Cultural violence: feminist power analysis on Ronggeng performing art

ABSTRACT

Ronggeng performing art is preserved as one of Indonesian cultural heritages. However, this art is negatively stigmatized and associated with liquor, gambling, and prostitution. Through the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk, Ahmad Tohari highlighted that several practices in this art leave women vulnerable to violence and intensify the negative stigma toward this art. This paper highlights that the cultural shifts during the colonial era are main reason Ronggeng performing arts were associated with drinking, gambling, and prostitution. Interviews with five Ronggeng dancers highlighted that although the violence described by Ahmad Tohari does not occur today; however, the dancers often get abused both verbally and sexually during performances. Employing the feminist theory of power, this paper emphasizes that cultural violence often occurs at the micro and meso levels. At the micro level, the dancers are powerless to control the income and behavior of the audience. The dancers also often experience psychological violence due to verbal abuse by society against them. At the meso-level, this study finds that parents, especially in rural areas, perceive education as unimportant for girls due to patriarchal ideology in the prevailing culture, making women structurally dependent on men and ultimately placing them in vulnerable positions.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural violence
• sexual violence
• verbal abuse
• Ronggeng performing art
• feminist theory of power

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sylvie Meiliana

Sylvie Meiliana is an associate professor at the Faculty of Languages and Literature, National University, Indonesia. She obtained her Doctoral degree from Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, in 2013 with a dissertation entitled Domestic Violence in the United States in the Twentieth Century: An Overview of Genetic and Feminist Structuralism on the Novels Malice, The Ghost, and Journey by Danielle Steel. Her main research interests are literature, feminism, culture, domestic violence, and cultural violence. Currently, she is conducting several studies that focus on cultural products, such as customs, arts, and literature, especially cultural products that emerge from Indonesian culture.