Review of Radical Political Economics Vol

Review of Radical Political Economics Vol.
23(3 & 4)57-98(1991)
Uneven and Combined Development: Dynamics of
Change and Womens Everyday Forms of
Resistance in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
Carol McAllister
ABSTRACT: This essay discusses the theory of uneven and combined development,
illustrating
its dynamics by examples from ethnographic research in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.

The focus
is on womens "everyday forms of resistance" through their continuing participation in
matrilineal and Islamic traditions at the same time as they are incorporated into the
international
wage-and-marketeconomy. Renements in the theory are suggested based on feminist

criticism
and the responses of Negeri Sembilan women to capitalist development.
"How can you work for someone who even tells you how much time you
can take to eat your rice?" ~ comment by a woman farmer in Negeri
Sembilan, Malaysia, on the wage-work experiences of her sons and
daughters.
Marxist methodology demands attention to theoretical continuity, but also
to theoretical innovation. There is a constant interplay between using existing

concepts to interpret and explain developments in human society and using
such "on the ground analyses to rene, correct, and enrich theory. The
concept of uneven and combined development, which emerged from the
analysis of societies undergoing a capitalist transformation in the late 19th
Graduate School of Public Health, 230 Parran Hall, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
PA
15260.
This essay is based on 17 months of eld research funded by the FulbrightHays

Doctoral
Dissertation Research Abroad Program. Initial analysis of the material was aided by a
grant
from the University of Pittsburghs Provost Development Fund for Women and
Minorities.
Discussions with numerous colleagues, friends and students in Pittsburgh as well as an

exchange
of ideas with other scholars working in Malaysia, especially Aihwa Ong, Michael
Peletz, and
Don Nonini have helped me rene the arguments and interpretations presented here. An
earlier
version of this paper was delivered to the Conference on "Marxism Now: Traditions and
Differences" held at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1989 and has been

published
as a working paper by the International Institute for Research and Education in

Amsterdam, the
Netherlands. Revision has beneted from the comments of Wong Kokkeong and the
very
helpful suggestions of the editors of this volume of RRPE Elizabeth Kruse, Laurie N
isonoff,
Heidi Gottfried, and David Fasenfest. Special thanks to Michael Lwy for comments on
the
earlier draft and for his encouragement to continue my work on uneven and combined
development. Paul Le Blane was the person who rst introduced me to the theory of
uneven and
combined development by sharing with me the book written by Lowy on this subject.
His
support -- personal, intellectual and political continues to be central to the

development of
my work and my vision for social transformation and change. It was the people of
Negeri
Sembilan, however, who rst led me to the insights presented here. Through generously
sharing
their activities, their lives, and their own ideas with me, they taught me much about
resistance
and also about hope. To them, I can only say with greatest humility, tenma kasih.
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2015
from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.
58 Carol McAllister
and early 20th centuries, provides a good example of this process of
theoretical continuity and change. My own work, based on research in
Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, during a more recent period characterized by
growing incorporation of the local society in the global capitalist economy,
attempts to build on and suggest new directions for this important
contribution to the Marxist tradition.
The purpose of this essay is twofold: rst, to discuss the theory of uneven
and combined development, contrasting it to other approaches to
contemporary Third World change; and second, to use concrete examples
from my eld research in Negeri Sembilan to illustrate the dynamics of
uneven and combined development and to suggest further innovations in this
theoretical perspective. In terms of the latter, my focus is on the lives of
Negeri Sembilan women and what I call their "everyday forms of
resistance. " My work is inuenced by the ethnographic tradition in
anthropology and the emergence of new forms of feminist criticism and
analysis, both of which I draw on to rene and enrich the basic framework
of uneven and combined development as I use it in analyzing the changing
situation of Negeri Sembilan women.
THE THEORY OF UNEVEN AND COMBINED
DEVELOPMENT
The "law of uneven and combined development" was rst formulated by
Leon Trotsky in his analysis of the Russian Revolution (Trotsky 1959: 1-10).
Trotsky put forth this idea to help explicate the character _of the Russian
economy in the early 20th century which, he argued, combined very
advanced forms of industrial capitalism with the continued existence of
feudal economic, social, and political institutions. The encounter of Russian
society with the system of international capitalism resulted in a virtual
leaping over of stages of development predicated on the earlier experiences
of the Western European nations hence the unevenness of historical
change. Such leaps did not, however, mean a simple loss or elimination of
previous forms of economic and social organization; instead, certain aspects
of Russian tsarism and serfdom were actually reinforced through the
application of new techniques borrowed from advanced capitalist societies or
through their incorporation into the newly developing wage-and-market
economy in Russia itself. There was thus "a drawing together of the different
stages of the journey, a combining of separate steps, an amalgam of archaic
with more contemporary forms" (Trotsky 1959: 4). One of the results,
according to Trotsky, was the unexpected occurrence of a socialist revolution
in a fairly "backward" semi-feudal country.2
The roots of the idea of uneven and combined development can, however,
be traced to the work of Marx. This is particularly apparent in some of his
latter writings where he discusses the evolution and probable fate of the
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2015
Uneven and Combined Development: Dynamics of Change 59
Russian rural commune (Shanin 1983: 97-139). Here the focus is on the
persistence of precapitalist, especially communal, arrangements in spite of
the growing hegemony of the capitalist system. Marx was especially
interested in the possible role of such "primitive communist" forms as the
basis for a future socialist reconstruction of Russia and other societies in the
capitalist periphery.
The theory of uneven and combined development has been applied in
several recent studies (see, for example, the debate in Latin American
Perspectives among Romagnolo 1975; Lowy 1975; Novack 1976; Harding
1976; Mariategui 1971; Blanco 1972; Burawoy 1984; Post and Wright 1989;
and Le Blanc 1989). The most detailed contemporary exposition is found in
the work of the French sociologist, Michael Lowy, who traces the historical
evolution of the theory and then uses it to interpret the process of capitalist
development and revolutionary struggles in a number of countries in the
post-World War II period (Lowy 1981). Lowys discussion makes clear that
while this perspective is derived from a historical materialist analysis of the
evolution of different modes of production, it rejects a rigid unilineal or
stagiest view of history and also the more mechanical and determinist models
put forth by some branches of Marxist scholarship. Instead, central place is

given to the notion of dialectic and thus to the recognition of movement,
contradiction, and complex interactions within social and cultural systems
and within processes of historical change. The theory of uneven and
combined development has rarely been explicitly used and amplied within
the eld of anthropology. A monograph edited by Sahlins and Service (1960)
is the only discussion of anthropological theory of which I am aware that
makes direct and positive reference to Trotskys idea. There has, though,
been an interest within recent Marxist anthropology in the related idea of the
"articulation" of capitalist and pre-capitalist modes of production. Kahn
(1980) provides an example in his work on the Minangkabau of Sumatra, a
group whose culture is similar to that of Negeri Sembilan Malays. (The
original Malay settlers of Negeri Sembilan were Minangkabau migrants.)
This approach, however, tends to remain quite abstract and has been
criticized as amounting to "no more than teleological assertion of the
functional utility of the pre-capitalist mode of production to capitalist
accumulation" (Robinson 1986: 9). (See Foster-Carter 1978 and Kahn and
Llobera 1981 for further discussion and critique of this work.)
One important difference between the "articulation" approach and that of
uneven and combined development is the greater attention paid in the latter
to human action, including peoples engagement in actual political struggles.
Another is the focus on the dynamic interpenetration and reworking of
capitalist and pre-capitalist economic and social relations in the formation of
a functioning (though conicted and continually changing) local system. This

contrasts with a more mechanical analysis of the "articulation" of two or
more distinct modes of production as the local economy becomes linked

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60 Carol McAllister
step-by-step with the global system. For example, Kahns (1980) work on
the Minangkabau describes the role of the subsistence mode of production
in reproducing the local labor force which, in turn, is primarily involved in
petty-commodity production of raw materials that are then used by the
international system of industrial capitalism based on wage-labor. In the
perspective of uneven and combined development, these different forms of
production are viewed as more fully enmeshed in one another, forming a
totality that may, however, contain important contradictions. Our attention
thus becomes directed to additional questions, such as how the system of
subsistence (or petty-commodity) production itself and its accompanying
social and cultural forms are changed by their encounter with international
capitalism and how, in turn, people bring practices and forms of
consciousness from their pre-capitalist forms of production into their daily
work and life in the wage-and-market economy.3
Several recent anthropological studies advance a conceptualization of Third
World development and change quite similar to that which I am deriving

from my research in Negeri Sembilan, though none make any explicit
reference to the theory of uneven and combined development. Two good
examples are Taussigs (1980) discussion of the practice of devil worship
among Bolivian tin miners and Colombian plantation workers and Stolers
(1985; 1987) analysis of the development of the plantation economy and
forms of workers struggles in North Sumatra. Nashs (1979) work, also on
Bolivian miners, presents a comparable picture of the integration of old and
new elements in the worldview of these workers. Robinsons (1986) research
on an Indonesian mining town and Ongs (1987; 1988) work on factory
women in Malaysia explore similar dynamics as well as give particular
attention to their impact on womens lives and on gender relations.
INADEQUACY OF PREDOMINANT MODELS
OF THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT
These studies, as well as my own research, indicate the inadequacy of
unilinear models of change which premise that capitalist relations and values
by their very presence come to substitute for or at least push out previous
forms of economy, society, and culture. This problem characterizes most
models of Third World development, including the Marxistinspired
dependency and world systems theories (see, for example, Frank 1966,
1967, 1979; Cockcroft, Frank and Johnson 1972; Wallerstein 1974, 1980,
1988; Hopkins, Wallerstein, Bach, Chase-Dunn, and Mukherjee 1982; and
Shannon 1989). Both of these perspectives provide important correctives to

the earlier "modernization" approaches by recognizing that capitalism is by
now the dominant mode of production in the Third World as well as in the
highly industrialized West and by drawing attention to the increasing
integration of all economic activities into the orbit of international capital.

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They also help to make clear that the problems of Third World economies
derive primarily from their particular positions in the global system, not
from their lack of "modernization" or insufcient development of wage and
market mechanisms. But these insights, important as they are, should not
lead to one-way mirrors that direct our attention exclusively to the impact of
global structures on local communities; nor do they warrant characterizing
such "peripheral" or "developing" societies as simply capitalist. Such
reductions render invisible local specicities and also mask the complexities
and contradictions of current Third World economic and social formations,
producing analyses that are inadequate for either scientic research or for
understanding peoples own consciousness and actions directed toward
political change
Much of traditional anthropology tends to move in the opposite direction
with its reliance on village studies, "good ethnography," or what Geertz

(1973) might call "thick description. " The focus in these accounts is often on
the strength of tradition, the resiliency of the indigenous society and culture,
and the adaptability of old forms to new needs. My own research thoroughly
explores such dynamics, but there should be no mistaking that all women
(and also men) in Negeri Sembilan are caught in the throes of a process of
fundamental and extensive change that is largely outside of their own
control. Local ethnographies, devoid of an adequate appreciation of global
restructuring and its impact on Third World communities, are equally likely
to result in distorted analyses as well as in a dangerous complacency that
continues to insist "all is well" while egalitarian social and economic
arrangements are further destroyed, more exploitative relationships are
developed, and the basic needs of the majority go increasingly unmet.
More representative of the actual experiences of contemporary Third
World peoples are theoretical models that recognize the possible coexistence
of different forms of social and economic organization and the interaction of
local and global structures in the process of change. Using such approaches,
the transformations in society and culture are clearly noted but so too is the
persistence of traditional forms of organization and ways of thought.
The two most common versions of this general perspective, as least as
developed in Southeast Asia studies, contain, however, several serious
weaknesses. The rst, sometimes labeled the "dual economy" model (Boeke
1953, 1961), assumes the existence of two separate economic and social
domains in colonial and semi-colonial societies one organized according
to the principles of Western corporate capitalism and the other representing
a relatively stagnant subsistence or peasant sector. The society, and
especially its economy, is conceptualized as divided into a "traditional" and
a "modern" way of life. A serious aw in this model is the lack of attention
to the interactions between the two sectors; in fact, the theoretical division
of any society into two such distinct and selfcontained units is clearly a
distortion. In case studies of contemporary Third World societies, it is clear

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62 Carol McAllister
that the socalled traditional or subsistence sector is essential to the
functioning of international capitalism and that the latter in turn continues to
reshape "tradition. "
The other approach that recognizes the coexistence of old and new
emphasims in contrast the thorough mingling and mixing of historically
separate social and cultural traits. This model is especially common in
studies of religion in Southeast Asia that explore the melding together of
indigenous traditions with one of the world religions - i.e., Islam,
Buddhism, or Christianity. In such a perspective, historically discrete
elements merge into a syncretic mixture whose different strands eventually

become so tightly interwoven they are difcult to separate out. Thus, in
Malaysia, aspects of the pre-Islamic religious tradition, such as communal
feasting or beliefs in various types of spirits, are presumed to become
integral parts of Malay Islam. Malay Islam itself, according to this scenario,
then mixes and becomes integrated with modern secular values of progress,
competition, saving, and discipline, providing (following a Weberian
analysis) the ideological underpinnings of capitalist development. Except it
does not work so neatly and consistently! Instead, under the impact of the
current process of rapid economic and social change, some of the strands
that appeared to be bound together in one "rope" are being dramatically
ripped apart and then reinterpreted and rewoven into new patterns. In sum,
the model presents reality as more static and seamless than it proves to be
and as composed of discrete cultural elements that easily combine and
recombine rather than of fundamental social relations that often wrench as
they shift. And as with the dual economy model, this picture of syncretism
does not allow us to grasp the dynamic interactions between old and new, the
essential and often shifting points of both incorporation and conflict.
In my case study of Negeri Sembilan, I take a fundamentally different
approach by drawing on the theory of uneven and combined development to
analyze the current economic, social, and cultural transformations of this
society and their impacts on womens lives. The advantage of this
perspective is that it allows us not only to recognize the important transitions
international capitalism is causing in Third World societies such as Negeri

Sembilan, but also to appreciate the signicance, necessity, and even
inevitability of the persistence of preexisting local forms of economy,
society, and culture as well. And this coexistence and interpenetration of old
and new is represented not as an anomaly but as an essential and expected
part of the transformation and change itself.
The approach of uneven and combined development also helps us to
explore the dynamic and dialectical interaction of these different economic
and social arrangements and their accompanying ideologies. We can see
where there are points of incorporation and what is the nature of the
combining and also note the conicts and contradictions that persist or newly
arise and that create additional areas of stress which may represent the locus

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of future struggle and change. Attention is focused on this process of
interaction and combining within the central relations of peoples lives,
especially those through which they attempt to meet their basic material
needs. This, in turn, encourages consideration of their real life possibilities,
constraints, and choices, including the choice to engage in various types of
resistance and struggles for social change.

At the same time as I rely on the theory of uneven and combined
development as a framework for analysis, I also attempt to use the lessons
taught to me by N egeri Sembilan women especially about their own forms
of everyday resistance and struggle to rene and enrich this theoretical
model so it, in turn, becomes a better tool for interpreting their experiences
and for illuminating processes of change throughout contemporary Asia,
Africa, and Latin America. While the general questions dealt with in this
study are not conned to the situation of women in Negeri Sembilan, their
experiences and perceptions provide a useful and interesting lens through
which to examine the dynamics of postcolonial societies and to suggest
innovations in existing theories of development and change.
MATRILINY, ISLAM, AND CAPITALISM:
DYNAMICS OF CHANGE IN NEGERI SEMBILAN
Malaysia, like most nations of the Third World, is currently undergoing
a process of intensive capitalist development. This involves, most centrally,
the extension of capitalist property relationships in both agrarian and
industrial sectors, a growing incorporation of people in wage-labor and in the
international division of labor, and an increasing dependency on a cash
economy and the competitive world market. While these changes are
encouraged and supported by policies of the Malaysian government, the new
economic forms and their penetration into the local context are largely
controlled by and under the direction of multinational corporations and

nancial institutions (Lim 1982; McAllister 1987: 88-93; Ong 1983, 1987;
Jomo Kwame Sundaram 1988; and Scott 1989).
Such a process of capitalist development induces a fundamental
transformation, often rapid and abrupt, of traditional societies and cultures.
In Malaysia, this affects even those sectors of the Malay ethnic group left
most untouched by the earlier period of European colonialism. The Malays
of Negeri Sembilan, on the west coast of the peninsula, represent an
important case where traditional social and cultural forms based on
subsistence rice farming, matrilineal kinship and the religion of Islam --
remained relatively intact through the colonial era but are now subject to
substantial pressure for abandonment or change. While such developments
impact on all the people of Negeri Sembilan, the current transformation most
seriously affects women and thus is clearly revealed through changes in their
lives.

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64 Carol McAllister
Deriving its subsistence primarily from wet-rice farming, traditional
Negeri Sembilan society was built around a communal system centered on
the principle of matrilineal descent. Known as adat perpatih, this social
system was characterized by membership in named descent groups traced

through women, matrilocal residence and, thus, daily life in extended
families based on cores of related women, and kin group ownership of rice
lands and house plots, use-rights to which are passed primarily from mothers
to daughters. These structural expressions of matriliny also encouraged the
sharing of work, resources, and responsibility for children among a wide
network of female matri-kin, and the wide dispersal of political authority
among women and men of the matrilineage. Ada: petpatih is, in addition, a
consciously articulated conceptual or ideological system, a worldview that
guides peoples perceptions and choices. Two themes which characterize this
ideological framework are an emphasis on norms of sharing and communal
responsibility and a recognition of the prerogatives of women and their
centrality to the functioning of the family, kin group, and larger society. (See
McAllister 1987: 29-49 and 1989b; Peletz 1987 and 1988; Khadijah
Muhamed 1978; Swift 1965; Abdul Kahar Bador 1963; Lewis 1962; Gullick
1958; and Josselin de Jong 1951 for further details on adat perpatih).
Within such a social and cultural complex, Negeri Sembilan women
performed important roles in the production of subsistence crops, with their
access to land guaranteed by communal lineage ownership and inheritance
through the female line. They also played a central part in the distribution
and exchange of the products of labor. These economic roles, in turn,
provided women with considerable authority in social and political matters
and allowed them a large measure of control over their own lives and
persons. (See McAllister 1987 and Peletz 1987, 1988 for a further analysis
of the roles and status of Negeri Sembilan women. Tanner 1974 provides
comparable information on the Minangkabau, the ancestral population of
Negeri Sembilan Malays.)
Islam began to penetrate both the Malay peninsula and the island of
Sumatra, the homeland of the Minangkabau immigrants to N egeri Sembilan,
in the 15th century. First introduced by Arab and Indian traders, Islamic
inuence spread rapidly and resulted in the conversion of the Malay
population, until today all ethnic Malays dene themselves as Muslims.
From the beginning, though, Islam interacted with and was affected by the
preexisting local cultures, which in Negeri Sembilan, meant that of adat
perpatih. In particular, the roles and status of N egeri Sembilan women,
while inuenced by certain aspects of Islamic theology and law (e.g. , formal
legal statutes governing marriage and divorce follow Islamic practice),
continued to be largely shaped by the traditional matrilineal system and the
social structure it fostered. (See McAllister 1987: 50-61, 1989a and Josselin
de Jong 1960 for further information on the situation in Negeri Sembilan;

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Strange 1981: 20-26 analyzes the impact of Islam on the status of women
throughout Malaysia).
Throughout the Malay peninsula, the Islamic conversion did not result in
an adoption of the practices of seclusion and veiling; nor did it entail the
development of the patriarchal family patterns, restrictions on womens
public activities, and concern with the social separation of males and females
prevalent in the Muslim heartland (See Mernissi 1987; Ahmed 1982,1986;
Beck and Keddie 1978; El Saadawi 1980; Femea and Bezirgan 1977; and
Fernea 1985 for discussions of the status of women in other Muslim
societies). In Negeri Sembilan, the matrilineal system of land tenure
remained in force rather than a shift to the pattern of private property
ownership and differential inheritance by males (sons inheriting twice as
much as daughters) favored by the Quran. Women, in turn, continued to be
active in economic production and exchange and in public life in general. But
in spite of this particular historical accommodation, Islam became and still
remains a signicant element of Malay culture and identity. Islamic
theology, and its social and cultural expressions in other Muslim societies,
thus provides a set of ideas and values from which can be drawn elements
for more contemporary innovation and change, a process we see happening
in a dramatic upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in Malaysia
today.
British colonialism dominated the economic and political life of the Malay
peninsula during the latter half of the 19th century until formal independence
in 1957. But in the area of Negeri Sembilan, the colonial enterprise of

developing a Eurocentric economy based on tin mining and rubber
production was never able to totally dislodge preexisting economic and social
relations (see McAllister 1987: 66-80 and Peletz 1988 for further details).
Today, however, the people of Negeri Sembilan are experiencing a more
far-reaching process of historical change that profoundly affects both the
system of adat perpatih and the traditional interpretation and practice of
Islam. Such change, which has particular implications for womens lives and
roles, is linked to the growing incorporation of Malaysia into the world
market and the increasing transformation of local forms of economy and
society toward a capitalist model.
In the Kuala Pilah area of Negeri Sembilan, where I carried out eld
research in 1978-79, many young women were being drawn directly into the
global system of industrial production. They, along with their female
counterparts from other regions of Malaysia, form the backbone of the
low-paid work force in the Japanese- and American-owned electronics plants
that have mushroomed since the early 1970s and that are important
components of the strategy of export-processing by international capital. A
recent article in the Far Eastern Economic Review indicates that "80 % of the
85,000 jobs that have been created in electronics alone are held by women.
And 70% of these women workers are Malay" (Scott 1989: 32). The report

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66 Carol McAllister
goes on to describe how Malaysia has already been turned into "the worlds
largest exporter and the third-largest producer of semiconductors and a major
producer of electronic gadgetry, " while recent investments by Taiwanese and
Hong Kong companies are leading another burst of expansion (Scott 1989:
33). The main attraction for multinational companies is the availability of an
abundant and cheap, though fairly well-educated, labor force - female
production workers, who are often high school graduates, are paid about
U.S. $4.00 a day. There are also the advantages of labor laws favorable to
employers (e. g., most forms of union activity are outlawed and there is a
lack of health and safety regulations) and a number of special benets for
locating ones plant in a free-trade zone (e.g., tax holidays and exemptions
from import-export duties). Some of these new jobs are located in the rural
areas; others require Malay women to relocate, at least on a temporary basis,
from the rural community to urban settings or industrial zones.
Capitalist development and the growth of export-processing
industrialization has also meant the expansion and transformation of other
aspects of Malaysias economy. N egeri Sembilan women now regularly
travel to nearby towns or to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, seeking work
in the clerical, sales and service sectors. They take jobs as ofce clerks,
typists, telephone operators, salespersons in Chinese-owned stores,
beauticians, or workers in the tourist industry, thus entering occupations that

are heavily feminized in both developed and developing societies. At the
same time, the mothers of these young women, while remaining in their
rural environment, are drawn further into the petty-commodity production
of rubber. The tapping of rubber by Malay smallholders began in the
colonial era but has undergone an expansion during the postcolonial period,
resulting in the entry of more women into this economic activity. While they
still remain outside of the wage-work system, the participation of these
women in small-scale rubber production ties their income more closely to
international uctuations in the demand for natural rubber and increases their
vulnerability to downturns in the global capitalist economy. All of these
women - whatever their form of employment -- likewise nd themselves
increasingly dependent on mass-produced commodities, supplied through a
competitive market framework, to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and
housing as well as to provide new necessities such as televisions, running
water, school uniforms, and motorbikes.
The proletarianization of Negeri Sembilan also promotes gender inequality.
Young women are relegated to low-paid and insecure jobs in the wage-labor
sector; more mature women, despite their increased involvement in
rubber-tapping, nd themselves with growing responsibility for subsistence
production and household work, while the men in their families become the
primary providers of cash. Womens traditional economic roles are being
devalued, and there is emerging a situation of unequal male and female
access to important new resources.

2015
But the expansion of capitalist relations of production and the increasing
proletarianization of Malay women, as important as these changes are, do
not by themselves adequately describe life in contemporary Negeri Sembilan.
Instead, we nd that both matrilineal culture and the religion of Islam still
provide much of the framework for everyday activities, choices, and
worldviews.
It is thus very common during the rice-harvesting season to see groups of
people - many of whom also work for wages or tap rubber for a cash
income - cutting and threshing the rice crop together in a eld that is
owned collectively by their matrilineage and passed in inheritance from
mother to daughters. The harvest so produced provides a substantial amount
of the staple food for these families while the rice elds themselves remain
an important source of pride and self-identity for Negeri Sembilan women.
Similar groups of kin - urban and rural, some illiterate, some highly
educated -- frequently pool their resources (from subsistence production,
cash-cropping, wage-work, and even sometimes winnings from a lottery
ticket!) to put on a kenduri, a traditional communal feast that is a central
ritual component of Malay life and that facilitates cooperative economic and
political activity. One is also likely to encounter, while walking along the
road from village to town, a teenage daughter of one of these families,
rapidly pedaling her bike home from high school or her ofce job, as her
recently donned veil and long dress, symbols of her participation in a
fundamentalist Islamic revival, known in Malaysia as dakwah, ow out
behind her in the wind.
Just these few examples indicate that capitalist development as it is
occurring in Malaysia today, and its effect on women, is not a simple,
unilinear process. Instead, along with the growth of a wage-andmarket
economy and the new social relations and cultural conceptions this induces,
there is also the persistence of traditional economic and social forms and
accompanying value systems and worldviews. In Negeri Sembilan, this
particularly means the continuation of matrilineal and Islamic traditions.
What is happening here is the coexistence and dialectical interaction of
fundamentally different forms of socioeconomic organization and of different
ideological orientations. The process of change is uneven in that the
capitalist transformation proceeds at an irregular pace, in leaps rather than
stages, and to different degrees in various domains of economic and social
life -- and also combined - in that capitalist and precapitalist forms
interact, reshape each other, and combine rather than one merely substituting
for the other. Thus in Negeri Sembilan, matriliny and Islam are not being
simply replaced by new economic and social practices or by new cultural

conceptions; nor are they mere "vestiges" of a previous stage of social
evolution about to disappear. Rather, both matriliny and Islam persist as vital
and evolving components of peoples lives and as such continually develop

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68 Carol McAllister
new points of both accommodation and conict with each other as well as
with the increasingly dominant capitalist system.
UNEVEN AND COMBINED DEVELOPMENT IN THE
LIVES OF NEGERI SEMBILAN WOMEN
The inadequacy of familiar models of Third World development for
grasping this complexity, and for analyzing the particular dynamics of the
transformation occurring in contemporary N egeri Sembilan, eventually led
me to a consideration of the theory of uneven and combined development.
In the course of my research, however, I found I was making certain
renements or innovations in this basic perspective in order to better
represent what I was learning from N egeri Sembilan women about their own
lives. Much of these revisions of theory and method were informed by the
ethnographic tradition in anthropology and especially draw from new insights
raised by feminist critiques and analyses. They attempt not just to "add on"
womens concerns to the existing theory of uneven and combined
development but rather to transform the basic approach so it becomes a
stronger tool for interpreting the experiences of Negeri Sembilan women and
also for analyzing general problems of development and change.
One of the rst renements I needed to make was grounding the theory
of uneven and combined development more rmly in ethnographic details
and the realities of Negeri Sembilan womens daily existence. It was
necessary to locate the dialectical process which the model presupposes in
my informants everyday, lived experiences, not just in abstracted economic
and political structures or "modes of production." This kind of ethnographic
description, which has a long though variable history in the practice of
anthropology, and the methodology of participant observation on which it
depends are essential to understanding contemporary Third World
development and the attendant transformation of traditional societies.7 It is
a methodological approach recently given new life by the feminist argument
that peoples actual lived experiences, including the experiences of women,
should not only provide the basis for the discovery of facts about social
realities but also provide the context for generating and determining
signicant questions for study and research (see, for example, Harding 1987:
6-8). Careful and detailed examination of such ethnographic materials has
been central to the work of feminist anthropologists as we challenge the
received wisdom about womens lives, roles, and status and attempt to
provide more accurate and nuanced analyses. This is illustrated from the
earliest collected volumes in the anthropology of women (e.g. , Reiter 1975)
to the most recent overviews in this eld (e. g., Morgen 1989 and Sanday
and Goodenough 1990), as well as by the work of individual anthropologists
who have developed some of the most important feminist critiques of

2015
anthropological theory (e. g., Leacock 1981; Sacks 1979; and Stoler 1977,
1985, 1987, 1989).
In a related move, I took the framework of uneven and combined
development and applied it at the level of village society to explore the
changes in the lives of common people, especially women. This approach
converges with the enterprise in feminist scholarship sometimes known as
"demarginalizing" i.e., not simply giving attention to the experiences of
women and other oppressed groups (e. g. , peasants, workers, people of color)
but actually making their experiences the central focus of historical and
social analysis. I could have pursued another kind of research - focused on
national developments, publicly marked events, and recognized political
leaders likewise utilizing the model of uneven and combined development
and its companion theory of permanent revolution, in a mode closer to the
work of L6wy (1981). This would have involved a study of the growing
disintegration of Malaysias attempt at maintaining a national system of
bourgeois democracy while pursuing a course of rapid capitalist
development.8 But my study shifts the framework of uneven and combined
development to explore how similar dynamics are played out in the lives of
ordinary villagers, especially women, whose experiences and reactions are
often invisible in general accounts of national development even though they
clearly underlie and affect the larger picture of economic change and
emerging political struggles. Such a shift not only increases the visibility of
those who are often left on the margins but also transforms the whole axis
of analysis so that we receive a fundamentally different picture of social
reality as well as new theoretical insights on development and change.9
Guided by the experiences of the women in Negeri Sembilan, whose lives
had thus become the focal point of my research, I found I also had to pay
attention to much more than politicaleconomy in the narrowly dened sense.
To understand the choices of my female informants and the changes
occurring in their lives, I had to extend my analysis beyond matters of work
and property to issues of residence, family, marriage, and childcare -- i.e. ,
to the relations of reproduction and to other cultural processes such as
education, religion, ritual, and even play. In my research, I discovered that
the interaction between old and new forms and the resulting complex
combining and contradictions that we see in the arena of economics is also
occurring in these other domains of life as well.0 This converges with the
general insight developed by feminist scholars concerning the signicance of

matters of reproduction and culture in analyzing womens roles and status,
and beyond that, the workings of society as a whole. For example, Beneria
and Sen (1981) argue for attention to changes in womens reproductive as
well as productive roles in their critique of Boserups (1970) seminal work
on women and development. Greater attention to cultural matters, a
challenge raised by many radical feminists to Marxist scholarship, is also a
concern of feminist anthropologists whose ethnographic training encourages

2015
70 Carol McAllister
an appreciation of the interconnection between material and nonmaterial
aspects of peoples lives. (See, for example, the work of Leacock 1981,
Sanday 1981, and Gailey 1987.)11
Of particular importance are the ideological constructs that N egeri
Sembilan people draw on in interpreting their social reality and making
choices in their everyday lives i.e., culture in the sense of systems of
ideas or meanings. I thus tried to learn about and to comprehend Negeri
Sembilan womens ideas and beliefs about kinship, about spirits, about
eating, about kinds of work as much as their actions and the social
structures in which they live. In this way, I came to stretch the model of
uneven and combined development to be much more holistic in its approach

and to give very serious attention to ideology or consciousness as well as to
economic and social relations "on the ground. "'2
Finally, because of the specic historical context of Negeri Sembilan, I
was forced to recognize that even talking about the interaction of traditional
and modern, of pre-capitalist and capitalist, is itself too simple. In this case,
the "traditional" includes at least two distinct elements matriliny and
Islam which themselves have long been and still are engaged in a process
of mutual accommodation and conict. Given the implications of each of
these social and ideological systems for female roles and status, their
long-standing coexistence and also the present challenge to their historical
accommodation are made especially transparent by a focus on womens lives
and experiences. Such a focus also makes clear the inadequacy of glossing
such traditional social and cultural forms as merely "precapitalist. " This is
commonly taken to mean feudal or peasant and thus indicative of archaic
forms of class oppression accompanied by severe restrictions on womens
power and autonomy. In the case of Negeri Sembilan, and many other
societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well, what we see is the
interaction of components of a preclass, communal and fairly egalitarian
(including sexually egalitarian) way of life with the very inegalitarian and
competitive economic and social forms of modern monopoly capitalism. It
is interesting that Marx at least glimpsed this general point in his writings on
the capitalist periphery (Shanin 1983), while more recent analyses of uneven
and combined development largely neglect it. This creates a tendency to

overlook the presence of possible sources of resistance to the oppression of
capitalist relations, as well as models for more liberated relationships, within
preexisting indigenous traditions. The ethnographic grounding of
anthropology, along with a more feminist reading of Third World history,
can help to overcome this limitation.
WOMENS EVERYDAY FORMS OF RESISTANCE
Working within this revised theoretical framework of uneven and
combined development, I could begin to make sense of the complex set of

2015
observations from my eld research among Negeri Sembilan women. It
become possible to delineate some of the major dynamics that characterize
current transformations in this society and their impact on womens lives.
For the remainder of this essay, I will discuss one particular aspect of
contemporary change. This is the use by Negeri Sembilan women of their
matrilineal and Islamic traditions as a means of resistance against some of
the more negative consequences of dependent capitalist development.
Such resistance in Negeri Sembilan takes several forms. Only rarely does
it entail active, conscious, and organized protest; more often it has an
individual or unorganized collective character. Some forms of resistance
simply involve the continued practice of economic and social activities that
provide an alternative to complete absorption into the wage-and-market
economy. In other cases, there is a more direct response to the conditions a
person is experiencing in her new work or living environment a reSponse
drawn, however, from the traditional cultural repertoire. One important
development in contemporary Malaysia which I interpret as a form of
resistance -- i.e., Islamic revival - has a religious focus and is beginning
to take on a more original mass character.
The specic nature of these different types of resistance may well vary
over time what was once an unfocused, individual response may become
the basis for an organized movement and vice versa - as the general
political climate and level of struggle ebbs and ows. Based on the level of
participation in and consciousness about these forms of resistance during the
period of my eldwork, I refer to all of them as "everyday forms of
resistance" (see Scott 1985; and Abu-Lughod 1990). While both men and
women participate in many of these acts of protest or resistance, women play
a special role in each of them and they have special implications for
womens lives. I will present a number of examples as illustrations of the
phenomenon of uneven and combined development and also indicate how
peoples involvement in such forms of resistance itself promotes and affects
the uneven and combined character of contemporary change.

THE PERSISTENCE OF COOPERATIVE ECONOMIC
AND SOCIAL FORMS
There is, rst of all, the observation that in the present situation of
extensive economic and social restructuring, Negeri Sembilan people, and
particularly women, continue to maintain many of the cooperative economic
and social forms that they attribute to their indigenous matrilineal system.
They creatively adapt such forms to their new circumstances and then use
these renewed traditions to meet their changing needs. I suggest that the
persistence, and even revival and elaboration, of such cooperative practices
in a way, the continued existence and adaptation of a communal form of
political-economy - provides Negeri Sembilan women and their families

2015
72 Carol McAllister
With a support system that buffers them from some of the more exploitative
features of the increasingly dominant capitalist economy.
Work and Property
The persistence of traditional forms of work and property is a good

illustration. Negeri Sembilan women, in spite of their growing involvement
in the wage economy, continue to practice subsistence rice-farming and
cash-cropping in the form of rubber-tapping. Rice production is carried out
on inherited land, with sisters working adjacent plots of padi, and produces
a crop that is shared among kin but never sold on the market.
Rubber-tapping requires the initial purchase of land from the national
government and then eventually the sale of the semiprocessed latex to a
rubber dealer in town. In spite of these differences in subsistence and
petty-commodity production, Negeri Sembilan Malays own both their rice
elds and their rubber trees in a pattern more typical of matrilineal than of
capitalist principles of land tenure. In other words, they refuse to treat such
property as a commodity to be bought and sold but rather regard it as a
resource in which lineage-mates collectively share interest. This practice is
traditional in regard to rice elds, which are considered ancestral property
(harta pesaka) and thus owned by the matrilineage with userights passed
primarily from mothers to daughters; its persistence is remarkable given the
considerable pressure over the past several decades from the national
government for the abandonment of matrilineal inheritance. In addition, there
is evidence that this same practice is now being extended with certain
modications for example, the provision that sons as well as daughters
share actively in use-rights and the possibility of acquiring land through
ones father as well as ones mother to rubber land and trees.13 This
occurs even though according to civil law such newly acquired land must be
registered as private property (preferably under the name of the male "head
of household"), is available for free exchange on a cash basis among Malays,
and is subject to Islamic rules in the matter of inheritance. The continuation
of matrilineal practices in regard to property ownership thus represents a
form of resistance not only to capitalist economic principles but also to actual
legal statutes.
Negeri Sembilan Malays maintain these traditional forms of property and
work to supplement their generally meager wages and to have something to
fall back on during frequent periods of forced or voluntary withdrawal from
employment in the wage-labor sector. This is particularly important for
women whose position in the wage economy remains at the lower levels and
is more precarious than that of men given the layoff practices of
export-processing industries. In addition, several women indicated that by
combining "village work" with employment in the factories, ofces, and
shops in nearby towns, they could maintain a greater degree of control over
their own work lives and more easily perform other valued roles, such as

2015
caring for children or organizing rituals. In some cases, an individual woman
engages in these different forms of labor, shifting from one to another over
time. In other instances, the "combining" occurs through the household

economy which has different members involved in subsistence production,
cash-cropping, and wage-labor while the material results of their work, as
well as what they learn from their diverse experiences, are regularly pooled
and shared.M As a form of everyday resistance, such practices forestall
complete absorption into the system of wage labor and also decrease peoples
dependence on the wage-and-market economy; they also limit the degree to
which employers can impose despotic regimes on female workers since they
can always quit and return home to the work of subsistence and
petty-commodity production. By maintaining traditional forms of property
ownership, extending their application to new types of resources, and then
combining subsistence work and cash-cropping with participation in the
capitalist sector, Negeri Sembilan women also actively, though probably
unconsciously, intervene in and help maintain the uneven and combined
character of the transformation occurring in village life.
Education
A most interesting elaboration of the above practices is the application of
matrilineal principles of ownership to the new "resource" of education.
There are several pieces of evidence to support this interpretation. First, is
the greater emphasis in Negeri Sembilan on educating daughters rather than
sons an observation based on both informants comments and the
differential ow of resources to the education of female children. At times
this can represent a considerable strain on a rural familys nances, for

while public schooling is "free," there are substantial costs for school
uniforms, Supplies, and fees for various activities. In one case, I observed
a mother pawn some of her pieces of gold jewelry to pay for the schooling
of one of her daughters; in contrast, the oldest son in this family was an
early school dropout. There is also the question of removal of the child from
the system of labor + either from subsistence household production or, in
the teenage years, from paid labor so she can continue her schooling
through high school and even college; this can represent a signicant loss of
potential income to a poor family but is often done in the case of female
children.5 A second piece of evidence that people are following traditional
matrilineal practices in regard to modern schooling is the collective nature
of the effort to ensure the educational success of young women. Thus a
student can count on various forms of support from a number of the women
in her matrilineage. Such aid ranges from gifts of cash or food for those
studying in government boarding schools or abroad in the U.S. or England
to provision of a place to stay in town so a young relative can attend a better
high school than the one available in her rural village. The student, in turn,
is expected to reciprocate by sharing the skills she has acquired through her

2015
74 Carol McAllister
education with her extended family of matri-kin. And nally, there are the
explicit references by young Negeri Sembilan women to education as "my
harta . pesaka (ancestral property or inheritance). " They often comment
further that, today, schooling represents one of the most important forms of
harta pesaka. 5
Here we have a situation that is far from an avoidance of the
wage-and-market economy and its cultural accoutrements, such as modern,
secular schooling. But we do see Negeri Sembilan women trying to
participate in this new "resource" on their own terms. By promoting the
education of daughters and doing it in a traditionally cooperative way, they
resist both the common male bias of state educational systems and the
competitive values taught in school and encouraged through the whole
process of educational achievement. In this process of attempting to integrate
matrilineal principles into a school system largely informed by capitalist
values and demands, we glimpse a most interesting aspect of uneven and
combined development.
Extended Families
Turning to another aspect of contemporary life, I found that Negeri
Sembilan Malays maintain traditional extended family networks in spite of
the growing pressure for nuclear family autonomy following the demands of
wage labor and the job market. This represents a form of resistance in that
existing family structures are not fundamentally dismantled to provide the

degree of labor mobility and individual competition encouraged in a capitalist
economy. The family pattern in contemporary Negeri Sembilan is still based
on the traditional matrilineal model with the core relationships involving
mothers, daughters, and sisters but cempared to the past, family members
live farther apart geographically and their forms of work and living
arrangements represent a wider variety of circumstances. Thus the kinds of
resources and forms of aid that ow along the links of the extended family
network are in no way diminished but are now much more diverse and also
more critical for basic survival. For example, it is quite common for a
woman to share the harvest from the rice elds she is working with her adult
children and other urban-dwelling kin who, in turn, provide her with cash
or gifts such as a fan, a coconut grater, or a television set, or, as noted
above, even a place for one of her younger children to stay in town in order
to attend a better school. (See McAllister 1987: 303-353 and Stivens 1984
for a fuller discussion of contemporary kinship and family patterns in Negeri
Sembilan.) This represents a good example of the maintenance, but reshaping
of traditional forms as they are used to meet new needs created by the
capitalist economy.
A related aspect of family life is the practice of anak angkat (literally, "the
child who is lifted up"; loosely translated as "adoption"). This is a
long-standing tradition that is used to incorporate non-kin into the family

2015
network or to emphasize a relationship among kin who are not part of the
same matrilineage (for example between a woman and her brothers or her
husbands brothers child). It is an expression of special emotional closeness
that also entails a relationship in which various forms of aid are exchanged.
For example, an anak angkat might be given part of the harvest from ones
rice elds and is always offered a place to stay in ones home (M angkat
usually do not live permanently with their "adoptive parents"). Anak angkat
participate in family rituals; however, they never become a full member of
the matrilineage and thus cannot inherit ancestral property. What is of most
importance for this discussion is the observation that the practice of anak
angkat is now used primarily to incorporate newly acquired school and work
mates into the family network. Even I, as a "visiting student," was
incorporated into several local families as an anak angkat. The sentiments
and mutual obligations seem to remain basically the same, only the
categories of people who are commonly adopted have changed. Through both
the maintenance and adaptation of extended-family networks and the
application of the practice of anak angkat to new social relationships,
traditional matrilineal values of family solidarity intrude into the competitive
domains of the wage-andmarket economy. This represents a further
illustration of how the dynamics of uneven and combined development not
only exist in contemporary Negeri Sembilan but are actually perpetuated by

the choices and actions of Negeri Sembilan women.
Ritual Feasting
Finally, there is the example of communal feasting or the kenduri
mentioned earlier. Such feasts are held at all life-cycle transitions, with the
largest and most elaborate kenduri (often involving upward of 500-1000
people) occurring at the occasion of marriage. Certain transitions marked by
feasting are actually Muslim rites of passage, such as an adolescent boys
circumcision or a young daughters completion of the rst reading of the
Koran, thus indicating the adoption of this pre-Islamic ritual form by Malay
Islam. Kenduri are also held for irregularly occurring crises such as serious
illness where they provide the context for special healing ceremonies known
as main puteri.
Besides their religious meaning, kenduri provide an important mechanism
for economic exchange and political discussion. The burden of the
considerable outlay of cash and other resources to put on a proper feast
(Peletz 1987: 79) never falls exclusively on the household hosting the event.
In most cases, there appears to be a substantial counterow of resources into
the host family. Wealthier segments of a lineage may contribute to the
household of poorer relatives to help them put on the affair. In other cases,
the kenduri encourages kin and neighbors in similar economic circumstances
to periodically pool resources and skills, mutually enhancing their life

chances. Contributions from kenduri participants are often quite substantial

2015
76 Carol McAllister
and stretch well beyond the day of the feast to aid the host family in the
following months. For example, kin and neighbors sometimes help to repair,
refurnish, or build a new room onto the hosts house, or more prosperous
relatives might purchase new outts for the hosts children. In some cases,
young wage earners pool their cash to provide their rural parents with
appliances such as a fan or coconut grater, which can be used at the feast but
also for years afterward. And at all kenduri, uncooked food is contributed
that may surpass that needed for the celebration and that can be stored for
future 'use. Feasting in Negeri Sembilan also creates an important context for
the public exchange of information and opinions. At several kenduri I heard
discussions of topics ranging from rice-planting schedules and new
educational policies that would affect Negeri Sembilan children to the
Malaysian national elections and events in Iran and the Middle East. Kenduri
even at times facilitate coming to collective decisions about matters such as
planting schedules or the conversion of rice elds to alternative uses. These
are all-aspects of grassroots politics.
In Negeri Sembilan, women play a key role in the organization and

production of kenduri, which involve large numbers of kin and neighbors
contributing resources, working together, and then sharing the meal so
created. Aside from a brief interlude of Islamic prayer and chanting which
occurs at most kenduri, the overwhelming impression at a communal feast
is that of a femaledominated event. Women do most of the organizing of the
event, making decisions about it, and managing the collection of necessary
resources, and they spend much more time working together to put on the
feast. It is also the women who own the dishes necessary for hosting a
kenduri, and which are considered (along with rice elds, houses, and now
education) their ancestral property (harta pesaka). Mens role, in contrast,
is largely conned to the period of brief prayer and the eating itself. Some
might argue that the womans role in the kenduri is essentially that of servant
to the man because women do the "mundane work" while the men engage
in the "more important" religious and ritual activity. That would be an
incorrect interpretation, however, and would distort what is actually
happening. In a kenduri, the praying and the eating are not themselves the
ritual; rather the whole affair is a ritual performance that acts out key values
in Negeri Sembilan culture. This interpretation is supported by the role of
the . most central male participants, who generally include the husband,
brothers, and adult sons of the woman hosting the kenduri, i.e., male
members of her household or matrilineage. (Her. daughters and sisters
husbands may also fall into this category.) The more centrally involved these
men are in the ceremonial occasion, the more similar. their roles become to
those of the women. They, too, cook and clean up, often eating as they go
along. (See also Peletz 1987: 78-81 on the role of women in kenduri). '
It is very signicant that in spite of substantial pressure from national
elites .and Islamic fundamentalists to abandon such practices, people in

2015
Negeri Sembilan still actively participate in kenduri and depend on the
exchanges they promote to meet various economic and social needs. If
anything, feasts are becoming more frequent and larger than in past decades.
This is facilitated in part by the availability of cash from rubber-tapping and
wagework and new kinds of goods in the market that allow the production
of more elaborate affairs. There are also new occasions for the performance
of kenduri. I thus attended feasts that had been organized to celebrate and
give thanks for the obtaining of a new job or to forestall failure on a major
exam at school.
What is happening, in fact, is the translation of a ritual practice of
previous generations into a practical "safety net" for people today. This can
be seen in several ways. For example, in addition to the emotional support
and social bonding that takes place through ritual feasting, in the course of
organizing and putting on a kenduri, wealth is redistributed and economic

differences within a kin group and a community somewhat leveled. This is
especially important in the current context of growing economic Stratication
even among close kin and neighbors. At the same time, the majority of
Negeri Sembilan villagers who nd themselves in similar precarious
economic circumstances are also encouraged, through frequent participation
in kenduri, to pool their resources and skills, thus increasing the life chances
of all.18 The persistence and elaboration of feasting, by providing an
alternative system of distribution (even for cash and mass-produced goods),
is a way of resisting complete absorption into the market economy. It also
serves as a relatively safe context for grassroots politicking in a national
context that restricts or represses most forms of political activism. This is in
addition to the symbolic reafrmation of communal responsibility that comes
from shared feasting and which helps to forestall the cultural shift from
communal to competitive values and from a focus on social relations to the
fetishization of commodities. 9 All of this is an excellent illustration of what
Scott (1985) calls "everyday forms of resistance." In Negeri Sembilan it is
a form of resistance particularly kept alive by women.
Contradictions and Conicts
But reality is rarely this simple. The combining of these traditional forms
of economy, family, and ritual with the new economic and social relations
imposed by capitalism - a process which directly contributes to the
dynamics of uneven and combined development does help people meet

some of their most basic needs and resist certain new forms of explOitation.
However, as a result of this encounter and the interpenetration of old and
new, such traditions themselves can also become distorted and undermined.
For example, I noted in the course of my eldwork that the kenduri, that
exemplary celebration of communal equality, underipressures created by the
market economy, has begun to take on a dynamic of competitive display.
More prosperous villagers were hosting larger and more elaborate affairs

2015
78 Carol McAllister
with a clear goal of enhancing their own prestige, while poorer villagers
were expressing increasing shame at their relatively meager feasts. There is
also a growing tension for younger women between responsibilities to
participate in feasting and the demands of their wage-labor jobs. I knew of
several cases where women lost or quit jobs to come home and help organize
kenduri only to have to look for new employment when the feasting was
done. As economic stratication becomes even more extreme, feasting may
eventually become the exclusive province of the well-to-do even though it
remains critical for meeting the economic needs of the poor and working
class.0
These contradictions represent one of the fundamental characteristics of the

phenomenon of uneven and combined development. An even more glaring
contradiction is the way these traditional forms, at the same time as they are
a source of resistance and an important survival mechanism for Negeri
Sembilan people, can also be incorporated into the capitalist economy and
used to further the exploitation of Malay workers by multinational or local
corporations. For example, the tradition of communal childcare, one of the
functions still carried out by the extended family, is very important for the
well-being of Negeri Sembilan children. But it also "frees" their mothers to
spend long hours at wage-earning jobs, often located far from their village
homes, and relieves the companies employing these women from
responsibility for providing this service themselves. Likewise, young
womens participation in schooling -- though greatly valued by rural
villagers and "paid for" by the collective effort and sacrice of matri-kin
also trains these young women to be more effective and disciplined
wage-workers. The persistence of rice farming and rubber-tapping and of
traditional forms of kin-based property can also, prove of benet to
international and local capitalists. For one thing, it relieves employers from
paying even a subsistence, let alone a family wage, since the assumption can
be made that young female (and even male) workers will continue to be
subsidized by their rural kin.
What all of this indicates is that the cost of reproducing both present and
future labor power remains largely within the subsistence household economy
rather than being shouldered by the capitalist sector. A similar pattern has
been noted by others wdrking in different parts of the world. Wolpe (1980),
for example, discusses it in relation to the Reserves in South Africa and the
subsequent development and evolution .of the apartheid system, while
Burawoy (1984) indicates its importance in the shaping of factory regimes
in the period of early industrializationin New England and Russia. In the
case of South Africa and Russia, however, the continuing role of the
subsistence sector appears to be much more coerciver maintained and
enforced by state policies than is the case in Malaysia. Certain scholars,
working from an explicitly feminist perspective, develop the analysis even
further. Bennholdt-Thomsen (1981), for example, discusses the comparability

2015
of the role of housewives in advanced industrial societies and that of peasant
producers in the contemporary Third World, arguing that both help
reproduce labor power for capitalism through their own unpaid work. The
surplus value derived from wage-labor is thus substantially increased which,
according to Bennholdt-Thomsen, conrms the insight rst expressed by
Rosa Luxemburg that "for its existence and future development capitalism
needs non-capitalist forms of production as its surroundings" (Luxemburg
1951: 289 - cited in Bennholdt-Thomsen 1981: 48; see also Nash 1990 .3
Redclift (1988), in contrast, warns against collapsing the roles of housewife

in the capitalist core with that of subsistence producers in the periphery; even
though both help reproduce labor power, the economic content of their roles,
their degree of economic dependency, and their specic relationship to
capitalist production are different. She also makes the important point that,
while in certain regions of the Third World, capital relies on and perhaps
even acts to preserve noncapitalist forms of production (especially the
female subsistence base) - a tendency which often converges with peoples
own strategies for survival and self-sufciency in other areas of the Third
World, the process of capitalist development actively undermines and
destroys such preexisting arrangements, leading not only to increased
proletarianization but also increased pauperization.
I would take Redclifts argument even further and suggest that both of the
alternatives she describes can occur in the same society during the same
process of development. Thus in Negeri Sembilan, while multinational and
local corporations rely on peoples (especially womens) continued
involvement in subsistence production to help reproduce an inexpensive labor
force, policies of these corporations and of the Malaysian state, as well as
the general growth of the wage-and-market economy, also serve to steadily
undermine and weaken these more communal forms. This does not,
however, negate the immediate benet to the capitalist class of the
persistence of precapitalist forms a benet which often goes far beyond
simple reproduction of labor power to mechanisms of political control of the
work force. For example, because of the survival of matrilineal forms of

property and of both subsistence and petty commodity production, Negeri
Sembilan women can return, to their plots of inherited land and to village
work whenever they either voluntarily withdraw from or are forced out of
the paid labor force. One could presume that they therefore feel less
compelled to make demands on employers or the state for unemployment
compensation, severance pay, or social security insurance. Nor do such
unemployed migrants - who can usually go home and be at least
temporarily reabsorbed into the subsistence economy ll the outskirts of
the cities with masses of dispossessed andpolitically disaffected squatters.
And young women workers, whose identity and livelihood are still partially
tied to the rural village, are less likely to become a fully proletarianized
work force, perhaps weakening the urgency of labor organization and

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80 Carol McAllister
making certain forms of working-class struggle more difcult to sustain.22
In all of these instances, the persistence of components of the matrilineal
system affects the way Negeri Sembilan women participate in the
wage-and-market economy with a result that can be taken advantage of by
the capitalist class at the same time as it ameliorates the condition of the
Malay worker herself. This illustrates one of the key problematics of the
phenomenon of uneven and combined development.

TRADITIONAL BELIEFS, CONTEMPORARY REALITIES:
SPIRIT POSSESSION AS A FORM OF RESISTANCE
Just as traditional social and economic arrangements continue to be
important in the modern context, so, too, do Negeri Sembilan people draw
extensively on indigenous ideological constructs to interpret their new
experiences, make sense of their changing world, and critique certain aspects
of capitalist development. This represents another dimension of the uneven
and combined character of contemporary change. For example, village
women rely on the familiar idiom of food or eating a theme that runs
through much of N egeri Sembilan culture"3 to capture the essential
differences in the types of work they now do. They thus speak of kerja
makan nasi or "work to eat rice, " a reference to subsistence production,
versus kerja makan gaji or "work to eat pay," a phrase which glosses any
kind of wage-work. People frequently add the comment - along with a
facial grimace mimicking chewing something that is tough - that kerja
makan gaji is a particularly difcult (susah) type of eating. From further
comments it is clear that what they mean is that wagework may be harder
to accomplish (specically it is less under peoples own control than other
forms of labor) and also that it is difcult to survive on ones paycheck and
what it can buy. Thus both the expressions themselves and the way people
articulate them convey an evaluative element and a critical response to the
wage-work system. _
It is, however, through the phenomenon of spirit possession or ghost
attack, known colloquially as keno hantu, that we can see most clearly the
use of traditional ideology or consciousness to directly confront new
circumstances created by capitalist development. Kena hantu serves as an
indigenous explanation for various kinds of illness, especially psychological
distress and dysfunction. Illnesses of middle-aged rural women are
commonly attributed to spirit possession, which tends to draw attention to the
economic and social as well as psychological causes of their poor health (see
Kessler 1977 and Raybeck, Shoobe, and Grauberger 1985). I was told by
N egeri Sembilan villagers that a ghost is most likely to attacksomeone who
is not participating sufciently in kenduri and other communal activities, who
has many troubles and cares, and who just stays at home worrying about her
difculties instead of seeking help from others. Healing takes place through

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a series of special rituals that gather support around the distressed woman,
reintegrate her into the communal milieu, and also encourage actual changes
in her economic and social circumstances.
But in the 19705 and 19805, ghost attacks were occurring most frequently
not among older women in village settings but rather among young women
on the production oors of multinational factories.25 Kena hantu remains
an almost exclusively female phenomenon, but the personal and social
characteristics of the women most involved have dramatically changed. We
also see certain changes in the possession episodes themselves. For example,
when the attacks occur in a factory setting, they usually take on a mass
character. Thus the initial sighting of a hantu (often through the microscopes
used to mount wires in electronic and computer components) travels up and
down the assembly line until several young women fall prey to the
malevolent spirit. The possessed women (or, more correctly, the ghosts
speaking through the womens voices) scream out specic complaints about
their working conditions, especially railing against abuses of factory
managers or foremen. Such outbursts may even reveal that the Spirits anger
results from the very location of the multinational factory on sacred ground.
Management usually tries to contain the attacks, sometimes ring the women
who are perceived as leaders, especially if they are "repeat offenders."
Often, though, if the attack is extensive enough, the factory has to be closed
for several days or even weeks as traditional healers are brought in to
perform cleansing ceremonies. Sometimes, repeated episodes of kena hantu
prompt management to make changes in the schedules, pace, and general
working conditions of their plant. In these latter cases, spirit possession
serves, to a limited degree, to force an actual restructuring of the process of
industrial production itself.

When hantu possess women up and down the assembly line, these
traditional spirits clearly provide their female hosts not only with some
immediate psychological release (and sometimes with a sorely needed
vacation as they are sent home while the factory is temporarily cleansed of
the troublesome ghosts), but also with a dramatic voice of protest against
their new working and living conditions. As we listen to the spirits cry out
against the abuses of managers as well as demand the removal of the
transnational factory because it occupies ground that was once the Spirits
abode, we certainly cannot treat such outbursts as simply superstitious
vestiges from the premodem past; they must be understood as the creative
application of a traditional conceptual framework in resistance to the new
situation of monopoly capitalism and the very modern forms of exploitation
and hardship it brings. Through continued belief in the ghosts and thus
subjection to their attacks, young women keep alive pre-capitalist worldviews
and use them as a way to go beyond critique toward active protest against
aspects, of the wage-work system into which they are increasingly drawn.
This is both a good illustration of uneven and combined development and

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82 Carol McAllister
also an indication of how these dynamics are actually perpetuated in
everyday life.
A recent article in Far Eastern Economic Review indicates, however, that
episodes of spirit possession among factory workers have decreased over the
last few years; they remain common, however, among young female students
at boarding schools (Scott 1989:33). This shift, if the report of it proves
accurate, needs further study and analysis. It may be related to the
long-standing and vigorous campaign by factory managers to discredit the
attacks. They attempt this by either providing a modern medical explanation
for the occurrence of kena hantu - combined with placing the blame on the
young factory workers themselves for the malnourishment, fatigue and
psychological weakness that supposedly makes them vulnerable to such
"episodes of hysteria" (Ong 1987:204-206) or by picking up on and
reinforcing the charge made by Muslim fundamentalists that susceptibility to
spirit possession indicates an inadequate development of the young womens
Islamic training and character. If so, this would provide a further example
of how indigenous ideological frameworks can themselves be undermined
and distorted even while they provide a form of resistance to negative
experiences brought by international capitalism.
We could ask, though, whether the belief in kena hantu does provide an
adequate vehicle of resistance for these young women. Some would argue
that ghost attacks divert legitimate protest into safe and nonthreatening
channels and away from effective forms of organization and real efforts at
change. Does this traditional worldview thus benet the capitalist class as
much as the Malay factory workers who truly believe in the ghosts? On the
other hand, in the current situation of repressive labor laws and the banning
of most forms of union and political organizing, kena hantu at least serves
as a collective response a most dramatic but still "everyday" form of
resistance to growing exploitation. It is also a response widely understood
throughout N egeri Sembilan, by mothers and grandmothers in the villages
as well as by their young daughters and granddaughters who nd themselves
working on the global assembly line.
ISLAMIC REVIVAL: A CHALLENGE TO
CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT
My nal example of womens resistance involves their participation in an
Islamic revival movement which is currently sweeping through Malay society
and capturing the attention and commitment of many in the traditionally
matrilineal area of Negeri Sembilan. Known locally as dakwah, the
movement is very complex with a variety of different currents and thus
cannot be dealt with thoroughly in a short discussion.5 What follows is a
brief overview of the movement and N egeri Sembilan womens involvement
in it as related to the theme of this essay.

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Dakwah represents both an effort at fundamentalist religious reform and
also an expression of social protest against current directions of the
Malaysian state. Its own political stance is mixed and not entirely clear. It
appears to combine a populist critique of neocolonialism and dependent
development i.e., Western economic and cultural domination of Malay
society as well as national government policies that encourage this pattern of
development with a tendency to support restrictive measures toward
nonMuslim ethnic minorities (see Nagata 1980: 420 and 427; and Lee
1986). The revival also presents an ambivalent and somewhat contradictory
perspective on questions concerning womens rights and roles - for
example, some currents encourage higher education for women but then
criticize their participation in forms of employment that often follow (Ong,
personal communication). It has the potential, however, to introduce serious
restrictions on womens lives ranging from curtailment of their traditional
access to property to campaigns enforcing more rigid sexual codes. While
exhibiting its own local particularities, the Malaysian revival is linked both
conceptually, and to an extent organizationally, to the recent wave of Islamic
fundamentalism and militancy gripping many other Muslim countries, most
notably those of the Middle East and North Africa but also other Southeast
Asian Islamic communities such as those in Indonesia and the Philippines.27
The adherents of the dakwah movement are predominantly young people
who are more highly educated than the norm. Many are being groomed for
membership in the new professional and technical classes, though they may
nd workonly in relatively low-paid white-collar or publicservice jobs.
Recently, however, there has been a growing interest in the revival among
industrial workers, especially women employed in the freetrade zones. Ong
(1987: 185) notes: "Although few, if any, of the Malay factory women (as
compared to ofce workers) donned Arabic robes in voluntary purdah, the
dakwah movement has struck a responsive chord in many young women who
wished to be recognized as morally upright Muslims engaged in honest hard
work (kerja halal). " Scott (1989: 34), in a more recent report, indicates the
growing participation of factory women in dakwah, stating that "easily 30%
of workers in most factories" have taken to wearing the Islamic veil. Scotts
report also indicates that women well into their thirties are now participants
in the revival, while an earlier report by Suhaini (1987: 20-23) emphasizes
the growing popularity of the movement among youth of juniorhigh age. In
Negeri Sembilan, a large number of the most faithful adherents are women,
who don a long dress and veil (kain tudung), which are not traditional attire
for Malays, as a mark of their newly found commitment.28
Drawing on the framework of uneven and combined development, I have
attempted to analyze the phenomenon of Islamic revival among Negeri
Sembilan Malays by exploring its dynamic interaction with both the process
of capitalist transformation and the persistence of matrilineal culture. On the
basis of my discussions with movement adherents, I would argue that

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84 Carol McAllister
dakwah is primarily a reaction against both the economic stress and
dislocation and the cultural deracination brought by capitalist development;
it is in large part an attempt to dene a personal and a political alternative.
It represents, in other words, a "not so everyday" form of resistance.
Although such resistance might in one sense be interpreted as a return to the
past or a strengthening of tradition, it is eminently clear that this wave of
Islamic militancy - and the reassertion but also reinterpretation of
traditional Malay Islam it promotes is a contemporary phenomenon,
arising from peoples current problems and needs.
My research indicates that the participation of young, well-educated Negeri
Sembilan women in the revival can best be understood as a response to their
sense of exclusion from the still vital matrilineal system and their less than
- satisfying experiences in the expanding capitalist economy and its
accompanying cultural milieu. There are several reasons why this problem
is particularly acute for women. Because of their traditional matrilineal
culture, girls and young women in Negeri Sembilan are often pushed
forward for advanced education, a process which, however, inevitably draws
them away from the rural kin-based community. Yet those who attempt
to make this transition, in spite of their educational credentials, usually nd

themselves in an even more precarious position than their male counterparts
in the new wage~and-market economy. Whether in service employment or
semiskilled factory labor, female workers remain relegated to the lowest paid
and least secure jobs, a tendency exacerbated by the policies of some
multinational rms to lay off women as a result of marriage, pregnancy, or
increasing age (often around age 25).30 While some welleducated women
nd work as teachers or technicians, this is not the experience of the
majority; and managerial positions in either foreign or stateowned
enterprises are still overwhelmingly reserved for men. These young women,
no matter what their particular form, of employment, also nd few cultural
models of female roles in this Westernized milieu - which thrives on
romance magazines, Sexually driven advertising and American-produced soap
operas to replace the positive images of women in Negeri Sembilans
matrilineal culture. Their sense of both economic and cultural dislocation can
be extreme, leading them to seek a radical alternative a source of
revitalization (WallaCe 1956). The dakwah, with its links both to their own
cultural roots and to a worldwide upsurge of Islamic militancy, provides such
an alternative for a growing number of theseyoung women.
But what is the effect of the participation of substantial numbers of Negeri
Sembilan women in this movement for Islamic revival and reform? The
impact of the movement both on what remains of the matrilineal system and
on emerging capitalist relations is complex and contradictory. Thus dakwah
adherents often raise sharp criticisms concerning the role of foreign

corporations in their country and the Malaysian governments own economic
policies; this includes criticisms of the treatment of women workers in

2015
export-processing zones as well as objections to the increasing stratication
of Malay society. In fact, the movement represents one of the most
important oppositional currents protesting such developments in
contemporary Malaysia. At the same time, in the context of Negeri Sembilan
village life, the effect of the revival is frequently to further the
transformation from matrilineal to capitalist forms and to mask certain newly
developing exploitative relations.
For example, the dakwah movements insistence on following Islamic law,
including in matters such as inheritance, provides justication for the
national government policy promoting private rather than communal
ownership of property." In Negeri Sembilan this has the effect of requiring
all newly acquired lands to be registered under individual title as well as
exerting pressure on Negeri Sembilan people to abandon their traditional
matrilineal practices of land tenure even in relation to ancestral lands. This
shift, in turn, will encourage rather than retard the growth of economic
inequality in rural villages, as well as further remove women from access to

the means of production. Dakwah participants also encourage abandonment
of other important communal practices which in Negeri Sembilan are part of
the tradition of adat perpatih. One example involves the performance of
kenduri, discussed above, which are criticized by Islamic fundamentalists as
being both anti-Islamic and wasteful of time and resources. Instead, older
Negeri Sembilan women are urged to work year-round in their rice elds
rather than to take time off for feasting; such doublecropping would require
substantial cash inputs as well as produce a second crop for the market, thus
signicantly undermining the traditional subsistence system of production and
exchange.32 And, in spite of dakwah criticisms of multinational industries,
young Negeri Sembilan women are frequently encouraged by movement
adherents to loosen their mutual dependence on matri-kin and to accept the
working conditions capitalist employers offer as the mark of a religiously
inspired life focused on hard work, denial, and moral purity. In this, we see
intimations of a contemporary, Islamic version of the Calvinist ethic that
underwrote capitalist development in Western Europe in an earlier period of
world history.
These contradictory tendencies. of Islamic revival illustrate, even more
clearly than our previous examples, the complexities of the phenomenon of
uneven and combined development. They also provide a sense of how this
essential aspect of contemporary Third World change is perpetuated,
reinforced, and continually renewed by everyday choices of people trying to
interpret and respond to their changing reality. As increasing numbers of

Negeri Sembilan women embrace Islamic fundamentalism, this has an impact
on both the attempted capitalist transformation of Malaysia and the traditional
matrilineal culture of Negeri Sembilan. It also leads to further revisions and
reinterpretations of Malay Islam itself.

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86 Carol McAllister
In terms of these womens own personal lives, participation in Islamic
revival has a similar multiplicity of meanings and effects. For the majority,
I would suggest that their newfound faith provides a form of psychological
and social support and a new cultural model by which to live and derive a
degree of self-esteem. At the same time, immersion in the revival serves to
divert their attention away from social to primarily religious matters and
essentially blunts their critical awareness of economic and political realities;
this occurs in spite of the fact that the collective choice of so many young
women to embrace fundamentalist Islam represents at least an
unconsciousness resistance to the hegemony of capitalist culture. For a
minority of N egeri Sembilan devotees, the dakwah movement, however, has
a radically different effect. It actually helps them focus and articulate their
growing criticism of their countrys course of dependent capitalist
development and its impact on their own lives.33 For these female
adherents, conscious resistance and protest are part of their commitment to

Islamic revival, even though such commitment is often characterized by a
denial of their matrilineal traditions and thus their preexisting rights and
freedoms as women.
CONCLUSION
Drawing on the theoretical framework of uneven and combined
development, we can begin to discern some of the major dynamics at work
in the current process of economic and social transformation in N egeri
Sembilan, Malaysia. At the same time, the use of this model to analyze the
effect of this transformation on Negeri Sembilan women, and to interpret
their own reactions and responses, has demanded its renement and
elaboration to more adequately reect their experiences. While many
questions remain, such a process is part of both the scientic study of Third
World change and the strengthening of the Marxist tradition through ongoing
theoretical innovation. It is also important to develop this research in a way
that can contribute to the efforts of the women and men of N egeri Sembilan
(as well as elsewhere in the Third World) to increase their degree of
self-determination and create for themselves economic, social and cultural
forms which they want and which embody the values they choose. Most
immediately this analysis throws light on several forms of struggle and
resistance in which Negeri Sembilan women are currently engaged. Some of
these examples of struggle and resistance are very "everyday," others take
a form closer to that of organized social movements. Each draws in some

way on aspects of the traditional matrilineal and Islamic culture of Negeri
Sembilan while also serving to tranSform those traditions in the face of the
encounter with capitalist relations and values. All, however, require an
understanding of the dynamics of uneven and combined development to
appreciate their importance, the meaning of their contemporary emergence,

2015
and the way in which they, in turn, perpetuate, reproduce, and affect the
uneven and combined character of Third World change.
To conclude, I want to recount just one more example of such resistance
which is located in the actual discourse of daily life. It involves a series of
conversations between my "adoptive mother, " Hamidah, and her son, Ramli.
Ramli lived and worked in the state capital of Negeri Sembilan, but he spent
many weekends at his mothers home in the rural village. While there,
helping out in the rice elds, shing, participating in a kenduri or just
relaxing, he would talk for hours about his work in a factory making
furniture for the international market. His comments focused on the low pay
(not enough for even two wage earners to support a family, he said), the
poor working conditions and restrictions on workers (they were allowed, for
example, only brief breaks during the day and not enough time to eat the
noon meal which had to be taken in the company cafeteria), and the
prohibition against unionization. Though proud of his work (he gave me a
small table produced in the factory as a goingaway present), Ramli was
quite critical of the whole system of wagelabor and of the prots he thought
the company was making at his expense.
Hamidah listened to all that Ramli said and then made her own judgment,
translating it, however, into her own terms and her perceptions from the
vantage point of a subsistence rice farmer and independent rubber tapper.
Picking up on Ramlis comment about the restricted time for lunch, Hamidah
declared that she could not understand how anyone could "work for someone
who would even tell them how much time they could take to makan nasi -
i.e., to eat their rice or meal." It is signicant that she chose this particular
metaphor to articulate her critique of wage work and of the workers loss of
autonomy. It is linked to the very terms, discussed earlier, that Negeri
Sembilan Malays use to describe wagelabor in distinction to other forms of
work. She repeated this idea to me several times, especially when we were
walking together in her rice elds.
Hamidahs critical insight, coming in ways from another period of history,
provided a further perspective, in addition to that being articulated by Ramli,
on the system of wagelabor. He did not, however, quit his job as his mother
suggested but rather continued to work and to talk about industrial unions,
a more "modern" way to try to regain at least a measure of the

selfdetermination which both he and Hamidah valued. Hamidah listened to
these ideas too but made no immediate comment.
I heard variants of this same conversation in many Negeri Sembilan
households, between not only mothers and sons but also mothers and
daughters. These insights -' shared between parents and children as they
also share land and other resources - represent not just the experiences of
different generations but almost the experiences of different historical
epochs. We see in such interactions the emergence of new and enriched
forms of political consciousness from peoples combined experiences in very

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88 Carol McAllister
different but no longer historically separate forms of political-economy. We
thus see one of the most interesting and politically signicant results of the
process of uneven and combined development.
NOTES
1. This essay is a revised version of a paper presented at the conference on Marxism
Now: Traditions and Dierences, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Nov.
30-Dec. 2, 1989. The ethnographic sections are based on my own eldwork in

NegeriSembilan in 1978-79 as well as on published accounts of the area provided
by others since that time.
2. Trotsky develops this idea into the theory of permanent revolution which posits
the uninterrupted growing over of the bourgeois-democratic phase of a revolution into
an anticapitalist or socialist struggle as a general tendency in 20th century
revolutions, especially in the capitalist periphery. See Trotsky (1969) for a fuller
account of this theory. _
3. Stoler (1987: 543) makes a similar point about the "articulation" perspective as
well as dependency theory and world systems analysis: "One problem With each of
these approaches is that they posit a systemic dichotomy between non-capitalist and
capitalist forms of production. Thus, while they may adequately describe, they do not
conceptually accommodate the blurred genres which combine varied elements of
both " [emphasis added]. In her analysis of the development of the plantation economy
in North Sumatra, she draws on the concept of "subsumption" which as used by
Marx " focuses on rather than glosses over the grey area of transformation."
However, the distinction between formal and real subsumption which has been used
by some neo-Marxist anthropologists to delineate two distinct phases of capitalist
development, leads back to a very stagest conception of Third World change (see,
for example, Godelier 1981 and Alavi 1982, cited in Stoler 1987). This approach is
also critiqued by Stoler (1987: 544-546; 557-559) who demonstrates that the
combining of elements representative of both levels of - subsumption is often "a
dening feature of capitalism in its Third World context."

4. Kahn (1980: 200-210) puts forth a similar critique, especially of the work of
Frank and Wallerstein. Robinson (1986: 312) also points out this limitation of the
dependency and world systems theories and notes the attempt of the "articulation"
approach to overcome it. As already noted, however, she goes on to critique this
perspective as well.
5. See Geertz ( 1960), Spiro ( 1970), and Tambiah ( 1970) for representative examples.
6. Lirn (1978), Grossman (1979), and Ong (1983, 1987) describe the participation
of rural Malay women throughout Malaysia in export-processing industries,
especially electronics plants. These accounts, like mine, focus on the young,
unmarried female factory worker, the typical pattern in the 19705 and early 1980s.
Scott (1989: 34), however, indicates that women are now staying longer in these jobs
through the experience of marriage and childbearing. The reader is referred to the
edited volumes by Nash and Fernandez-Kelly (1983), Leacock and Safa (1986), and
Ward (1990), as well as the more popularized account by Fuentes and Ehrenreich
(1983), for further discussion of the phenomenon of exportprocessing or offshore
sourcing and the sexual division of labor in these industries.

2015
7. Robinson (1986: 9) makes a similar observation: "Most contemporary Marxist

anthropology is heavily productionist, focusing on the formal properties of the
modes of production, to the detriment of an examination of the daily lived experience
of the people in question (the rich cultural understanding that has been the hallmark
of anthr0pology)." She goes on to argue that "the task of Marxist anthropology is
both to listen to that human experience and to abstract from the empirical situation,
and then interpret it in terms of abstract categories ..." (p. 10). The work of E.P
Thompson and Raymond Williams represent examples of such ethnographic
immersion in the elds of history and literary and cultural studies. Also see Nash
(1981).
8. The work of Hua (1983) provides a good foundation for such an analysis.
9. Numerous feminist scholars make this key point about the "importance of using
womens experiences as resources for social analysis" (Harding 1987: 7) as well as
attempt to develop such new social analyses in their own research. The collection by
Harding (1987), as well as her own editorial comments, provide a useful overview
and synthesis of some of the most inuential of this work across a variety of
academic disciplines. Feminist scholarship, itself, has, however, rightly been
criticized for marginalizing the experiences of various groups of women, especially
women of color, Third World women, and working-class women, or for being
ethnocentric and Eurocentric in its perspectives (see, for example, Hooks 1984;
Collins 1989; Ifeka 1982; Rogers 1978; and Redclift 1988). In my case study in
Negeri Sembilan, I am hoping to contribute to efforts at overcoming this distortion
through bringing to the center of my analysis the experiences not only of women per
se but of rural village women in a Third World context.
10. Stoler (1987) makes a similar point in her argument that the subsumption of
noncapitalist forms in the process of capitalist development occurs in "multiple
domains" and that in particular we must look at these "blurred genres" in the social
relations through which labor is reproduced not just in the labor process itself.
11. Hatem (1986) argues for special attention to sexuality as a cultural domain
related to but not subsumed under economic relations. This is one important aspect
of culture I am not able to address in any thorough way in this essay.
12. This is related to the feminist insight about listening to womens own voices and
trying to grasp their own perceptions of the world in which they live. Robinson
(1986: 11) points to Gramscis work on the commonsense of Italian peasants as "a
way of examining consciousness (or culture and ideology) in the context of class
relations, without the functionalist reductionism and loss of historical specicity that
characterizes the structuralist approach [i.e., that of Althusser and his followers}."
Certain non-Marxist anthropologists - for example, Geertz (1973), Goodenough
(1964, 1970), and Keesing (1967) - also emphasize the importance of the cultural
or ideational order i.e., the realm of perceptions, ideas, and values and suggest
ways to approach its examination. I nd a synthesis of these perspectives from
"cultural" or "symbolic" anthropology with the analysis of politicaleconomy as
pursued by Marxist feminist anthropologists a useful way to proceed. AbuLughod
(1986, 1990), Comaroff (1985: 263), Scott (1985: 292), and Williams (1977:
108114), in their work on resistance and power, also urge the breaking down of
"distinctions between symbolic and instrumental, behavioral and ideological"
(AbuLughod 1990: 314);

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90 Carol McAllister
13. It should be noted that following the principles of adat perpatih, sons and
brothers have always had at least limited rights to use ancestral property though not
to pass on such usevrights to their own children. At the same time, if a man acquired
property through purchase, such "acquired property" could be given in inheritance
to his sons and daughters. However, after that initial devolution it was "automatically
reclassied" as inherited or ancestral property i.e., part of the harta pesaka
and was to be treated according to matrilineal principles of ownership and inheritance
(Swift 1965: 24). Thus even the apparent changes in property ownership that occur
in relationship to rubber trees i.e., the greater access of sons to this property and
the possibility of children inheriting from their fathers as well as mothers draw
on traditional principles of adat perpatih. These points are developed further in
McAllister (1987: 140146; 1989b). Peletz (1988) provides a valuable historical
analysis of land tenure patterns among Negeri Sembilan Malays while Stivens (1985)
also addresses the question of land tenure in the recent period of capitalist
development.
14. This discussion of combined forms of work is further developed in McAllister
(1987: 172241).
15. That this is not simply a matter of the "higher opportunity cost" of keeping boys
in school is indicated by the pattern in other, non-matrilineal, areas of Malaysia. For
example, in rural Selangor, there is a tendency for daughters to drop out of school
to help with childcare and other household tasks as well as to contribute wages to the
family economy before they marry. Sons, in contrast, are encouraged to stay in
school in the hopes of eventually qualifying for government employment. This occurs
even though at each level of education men have wider labor market opportunities
than their female counterparts (Ong 1987: 93-99).
16. See McAllister (1989b, 1991) for a further analysis of the treatment of education
as new form of harm pesaka and some of the contradictions and conicts that thus
arise.
17. Whether this stratication represents actual class differences is a matter of
debate. I would classify most people in rural Negeri Sembilan as "working class" or
small producers (rice farmers and rubber tappers). However, those who are in the
paid labor force occupy a considerable range of occupations from lowlevel managers
to school teachers to factory or service workers and manual laborers for the
department of public works. This leads to a considerable diversity in terms of income
and economic stability. In a few cases, a village family might have an urban-dwelling
member who is actually part of the emerging Malay bourgeoisie, though the extent
to which such individuals still participate in communal feasting and other forms of
traditional reciprocity is unclear. '
18. The importance of ongoing generalized exchange for the survival of households
in precarious economic circumstances has been a focus in the literature on the urban
poor in the U.S. (see especially Stack 1974). While such strategies i.e. , the poor
sharing with the poor do not increase the total resources of the group, they do
insure that scarce, uctuating resources are redistributed in such a way that each
household can more consistently meet basic needs and is made less vulnerable to the
impact of unpredictable economic crises such as job loss or illness.
19. A fuller analysis of the feasting complex and its contemporary dynamics is
presented in McAllister (1990). Peletz (1987) also notes the importance of kenduri
and the central role of Negeri Sembilan women in their performance. Scott (1985:

2015
172-178, 238-239) describes similar functions of kenduri in Kedah, a non-matrilineal
area of Malaysia, though it is difcult from his account to tell whether women play
the same central role in this ritual complex as they do in Negeri Sembilan.
20. See Scott (1985: 172178, 238-239) for similar developments elsewhere in
Malaysia.
21. Luxemburgs argument that capitalism needs (rather than just uses) non-capitalist
forms for its existence and future development is, of course, a point that is still being
debated (see, for example, the following discussion of Redclift 1988). While I nd
Bennholdt-Thomsens analysis basically compatible with my own, I feel she gives too
little attention to two considerations. One is the specic character of these
"non-capitalist forms" and how they both conict with and become accommodated
to the capitalist mode of production into which they are incorporated. The other is
the possibility that Third World people themselves may actively hold onto and
maintain aspects of subsistence production for their own purposes and needs even
as a way to resist their complete absorption into the capitalist system - at the same
time as such unpaid work becomes part of the reproduction of capitalist relations. I
see this as an essential contradiction in current Third World economies, rather than
as a simple matter of the functional value of non-capitalist forms in increasing
capitalist prots. Stoler (1987: 559), in her analysis of North Sumatras plantation
economy, presents a similar perspective: "a laboring populations struggle to
reproduce itself may actually lower the costs of labor to capital, and thus be
functional to it, at the same time that such bids for economic independence may be
grounded in popular resistance to capitalism itself" (Stoler, 1986, p. 125).
Alternatively, severe structural strains may be put on capitalist production through
pilferage, withdrawal of labor, individual assaults and collective action." Part of my
argument is that the perspective of uneven and combined development is particularly
helpful in revealing such complexities and contradictions.

22. This statement is purposively tentative. Whether the existence of a rural
subsistence economy, to which industrial workers can still turn for various kinds of
support, inhibits or facilitates labor organization and struggle is an empirical question
that has not been adequately explored. Burawoys (1984) comparison of industrial
development in New England, Britain, and Russia suggests that there may not be a
direct or simple relationship between worker involvement in precapitalist forms of
production (i.e., their degree of proletarianization) and the forms and level of
struggles in which they engage. Rather other factors also play a role. Key among
these are the character of the factory regime itself which is determined in part by the
way labor is reproduced but also by other variables such as market forces and the
intervention of the state. Nash (1990: 339), writing about urban workers in
contemporary Latin America, raises a related point when she argues that "womens
activities ensuring domestic production [rather than industrial worksites] are
becoming the central arenas for the development of consciousness and action for
revolutionary change in the present crisis of capitalism." Given the pattern of
capitalist development in the contemporary Third World, this is an important question
that deserves further exploration and comparative study.
23. The importance of food and eating as a cultural symbol is shown by the ritual
signicance of the kena'uri discussed above. Klopfer (1989) explores the centrality
of food in Minangkabau culture and its use in emphasizing ethnic identity in
postcolonial Indonesia.
2015
92 Carol McAllister
24. I encountered such an episode of spirit possession, and the subsequent process of
healing of an older woman, one of my close neighbors in rural Negeri Sembilan. It
is recounted in McAllister (1987: 417-425). Even in this womans case, much of the
stress to which she was reacting was a result of particular aspects of the current
process of capitalist development and its impact on'local village life for example,
she lacked sufcient labor to work her rice elds because her sons and other
matri-kin had moved away from the rural village to engage in wagework, and her
lone daughters "advanced" age (around 30) disqualied her from many jobs,
especially in the multinational sector.
25. This phenomenon has been researched most fully by Ong (1987, 1988), while
Lirn (1978) also notes its importance among both Malay and Chinese female workers.
Much of my discussion comes from their description of these episodes as well as
from newspaper reports and comments by my informants in Negeri Sembilan.
Taussig (1980) describes a similar use of traditional beliefs in spirits or devils to
confront capitalist exploitation among Bolivian tin miners and Colombian plantation
workers. (See also Boddy 1989 and Nash 1979.)
26. A fuller discussion of the Islamic revival and the participation of Negeri
Sembilan women in it, as well as its impact on their matrilineal political-economy,

is found in McAllister (1986; 1987: 448-493; 1989a). My account is the only one I
am aware of that focuses on dakwah in the area of Negeri Sembilan. There is a
growing body of work on the movement more generally in Malaysia. See, for
example, Lyon (1979), Kessler (1980), Mohammad Abu Bakar (1981), Barraclough
(1983), Nagata (1980, 1982, 1984), Chandra Muzaffar (1986), Zainah Anwar (1987),
and Muhammad Kamal Hassan (1987). Narli (1981) and Ong (1990) deal specically
with the question of women and Islamic revival. Recent media reports (see, for
example, Suhaini 1987 and Scott 1989), discussions with recent visitors and
researchers in Malaysia (Peletz 1989 & personal communication), and reports from
Malaysian scholars and students studying in the U.S. indicate that the revival
continues to grow and to be an important force throughout the society.
27. Nagata (1980: 412-413) notes the impact of Egyptian and Pakistani. Muslims on
dakwah participants while inuences from Iran and Libya are discussed by Gunn
(1986: 3054). Kessler (1980: 4) emphasizes the importance of Islamic revival in
Indonesia for the Malaysian movement. A special issue of the Southeast Asia
Chronicle, 75 (Oct. 1980), features articles on Islamic revival in the Philippines,
Thailand, and Burma as well as Malaysia. Much of these international connections
come from contacts through Muslim students from various countries studying in the
U.S. and Great Britain. _
28. The active participation of women in Islamic revival is also not conned to
Malaysia or to Southeast Asia. For examples of similar developments elsewhere, see
Hatem (1988) and Baykan (1991). i .

29. The differential emphasis on education for girls in Negeri Sembilan is diacussed
above (pages 74-75) as Well as in McAllister (1987: 242-67; 1989b; 1991).
30. According to Scott (1989), this latter practice may be declining. She reports on
women in their thirties who are still working in transnational electronics factories in
spite of being married with several children. However, their level of stress and
exploitation must, if anything, be increased as they now try to juggle jobs, childcare,
and other household responsibilities, while also having less opportunity to fall back
on the supplemental support of their own parents.

2015
31. In spite of provision for certain kinds of communal property, such as lands set
aside for mosques or shrines, Islamic law generally treats property as privately
owned. It is to be passed in inheritance to ones own children with females inheriting
at half the rate of male siblings. Peletz (1988: 144-145) documents that, throughout
the colonial history of Negeri Sembilan, the British used Islamic law to facilitate or
justify a shift away from what he calls "divided title," or shared ownership among
female kin, and toward private property ownership, especially by men.
32. In the late 19703 the national government was vigorously attempting to get people
in the Kuala Pilah area to institute double-cropping of their rice elds, a proposal
which generated considerable opposition and controversy. Negeri Sembilan farmers
argued that this shift in planting schedules --- besides leaving little time for other
valued activities such as feasting - would also necessitate the increased use of
expensive and environmentally destructive fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides
which, in turn, would most likely involve them in an on-going cycle of
creditanddebt. (See McAllister 1987: 192-195 for further details of this dispute).
Following from Stolers (1987) analysis of formal subsumption, such a shift in
planting schedules - which would entail a substantial overall increase in womens
work time as well as the entry of a portion of their subsistence production on the
market -- would also increase the absolute surplus value extracted by capital from
this form of work and production.
33. Ong (1987: 185186) writing of young women workers in electronic factories,
makes a similar point: "Radical criticisms of transnational corporations by intellectual
leaders of ABIM [Islamic Youth Movement, the largest organized dakwah group]
have provided worker-members the elements of a political idiom to articulate their
experience of exploitasi in the production process."
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23(3 & 4)57-98(1991)

Uneven and Combined Development: Dynamics of

Change and Womens Everyday Forms of

Resistance in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

its dynamics by examples from ethnographic research in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.

is on womens "everyday forms of resistance" through their continuing participation in

wage-and-marketeconomy. Renements in the theory are suggested based on feminist

and the responses of Negeri Sembilan women to capitalist development.

can take to eat your rice?" ~ comment by a woman farmer in Negeri

Sembilan, Malaysia, on the wage-work experiences of her sons and

Marxist methodology demands attention to theoretical continuity, but also

to theoretical innovation. There is a constant interplay between using existing

concept of uneven and combined development, which emerged from the

analysis of societies undergoing a capitalist transformation in the late 19th

This essay is based on 17 months of eld research funded by the FulbrightHays

Discussions with numerous colleagues, friends and students in Pittsburgh as well as an

Differences" held at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1989 and has been

as a working paper by the International Institute for Research and Education in

support -- personal, intellectual and political continues to be central to the

Downloaded from rrpeagepubcom at The University of Iowa Libraries on March 17,

from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

theoretical continuity and change. My own work, based on research in

Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, during a more recent period characterized by

growing incorporation of the local society in the global capitalist economy,

attempts to build on and suggest new directions for this important

contribution to the Marxist tradition.

and combined development, contrasting it to other approaches to

contemporary Third World change; and second, to use concrete examples

from my eld research in Negeri Sembilan to illustrate the dynamics of

uneven and combined development and to suggest further innovations in this

theoretical perspective. In terms of the latter, my focus is on the lives of

Negeri Sembilan women and what I call their "everyday forms of

resistance. " My work is inuenced by the ethnographic tradition in

anthropology and the emergence of new forms of feminist criticism and

of uneven and combined development as I use it in analyzing the changing

situation of Negeri Sembilan women.

THE THEORY OF UNEVEN AND COMBINED

economy in the early 20th century which, he argued, combined very

advanced forms of industrial capitalism with the continued existence of

feudal economic, social, and political institutions. The encounter of Russian

society with the system of international capitalism resulted in a virtual

leaping over of stages of development predicated on the earlier experiences

of the Western European nations hence the unevenness of historical

previous forms of economic and social organization; instead, certain aspects

of Russian tsarism and serfdom were actually reinforced through the

application of new techniques borrowed from advanced capitalist societies or

through their incorporation into the newly developing wage-and-market

stages of the journey, a combining of separate steps, an amalgam of archaic

according to Trotsky, was the unexpected occurrence of a socialist revolution

in a fairly "backward" semi-feudal country.2

be traced to the work of Marx. This is particularly apparent in some of his

Uneven and Combined Development: Dynamics of Change 59

persistence of precapitalist, especially communal, arrangements in spite of

the growing hegemony of the capitalist system. Marx was especially

interested in the possible role of such "primitive communist" forms as the

The theory of uneven and combined development has been applied in

Perspectives among Romagnolo 1975; Lowy 1975; Novack 1976; Harding

and Le Blanc 1989). The most detailed contemporary exposition is found in

development and revolutionary struggles in a number of countries in the

while this perspective is derived from a historical materialist analysis of the

evolution of different modes of production, it rejects a rigid unilineal or

put forth by some branches of Marxist scholarship. Instead, central place is

contradiction, and complex interactions within social and cultural systems