violence, transforming women into cheap labour and limiting their lives both in the production and social reproduction realm. This study analyses how the discipline of factory work has implications for women workers in their care work, specifically in breastfeeding. Through a qualitative approach, this study uses focus group discussions (FGD) and interviews with women garment and textile industry workers in Kawasan Berikat Nusantara, North Jakarta. The study also analyses the state's response and position in child-feeding matters. The study shows how the regimented nature of factory work, which controls the energy, time, and bodies of women workers, coupled with the absence of job security and protection from the state, limit workers’ capacity to care for their families, particularly to breastfeed their children. Consequently, women workers have to switch to formula milk. I argue that the workers’ reliance on formula milk illustrates a form of neoliberalism in which the state subjugates women workers to the capitalist economy both in the realms of production and social reproduction, forcing them to live in a precarious condition. This potentially will cause health, nutrition, and other quality of life problems for mothers and children in the future.

When Childcare is Commodified: An Autoethnography of Urban Mothering in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Nuzul Solekhah
Centre for Research on Social Welfare, Villages and Connectivity, National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia
Abstract
The research explores how motherhood constructs parenting spaces in urban contexts and, conversely, how urban spaces construct urban motherhood. This autoethnographic research uses Edward Soja's concept of third space. The results of this study show that working mothers' routines position them in terms of categorizing time, namely time for work and time for parenting, with a preference for parenting space outside the home. This practice simultaneously constructs temporal (time of care) and spatial (space of care) understandings for children and parents. Social media accelerates the spread of information about leisure centers, including the segmentation of care spaces. The creation of these new care spaces shows that the commodification of urban mothering is slowly shifting the role of care from the home to the public sphere. On the other hand, this domestication of the caring space can involve men in caring practices and change the stigma that caring is not only a woman's role. Despite the articulation of parenting as a lifestyle, the infrastructure of parenting spaces and playgrounds for children is still far from meeting the criteria of public space, as the majority are commodified, especially in the context of this research, Yogyakarta.

Older People Living Alone and Their Strategies to Face Life: Case Studies from Yogyakarta and West Sumatra
Hezti Insriani1*, Robi Mitra2, Elisabeth Schroeder-Butterfill3
1Care Network Project
2International University of Papua
3University of Southampthon
Abstract
Across Indonesia, the dominant model for care and support in later life is for older people to live with or near younger family members. However, coresidence with an adult child or other close relative is not always attainable or preferred. There are conditions where older people live alone and cannot fully depend on their family members for care and support, be it for matters related to physical, economic, psychological, or spiritual needs. We examine how older people who live alone, live their lives and what strategies they pursue in facing life. The data presented in this paper are a subset of a larger comparative study on Older People’s Care Networks, which covered five disparate sites across Indonesia. This article focuses on evidence from West Sumatra and Yogyakarta. As our case studies illustrate, older people living alone is a diverse category, ranging from those with children, to those who are de facto childless or actually childless. Their security or vulnerability cannot simply be deduced from their household composition, but they require the understanding of how people create, maintain, and develop supportive networks and how they use agency in actively managing dependence, independence, and interdependence over the life course and in later life.