Someone Else Speaking: Reflections on Mary Steedly as Author and Anthropologist

Abstract:This essay introduces the fifteen pieces in this volume that honor the late Mary Margaret Steedly—a collection that emphasizes her ground-breaking contributions to anthropology, feminist studies, and the study of Indonesia. Many of the pieces included here originated as oral presentations by Steedly’s colleagues and students at two memorial events. Not surprisingly, then, these brief expository essays include reminiscences by people who were close to her. As the contributors make clear, Steedly’s deep and generative commitment to interlocutors, students, and colleagues demands to be acknowledged in its own right. Taken as a whole, this multivocal tribute reflects and reaffirms a central conviction of Steedly’s entire body of work, namely, that “voices are never singular, meaning is always negotiated, and there is room in any story for someone else’s speaking.”