The thesis aims to provide an insight into the broader research field of the UN Women, Peace, and Security agenda, while assessing its critical impact on gender equality in Indonesia. The UN WPS...Show moreThe thesis aims to provide an insight into the broader research field of the UN Women, Peace, and Security agenda, while assessing its critical impact on gender equality in Indonesia. The UN WPS Agenda is being criticised for its Western centric and liberal character, its facilitation of militarisation and the inefficiency of the related National Action Plans. The case study analysis of Indonesia explores the impact of the agenda on gender equality in Indonesia, specifically in counterterrorism. It will be concluded that the WPS agenda operates within a system of underlying patriarchal and neo-colonialist structures that result in asymmetrical power relations between the UN and countries of the Global South. These structures impair the agenda’s ability to create justice for non-white women, as it is based on methods of exclusion and the status quo of domination at their expense. The WPS Agenda therefore lacks transformative potential. Instead, it serves to perpetuate patriarchal and neo-colonial power imbalances.Show less
Palm oil constitutes an important international commodity and represents almost half of the world’s shares of vegetable oil. In the past few decades, Indonesia has grown into one of the major...Show morePalm oil constitutes an important international commodity and represents almost half of the world’s shares of vegetable oil. In the past few decades, Indonesia has grown into one of the major global cultivators of this good and became the world’s first producer and exporter in 2008. While this achievement has generated considerable revenue from export earnings and thus contributes to the national economy, the country’s rapid expansion of oil palm plantations and the production of this good has come at a high environmental cost. In fact, the growth of the palm oil sector has several negative impacts on the environment, such as largescale deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and the disruption of important ecosystem services. This thesis puts the expansion of the palm oil industry in Indonesia under the lens of the commodification of nature, discussing the environmental implications of unsustainable production methods of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil, how expansionary projects have been facilitated by neoliberal government views and economic growth as a determinant factor in the growth and development of the palm oil sector.Show less
Around the globe, India is praised as a secular, democratic and pluralistic nation. However, the 2014 elections represented a watershed moment for politics and the saturation point for Hindutva in...Show moreAround the globe, India is praised as a secular, democratic and pluralistic nation. However, the 2014 elections represented a watershed moment for politics and the saturation point for Hindutva in India. This thesis seeks to examine the developments around the politicization of religious identity in India and its consequences for constitutional secularism. This will be discussed against the background of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This organization is omnipresent in India and has been engaged in a discursive struggle of establishing its vision of Hindutva as ideologically dominant. This modern political ideology, which can be regarded as the major form of Hindu nationalism, advocates the establishment of a Hindu nation. In recent times, the RSS has profoundly shaped Indian politics and society. Through the lens of social constructivism, this paper addresses the issue of “How the RSS has contributed to the politicization of religious identity in India through the propagation of Hindutva ideology since 2014” at the hand of two study cases, the Ayodhya dispute and the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act. It will also explain how the RSS makes use of highly selected narratives of the past, “Chosen Traumas,” to amplify the threat of an enemy and to mobilize a Hindu collective under the umbrella of Hindutva. The ruling Hindu right thereby revisits the very concept of India’s constitutional secularism, a type of secularism which is not anti-religious but respectful of all religious, for its non-secular agenda, placing secularism under serious threat.Show less
This research aims to reconstruct the perspective of Dutch colonial women in the East Indies on their babu, the Indonesian household maid. Reconstructing this perspective sheds a light on the...Show moreThis research aims to reconstruct the perspective of Dutch colonial women in the East Indies on their babu, the Indonesian household maid. Reconstructing this perspective sheds a light on the paradox of these women’s support for Dutch colonialism in the Indies whilst the first wave of feminism gained popularity in their home country. By using a Multi-Modal Critical Discourse Analysis this research exposes how in contexts where the babu, or any other person of Indonesian descent came in close proximity to the Dutch colonists, distance would be safeguarded in an alternative manner. As distance would be maintained at all times, the perspective of the Dutch on the Indonesian people corresponded all the more to a discourse of “Orientalism” leading to clear separations in thinking about ‘us’ and ‘them’. The feeling of superiority that served as the basis for this distancing from Indonesians was encouraged and reinforced by the governance of the Ethical Politics. Throughout the materials analysed it seems apparent that the Dutch colonial women did not escape from taking over this discourse of hierarchy. Thus, this research concludes that a feeling of superiority formed the basis of the initial distance kept from the Indonesian people. Then, out of fear of being threatened by the close proximity of Indonesians, such as the babu, a distance would be kept in alternative ways by stressing the superior position of the Dutch. This led to a vicious circle in which hierarchy was used as a tool to maintain distance. Following, this distance only strengthened the feelings of hierarchy and superiority in return, leading to even more distance and more feelings of superiority and so on. Consequentially, the treatment of the babu did not correspond to the modern definition of feminism. However, as first-wave feminism in The Netherlands was aimed at Western women only, first-wave feminists did not fail their feminist theory. Nevertheless, if the perspective of Dutch colonial women on their babu changed in the period of first-wave feminism in The Netherlands, it would have likely been for the worse.Show less
Mindfulness as a therapeutic practice without the incorporation of its origin has been on the rise in recent decades. This results in the popularization of a practice that is removed from its...Show moreMindfulness as a therapeutic practice without the incorporation of its origin has been on the rise in recent decades. This results in the popularization of a practice that is removed from its original shapes found in Buddhism. Besides the popularization of mindfulness, the formation of Buddhist modernism has developed in the same places. This thesis aims to determine how these developments occurred and answer the question how the global popularization of mindfulness corresponds to the emergence of Buddhist modernism in the late 20th century. Using a historical approach, the influence of secularization and scientific rationalization on Buddhism and mindfulness have been analyzed. Reaching the conclusion that the popularization of mindfulness and emergence of Buddhist modernism are simultaneous developments influencing each other as a result of secularization and further detraditionalization and demystification of eastern traditions by western cultures. This research has been conducted by the help of a qualitative analysis of academic and popular literature from archives and public journals to enhance the knowledge and insight of contemporary mindfulness’ origins and the nature of Buddhist modernism today.Show less
