Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Borneo Studies in History, Society and Culture pp 261–272Cite as

Whither Gender Studies in Sarawak?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 648 Accesses

Part of the book series: Asia in Transition ((AT,volume 4))

Abstract

This chapter reviews gender research in the field of sociology and anthropology in Sarawak. The discussion is contextualised in the wider debates of women and gender studies and explores the development of anthropology of women to a feminist anthropology and a feminist ethnography. The chapter argues three salient points. First, research that disaggregates women and men and discusses their differential experience of a social phenomenon is not necessarily a gender study because, for the purposes of this chapter, gender studies is defined as research with an explicit feminist agenda. Second, anthropologists studying indigenous societies in Sarawak often point out that gender is unmarked and therefore gender relations are of little interest. I argue instead that gender is deeply implicated in processes of social transformation and the black box of gender relations requires unpacking in the context of rapidly changing Sarawak. Third, the future of gender studies in Sarawak in the field of anthropology and sociology is challenging, as there is no critical mass of researchers and academics in this specific field for capacity building among students and young scholars.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1990. Can there be a feminist ethnography? Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 5(1):7–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1991. Writing against culture. In Recapturing anthropology: working in the present, ed. Richard G. Fox, 137–162. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alexander, Jennifer, and Paul Alexander. 2003. Gender and ethnic identity among the Lahanans of Sarawak. In Tribal communities in the Malay world: historical, cultural and social perspectives, eds. Geoffrey Benjamin, and Cynthia Chou, 457–74. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appell-Warren, Laura P. ed. 2009. The Iban diaries of Monica Freeman, 1949–1951: including ethnographic drawings, sketches, paintings, photographs and letters. Phillips, ME: Borneo Research Council Monograph Series 11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behar, Ruth, and Deborah A. Gordon, eds. 1995. Women writing culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, Diane, Pat Caplan, and Wazir Jahan Karim, eds. 1993. Gendered fields: women, men and ethnography. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds, 1986. Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crabtree, Sara Ashencaen. 2012. Rainforest asylum: the enduring legacy of colonial psychiatric care in Malaysia. London: Whiting and Birch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davison, Julian, and Vinson H. Sutlive. 1991. The children of Nising: images of headhunting and male sexuality in Iban ritual and oral literature. In Female and male in Borneo: contributions and challenges to gender studies, ed. Vinson H. Sutlive, 153–230. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council Monograph Series 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, Andre Gunder. 1967. Dependent accumulation and underdevelopment. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, Derek. 1955. Report on the Iban of Sarawak. Kuching: Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham, Penelope. 1996. Hunting for gender in the forests of Borneo: reflections on a new monograph series for Borneo research. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 11(1):152–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, Donna. 1988. Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspectives. Feminist Studies 14(3):575–599.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Fiona. 2002. Growing gods: Bidayuh processes of religious change in Sarawak, Malaysia. PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Fiona. 2008. When town and kampung collide: representations of gender in Sarawak. In Representation, identity and multiculturalism in Sarawak, ed. Zawawi Ibrahim, 57–73. Kuching: Dayak Cultural Foundation and Kajang: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartsock, Nancy. 1990. Postmodernism and political change: issues for feminist theory. Cultural Critique 14:15–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hew Cheng Sim. 1990. A preliminary survey of prostitution in Kuching. Jurnal Akademik 2(2):45–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hew Cheng Sim. 2003. Women workers, migration and family in Sarawak, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hew Cheng Sim. 2009. Gender research cluster in the Faculty of Social Sciences. In A profile of women’s and gender studies in Malaysia, eds. Cecilia Ng, and Rashidah Shuib, 43–46. Penang: Women’s Development Research Centre (KANITA).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hew Cheng Sim. ed. 2007. Village mothers, city daughters: women and urbanization in Sarawak. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hew Cheng Sim, and Flora Kedit. 1987. The Batang Ai dam, resettlement and rural Iban women. In Women farmers and rural change in Asia: towards equal access and participation, ed. Noeleen Heyzer, 163–219. Kuala Lumpur: Asian and Pacific Development Centre.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirsh, Elizabeth, and Gary A. Olson. 1995. Starting from marginalized lives: a conversation with Sandra Harding. In Women writing culture, eds. Gary A. Olson, and Elizabeth Hirsh, 3–42. New York: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Junaenah Sulehan 2001. Penglibatan komuniti tani dalam perdagangan kecil-kecilan di bandar: atu kajian kes di bahagian Kuching dan bahagian Samarahan. PhD thesis, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kabeer, Naila. 1994. Reversed realities: gender hierarchies in development thought. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kedit, Peter M. 1993. Iban Bejalai. Kuching: Sarawak Literary Society, Ampang Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kományi, Margit Ilona. 1973. Decision-making of Iban women: a study of a longhouse community in Sarawak, East Malaysia. PhD thesis, New York University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mascia-Lees, Frances E., Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen. 1989. The postmodernist turn in anthropology: cautions from a feminist perspective. Signs 15(1):7–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Henrietta L. 1988. Feminism and anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mowe, Phyllis. 2003. Whither the political woman: the political underrepresentation of women in Sarawak. PhD thesis, University of Canterbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nor Ba’yah Abdul Kadir, and Kamsiah Ali. 2012. Women’s voices in relation to fate, cultural practices and life satisfaction: a case study of Sarawakian single mothers in Samarahan, Sarawak. e-Bangi Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 7(1):107–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson, Gary A., and Elizabeth Hirsh, eds. 1995. Women writing culture. New York: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parpart, Jane L., and Marianne H. Marchand. 1995. Exploding the canon: an introduction/conclusion. In Feminism/postmodernism/development, eds. Marianne H. Marchand, and Jane L. Parpart, 1–22. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reiter, Rayna R. 1975. Towards an anthropology of women. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist, and Louise Lamphere, eds. 1974. Woman, culture and society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosaldo, Renato. 1989. Culture and truth: the remaking of social analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryoji, Soda. 2007. People on the move: rural-urban interactions in Sarawak. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stacey, Judith. 1988. Can there be a feminist ethnography? Women’s Studies International Forum 11(1):21–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strathern, Marilyn. 1987. An awkward relationship: the case of feminism and anthropology. Signs 12(2):276–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutlive, Vinson H. 1988. The Iban of Sarawak. North Arlington Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutlive, Vinson H. 1991a. Keling and Kumang in town: urban migration and differential effects on Iban women and men. In Female and male in Borneo: contributions and challenges to gender studies, ed. Vinson H. Sutlive, 489–528. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council Monograph Series 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutlive, Vinson H. ed. 1991b. Female and male in Borneo: contributions and challenges to gender studies. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council Monograph Series 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thambiah, Shanthi. 1997. Household formation and egalitarian gender relations among the Bhuket of Central Borneo. Asian Journal of Women Studies 3(3):101–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wee, Lynn. 2015. Yours and mine: gendered notions of money in marriage. In For better or for worse: marriage and family in Sarawak, ed. Hew Cheng Sim. London: Whiting and Birch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Windle, Jill. 1997. Remoteness, roads and rural development in upland areas of Sarawak, Malaysia. PhD thesis, University of Queensland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong Mee Lian. 1991. Women in health and community development: a case study of the Berawans in Sarawak. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, Kate, Carol Wolkowitz, and Roslyn McCullagh, eds. 1981. Of marriage and the market: women’s subordination, internationally and its lessons. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zainab Awang Ngah. 2006. Studies on women in Malaysia 1990–2004: an overview and bibliography. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Science, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Malaysia

    Hew Cheng Sim

Authors
  1. Hew Cheng Sim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hew Cheng Sim .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam

    Victor T. King

  2. Professor of Anthropology, Institute of Asian Studies and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam

    Zawawi Ibrahim

  3. Lecturer at Geography and Development and Environmental Studies, Institute of Asian Studies and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam

    Noor Hasharina Hassan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hew Cheng Sim (2017). Whither Gender Studies in Sarawak?. In: King, V., Ibrahim, Z., Hassan, N. (eds) Borneo Studies in History, Society and Culture. Asia in Transition, vol 4. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0672-2_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0672-2_11

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-0671-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-0672-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation