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Contested Public Spheres Female Activism and Identity Politics in Malaysia

:	Anna Spiegel
:	Contested Public Spheres Female Activism and Identity Politics in Malaysia
:	VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (GWV)
:	9783531923710
:	1
:	CHF 47.50
:

:	Soziologie
:	English

:	369
:	Wasserzeichen/DRM
:	PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
:	PDF

1. 1 Researching the global everyday of women activists 1. 1 Researching the global everyday of women activists: Experiencing and doing globalisation Going through the broad spectrum of globalisation research and literature, one might be astonished at how much it assumes the force of global change, and how little of this literature demonstrates this force in an empirically grounded way. This study, being based on six months of empirical research in Malaysia in 2004, sets out to counter this lack of thick description of globalisation processes. It takes up the challenge of researching the 'global everyday' (Appadurai 2000, 18) of civil society actors in Malaysia and focuses on how social activists belonging to different branches of the women's movement selectively app- priate, transform and even create global meanings and materialise them in local practices. The methodological endeavour of combining globalisation research and ethnography has been taken up by a diversity of authors. Burawoy and his research team have developed a complex methodological framework by focusing on the experiential dimensions of globalisation. They want to produce a 'grounded globalisation' or 'perspectives on globalisations from below' (Burawoy 2000b, 338, 341). This perspective is very fruitful, as the notion of experiencing globalisation as 'forces, connections, and imaginations' (Burawoy et al. eds. 2000) relocates the global in the local and ties both together in mutual constitution.

Anna Spiegel is currently employed at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she is coordinating desiguALdades.net, the Research Network on Inderdependent Inequalities in Latin America.

Part Two Inside the World of NGOs: Constituting Female Counterpublics Negotiating Gender Equality and Legal Reforms: Women’s Organisations in Kuala Lumpur (S. 103-104)

4 Negotiating Gender Equality and Legal Reforms

4.1 Celebrating International

Women’s Day in Kuala Lumpur On the first weekend of March 2004, I attended the celebration of International Women’s Day in Kuala Lumpur. The celebration took place in Kuala Lumpur’s biggest shopping centre, the Mid Valley Megamall, as an event called ‘A Girl’s Day Out—It Starts With Respect’. The event was hosted by the popular television programme 3R, a programme targeting young women in Malaysia. On the official website of 3R, which stands for ‘Relax, Respect, Respond’, the programme presents itself as taking up ‘women’s issues’ and as employing staff members who are engaged in different NGOs.

For the first time in the history of International Women’s Day in Malaysia, it was organised not only by the two oldest feminist women’s organisations—the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) and the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM)—but also by human rights organisations such as the local branch of Amnesty International (AI), the Malaysian Aids Council (MAC), and the Sisters in Islam (SIS), an organisation belonging to the current wave of Muslim feminism. The event took place in the Exhibition Centre of the gigantic Megamall, normally reserved for commercial exhibitions such as an ‘Indian Wedding Exhibition’.

The whole event addresses a rather young public, especially young girls, and is centred on the idea of ‘respect’ and girl power, self-empowerment and self-defence. The theme of girl’s and women’s right to a safe environment was chosen in relation to a recent increase in crimes against women. The joint press statement of all the organisations involved in this IWD refers to this issue: Sadly, with the many brutal incidents of sexual violence highlighted in the press lately, women and girls have become afraid of going out to public places and there are more restrictions facing women’s activities and movements.

We believe that women in Malaysia have the right to feel safe not only in the home but also in public spaces and should be able to have the same freedom as men to move around and participate in events and activities around them. Our theme for this year `A Girl’s Day Out—It Begins with Respect’ emphasises this need to create a safer environment for women to be equal members of society. (Women`s Aid Organisation et al. 2004) The announcement for the event on the 3R website highlights the combination of fun and seriousness:

	Acknowledgements	6
	Contents	8
	List of Abbreviations	14
	1 Introduction	17
	1.1 Researching the global everyday of women activists: Experiencing and doing globalisation	17
	1.2 Connecting threads: Globalisation, social movements, and social space	19
	1.3 The case: Women’s movements and social transformation in Malaysia	23
	1.4 Research dimensions	26
	1.4.1 Changing identities	26
	1.4.2 The local and the global	27
	1.4.3 Global and translocal agency of women	27
	1.5 Structure of the study	28
	Part One Entering the World of NGOs	30
	2 Entering the World of NGOs: The Researcher’s Trajectory	31
	2.1 The process of fieldwork	32
	2.1.1 Towards a dense global ethnography	32
	2.1.2 Interview situations:	32
	2.1.2 Interview situations:	32
	37	32
	2.2 Grounding globalisation	44
	2.3 Events	48
	2.4 Biographical narrations	49
	3 Becoming an Activist: The Activists’ Trajectories	56
	3.1 Aniza’s trajectory	56
	3.2	56
	3.2	56
	60	56
	3.2.1 … the ‘tradition’ of the mothers and the ‘power’ of the fathers	60
	3.2.2 … institutionalised gender hierarchies	68
	3.2.3 … ethnicised hierarchies	77
	3.3	77
	3.3	77
	83	77
	3.4	77
	3.4	77
	91	77
	3.5 Developing everyday life techniques of reflexivity	97
	Part Two Inside the World of NGOs: Constituting Female Counterpublics	104
	4 Negotiating Gender Equality and Legal Reforms: Women’s Organisations in Kuala Lumpur	105
	4.1 Celebrating International Women’s Day in Kuala Lumpur	105
	4.2 Negotiating women’s rights in a multi-ethnic space	109
	4.3 The debate on Violence Against Women	118
	4.4 From local service to transnational social transformation	125
	4.5 Popularising feminist concepts	134
	4.6 Conclusion	141
	5 Protecting Women’s Dignity: Women’s Organisations in Kelantan	144
	5.1	144
	5.1	144
	145	144
	5.1.1 Wanita Inovatif Jari Diri (WIJADI), Women’s Innovative Self-Development Centre	145
	5.1.2 Women’s Development Foundation of Kelantan (Yayasan Murni)	147
	5.2	147
	5.2	147
	153	147
	5.3	147
	5.3	147
	158	147
	5.4 Connecting to the world: Rearranging local concerns in a global frame	173
	5.5 Conclusion	177
	6 Defending the Quality of Life in a Global Economy	179
	6.1 Defending the rights of working women against globalisation: The support group for home-based workers	179
	6.2 Defending the housing rights of the urban poor: Alaigal and the Community Development Centre	183
	6.3 History of the organisations	185
	6.3.1 From university to the plantations: Changing perspectives	185
	6.3.2 From educational programmes to confrontation: Changing strategies	189
	6.3.3 From an NGO to a political party: Changing political understandings	193
	6.4 From ‘deve