The politics of care

This chapter focuses on the politics of victimhood using a case study of domestic violence in Aceh, Indonesia. First, this chapter examines victimhood in the Acehnese context, answering the question of who is recognised as a victim and why, based on community understandings of gender informed by religion and adat. In analysing the construction of victimhood, the chapter specifically interrogates how recognition of harm (and subsequent provision of care) is conditional on women fitting specific cultural-religious victim archetypes underpinned by understandings of kodrat. Second, the chapter reflects on the case study’s implications for broader feminist theory. In particular, the applicability of the dichotomy between victimisation/agency is challenged; it is argued that women who experience domestic violence in Aceh are simultaneously victims and agents.