Abstract
This article investigates the gender values prescribed through the spatial arrangements and lived bodily practices within the Sultanate palace of Yogyakarta (Indonesia, 1756), which makes women and their space invisible to the public. Reflecting on histories of women’s invisibility and drawing on ethnographic data consisting of interviews and participant observation, this article compares the spatial arrangement of the sultan’s complex with that of the keputren (harem) and examines the critical spatial manifestation of idealized gender relations using visual theory. It finds that the architectural layout conveys not only class but also gender hierarchies. This representation of idealized gender relations is shaped by, and communicated through, the prescription of movement in space and the control of physical appearance through and within space. This ultimately reflects the sultan’s vision of women and his intention to make women and their space invisible to people—especially men—other than the sultan himself.
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