"This collection presents new ethnographic research, framed in terms of new theoretical developments, and contains fine scholarship and lively writing."—Janet Hoskins, University of Southern California "This is a wonderful collection of essays. At one level they tell us about the transformation and often painful fragmentation of gendered selves in post-colonial states and a speeded-up transnational world. At another level they display the continuing power of ethnography to surprise and move us."—Sherry Ortner, University of California, Berkeley

Food and eating practices are central to current sociological and anthropological concerns about the body, health, consumption, and identity. This study explores the importance of these themes as they intersect with processes of globalization and cultural production within a specific group of consumers, British Sh'ite Iranians. Through the analysis of the consumption practices of this particular migrant group, this book illustrates how both the nutritional value and symbolic significance of food contribute to its health-giving properties and how gender and ethnic identities are preformed and reinforced through the medium of food-work in public and private spheres. At the same time, as this study demonstrates, migration modifies and transfigures such identities and produces hybrid cultures and cuisines.

Singapore and Malaysia are rapidly modernising, globalising Asian states which, although being distinct nations since 1965, share common elements in the on-going struggle over the meaning of gender and sexuality in their societies. This is the first book to discuss a range of discourses around gender in these two countries. Women and the Politics of Representation in Southeast Asia: Engendering Discourse in Singapore and Malaysia seeks to give an overview of how gender and representation come together in various configurations in the history and contemporary culture of both nations. It examines the discursive construction of gender, sexuality and representation in a variety of areas, including the politics of everyday life, education, popular culture, literature, film, theatre and photography. Chapters examine a range of tropes such as the Orientalist "Sarong Party Girl," the iconic "Singapore Girl" of Singapore Airlines, and the figure of pious Muslim femininity celebrated by Malaysian NGO IMAN, all of which play important roles in delineating limitations for gender roles. The collection also draws attention to resistance to these gender boundaries in theatre, film, blogs and social media, and pedagogy. Bringing together research from a variety of humanistic and social science fields, such as film, material culture, semiotics, literature and pedagogy, the book is a comprehensive feminist survey that will be of use for students and scholars of Women’s Studies and Asian Studies, as well as on courses on gender, media and popular culture in Asia.

Rethinking Empowerment looks at the changing role of women in developing countries and calls for a new approach to empowerment. An approach that adopts a more nuanced, feminist interpretation of power and em(power)ment, recognises that local empowerment is always embedded in regional, national and global contexts, pays attention to institutional structures and politics and acknowledges that empowerment is both a process and an outcome. Moreover, the book warns that an obsession with measurement rather than process can undermine efforts to foster transformative and empowering outcomes. It concludes that power must be restored as the centrepiece of empowerment. Only then will the term and its advocates provide meaningful ammunition for dealing with the challenges of an increasingly unequal, and often sexist, global/local world.

Transcultural Japan provides a critical examination of being Other in Japan. Portraying the multiple intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, the book suggests ways in which the transcultural borderlands of Japan reflect globalization in this island nation. The authors show the diversity of Japan from the inside, revealing an extraordinarily complex new society in sharp contrast to the persistent stereotypical images held of a regimented, homogeneous Japan. Unsettling as it may be, there are powerful arguments here for looking at the meanings of globalization in Japan through these diverse communities and individuals. These are not harmonious, utopian communities by any means, as they are formed in contexts, both global and local, of unequal power relations. Yet it is also clear that the multiple processes associated with globalization lead to larger hybridizations, a global mélange of socio-cultural, political, and economic forces and the emergence of what could be called trans-local Creolized cultures. Transcultural Japan reports regional, national, and cosmopolitan movements. Characterized by global flows, hybridity, and networks, this book documents Japan’s new lived experiences and rapid metamorphosis. Accessible and engaging, this broad-based volume is an attractive and useful resource for students of Japanese culture and society, as well as being a timely and revealing contribution to research scholars and for those interested in race, ethnicity, cultural identities and transformations.

This collection of essays examines the worldwide dispersal of Asian populations and links these seemingly disparate movements through the category of Asian diasporas.

Houses in Motion: The Experience of Place and the Problem of Belief in Urban Malaysia is about the transformation of urban space and the reordering of the demographic character of Brickfields, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Kuala Lumpur. Baxstrom offers an ethnographic account of the complex attempts on the part of the state and the community to reconcile techno-rational conceptions of law, development, and city planning with local experiences of place, justice, relatedness, and possibilities for belief in an aggressively changing world. The book combines classic methods of anthropological research and an engagement with the work of theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and Henri Lefebvre, and moves beyond previous studies of Southeast Asian cities by linking larger conceptual issues of ethics, belief, and experience to the concrete trajectories of everyday urban life in the region.

This collection of essays brings together work by some of the most internationally acclaimed critics of Malaysian literature in English from different parts of the world, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the US. It investigates the works of major writers of the tradition in the genres of drama, fiction and poetry, from its beginnings to the present, focusing mainly on thematic and stylistic trends. The book pays particular attention to issues such as gender, ethnicity, nationalism, multiculturalism, diaspora, hybridity and transnationalism, which are central to the creativity and imagination of these writers. The chapters collectively address the challenges and achievements of writers in the English language in a country where English, first introduced by the colonisers, has experienced a mixed fate of ups and downs in the post-independence period, due to the changing, and sometimes strikingly different, policies adopted by the government. The book will be of interest to readers and researchers of Malaysian literature, Southeast Asian studies and postcolonial literatures.

This study set out to illustrate and understand how the ongoing processes of rural transformation are influencing women’s and men’s labor, and broader gender relations among the Kenyah. It examines the changes that have occurred in two Uma’ Jalan Kenyah villages in East Kalimantan – based on previous longterm ethnographic research (beginning in 1979 and continuing periodically until 2004), ending with a Rapid Rural Appraisal visit in 2019. Various development efforts have altered these peoples’ environment, from dense tropical rainforest in the 1970s, through extensive forest loss due successively to logging, industrial timber plantations and transmigration. Most recently oil palm plantations have flourished over much of the province (including the two study communities), prompting radical changes to people’s agricultural practices. Here, we examine the implications of these changes for men’s and women’s lives, roles and interactions. The most surprising finding is the continuation of comparatively equitable gender dynamics among the Kenyah. This is in the face of narratives and policies – from education, government, business and religion – with seriously marginalizing gender implications, to which the people are increasingly exposed.