Publisher's Synopsis
The modern Malaysian press frequently runs articles on the matrilineal society of Negeri Sembilan under such headings as 'It's a Woman's World' and 'Woman Power'. Matriliny and Modernity explores the situation both past and present of women living in this small state in rapidly modernising Malaysia. Written from a feminist anthropological viewpoint, it considers how far both the colonial and post-colonial remakings of matrilineal cultural practices within modernity have left women with what many western feminists would call a degree of social agency if not autonomy. Maila Stivens looks critically at the appropriateness of such judgements, at the same time reflecting on the ways that western knowldege production and the continuing importance of images of exotic matriarchies in the western imagination have shaped debates about such societies.
As well as appealing to those with an interest in issues of gender-and-development, Asian Studies and women's situation in modernising societies, the book's explanation of the past and present of relatively more egalitarian gender arrangements also contributes to wider debates about causes of sexual inequality and the possibilites for sexual equality.
