Mergawe: A Picture of Changing Women's Tradition

This research focuses on women's efforts in placing themselves in the right position. In the midst of changing times that are so fast and open, women are faced with a feeling of dilemma. On the one hand, women are limited by traditions that always place them in the domestic sphere, which is commonly known as konco wingking. On the other hand, changing times or modernization has given women the freedom to enter the public sphere. Through moderation of the tradition, women in Paciran have managed to get out of their dilemma. They can maintain their traditions and identity as Javanese women and can create new traditions by accepting them as workers. Tradition moderation has also changed the meaning and view of the konco wingking tradition, which so far has only been considered a "place of origin" with its domestic role; macak, masak, manak, but also a "place of return" the tradition that becomes the foothold of women's life in viewing social reality; community, and family. This research was conducted on women working nguplik in a village in Paciran, Lamongan, East Java. Nguplik is the job of separating the ripe crab shell or skin from the meat to be sold and processed into food and cosmetics. Nguplik is carried out by individuals and or a group of women. This study uses a qualitative method with a case study approach, with the data collection process using interviews and observations. To analyze the data we used the theory of cultural sociology. The finding of this research is the acceptance of women as workers.

Hospitality, ethics of care and the traditionist feminism of Beit Midrash Arevot

This is an exploration of women’s tradition of hospitality, the epistemic and moral contribution of their practices of welcoming the other and their historical experience as providers of care. The essay claims that female hospitality has largely consisted of care for others, which challenges a social model based on individualism and self-sufficiency. The argument is rooted in ethnography and Jewish thought and reclaims the home as an ethical space. This text analyses two disturbing and painful stories from the Tanakh that are both examples of the consequences of extreme or absolute hospitality and violence against women. The famous works of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Lévinas on hospitality as ethics and hospitality as the feminine are discussed vis-à-vis anthropological and feminist approaches to the connection between the female welcoming of the other and the ethics of care. Finally, the reflections of the members of Beit Midrash Arevot (Jerusalem) shed light on a traditionist feminism that develops an ethics and practice of hospitality as welcoming otherness.

A Women’s Tradition

Chapter 5 examines the third and last major phase of narrative expansion of the Svasthānīvratakathā in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The common thread of these narratives is a sustained focus on women. Specifically, there was an entrenching of the “traditional” pativratā ideal in nineteenth-century Svasthānīvratakathā texts. Concurrently, the pativratā figure became the object of social and religious debates and reforms in British India. The chapter explores the degree to which the emergence of the “women’s question” and the “new patriarchy” in colonial India that gave rise to a vision of a modern, educated Hindu Indian woman influenced a reinvigorated emphasis on the pativratā ideal in Nepal as a signifier of Nepali Hindu identity. The chapter introduces many of the women-focused narratives, which today raise the question of Nepalis’ understanding of the Svasthānīvratakathā as a women’s tradition. Contemporary perspectives are explored through the voices of Nepali women and men.

Performing Pain-Taking and Ghostly Remembering in Vietnam

Cô Định and cô Xuân, two women veterans in Ho Chi Minh City, recount their memories of torture during the Vietnamese-American war. Their remembering requires a performance-centered exploration of the Vietnamese women's tradition of “pain-taking,” as well as their haunting return to the Con Dao prisons as veteran-tourists.