Storying female academics’ career development in Indonesian Islamic higher education: a postcolonial feminist analysis

Abstract

Indonesian female academics have achieved positions of repute and prestige in certain departments, however many more have remained in the background or on the periphery, marginalized by discriminatory practices that are penetrative and unacknowledged. The position of women as professional and academic staff in the faculty in which I am currently working are rarely positioned in the role of Associate Professor or above. Academic women are less productive in terms of research and publications, and they hold a lower academic rank. In leadership positions, the women experience a slow climb up the administrative career ladder. This study focuses on the experiences of female academics in the context of Islamic Indonesian higher education, and explores their experiences of career development.Postcolonial feminism, a theoretical lens which acknowledges the diversity of women’s experiences in contexts outside the West, is used in this study to critique the stories female academics have to share in relation to their opportunities for career development. As this study draws upon feminist and postcolonial perspectives, narrative inquiry is explored as a useful methodology for storying the diversity of lived experiences as valid sources of knowledge amongst female academics in this context. Nine female academics have been asked to tell their story regarding promotion at an Islamic Indonesian university. Once their stories are told, a new story is constructed. When re-storying, time, space and people are added to build sequences or events.Studies which investigate female academics’ experiences in their career development mostly portray White female academics, there are fewer studies which focus on experiences of Muslim female academics from non-Western backgrounds, especially from Indonesia. My study provides an understanding of feminist discourses as related to the context of Indonesian Muslim women in academia. This study also provides a language to enable female academics to speak; this is important because female academics have been exploited by history and seen as “other” in higher education. This study focuses on “others,” and rejects women’s universalism.Findings from their stories, female academics reveal the challenges they experience when they are in the early stages of their careers. They have to adapt to the new position which might be different from what they expect. However, in the end, they find a way to define themselves as an Indonesian successful female academic. Female academics also shared that they experience hard times under new managerialism, with negative impacts on their academics and personal lives, as well as overall academic productivity. Further, this study sheds light on the ways in which Indonesian Muslim female academics experience otherness in academia with colleagues of the opposite sex and the ways in which the “male gaze” intrudes onto their academic career.Through storytelling, this study then contributes to an understanding of women’s experiences of success and challenge within Islamic Indonesian academia. This study of female academics from Indonesia and Muslim, also contributes to add a layer of theory to our understanding of women and management from non-Western backgrounds.This thesis is very significant to change the status quo for female academics in Indonesian Islamic higher education. This thesis might then be a starting point to help create change, and eliminate inequality in female academics’ career development. From feminism’s bigger picture, this mission is to free women from oppression.