Join us for an enlightening seminar with Dr Diego Garcia, as he explores his new book, “Gender, Sexuality and Islam in Contemporary Indonesia: Queer Muslims and their Allies.” This seminar will offer a unique insight into the lives and experiences of queer Muslims in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. Dr Garcia’s book, based on extensive ethnographic research, sheds light on how queer Indonesian Muslims navigate their gender, sexual, and religious identities. The talk will explore the emergence of queer religious geographies, the making of queer Muslim subject positions at the intersection of education, family, peers and media, and the invaluable support of allies within the framework of progressive Islam. Attendees will gain an in-depth understanding of the critical role of Islam as a source of strength and guidance for gender and sexual minorities in Indonesia.
Register to attend in person (room PAN 2.01), or register to attend via Zoom.
Speaker and Chair Biographies:
Dr Diego Garcia is a Leverhulme-funded Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham’s School of Sociology and Social Policy, and has extensively studied the confluence of gender, sexuality, and religion. His latest book, “Gender, Sexuality and Islam in Contemporary Indonesia: Queer Muslims and their Allies”, published in August 2023, provides an unprecedented insight into the lives of queer Muslims in Indonesia. Diego holds a PhD from University College London, an MSc in Asian Studies from Lund University and the National University of Singapore, and a BA in Journalism. Prior to joining the University of Nottingham, he was a Lecturer in Global Health at the University of Sussex, and a Senior Researcher in social justice consultancy working for FCDO, EHRC and other national and international organisations. His present research is currently studying the lives of LGBTIQ+ religious refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Sidel received his BA and MA from Yale University and his PhD from Cornell University. He is the author of Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (1999), Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Trajectories (2000), Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (2006), The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: A Reassessment (2007), Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines (2020, with Jaime Faustino) and Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (2021).