ABSTRACT
My mother was a dukun, but I didn’t want to become one. It is very demanding
work. You can be called upon at any time, day or night.
(An elderly woman in Buton)
Women assume most of the responsibilities for healing work in rural Southeast
Sulawesi. Two types of women healers, the biomedical, government-trained mid-
wife, or bidan, and the traditional healer and birth attendant, the dukun, between
them provide the majority of healing services in rural villages. Healing can be con-
sidered an extension of women’s work and women’s roles in the Indonesian state,
and in the local communities where the healers live and work. In examining heal-
ing work in rural areas we are encouraged to reconsider the notion of work, and how
it can be defined and experienced in different ways. The type of work performed by
these women healers differs significantly from women’s labour force participation
in predominantly urban areas (see Hay 1999). In particular, the dukun’s position as
a healer is not so much a job as a personal identity in the village where she lives, and
a way of interacting with others. The same can be said at least in part of the bidan,
since she must also live and establish social relationships in rural villages.
