Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Carol McAllister
ABSTRACT: This essay discusses the theory of uneven and combined development,
illustrating
matrilineal and Islamic traditions at the same time as they are incorporated into the
international
"How can you work for someone who even tells you how much time you
daughters.
such "on the ground analyses to rene, correct, and enrich theory. The
Graduate School of Public Health, 230 Parran Hall, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
PA
15260.
Dissertation Research Abroad Program. Initial analysis of the material was aided by a
grant
from the University of Pittsburghs Provost Development Fund for Women and
Minorities.
of ideas with other scholars working in Malaysia, especially Aihwa Ong, Michael
Peletz, and
Don Nonini have helped me rene the arguments and interpretations presented here. An
earlier
version of this paper was delivered to the Conference on "Marxism Now: Traditions and
helpful suggestions of the editors of this volume of RRPE Elizabeth Kruse, Laurie N
isonoff,
Heidi Gottfried, and David Fasenfest. Special thanks to Michael Lwy for comments on
the
earlier draft and for his encouragement to continue my work on uneven and combined
development. Paul Le Blane was the person who rst introduced me to the theory of
uneven and
combined development by sharing with me the book written by Lowy on this subject.
His
my work and my vision for social transformation and change. It was the people of
Negeri
Sembilan, however, who rst led me to the insights presented here. Through generously
sharing
their activities, their lives, and their own ideas with me, they taught me much about
resistance
and also about hope. To them, I can only say with greatest humility, tenma kasih.
58 Carol McAllister
and early 20th centuries, provides a good example of this process of
The purpose of this essay is twofold: rst, to discuss the theory of uneven
analysis, both of which I draw on to rene and enrich the basic framework
DEVELOPMENT
The "law of uneven and combined development" was rst formulated by
Leon Trotsky in his analysis of the Russian Revolution (Trotsky 1959: 1-10).
Trotsky put forth this idea to help explicate the character _of the Russian
change. Such leaps did not, however, mean a simple loss or elimination of
economy in Russia itself. There was thus "a drawing together of the different
with more contemporary forms" (Trotsky 1959: 4). One of the results,
The roots of the idea of uneven and combined development can, however,
latter writings where he discusses the evolution and probable fate of the
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2015
Russian rural commune (Shanin 1983: 97-139). Here the focus is on the
basis for a future socialist reconstruction of Russia and other societies in the
capitalist periphery.
several recent studies (see, for example, the debate in Latin American
1976; Mariategui 1971; Blanco 1972; Burawoy 1984; Post and Wright 1989;
the work of the French sociologist, Michael Lowy, who traces the historical
evolution of the theory and then uses it to interpret the process of capitalist
post-World War II period (Lowy 1981). Lowys discussion makes clear that
stagiest view of history and also the more mechanical and determinist models
combined development has rarely been explicitly used and amplied within
makes direct and positive reference to Trotskys idea. There has, though,
been an interest within recent Marxist anthropology in the related idea of the
This approach, however, tends to remain quite abstract and has been
accumulation" (Robinson 1986: 9). (See Foster-Carter 1978 and Kahn and
uneven and combined development is the greater attention paid in the latter
60 Carol McAllister
step-by-step with the global system. For example, Kahns (1980) work on
social and cultural forms are changed by their encounter with international
among Bolivian tin miners and Colombian plantation workers and Stolers
unilinear models of change which premise that capitalist relations and values
by their very presence come to substitute for or at least push out previous
dependency and world systems theories (see, for example, Frank 1966,
1967, 1979; Cockcroft, Frank and Johnson 1972; Wallerstein 1974, 1980,
now the dominant mode of production in the Third World as well as in the
They also help to make clear that the problems of Third World economies
derive primarily from their particular positions in the global system, not
market mechanisms. But these insights, important as they are, should not
lead to one-way mirrors that direct our attention exclusively to the impact of
reductions render invisible local specicities and also mask the complexities
producing analyses that are inadequate for either scientic research or for
political change
the strength of tradition, the resiliency of the indigenous society and culture,
and the adaptability of old forms to new needs. My own research thoroughly
explores such dynamics, but there should be no mistaking that all women
(and also men) in Negeri Sembilan are caught in the throes of a process of
restructuring and its impact on Third World communities, are equally likely
World peoples are theoretical models that recognize the possible coexistence
local and global structures in the process of change. Using such approaches,
the transformations in society and culture are clearly noted but so too is the
weaknesses. The rst, sometimes labeled the "dual economy" model (Boeke
1953, 1961), assumes the existence of two separate economic and social
domains in colonial and semi-colonial societies one organized according
to the interactions between the two sectors; in fact, the theoretical division
of any society into two such distinct and selfcontained units is clearly a
62 Carol McAllister
The other approach that recognizes the coexistence of old and new
integral parts of Malay Islam. Malay Islam itself, according to this scenario,
then mixes and becomes integrated with modern secular values of progress,
does not work so neatly and consistently! Instead, under the impact of the
current process of rapid economic and social change, some of the strands
ripped apart and then reinterpreted and rewoven into new patterns. In sum,
the model presents reality as more static and seamless than it proves to be
they shift. And as with the dual economy model, this picture of syncretism
does not allow us to grasp the dynamic interactions between old and new, the
society, and culture as well. And this coexistence and interpenetration of old
where there are points of incorporation and what is the nature of the
combining and also note the conicts and contradictions that persist or newly
arise and that create additional areas of stress which may represent the locus
especially those through which they attempt to meet their basic material
model so it, in turn, becomes a better tool for interpreting their experiences
Africa, and Latin America. While the general questions dealt with in this
study are not conned to the situation of women in Negeri Sembilan, their
economy and the competitive world market. While these changes are
economic forms and their penetration into the local context are largely
In Malaysia, this affects even those sectors of the Malay ethnic group left
remained relatively intact through the colonial era but are now subject to
impact on all the people of Negeri Sembilan, the current transformation most
seriously affects women and thus is clearly revealed through changes in their
lives.
64 Carol McAllister
families based on cores of related women, and kin group ownership of rice
lands and house plots, use-rights to which are passed primarily from mothers
among women and men of the matrilineage. Ada: petpatih is, in addition, a
guides peoples perceptions and choices. Two themes which characterize this
centrality to the functioning of the family, kin group, and larger society. (See
McAllister 1987: 29-49 and 1989b; Peletz 1987 and 1988; Khadijah
Muhamed 1978; Swift 1965; Abdul Kahar Bador 1963; Lewis 1962; Gullick
1958; and Josselin de Jong 1951 for further details on adat perpatih).
through the female line. They also played a central part in the distribution
and allowed them a large measure of control over their own lives and
persons. (See McAllister 1987 and Peletz 1987, 1988 for a further analysis
of the roles and status of Negeri Sembilan women. Tanner 1974 provides
Islam began to penetrate both the Malay peninsula and the island of
in the 15th century. First introduced by Arab and Indian traders, Islamic
From the beginning, though, Islam interacted with and was affected by the
while inuenced by certain aspects of Islamic theology and law (e.g. , formal
social structure it fostered. (See McAllister 1987: 50-61, 1989a and Josselin
Strange 1981: 20-26 analyzes the impact of Islam on the status of women
throughout Malaysia).
Throughout the Malay peninsula, the Islamic conversion did not result in
an adoption of the practices of seclusion and veiling; nor did it entail the
public activities, and concern with the social separation of males and females
Beck and Keddie 1978; El Saadawi 1980; Femea and Bezirgan 1977; and
active in economic production and exchange and in public life in general. But
theology, and its social and cultural expressions in other Muslim societies,
thus provides a set of ideas and values from which can be drawn elements
today.
British colonialism dominated the economic and political life of the Malay
peninsula during the latter half of the 19th century until formal independence
production was never able to totally dislodge preexisting economic and social
relations (see McAllister 1987: 66-80 and Peletz 1988 for further details).
Islam. Such change, which has particular implications for womens lives and
In the Kuala Pilah area of Negeri Sembilan, where I carried out eld
research in 1978-79, many young women were being drawn directly into the
that have mushroomed since the early 1970s and that are important
recent article in the Far Eastern Economic Review indicates that "80 % of the
85,000 jobs that have been created in electronics alone are held by women.
And 70% of these women workers are Malay" (Scott 1989: 32). The report
goes on to describe how Malaysia has already been turned into "the worlds
Hong Kong companies are leading another burst of expansion (Scott 1989:
production workers, who are often high school graduates, are paid about
U.S. $4.00 a day. There are also the advantages of labor laws favorable to
employers (e. g., most forms of union activity are outlawed and there is a
lack of health and safety regulations) and a number of special benets for
locating ones plant in a free-trade zone (e.g., tax holidays and exemptions
from import-export duties). Some of these new jobs are located in the rural
travel to nearby towns or to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, seeking work
in the clerical, sales and service sectors. They take jobs as ofce clerks,
same time, the mothers of these young women, while remaining in their
colonial era but has undergone an expansion during the postcolonial period,
resulting in the entry of more women into this economic activity. While they
international uctuations in the demand for natural rubber and increases their
competitive market framework, to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and
Young women are relegated to low-paid and insecure jobs in the wage-labor
production and household work, while the men in their families become the
Instead, we nd that both matrilineal culture and the religion of Islam still
worldviews.
people - many of whom also work for wages or tap rubber for a cash
income - cutting and threshing the rice crop together in a eld that is
of the staple food for these families while the rice elds themselves remain
Similar groups of kin - urban and rural, some illiterate, some highly
ritual component of Malay life and that facilitates cooperative economic and
political activity. One is also likely to encounter, while walking along the
rapidly pedaling her bike home from high school or her ofce job, as her
economy and the new social relations and cultural conceptions this induces,
there is also the persistence of traditional economic and social forms and
interact, reshape each other, and combine rather than one merely substituting
for the other. Thus in Negeri Sembilan, matriliny and Islam are not being
evolution about to disappear. Rather, both matriliny and Islam persist as vital
68 Carol McAllister
new points of both accommodation and conict with each other as well as
grasping this complexity, and for analyzing the particular dynamics of the
represent what I was learning from N egeri Sembilan women about their own
lives. Much of these revisions of theory and method were informed by the
raised by feminist critiques and analyses. They attempt not just to "add on"
womens concerns to the existing theory of uneven and combined
stronger tool for interpreting the experiences of Negeri Sembilan women and
One of the rst renements I needed to make was grounding the theory
should not only provide the basis for the discovery of facts about social
realities but also provide the context for generating and determining
signicant questions for study and research (see, for example, Harding 1987:
received wisdom about womens lives, roles, and status and attempt to
provide more accurate and nuanced analyses. This is illustrated from the
earliest collected volumes in the anthropology of women (e.g. , Reiter 1975)
to the most recent overviews in this eld (e. g., Morgen 1989 and Sanday
anthropological theory (e. g., Leacock 1981; Sacks 1979; and Stoler 1977,
women and other oppressed groups (e. g. , peasants, workers, people of color)
but actually making their experiences the central focus of historical and
work of L6wy (1981). This would have involved a study of the growing
disintegration of Malaysias attempt at maintaining a national system of
development to explore how similar dynamics are played out in the lives of
clearly underlie and affect the larger picture of economic change and
emerging political struggles. Such a shift not only increases the visibility of
those who are often left on the margins but also transforms the whole axis
had thus become the focal point of my research, I found I also had to pay
the interaction between old and new forms and the resulting complex
occurring in these other domains of life as well.0 This converges with the
and beyond that, the workings of society as a whole. For example, Beneria
70 Carol McAllister
aspects of peoples lives. (See, for example, the work of Leacock 1981,
Sembilan womens ideas and beliefs about kinship, about spirits, about
eating, about kinds of work as much as their actions and the social
structures in which they live. In this way, I came to stretch the model of
was forced to recognize that even talking about the interaction of traditional
and modern, of pre-capitalist and capitalist, is itself too simple. In this case,
Islam which themselves have long been and still are engaged in a process
these social and ideological systems for female roles and status, their
and experiences. Such a focus also makes clear the inadequacy of glossing
such traditional social and cultural forms as merely "precapitalist. " This is
power and autonomy. In the case of Negeri Sembilan, and many other
societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well, what we see is the
(including sexually egalitarian) way of life with the very inegalitarian and
is interesting that Marx at least glimpsed this general point in his writings on
the capitalist periphery (Shanin 1983), while more recent analyses of uneven
For the remainder of this essay, I will discuss one particular aspect of
Such resistance in Negeri Sembilan takes several forms. Only rarely does
it entail active, conscious, and organized protest; more often it has an
simply involve the continued practice of economic and social activities that
The specic nature of these different types of resistance may well vary
over time what was once an unfocused, individual response may become
the basis for an organized movement and vice versa - as the general
political climate and level of struggle ebbs and ows. Based on the level of
resistance" (see Scott 1985; and Abu-Lughod 1990). While both men and
a special role in each of them and they have special implications for
There is, rst of all, the observation that in the present situation of
and social forms that they attribute to their indigenous matrilineal system.
They creatively adapt such forms to their new circumstances and then use
these renewed traditions to meet their changing needs. I suggest that the
72 Carol McAllister
With a support system that buffers them from some of the more exploitative
on inherited land, with sisters working adjacent plots of padi, and produces
a crop that is shared among kin but never sold on the market.
elds and their rubber trees in a pattern more typical of matrilineal than of
capitalist principles of land tenure. In other words, they refuse to treat such
(harta pesaka) and thus owned by the matrilineage with userights passed
considerable pressure over the past several decades from the national
is evidence that this same practice is now being extended with certain
ones father as well as ones mother to rubber land and trees.13 This
occurs even though according to civil law such newly acquired land must be
registered as private property (preferably under the name of the male "head
of household"), is available for free exchange on a cash basis among Malays,
form of resistance not only to capitalist economic principles but also to actual
legal statutes.
women whose position in the wage economy remains at the lower levels and
shops in nearby towns, they could maintain a greater degree of control over
their own work lives and more easily perform other valued roles, such as
engages in these different forms of labor, shifting from one to another over
well as what they learn from their diverse experiences, are regularly pooled
complete absorption into the system of wage labor and also decrease peoples
which employers can impose despotic regimes on female workers since they
can always quit and return home to the work of subsistence and
Education
uniforms, Supplies, and fees for various activities. In one case, I observed
a mother pawn some of her pieces of gold jewelry to pay for the schooling
of one of her daughters; in contrast, the oldest son in this family was an
early school dropout. There is also the question of removal of the child from
the teenage years, from paid labor so she can continue her schooling
through high school and even college; this can represent a signicant loss of
potential income to a poor family but is often done in the case of female
student can count on various forms of support from a number of the women
in her matrilineage. Such aid ranges from gifts of cash or food for those
high school than the one available in her rural village. The student, in turn,
is expected to reciprocate by sharing the skills she has acquired through her
74 Carol McAllister
education with her extended family of matri-kin. And nally, there are the
explicit references by young Negeri Sembilan women to education as "my
further that, today, schooling represents one of the most important forms of
harta pesaka. 5
resist both the common male bias of state educational systems and the
combined development.
Extended Families
the growing pressure for nuclear family autonomy following the demands of
wage labor and the job market. This represents a form of resistance in that
mothers, daughters, and sisters but cempared to the past, family members
live farther apart geographically and their forms of work and living
resources and forms of aid that ow along the links of the extended family
network are in no way diminished but are now much more diverse and also
more critical for basic survival. For example, it is quite common for a
woman to share the harvest from the rice elds she is working with her adult
children and other urban-dwelling kin who, in turn, provide her with cash
above, even a place for one of her younger children to stay in town in order
to attend a better school. (See McAllister 1987: 303-353 and Stivens 1984
of traditional forms as they are used to meet new needs created by the
capitalist economy.
A related aspect of family life is the practice of anak angkat (literally, "the
network or to emphasize a relationship among kin who are not part of the
same matrilineage (for example between a woman and her brothers or her
that also entails a relationship in which various forms of aid are exchanged.
For example, an anak angkat might be given part of the harvest from ones
rice elds and is always offered a place to stay in ones home (M angkat
usually do not live permanently with their "adoptive parents"). Anak angkat
the matrilineage and thus cannot inherit ancestral property. What is of most
importance for this discussion is the observation that the practice of anak
angkat is now used primarily to incorporate newly acquired school and work
and mutual obligations seem to remain basically the same, only the
categories of people who are commonly adopted have changed. Through both
Ritual Feasting
mentioned earlier. Such feasts are held at all life-cycle transitions, with the
Koran, thus indicating the adoption of this pre-Islamic ritual form by Malay
Islam. Kenduri are also held for irregularly occurring crises such as serious
illness where they provide the context for special healing ceremonies known
as main puteri.
(Peletz 1987: 79) never falls exclusively on the household hosting the event.
household of poorer relatives to help them put on the affair. In other cases,
76 Carol McAllister
and stretch well beyond the day of the feast to aid the host family in the
following months. For example, kin and neighbors sometimes help to repair,
refurnish, or build a new room onto the hosts house, or more prosperous
relatives might purchase new outts for the hosts children. In some cases,
young wage earners pool their cash to provide their rural parents with
appliances such as a fan or coconut grater, which can be used at the feast but
also for years afterward. And at all kenduri, uncooked food is contributed
that may surpass that needed for the celebration and that can be stored for
future 'use. Feasting in Negeri Sembilan also creates an important context for
Malaysian national elections and events in Iran and the Middle East. Kenduri
created. Aside from a brief interlude of Islamic prayer and chanting which
event, making decisions about it, and managing the collection of necessary
resources, and they spend much more time working together to put on the
feast. It is also the women who own the dishes necessary for hosting a
kenduri, and which are considered (along with rice elds, houses, and now
is largely conned to the period of brief prayer and the eating itself. Some
might argue that the womans role in the kenduri is essentially that of servant
to the man because women do the "mundane work" while the men engage
happening. In a kenduri, the praying and the eating are not themselves the
ritual; rather the whole affair is a ritual performance that acts out key values
the . most central male participants, who generally include the husband,
brothers, and adult sons of the woman hosting the kenduri, i.e., male
husbands may also fall into this category.) The more centrally involved these
men are in the ceremonial occasion, the more similar. their roles become to
those of the women. They, too, cook and clean up, often eating as they go
along. (See also Peletz 1987: 78-81 on the role of women in kenduri). '
anything, feasts are becoming more frequent and larger than in past decades.
wagework and new kinds of goods in the market that allow the production
of more elaborate affairs. There are also new occasions for the performance
of kenduri. I thus attended feasts that had been organized to celebrate and
give thanks for the obtaining of a new job or to forestall failure on a major
exam at school.
previous generations into a practical "safety net" for people today. This can
and social bonding that takes place through ritual feasting, in the course of
even among close kin and neighbors. At the same time, the majority of
in kenduri, to pool their resources and skills, thus increasing the life chances
from shared feasting and which helps to forestall the cultural shift from
But reality is rarely this simple. The combining of these traditional forms
of economy, family, and ritual with the new economic and social relations
new, such traditions themselves can also become distorted and undermined.
For example, I noted in the course of my eldwork that the kenduri, that
More prosperous villagers were hosting larger and more elaborate affairs
78 Carol McAllister
with a clear goal of enhancing their own prestige, while poorer villagers
several cases where women lost or quit jobs to come home and help organize
kenduri only to have to look for new employment when the feasting was
remains critical for meeting the economic needs of the poor and working
class.0
contradiction is the way these traditional forms, at the same time as they are
Sembilan people, can also be incorporated into the capitalist economy and
functions still carried out by the extended family, is very important for the
spend long hours at wage-earning jobs, often located far from their village
villagers and "paid for" by the collective effort and sacrice of matri-kin
international and local capitalists. For one thing, it relieves employers from
paying even a subsistence, let alone a family wage, since the assumption can
be made that young female (and even male) workers will continue to be
What all of this indicates is that the cost of reproducing both present and
future labor power remains largely within the subsistence household economy
rather than being shouldered by the capitalist sector. A similar pattern has
been noted by others wdrking in different parts of the world. Wolpe (1980),
for example, discusses it in relation to the Reserves in South Africa and the
case of South Africa and Russia, however, the continuing role of the
reproduce labor power for capitalism through their own unpaid work. The
Rosa Luxemburg that "for its existence and future development capitalism
1951: 289 - cited in Bennholdt-Thomsen 1981: 48; see also Nash 1990 .3
though both help reproduce labor power, the economic content of their roles,
capitalist production are different. She also makes the important point that,
while in certain regions of the Third World, capital relies on and perhaps
own strategies for survival and self-sufciency in other areas of the Third
I would take Redclifts argument even further and suggest that both of the
alternatives she describes can occur in the same society during the same
undermine and weaken these more communal forms. This does not,
Sembilan women can return, to their plots of inherited land and to village
work whenever they either voluntarily withdraw from or are forced out of
the paid labor force. One could presume that they therefore feel less
And young women workers, whose identity and livelihood are still partially
tied to the rural village, are less likely to become a fully proletarianized
80 Carol McAllister
the capitalist class at the same time as it ameliorates the condition of the
Malay worker herself. This illustrates one of the key problematics of the
important in the modern context, so, too, do Negeri Sembilan people draw
experiences, make sense of their changing world, and critique certain aspects
women rely on the familiar idiom of food or eating a theme that runs
differences in the types of work they now do. They thus speak of kerja
versus kerja makan gaji or "work to eat pay," a phrase which glosses any
comments it is clear that what they mean is that wagework may be harder
forms of labor) and also that it is difcult to survive on ones paycheck and
what it can buy. Thus both the expressions themselves and the way people
wage-work system. _
It is, however, through the phenomenon of spirit possession or ghost
attack, known colloquially as keno hantu, that we can see most clearly the
economic and social as well as psychological causes of their poor health (see
Kessler 1977 and Raybeck, Shoobe, and Grauberger 1985). I was told by
has many troubles and cares, and who just stays at home worrying about her
difculties instead of seeking help from others. Healing takes place through
a series of special rituals that gather support around the distressed woman,
reintegrate her into the communal milieu, and also encourage actual changes
But in the 19705 and 19805, ghost attacks were occurring most frequently
not among older women in village settings but rather among young women
also see certain changes in the possession episodes themselves. For example,
when the attacks occur in a factory setting, they usually take on a mass
character. Thus the initial sighting of a hantu (often through the microscopes
down the assembly line until several young women fall prey to the
malevolent spirit. The possessed women (or, more correctly, the ghosts
speaking through the womens voices) scream out specic complaints about
managers or foremen. Such outbursts may even reveal that the Spirits anger
results from the very location of the multinational factory on sacred ground.
Management usually tries to contain the attacks, sometimes ring the women
Often, though, if the attack is extensive enough, the factory has to be closed
traditional spirits clearly provide their female hosts not only with some
vacation as they are sent home while the factory is temporarily cleansed of
the troublesome ghosts), but also with a dramatic voice of protest against
their new working and living conditions. As we listen to the spirits cry out
transnational factory because it occupies ground that was once the Spirits
vestiges from the premodem past; they must be understood as the creative
and hardship it brings. Through continued belief in the ghosts and thus
and use them as a way to go beyond critique toward active protest against
aspects, of the wage-work system into which they are increasingly drawn.
82 Carol McAllister
everyday life.
A recent article in Far Eastern Economic Review indicates, however, that
episodes of spirit possession among factory workers have decreased over the
last few years; they remain common, however, among young female students
for the occurrence of kena hantu - combined with placing the blame on the
Islamic training and character. If so, this would provide a further example
We could ask, though, whether the belief in kena hantu does provide an
adequate vehicle of resistance for these young women. Some would argue
that ghost attacks divert legitimate protest into safe and nonthreatening
channels and away from effective forms of organization and real efforts at
change. Does this traditional worldview thus benet the capitalist class as
much as the Malay factory workers who truly believe in the ghosts? On the
other hand, in the current situation of repressive labor laws and the banning
of most forms of union and political organizing, kena hantu at least serves
CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT
Malaysian state. Its own political stance is mixed and not entirely clear. It
nonMuslim ethnic minorities (see Nagata 1980: 420 and 427; and Lee
example, some currents encourage higher education for women but then
exhibiting its own local particularities, the Malaysian revival is linked both
notably those of the Middle East and North Africa but also other Southeast
who are more highly educated than the norm. Many are being groomed for
membership in the new professional and technical classes, though they may
Recently, however, there has been a growing interest in the revival among
(1987: 185) notes: "Although few, if any, of the Malay factory women (as
dakwah movement has struck a responsive chord in many young women who
work (kerja halal). " Scott (1989: 34), in a more recent report, indicates the
of workers in most factories" have taken to wearing the Islamic veil. Scotts
report also indicates that women well into their thirties are now participants
Negeri Sembilan, a large number of the most faithful adherents are women,
who don a long dress and veil (kain tudung), which are not traditional attire
Sembilan Malays by exploring its dynamic interaction with both the process
84 Carol McAllister
sense of exclusion from the still vital matrilineal system and their less than
accompanying cultural milieu. There are several reasons why this problem
culture, girls and young women in Negeri Sembilan are often pushed
them away from the rural kin-based community. Yet those who attempt
semiskilled factory labor, female workers remain relegated to the lowest paid
increasing age (often around age 25).30 While some welleducated women
enterprises are still overwhelmingly reserved for men. These young women,
matrilineal culture. Their sense of both economic and cultural dislocation can
revitalization (WallaCe 1956). The dakwah, with its links both to their own
Sembilan women in this movement for Islamic revival and reform? The
impact of the movement both on what remains of the matrilineal system and
shift, in turn, will encourage rather than retard the growth of economic
being both anti-Islamic and wasteful of time and resources. Instead, older
Negeri Sembilan women are urged to work year-round in their rice elds
rather than to take time off for feasting; such doublecropping would require
substantial cash inputs as well as produce a second crop for the market, thus
inspired life focused on hard work, denial, and moral purity. In this, we see
world history.
uneven and combined development. They also provide a sense of how this
86 Carol McAllister
revival has a similar multiplicity of meanings and effects. For the majority,
and social support and a new cultural model by which to live and derive a
divert their attention away from social to primarily religious matters and
this occurs in spite of the fact that the collective choice of so many young
a radically different effect. It actually helps them focus and articulate their
development and its impact on their own lives.33 For these female
denial of their matrilineal traditions and thus their preexisting rights and
freedoms as women.
CONCLUSION
Sembilan, Malaysia. At the same time, the use of this model to analyze the
their own reactions and responses, has demanded its renement and
questions remain, such a process is part of both the scientic study of Third
World change and the strengthening of the Marxist tradition through ongoing
that can contribute to the efforts of the women and men of N egeri Sembilan
forms which they want and which embody the values they choose. Most
these examples of struggle and resistance are very "everyday," others take
Sembilan while also serving to tranSform those traditions in the face of the
and the way in which they, in turn, perpetuate, reproduce, and affect the
conversations between my "adoptive mother, " Hamidah, and her son, Ramli.
Ramli lived and worked in the state capital of Negeri Sembilan, but he spent
many weekends at his mothers home in the rural village. While there,
relaxing, he would talk for hours about his work in a factory making
furniture for the international market. His comments focused on the low pay
(not enough for even two wage earners to support a family, he said), the
poor working conditions and restrictions on workers (they were allowed, for
example, only brief breaks during the day and not enough time to eat the
noon meal which had to be taken in the company cafeteria), and the
quite critical of the whole system of wagelabor and of the prots he thought
Hamidah listened to all that Ramli said and then made her own judgment,
translating it, however, into her own terms and her perceptions from the
Picking up on Ramlis comment about the restricted time for lunch, Hamidah
declared that she could not understand how anyone could "work for someone
who would even tell them how much time they could take to makan nasi -
i.e., to eat their rice or meal." It is signicant that she chose this particular
metaphor to articulate her critique of wage work and of the workers loss of
work. She repeated this idea to me several times, especially when we were
on the system of wagelabor. He did not, however, quit his job as his mother
suggested but rather continued to work and to talk about industrial unions,
households, between not only mothers and sons but also mothers and
daughters. These insights -' shared between parents and children as they
also share land and other resources - represent not just the experiences of
88 Carol McAllister
thus see one of the most interesting and politically signicant results of the
NOTES
2. Trotsky develops this idea into the theory of permanent revolution which posits
revolutions, especially in the capitalist periphery. See Trotsky (1969) for a fuller
3. Stoler (1987: 543) makes a similar point about the "articulation" perspective as
well as dependency theory and world systems analysis: "One problem With each of
these approaches is that they posit a systemic dichotomy between non-capitalist and
capitalist forms of production. Thus, while they may adequately describe, they do not
both " [emphasis added]. In her analysis of the development of the plantation economy
Marx " focuses on rather than glosses over the grey area of transformation."
However, the distinction between formal and real subsumption which has been used
development, leads back to a very stagest conception of Third World change (see,
for example, Godelier 1981 and Alavi 1982, cited in Stoler 1987). This approach is
also critiqued by Stoler (1987: 544-546; 557-559) who demonstrates that the
Frank and Wallerstein. Robinson (1986: 312) also points out this limitation of the
dependency and world systems theories and notes the attempt of the "articulation"
approach to overcome it. As already noted, however, she goes on to critique this
perspective as well.
5. See Geertz ( 1960), Spiro ( 1970), and Tambiah ( 1970) for representative examples.
6. Lirn (1978), Grossman (1979), and Ong (1983, 1987) describe the participation
especially electronics plants. These accounts, like mine, focus on the young,
unmarried female factory worker, the typical pattern in the 19705 and early 1980s.
Scott (1989: 34), however, indicates that women are now staying longer in these jobs
through the experience of marriage and childbearing. The reader is referred to the
edited volumes by Nash and Fernandez-Kelly (1983), Leacock and Safa (1986), and
Ward (1990), as well as the more popularized account by Fuentes and Ehrenreich
of the people in question (the rich cultural understanding that has been the hallmark
both to listen to that human experience and to abstract from the empirical situation,
and then interpret it in terms of abstract categories ..." (p. 10). The work of E.P
immersion in the elds of history and literary and cultural studies. Also see Nash
(1981).
8. The work of Hua (1983) provides a good foundation for such an analysis.
9. Numerous feminist scholars make this key point about the "importance of using
attempt to develop such new social analyses in their own research. The collection by
Harding (1987), as well as her own editorial comments, provide a useful overview
and synthesis of some of the most inuential of this work across a variety of
women of color, Third World women, and working-class women, or for being
ethnocentric and Eurocentric in its perspectives (see, for example, Hooks 1984;
Collins 1989; Ifeka 1982; Rogers 1978; and Redclift 1988). In my case study in
through bringing to the center of my analysis the experiences not only of women per
se but of rural village women in a Third World context.
10. Stoler (1987) makes a similar point in her argument that the subsumption of
domains" and that in particular we must look at these "blurred genres" in the social
relations through which labor is reproduced not just in the labor process itself.
11. Hatem (1986) argues for special attention to sexuality as a cultural domain
related to but not subsumed under economic relations. This is one important aspect
12. This is related to the feminist insight about listening to womens own voices and
trying to grasp their own perceptions of the world in which they live. Robinson
(1986: 11) points to Gramscis work on the commonsense of Italian peasants as "a
way of examining consciousness (or culture and ideology) in the context of class
relations, without the functionalist reductionism and loss of historical specicity that
characterizes the structuralist approach [i.e., that of Althusser and his followers}."
(1964, 1970), and Keesing (1967) - also emphasize the importance of the cultural
or ideational order i.e., the realm of perceptions, ideas, and values and suggest
(1986, 1990), Comaroff (1985: 263), Scott (1985: 292), and Williams (1977:
108114), in their work on resistance and power, also urge the breaking down of
90 Carol McAllister
13. It should be noted that following the principles of adat perpatih, sons and
brothers have always had at least limited rights to use ancestral property though not
to pass on such usevrights to their own children. At the same time, if a man acquired
to his sons and daughters. However, after that initial devolution it was "automatically
(Swift 1965: 24). Thus even the apparent changes in property ownership that occur
in relationship to rubber trees i.e., the greater access of sons to this property and
the possibility of children inheriting from their fathers as well as mothers draw
analysis of land tenure patterns among Negeri Sembilan Malays while Stivens (1985)
also addresses the question of land tenure in the recent period of capitalist
development.
14. This discussion of combined forms of work is further developed in McAllister
(1987: 172241).
15. That this is not simply a matter of the "higher opportunity cost" of keeping boys
example, in rural Selangor, there is a tendency for daughters to drop out of school
to help with childcare and other household tasks as well as to contribute wages to the
family economy before they marry. Sons, in contrast, are encouraged to stay in
school in the hopes of eventually qualifying for government employment. This occurs
even though at each level of education men have wider labor market opportunities
16. See McAllister (1989b, 1991) for a further analysis of the treatment of education
as new form of harm pesaka and some of the contradictions and conicts that thus
arise.
debate. I would classify most people in rural Negeri Sembilan as "working class" or
small producers (rice farmers and rubber tappers). However, those who are in the
paid labor force occupy a considerable range of occupations from lowlevel managers
to school teachers to factory or service workers and manual laborers for the
and economic stability. In a few cases, a village family might have an urban-dwelling
member who is actually part of the emerging Malay bourgeoisie, though the extent
to which such individuals still participate in communal feasting and other forms of
18. The importance of ongoing generalized exchange for the survival of households
in precarious economic circumstances has been a focus in the literature on the urban
poor in the U.S. (see especially Stack 1974). While such strategies i.e. , the poor
sharing with the poor do not increase the total resources of the group, they do
insure that scarce, uctuating resources are redistributed in such a way that each
household can more consistently meet basic needs and is made less vulnerable to the
19. A fuller analysis of the feasting complex and its contemporary dynamics is
presented in McAllister (1990). Peletz (1987) also notes the importance of kenduri
and the central role of Negeri Sembilan women in their performance. Scott (1985:
area of Malaysia, though it is difcult from his account to tell whether women play
the same central role in this ritual complex as they do in Negeri Sembilan.
20. See Scott (1985: 172178, 238-239) for similar developments elsewhere in
Malaysia.
21. Luxemburgs argument that capitalism needs (rather than just uses) non-capitalist
forms for its existence and future development is, of course, a point that is still being
debated (see, for example, the following discussion of Redclift 1988). While I nd
Bennholdt-Thomsens analysis basically compatible with my own, I feel she gives too
"non-capitalist forms" and how they both conict with and become accommodated
to the capitalist mode of production into which they are incorporated. The other is
the possibility that Third World people themselves may actively hold onto and
maintain aspects of subsistence production for their own purposes and needs even
as a way to resist their complete absorption into the capitalist system - at the same
time as such unpaid work becomes part of the reproduction of capitalist relations. I
see this as an essential contradiction in current Third World economies, rather than
capitalist prots. Stoler (1987: 559), in her analysis of North Sumatras plantation
reproduce itself may actually lower the costs of labor to capital, and thus be
functional to it, at the same time that such bids for economic independence may be
subsistence economy, to which industrial workers can still turn for various kinds of
that has not been adequately explored. Burawoys (1984) comparison of industrial
development in New England, Britain, and Russia suggests that there may not be a
production (i.e., their degree of proletarianization) and the forms and level of
struggles in which they engage. Rather other factors also play a role. Key among
these are the character of the factory regime itself which is determined in part by the
way labor is reproduced but also by other variables such as market forces and the
intervention of the state. Nash (1990: 339), writing about urban workers in
contemporary Latin America, raises a related point when she argues that "womens
becoming the central arenas for the development of consciousness and action for
23. The importance of food and eating as a cultural symbol is shown by the ritual
signicance of the kena'uri discussed above. Klopfer (1989) explores the centrality
postcolonial Indonesia.
Downloaded from rrpsagepubcom at The University of Iowa Libraries on March 17,
2015
92 Carol McAllister
24. I encountered such an episode of spirit possession, and the subsequent process of
is recounted in McAllister (1987: 417-425). Even in this womans case, much of the
stress to which she was reacting was a result of particular aspects of the current
process of capitalist development and its impact on'local village life for example,
she lacked sufcient labor to work her rice elds because her sons and other
matri-kin had moved away from the rural village to engage in wagework, and her
lone daughters "advanced" age (around 30) disqualied her from many jobs,
25. This phenomenon has been researched most fully by Ong (1987, 1988), while
Lirn (1978) also notes its importance among both Malay and Chinese female workers.
confront capitalist exploitation among Bolivian tin miners and Colombian plantation
26. A fuller discussion of the Islamic revival and the participation of Negeri
growing body of work on the movement more generally in Malaysia. See, for
example, Lyon (1979), Kessler (1980), Mohammad Abu Bakar (1981), Barraclough
(1983), Nagata (1980, 1982, 1984), Chandra Muzaffar (1986), Zainah Anwar (1987),
and Muhammad Kamal Hassan (1987). Narli (1981) and Ong (1990) deal specically
with the question of women and Islamic revival. Recent media reports (see, for
example, Suhaini 1987 and Scott 1989), discussions with recent visitors and
researchers in Malaysia (Peletz 1989 & personal communication), and reports from
Malaysian scholars and students studying in the U.S. indicate that the revival
27. Nagata (1980: 412-413) notes the impact of Egyptian and Pakistani. Muslims on
dakwah participants while inuences from Iran and Libya are discussed by Gunn
Indonesia for the Malaysian movement. A special issue of the Southeast Asia
come from contacts through Muslim students from various countries studying in the
28. The active participation of women in Islamic revival is also not conned to
30. According to Scott (1989), this latter practice may be declining. She reports on
women in their thirties who are still working in transnational electronics factories in
spite of being married with several children. However, their level of stress and
exploitation must, if anything, be increased as they now try to juggle jobs, childcare,
and other household responsibilities, while also having less opportunity to fall back
31. In spite of provision for certain kinds of communal property, such as lands set
aside for mosques or shrines, Islamic law generally treats property as privately
at half the rate of male siblings. Peletz (1988: 144-145) documents that, throughout
the colonial history of Negeri Sembilan, the British used Islamic law to facilitate or
justify a shift away from what he calls "divided title," or shared ownership among
32. In the late 19703 the national government was vigorously attempting to get people
in the Kuala Pilah area to institute double-cropping of their rice elds, a proposal
argued that this shift in planting schedules --- besides leaving little time for other
valued activities such as feasting - would also necessitate the increased use of
creditanddebt. (See McAllister 1987: 192-195 for further details of this dispute).
work time as well as the entry of a portion of their subsistence production on the
market -- would also increase the absolute surplus value extracted by capital from
33. Ong (1987: 185186) writing of young women workers in electronic factories,
leaders of ABIM [Islamic Youth Movement, the largest organized dakwah group]
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