Departing Significantly From Existing Approaches, This Book Argues Forcefully That The School Of Thought Which Holds That The Family And Therefore Kinship Systems Should Be Stable Has To Be Challenged In Order To Usher In Gender Equality. Essential Reading For Students And Scholars In The Fields Of Gender Studies, Kinship And Family Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Health And Nutrition And Education.
Kinship and History in South Asia presents four papers given at a small conference of kinship studies scholars, “Kinship and History in South Asia,” at the University of Toronto in 1973. They draw upon one another and show several common concerns, particularly the theoretical importance of Dravidian systems. Yey they remain specialist studies, each within its own raison d’être. Brendra E. F. Beck contributes a study of the “kinship nucleus” in Tamil folklore, Levi-Straussian both in its treatment of kinship and of mythology. George L. Hart’s study of woman and the sacred in the ancient Tamil literature of the Sangam attempts to elucidate this literature in its own terms, and also to relate it to Beck’s “kinship nucleus.” Thomas R. Trautmann presents a critical examination of the evidence for cross-cousin marriage in early North India, attempting to determine historical fact from literary materials. Narendra K. Wagle offers a survey of the kinship categories to be found in the Pali Jatakas.
Care Relations in Southeast Asia: The Family and Beyond, edited by Patcharawalai Wongboonsin and Jo-Pei Tan, examines the care relations and transactions within and beyond the family network across three middle-income Southeast Asian countries, namely the Federation of Malaysia, the Kingdom of Thailand and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at the national and sub-national level. On the national level, changes and continuity in care relations along the changing demographic, socio-economic and political contexts of each country are addressed. On the sub-national level, the complex dimensions of care relations are analyzed by looking at the attitude towards and practice of elderly and child care within, between and beyond the family system. These regional analyses are based on merged data of three most recent family surveys in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok Metropolis, and Hanoi. Alternative and innovative policy recommendations for current and future challenges are also offered. Contains contributions by: Asmidawati Ashari, Ki Soo Eun, Tengku Aizan Hamid, Rahimah Ibrahim, Thuttai Keeratipongpaiboon, Nguyen Huu Minh, Pataporn Sukontamarn, Jo-Pei Tan, Tran Thi Minh Thi, Kua Wongboonsin and Patcharawalai Wongboonsin
The Living House is a pioneering work by respected anthropologist Roxana Waterson that has become a classic in its field. It is first book of its kind to present a detailed picture of houses within the complex social and symbolic fabric of indigenous South-East Asian peoples. The main focus of the book is on Indonesia, but in tracing historical links between architectural forms across the region, it reveals a much wider field of inquiry--covering all of the Austronesian peoples and cultures extending as far afield as Madagascar, Japan and the Pacific islands to New Zealand and Hawaii. As it probes the centrally significant role of houses within South-East Asian social systems, The Living House reveals new insights into the kinship systems, gender symbolism and cosmological principles of the peoples who build them, ultimately uncovering fundamental themes concerning the concepts of life force and life processes inherent in all of these cultures. A vivid picture is produced of how people shape buildings and buildings shape people--how rules about layout and spatial usage impact social relationships. The book concludes with a consideration of present-day changes affecting the fates of indigenous cultures and architectures throughout the region. This book will be of tremendous interest to architects and historians, and anyone interested in the indigenous art and cultures of South-East Asia.
Families in Asia provides a unique sociological analysis of family trends in Asia. Stella R. Quah uses demographic and survey data, personal interviews and case studies from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam to provide a wide-ranging comparative analysis of family trends and the role of the state and social policy. Focusing on the most relevant and significant aspects of family and kin, chapters include: Concepts and research trends Family forming Parenthood Grandparenthood Gender roles in families Marriage breakdown The impact of Socio-economic development This new edition has been updated and expanded throughout and includes new material on dowry, singlehood, adoption, the transformation of the senior generation, changes in family courts and the role of the state in family wellbeing. Families in Asia will be the perfect companion for students and scholars alike who are interested in family sociology, public and social policy, and Asian society and culture more broadly.
This lively survey of the peoples, cultures, and societies of Southeast Asia introduces a region of tremendous geographic, linguistic, historical, and religious diversity. Encompassing both mainland and island countries, these engaging essays describe personhood and identity, family and household organization, nation-states, religion, popular culture and the arts, the legacies of war and recovery, globalization, and the environment. Throughout, the focus is on the daily lives and experiences of ordinary people. Most of the essays are original to this volume, while a few are widely taught classics. All were chosen for their timeliness and interest, and are ideally suited for the classroom.
From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.
There has been a growing acceptance that food has an important role in establishing and structuring social and kin relations in South East Asian societies. This study looks at a wide variety of groups in the region and demonstrates that within all of them the feeding relationship is fundamental to the establishment and the nature of relations within generations and between generations. Presenting material from ten societies in the region, the papers included in this volume argue that the feeding of foods, drink and meals based on the focal starch crop grown by these agricultural groups - rice in eight of the groups covered here, sago in one and cassava in one - is used to manipulate 'biological' kinship and to construct a 'kinship' particular to humans; which is nevertheless founded in a 'natural' process, the 'flow of life', blessings and potency between generations.
