Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Domestic nationalism in 20th-century Indonesia centers on the intersection of gender, health, and political agency. Colonial authorities utilized the scientific theory of "tropical hygiene" to stigmatize indigenous practices and assert Euro-American superiority, yet Indonesian women—particularly the literate elite—reclaimed these spaces through social reproductive labor. By reframing domestic activities like food preparation and infant feeding, these women resisted imperial narratives and integrated their own perspectives into the discourse of national progress. Nutrition, exemplified by debates over margarine compliance and breastfeeding, served as a critical site for negotiating religious piety, modernity, and identity. Throughout the transition from colonial rule to independence, women’s domestic work remained a foundational pillar for the new nation-state, even as the state simultaneously marginalized women's bodily autonomy and health within its broader political and militarized objectives.