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Leke is one among many religious cults of the Karen peoples in Myanmar and Thailand. Data on Leke has been collected from Leke communities in a refugee camp at Thai-Myanmar border and in various places in Pa-an city of the Karen State in Myanmar. Similar to other religious cults, Leke has its own belief system and religious practices although some of its elements can be identified with those of the world religions. The salient feature of the Leke, however, is the upholding of li chaw wae, literally the chicken-scratch letters and the li chaw wae sacred scripts. Many studies found that oral tradition-based ethnic peoples, such as the Karen, have yearned for their own literacy. This has led to their conversion to Christianity as they have got their ‘own’ letters which were invented by missionaries. For the Leke, however, they choose to have their own letters, treat them as sacred scripts and relate them to the survival of the Karen community and identity. My argument here is that religious symbols, discourses and structure around the sacred letters of Leke have created specific Karen ethno-religious identity to contest with others, unite Karen people and resist the integration into the dominant society. To illustrate this, the paper describes the myth of origin of li chaw wae letters against the background of the emergence of other Karen letters during the colonization period in Myanmar. Then description is continued on Leke religious structure, discourses and practices which are constructed according to li chaw wae scripts. The paper will also comment on constraints and opportunities to maintain Leke community amidst the pressure from modernization and nationalization.

It is a reality that the rural people all over Java are experiencing significant changes in their life in the recent modernization and globalization era. The rural farmers in villages in Java, such as in Gunung Kidul in the southern part of Yogyakarta, have gradually become part of the larger world, not only through the flow of people and things in and out the village, but also through the flow of ideas and intervened programs from various agencies. The state’s intervention program is one significant aspect that brought some changes in their life. The presentation will discuss and examine the extent to which the involvement of women as the recipients of those programs has been altering the power relations within the so-called ‘family’ in Gunung Kidul region. The Javanese rural women have been actively carrying out their roles in both domestic and economic domains. Yet, in the past or in their “traditional” Javanese norms, women were not quite involved in social-political affairs as “the husband’s friend at the back of the house” or as konco wingking. In the recent years I observed a growth of women’s role as active and creative agents in both economic and social-political arenas of their life. It is thus significant to examine the extent to which the changes of opportunities and circumstances in village life and women’s empowerment due to various kinds of intervention affect their “traditional” roles as Javanese wives and mothers which may further have some implications on the Javanese concepts and institutions of “ household and family”. What are the persisting norms and practices despite some changes? As an illustration, I will discuss two cases of active and creative women agents in two villages in the regency of Gunung Kidul. Both of them have been exposed to various government programs, including the so-called Farmer Field School in Integrated Pest Management. Some similarities and variations do exist in its implications on “household and family life, their roles beyond the domestic world, and the formation of collective action” in their locales.

Legal reform in Indonesia indicates that the legal position of Indonesian women in inheritance matters is gradually changing. There is no codification of law govern inheritance in Indonesia. Codified legal authority governing inheritance spreads in several Acts, like the Marriage Act, the Civil Code (valid for the Christian), and the Compilation of Islamic Law, or sharia (valid for the Moslem). There are also many Judge Decisions of the Supreme Court on inheritance cases deal with many ethnic groups in Indonesia. The aim of the proposed research is to examine the shifts in women’s positions in inheritance matters, with a main focus on women belongs to some ethnic groups in Indonesia. It criticises the substance of existing legal references, and challenge how it is applied by the court. It will also problematize women’s access to justice in inheritance disputes. The study thus aims to examine how the changing “inheritance law” and its practice are taking place through the dispute cases.
The research will be conducted in three phases. The first is a critical analysis of the legal documentation governing inheritance to determine the position and rights of women in these statutes. The second is documentary research which will look at the law cases available in the Supreme Court Documentation and see how judges have interpreted the law in the court room. The comparative perspective will be used by selecting the law cases deal with inheritance among patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral kinship system from various religious background (mainly Moslem and Christian). This third phase is to observe the ongoing court trial. The parties involved in the certain case will be interviewed. The research will be limited to the State Courts located in Jakarta and two nearby districts in West Java (Depok and Bogor). The religious court can be also selected because most of the Moslem settled family dispute in religious court.