Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning

Description

Muslims currently struggle to reconcile radically different sets of social norms and laws (including those derived from Islam, as well as contemporary ideas about gender equality and law) in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country. John Bowen explores their struggle through archival and ethnographic research and interviews with national religious and legal figures. His book relates to debates in any society where people struggle to live together with extreme differences in values and lifestyles and is welcomed by scholars and students in all branches of the social sciences.

John R. Bowen is Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, Professor of Anthropology, and Chair of the Program in Social Thought and Analysis at Washington University in St Louis. He is the author of Sumatran Politics and Poetics (1991), Muslims through Discourse (1993), Religions through Practice (2nd edition 2001), and the co-editor of Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

'... John Bowen has presented one of the most comprehensive studies of the workings of legal pluralism in Indonesia ... impressive. This is indeed a book that should be read by all interested in the origins, processes and consequences of legal pluralism in Indonesia and the problems of gender equality and justice.' Asian Anthropology 'The latest volume of Bowen's Gayo trilogy is superb anthropology.' Rezensionen