Indonesian Muslim Masculinities in Australia

This article is an inquiry into evolving forms of masculinity in Indonesia. It refers to data collected during a pilot project on the construction of Indonesian Muslim masculinities in Australia when Indonesian men arrive and encounter Anglo-Australian men. Using the technique of asking the Indonesian interviewees to comment on ‘Australian’ men allowed analysis of what the Indonesian men thought about their own cultural tropes of masculinity. It emerged that their gender construction coalesced around two important cultural nodes of discourse about how to be a ‘man’: firstly, the Indonesian urban interpretation of global ‘hypermasculinity’; and secondly, the moral role of men in Islamic discourse.