Description
Popular culture encompasses the "everyday" and in the everyday, our constant companions are our fears, fantasies and anxieties. Although horror is an important element or guidepost to understanding the gendered nature of the state and society, it is seldom given the attention it deserves in the academic field of International Relations. It often acts as the missing link in understanding the legitimisation and normalisation of the gendered order. Horror is not always natural, as it is constructed and shaped by the state and society. The paper builds on the works of psychoanalysts and feminist scholars, such as Julia Kristeva's (1980) theory of the "abject" and "abjection", and Barbara Creed's (1993; 2023) notion of the "monstrous-feminine", to unpack the gendered nature of horror in everyday life and uncover the latent underpinnings of the state in International Relations. Fears are an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining one's choices, responses, who becomes the antagonist or the protagonist, and why.
The socially constructed horror stories around women's bodies and sexuality have repercussions on the state's policies. International Relations, as an academic field with various meta-narratives, risks being cut off from the everyday if it forgoes these linkages. The paper, through a case study of the Indonesian state, analyses various ghost stories, such as Sundel Bolong, Wewe Gombel, and Kuntilanak. These innocuous, everyday horror stories have gendered implications. Further, the paper aims to go beyond the classic definition of the state in International Relations, which limits the state to its territory, population, sovereignty, and autonomy. Through the unpacking of horror in Indonesia, the paper analyses the state in terms of a "discursive construct" that is based on various imaginings encompassing the notion of monsters, witches and mothers.
