ABSTRACT
This chapter is based around a series of lengthy interviews1 conducted in Australia during 2006 with Indonesian Muslim men to elicit their understandings of their own and of Australian (Western) masculinities. In this respect, this chapter also addresses some identifi able gaps in the sociological literature on men and masculinity. First, research that explores the relationship between masculinities and religion is lacking (Brod 1987; Kimmel and Messner 2004; Kimmel et al. 2005; Engebretson 2006). Second, current social science that explores the relationship between religion, ethnicities and masculinities remains undeveloped even though there has been an increasing general interest in Islam and masculinity (see, for example, the edited collection by Ouzgane 2006). Finally, there has not been much mention of masculinity in the literature on gender relations in Indonesia, although some anthropological studies are signifi cant because they explain how masculinity operates in specifi c cultures and traditions in the archipelago.
