Login

Publications  •  Project Statistics

Glossary  •  Schools  •  Disciplines
People Search: 
   
Title/Abstract Search: 

Dissertation Information for Carol McAllister

NAME:
- Carol McAllister
- (Alias) Carol Lynn McAllister

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Anthropology

SCHOOL:
- University of Pittsburgh (USA) (1987)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: MATRILINY, ISLAM, AND CAPITALISM: COMBINED AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN THE LIVES OF NEGERI SEMBILAN WOMEN

Abstract: "Capitalist development is causing a fundamental transformation in the lives of Negeri Sembilan Malays whose traditional culture is based on subsistence rice farming, matrilineal kinship, and the religion of Islam. The changes especially affect Negeri Sembilan women as they are drawn more fully into the international economy as wage workers for multinational industries and as petty commodity producers of rubber. Along with the growth of capitalist relations, there is also the persistence of matrilineal and Islamic traditions. The result is the co-existence and dialectical interaction of fundamentally different modes of economic and social organization and of different ideological orientations. New and old forms interact, reshape each other and combine rather than one merely replacing the other.

Using the theoretical framework of combined and uneven development, this problem is examined in the lives of Negeri Sembilan women. Three major themes are explored: (1) the continued existence, in the midst of growing competition and inequality, of traditional cooperative economic and social practices (e.g., ancestral property ownership, extended family support, communal feasts) characteristic of the matrilineal political-economy; (2) the use of forms of consciousness that derive from indigenous Malay culture (such as beliefs in spirit possession) to confront new experiences in the wage and market economy; and (3) the influence of Islam, and especially women's participation in a fundamentalist Islamic revival movement, on contemporary social and cultural dynamics.

The results of this process of combined and uneven development are complex. The persistence of traditional forms serves to protect Negeri Sembilan women from some of the more exploitative aspects of dependent capitalist development and helps them understand and respond to their new situation. But matrilineal and Islamic traditions also become undermined and distorted by their encounter with capitalist relations and values and can be manipulated by corporate owners to serve their own ends. A recognition of the combined and uneven character of the transitions occurring in this Third World society, and of their contradictory effects, is necessary to appreciate the current choices of Negeri Sembilan Malays and to assess the probable course of future change."

MPACT Scores for Carol McAllister

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:25:00

Advisors and Advisees Graph