Bilang yang Nakal-nakal Kami (We Speak of Naughty Things): Female Empowerment Through the Tides of the Sea

Abstract

This chapter takes inspiration from Silvia Pedraza’s criticism that migration studies tend to heavily focus on the male narrative of travel yet fail to “consider ‘the woman’s side’ when [they] are left behind in the communities” (Pedraza in Annual Review of Sociology 17:311, 1991). The eventual deportation of a loved one (especially after a long drawn-out period of detention) leaves families and communities of irregular migrants torn between two countries for an indefinite period of time. In their absence, wives and partners reflect on the current state of their relationships and consider their multiple possibilities as they wait for their men’s possible return to Sabah. For these women it is an emotional, spiritual and physical transformation as they begin to view the water in new ways. Labelled tinggalan (Bahasa Malaysia for left behind) by members of their communities, the female partners of deported men find new ways to combat these stereotypes through a greater assertion of themselves and develop a new-found awareness of their respective fates, one they never realised they had. Through shared stories of romance and sex, seven tinggalan women articulate and chart their personal growth and transformation with each coming of the tide. The sea, as I will demonstrate in this chapter, has always played a vital role in shaping their ideas of masculinity, but in their present state of “illegality,” the sea has given these women a new perspective on female leadership and independence that has transformed from their time in separation.