Dissertation Research: Cultural Notions of Gender and Illness in Indonesia

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This award to Washington University-St. Louis supports the dissertation research of a student of cultural anthropology. The project will investigate the knowledge possessed by women in an Indonesian town about HIV/AIDS. Through interviews and ethnographic observations of married women, never-married women, and commercial sex workers, the student will assess the women's knowledge of how AIDS spreads, sexual practices which limit or facilitate the spread of the disease, and the women's abilities to negotiate `safe-sex` practices with their partners. The student will survey women in an urban area, select sub-samples of 60 women in each of the three groups to conduct longer interviews with, and select a sub-sample of 15-20 women from each group for open-ended, intensive discussions on gender relations, perceptions of risk of contracting disease, and general cultural values about gender and sexual relations and marriage. This research is important because it adds to our general expertise about this important area of the world, as well as specific information about women's knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS in this region. The project will increase our understanding of what women know about heterosexual transmission of this growing social problem, and will produce valuable knowledge of women's self-perceptions of their own abilities to engage in less-risky behaviors. This sort of understanding will be valuable in designing programs to limit the spread of the problem not only in Indonesia, but in other places where women have comparable understandings and constraints.