Falling Into The Lesbi World Summary

Evelyn Blackwood’s 2010 ethnography Falling into the Lesbi World is worthwhile read for any interested in gender and sexuality studies in Indonesia. It takes a complex look at the understandings of lesbi desire, tomboi gender expression, kinship loyalty, and the nuances of adherence and defiance to hegemonic sex/gender systems. Despite some limitations, Blackwood manages to illustrate an elaborate network clearly, displaying a valuable knowledge of the linguistic practices of the lesbi she studied that only emphasized her understanding of the topic. Over the course of seven chapters, Blackwood laces together a narrative that undermines the homogenization of Indonesian sexualities, strengthens the readers understanding of Minangkabau kinship, and details a case for the importance of docile agents and invisibility politics in minority queer groups.

Like many others, Blackwood’s opening chapter functions mainly as an introduction to the rest of the ethnography—establishing the context, theoretical background and research methodology as well as overviewing the
Similarly, their girlfriends do not see themselves as separate from other “ordinary” women and are adamant in their conviction that the tomboi they are dating are simply just men (Blackwood 2010, 101; 137). In contrast to the tombois who tend to experiment with dating boys and girls before settling into the realization that they liked women exclusively (Blackwood 2010, 120-4), the femmes are likely to only attach lesbi to their subjectivity during the times that they are dating a tomboi (Blackwood 2010, 134-6). Blackwood argues that this acceptance of the hegemonic gender binary by tombois and femmes places them at odds to Western assumptions about queer resistance to normative practices (2010,