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In women we trust: female brokers in Indonesian village governance
Indriyany I.A.
South East Asia Research
Q2Abstract
This article explores the role of female brokers in Indonesian villages. These brokers, who are villagers themselves, help ordinary women solve their everyday problems by assisting them to access basic public services. Studies of brokerage have rarely paid attention to gender. This article attempts to fill this gap by identifying patterns of gendered brokerage in rural Indonesia. We find that the type of village regime influences the degree and type of roles played by women brokers. Within villages where governance is relatively closed and less democratic, female brokers play more active roles than in more open regimes where villagers can access decision-makers directly. We also find that women brokers tend to focus on micro-level everyday issues linked to women’s domestic life and labour (taking care of sick children, accessing health care, civil registry, etc.). These issues are not covered in village deliberative meetings, which concentrate more on macro development infrastructure coded as male responsibilities. We explore how female brokers emerge and what differentiates their brokerage from that carried out by male brokers, and we reflect on whether their presence promotes the empowerment of female villagers or instead reinforces their dependency.