Cross-border Mobility : Women, Work, and Malay Identity in Indonesia 9789463729017, 9789048544936

Table of contents :
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Women, Mobility, and Malayness at the Border
Mobility and Malayness
Indonesian women’s mobility
Women’s borderscopes of mobility
Outline of the book
2. Sambas as Place, Culture, and Identity
Economy, demography, and Malay identifications
Economic transformations
Decentralisation
Conclusion
3. Traversing the Territorial Border for Work
Profile of village women
Border zone labour mobilities
Village women on Sambas Malay identity, adat, and culture
Socio-cultural implications of women’s territorial borderscope
Kinship and rurality: concluding comments on village women’s territorial borderscope
4. Public Sector Women Challenging the Borders of Marginality
Competent and committed
Women and the socioeconomic development of Sambas
Reforming Sambas Malay Culture
Informal influences: Islamic guidance and education
The greater good: concluding comments on public sector women’s borderscope of marginality
5. NGO Women Contesting the Borders of Marginality
Resolute and grounded
Women’s economic empowerment
Women’s political empowerment
Informal influences: embodying a modern Sambas Malay woman
Cosmopolitan trustees: concluding comments on NGO women’sborderscope of marginality
6. Creating a Translocal Malay Borderscope
On the topic of Sambas Malay culture
Zikir Maulud: characterising a Sambas Malay–Muslim regency
Dancing across borders
Songket’s expanding commercial horizons
Refashioning the perennial: concluding comments on women’s translocal Malay borderscope
7. Mobility and the Reconstitution of Gender
Soft sequestration and mobility
Kinship and mobility
Gender segregation and mobility
Mobility, autonomy, and women’s status
8. Conclusion
Revisiting borderscopes and borders
The significance of women and Malayness
Malayness and mobility—a final word
Glossary of Selected Foreign Words
Appendix 1
References
List of Images and Tables
Image 1.1 Map of Sambas Regency
Image 4.1 ‘Exercise your right to vote’
Image 4.2 Ajung during siak ritual
Image 6.1 Zikir Maulud Association evening
Table 3.1 Women’s education levels in the seven villages
Table 3.2 Labour outmigration (number and percentage) in seven villages

Citation preview

NEW MOBILITIES IN ASIA

Wendy Mee

Cross-border Mobility Women, Work and Malay Identity in Indonesia

Cross-border Mobility

New Mobilities in Asia In the 21st century, human mobility will increasingly have an Asian face. Migration from, to, and within Asia is not new, but it is undergoing profound transformations. Unskilled labour migration from the Philippines, China, India, Burma, Indonesia, and Central Asia to the West, the Gulf, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand continues apace. Yet industrialization in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India, the opening of Burma, and urbanization in China is creating massive new flows of internal migration. China is fast becoming a magnet for international migration from Asia and beyond. Meanwhile, Asian students top study-abroad charts; Chinese and Indian managers and technicians are becoming a new mobile global elite as foreign investment from those countries grows; and Asian tourists are fast becoming the biggest travellers and the biggest spenders, both in their own countries and abroad. These new mobilities reflect deep-going transformations of Asian societies and their relationship to the world, impacting national identities and creating new migration policy regimes, modes of transnational politics, consumption practices, and ideas of modernity. The series will, for the first time, bring together studies by historians, anthropologists, geographers, and political scientists that systematically explore these changes. Series Editor Pál Nyíri, VU University, Amsterdam Editorial Board Joy Hendry, Oxford Brookes University Johan Lindquist, Stockholm University Tim Oakes, University of Colorado, Boulder Aihwa Ong, University of California, Berkeley Tim Winter, Deakin University Xiang Biao, Oxford University

Cross-border Mobility Women, Work, and Malay Identity in Indonesia

Wendy Mee

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Lelong in the surau. Photographer: Wendy Mee Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 901 7 e-isbn 978 90 4854 493 6 doi 10.5117/9789463729017 nur 740 © W. Mee / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

This book is dedicated to my former PhD supervisor and mentor, the late Professor Joel S. Kahn



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

9

1 Women, Mobility, and Malayness at the Border Mobility and Malayness Indonesian women’s mobility Women’s borderscopes of mobility Outline of the book

11 13 17 21 27

2 Sambas as Place, Culture, and Identity Economy, demography, and Malay identifications Economic transformations Decentralisation Conclusion

31 32 42 48 60

3 Traversing the Territorial Border for Work Profile of village women Border zone labour mobilities Village women on Sambas Malay identity, adat, and culture Socio-cultural implications of women’s territorial borderscope Kinship and rurality: concluding comments on village women’s territorial borderscope

63 66 71 84 90

4 Public Sector Women Challenging the Borders of Marginality Competent and committed Women and the socioeconomic development of Sambas Reforming Sambas Malay culture Informal influences: Islamic guidance and education The greater good: concluding comments on public sector women’s borderscope of marginality

99 102 107 113 120

95

125

5 NGO Women Contesting the Borders of Marginality 129 Resolute and grounded 132 Women’s economic empowerment 136 Women’s political empowerment 146 Informal influences: embodying a modern Sambas Malay woman 156 Cosmopolitan trustees: concluding comments on NGO women’s borderscope of marginality 161

6 Creating a Translocal Malay Borderscope On the topic of Sambas Malay culture Zikir Maulud: characterising a Sambas Malay–Muslim regency Dancing across borders Songket’s expanding commercial horizons Refashioning the perennial: concluding comments on women’s translocal Malay borderscope

165 172 177 181 187

7 Mobility and the Reconstitution of Gender Soft sequestration and mobility Kinship and mobility Gender segregation and mobility Mobility, autonomy, and women’s status

199 201 203 210 213

8 Conclusion Revisiting borderscopes and borders The significance of women and Malayness Malayness and mobility—a final word

217 217 219 227

195

Glossary of Selected Foreign Words 231 Appendix 1 235 References 237 Index259 List of Images and Tables Image 1.1 Map of Sambas Regency 13 Image 4.1 ‘Exercise your right to vote’. Photograph © Wendy Mee, 2019 102 Image 4.2 Ajung during siak ritual. Photograph © Wendy Mee, 2019 115 Image 6.1 Zikir Maulud Association evening. Photograph © Wendy Mee, 2019 180 Table 3.1 Women’s education levels in the seven villages 70 Table 3.2 Labour outmigration (number and percentage) in seven villages 70

Acknowledgements This book could not exist if not for the kindness, friendship, engagement, and tolerance of the Malay women and men I met in Sambas. To them I owe my deepest thanks for sharing their time and their stories with me. I hope they can forgive my many gaffes and failures of comprehension. I am also profoundly grateful to family, friends, and colleagues for their unwavering support and encouragement. It is foolish to attempt to name them as—inevitably—I will forget someone. Nevertheless, here goes. To my colleagues at La Trobe University, my sincere thanks go to Sue Davies, Helen Lee, Anthony Moran, Anne-Maree Sawyer, and Raelene Wilding. The supportive work environment they provide helped me see this project through to completion. The research and writing of this book were also supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, La Trobe University’s Internal Research Grant Scheme and Social Research Assistance Platform, and visiting research positions at Humboldt University (Berlin) and in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sarawak, Malaysia. I gratefully acknowledge, in addition, the valuable comments on earlier drafts of Ed Aspinall, Maila Stivens, Noboru Ishikawa, and two anonymous reviewers, as well as the advice and encouragement of Saskia Gieling, the series editor at Amsterdam University Press. The book is much improved as a result. Wonderful friends and family members have accompanied me on this journey—easing my frustrations, nourishing me with food and companionship, providing a roof over my head, and scaffolding the research for this book. I am grateful to my mother, sisters, and German family for their ongoing love and support. To Yekti Maunati, Laily Khainur, Hew Cheng Sim, Dayang Asmah Awang Hamdan, Linda Sukamta, Goh Beng Lan, Donald Ward, Tim Craker, David Chye, and Holger Matthies, I say: ‘Thank you! I am indebted to you!’ Anne Loveband counts among these friends but deserves special mention for the contribution she made to the writing and conceptualisation of this book. For close to a decade, with extraordinary generosity of spirit, Anne wrestled with my prose to improve its clarity and the precision of my arguments. Finally, Martin Fey, needs to be acknowledged for his patience, understanding, and good humour in the face of my tetchiness and time away. I am incredibly fortunate to have Martin as an enthusiastic co-traveller in the field and in life.

1

Women, Mobility, and Malayness at the Border

The border zones of Indonesian Borneo are undergoing a profound and relentless transformation. This 2000-kilometre border with East Malaysia may not attract the same attention as the borders of the IndonesiaMalaysia-Singapore ‘growth triangle’, or those of the Upper Mekong ‘economic quadrangle’, yet it experiences similar processes of redefining the geography and political economy of borders. Over the past 20 years, the demilitarisation of Indonesia’s territorial border with East Malaysia and the politics of decentralisation have intersected with processes of rural livelihood diversification and socio-political aspirations of ‘development’ in ways that defy a single logic or rationality. In the border regencies of West Kalimantan, contested socioeconomic trajectories jostle to re-make the built, social, and natural environments. There is a palpable dynamism to these changes and the tensions they generate, as I observed in Sambas, one of the five border regencies in West Kalimantan (Image 1.1). Here, new roads cut through a landscape increasingly marked by swathes of oil palm. The town of Sambas encroaches on former rice fields, which now accommodate new housing estates and government buildings. Recent commercial and riverside developments give Sambas a metropolitan feel, while an historic wooden bridge has been replaced by one made of functional concrete and steel. On my first visit in 2007, a young tertiary-educated Sambas Malay woman described Sambas as a ‘cowboy town’—wild and undeveloped. By 2015, this same woman’s sister-in-law was pointing to a new hotel as evidence that Sambas was now sudah maju (‘developed’). Socioeconomic differences have also become more apparent as people pursue diverse opportunities through education, cultural resurgence, cross-border work, and professional employment. This backdrop of change lies at the very core of this study. The hopeful narratives of socioeconomic improvement recounted by the Sambas Malay women featured in this book are simultaneously framed by perceptions of economic disadvantage and opportunity, political marginality and empowerment, and cultural peripherality and renaissance. Together, the possibility of betterment and awareness of marginalisation intertwine to shape Sambas Malay women’s desire for, and the direction of, work-related mobility. While sentiments of political and socioeconomic marginalisation are not uncommon in Indonesia (Haug, Rössler, and Grumblies, 2016), local circumstances

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give rise to distinct perceptions of marginalisation and specific mechanisms of redress.1 In Sambas, the proximity to the territorial border with East Malaysia is pivotal to local understandings of marginality as well as to the designation of pathways through which this marginality can be overcome. In this study there is a strong temporal dimension to mobility—one that recalls Doreen Massey’s (2013) ‘progressive concept of place’: living in a border zone influences women’s aspirations of socioeconomic mobility. For some, proximity to the territorial border facilitated their ambitions for socioeconomic mobility through international labour migration; for others, the territorial border was viewed as an opportunity to capitalise on their proximity to Malaysian consumers. Socioeconomic mobility also entailed traversing a number of less tangible borders—of political empowerment, cultural recognition, education, and skills development, for example—which were strongly associated with the marginality of living at the border. How individual women responded to the socioeconomic opportunities associated with their border-zone location was a feature of their pragmatic, work-related orientations, which were derived from their membership in social groups, socioeconomic activities, and border imaginaries. The concept ‘borderscope’ is used in this book to encapsulate women’s orientation to mobility as it relates to their border location, socioeconomic situation, and the workrelated options available to them. Discussion of women’s borderscopes is not intended to focus our attention on the study of the territorial border as such. Instead, as discussed below, ‘borderscope’ is used primarily as an analytical device for the exploration of the ethnocultural effects of women’s socioeconomic mobility in the context of a border zone. In this study, the interplay of mobility and identity is ever present. Irrespective of the scope and direction of their socioeconomic ambitions, women’s mobility is shown to have consequences that surpass the personal to condition the practice of, and meanings associated with, Sambas Malay culture and identity. While the significance of men’s mobility to the constitution of the societies and people later identified as ‘Malay’ is well-documented, little attention has been paid to the consequences of women’s mobility. This book stands as a contribution to the counterbalancing of this bias, through 1 Such perceptions result from people’s routine experience of social inequality as well as the political construction of specific regions as ‘peripheral’ or ‘backward’, which are derived from colonial cartographies of ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer Islands’, and New Order classif ications of marginality (Haug, Rössler, and Grumblies, 2016). Sentiments of neglect and disempowerment differ across Indonesia. There are, for example, distinctions in the expression of peripherality in upland locations (Grumblies, 2016; Li, 1999, 2014a; Tsing, 1993) compared to those resulting from demographic marginalisation (Long, 2016).

Women, Mobilit y, and Mal ayness at the Border

13

Image 1.1 Map of Sambas Regency

a study of the ethnocultural consequences of the socioeconomic mobility of Malay women from an Indonesian border zone.

Mobility and Malayness The central argument in this study is that, in the current era, women reproduce and create ‘Malayness’ through their mobility as migrant workers, translocal cultural producers, and agents of socioeconomic development.2 My interest in the ethnocultural effects of women’s mobility arose from 2 This analysis of the cultural effects of women’s work-related mobility is framed in terms of women’s constitution of Sambas ‘Malayness’, not as a study of who or what constitutes a Sambas Malay (see also, Milner, 2008, p. 16; Barnard, 2003). As Barnard and Maier (2004, p. ix) note, the words ‘Melayu, Malay, Maleis’ reference ‘a confusing variety of configurations of human beings, locations, languages, customs, states, and objects’ (see also, Vickers 2004, p. 27; Milner, 2008, pp. 9-10). As an ethnicity, ‘Malay’ is also a relatively new, modern form of identity—one that has hardened over time in response to colonial administrations, processes of ethnic nationalism, and nineteenth-century European classificatory systems (Alatas, 1977; Hirschman, 1986; Kahn, 1993; Milner, 1995, 2008; Reid, 2001, 2013; Shamsul, 2004; van der Putten, 2011; Nagata, 2011).

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conversations with a wide range of Sambas Malay men and women about contemporary Sambas Malay identity processes. Here, I was struck by the degree to which Sambas Malay women were active in areas that had significant ramifications on the (re)creation of Sambas Malayness, even though they were rarely acknowledged as budayawan (‘cultural specialists/ writers’) or tokoh budaya (‘respected cultural experts’)—designations that are typically use to refer to men in Sambas. Further evident was the degree to which Sambas Malay women’s preferences, criteria of judgement, and orientation towards ethnocultural identifications and practices were shaped by their translocal encounters, including those associated with cross-border work, training and education, and cultural display. Persons, places, and practices deemed ‘Sambas Malay’ were continually reworked through women’s engagement with ‘wider systems of many beyonds’—as a consequence of women’s mobility (Pigg, 1996, p. 192; Tsing, 1993). The signif icance of men’s mobility to the constitution of Malayness is well-documented in historical studies of Malay societies. Historians have long tethered the mobility of Muslim Malay-speaking traders and the peregrination of rulers and Muslim scholars to the emergence of people and polities that later came to be identified as Malay (Barnard, 2003; Andaya, 2008; Reid, 2001, 2013; Harper and Amrith, 2014; Ho, 2013; Mandal, 2012; Sutherland, 2004; Warren, 1981). In contrast, little attention has been given to the significance of women’s mobility in the construction of Malayness. Even when Malay women are at times depicted as the mechanism through which non-Malay migrants are assimilated into Malay communities, it is surprising how the cultural mechanisms ‘at the heart of this incorporative process’ (Carsten, 1997, p. 4)—which enable households and communities to absorb outsiders—go largely unremarked. This stands in stark contrast to the scholarly celebration of male traders, Muslim scholars, and the openness of rulers in the construction of Malay polities. In seeking to explain the ‘general silence’ about women’s role in the development of Malay societies, Watson Andaya (2007, p. 114) argues that a reliance on classical Malay texts, such as hikayat (‘historical epics’) and syair (‘poetry’), is partly to blame.3 Such texts, she notes, focus on women’s 3 The consignment of women to the margins of history is a blind spot in the historical study of Southeast Asian societies, according to Watson Andaya (2007). James Warren (1990, p. 162) makes a similar point, arguing that historians have ignored women and gender in their studies of Southeast Asians’ working-class lives, patterns of social mobility, migration, and urban history (see also, Rimmer and Allen, 1990). One notable exception is the study of prostitution and concubinage. In the case of prostitution, extensive colonial records were kept as part of managing the sexual and economic health of the colony (Manderson, 1997; Warren, 1990), thus

Women, Mobilit y, and Mal ayness at the Border

15

reproductive role, particularly as it relates to kinship ties and genealogies within ruling and otherwise powerful households (see also, Andaya, 2008; Hashim, Tahir, Jalaluddin, and Mohamad, 2012). 4 Classical Malay texts do document the reign of several sovereign queens (Reid, 1988), as well as their support of Islamic scholarship (Hijjas, 2010). There are also representations in these writings of the queens and women of Malay courts as the ‘power behind the throne’ (Cheah, 1993). However, in general, these texts suggest a significant ‘trade in women’ (Hashim et al., 2012, p. 35) and provide only minimal insight into women’s everyday involvement in trade and economic relations, political affairs, and Islam during the development of Malay society. This invisibility of women is echoed in studies of their roles as Malay cultural producers, including as writers of Malay-language literature. Malay women are more likely to be represented as the objects of instruction—as in the case of Islamic treatises and poetry written by men to teach the ideal behaviour of Muslim women—than the writers of such tracts (Hijjas, 2010; 2013).5 Mulaika Hijjas (2010) warns that the absence of historical documents recording Malay women’s cultural outputs may reveal more about the attitude of colonial officers and chroniclers than about women’s actual involvement in cultural production. One example is the belated and rather generic reference found in the colonial record about Palembang women’s production of the culturally signif icant and expensive textile songket. Uchino (2005, p. 208) attributes this oversight to Dutch officers’ focus on commodities such as tin, pepper, and forest products (for similar observations on British Malaya, see Crinis, 2005, p. 25). providing some data on the mobility of women. Systematic records of concubines were not kept, but we can assume that a not insignificant number of women were involved in this ‘dominant [colonial] domestic arrangement’ (Stoler, 1989, p. 637). 4 There is also some evidence that even this limited significance given to women, on the basis of their high-status lineage, declined over time as increasing attention was given to patrilineal relations. For example, the two royal genealogies of Sambas demonstrate how references to the mother of Raden Sulaiman, later the first Muslim sultan of Sambas, became less important as a marker of status over time. In the first genealogy of the Sambas sultanate, Asal Raja-Raja Sambas [The origins of the rulers of Sambas], written around 1795, reference to the mother of Raden Sulaiman, Mas Ayu Bungsu, confers prestige and legitimacy on Raden Sulaiman’s claims to the throne, since she was the daughter of the former non-Muslim local ruler. In the second genealogy, dating from 1903, on the other hand, the maternal lineage is given little significance. Instead, in the Silsilah Kerajaan Sambas [Genealogy of the Kingdom of Sambas] the emphasis is on the royal family’s patrilineal ties to Islam and the royal family of Brunei (and through them the Prophet Muhammed) (Musa, 2003, pp. 126, 128). See also, Schulze (1991). 5 Watson Andaya (2013, p. 154) regards Mulaika Hijjas’ (2011) study of the romantic poetic epics composed by women in the court of Penyengat as a significant feminist contribution to the study of Malay literature.

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The preoccupation with men’s contributions to the development and character of Malay societies is also a feature of Sambas oral history. This is evident in a recent account of the history of the village of Sekuduk, located on a tributary of the Sambas River. Locals recount the founding of the village by the shipowner and trader Datuk Awang, who arrived by sailboat with his wife Datuk Kanian in the late eighteenth century (Maulana and Irawan, 2009). Datuk Awang and his sons made their livelihood as shipowners and traders sailing to ports in Trengganu, Sarawak, and Singapore. Within two generations, at least ten of Datuk Awang’s male descendants had made the pilgrimage to Mecca—the first in Sekuduk to do so. Locals recount with pride that a later male descendant also lived in Mecca for seven years as the student of Ahmad Khatib Sambas (1802-1878), the Sambas-born founder of the Sufi order or tarekat Qadriyah-Naqsybandiyah (Maulana and Irawan, 2009). If the wives and daughters of this Sekuduk family were successful traders or otherwise significant to the consolidation of Muslim-Malay identities in Sambas, no surviving oral history records it. The written record also portrays Sambas Malay women as profoundly lacking independent mobility. Although Sambas Malay women are documented as migrating to the coastal areas of northwest Sarawak in the late 1800s, these were family-based migrations funded by local Malay nakhoda (independent shipowner-traders) who were interested in establishing coconut plantation, timber-logging, and boat-building industries (Ishikawa, 2010). The inadequacy of focusing on the mobility of men in the development of Malay societies to the exclusion of women is captured in the image featured on the front cover of this book. This is a photograph taken in Tanjung Bugis in the town of Sambas, featuring a shop that sells second-hand clothes and other textiles smuggled over the border from Sarawak and Singapore. The name Tanjung Bugis (‘Bugis Point’) suggests that the area was originally settled by Muslim migrants from the island of Sulawesi. On close inspection, the shop is recognisable as a former surau (‘prayer house’). The glass in the upper windows may be partly broken, but Arabic script in gold is still discernible. This repurposed prayer house in a neighbourhood established by Bugis migrants repeats the association between trade, migration, and Islam in the development of ‘Malay’ societies, but with one significant difference: the independent Malay traders who dominate the sale of second-hand clothing and textiles in Sambas are female. Not simply the wives of independent traders or the anonymous mechanism through which male migrants are absorbed into local communities, these cross-border traders—together with the other women described in this book—contest the omission of women’s mobility in studies of the construction of Malayness. As shown in this study,

Women, Mobilit y, and Mal ayness at the Border

17

Malay women’s mobility is a generative cultural force with broad relevance to the definition and practice of Sambas Malay culture and identity. The disproportionate concentration on male mobility at the expense of female mobility has left half the story untold. This book represents a move towards redressing this imbalance by attending to the ethnocultural effects of Sambas Malay women’s work-related mobility. In so doing, this research opens new ground in the discussion of Indonesian women’s socioeconomic mobility more broadly. It was only in the 1980s that scholarship on Indonesia began to focus on women’s mobility and question whether the typical understanding that ‘women remained behind or went as an accompanying wife’ (Lenz, 2005, p. 246) was the entire story.6 There is now an impressive body of literature on the constraints, conditions, and opportunities associated with women’s gendered mobility. Indeed, women’s mobility is one of the most investigated fields of contemporary Indonesian scholarship. Despite this attention, however, there is still little discussion of the consequences of women’s mobility for the construction of localised ethnocultural identities (such as their Balineseness, Sundaneseness, or Malayness).

Indonesian women’s mobility The academic study of women’s independent work and labour migration dates from the mid-1980s. This era saw new scholarship on women as traders and informal sector workers (Alexander, 1998; Murray, 1991) and as industrial workers in Indonesia’s expanding export-oriented manufacturing sector (Florey and Healey, 2002; Grijns, Smyth, Van Celzen, Machfud, and Sayago, 1994; Mather, 1983; Silvey, 2000; Wolf, 1992). By the late 1990s, research on women’s working lives incorporated studies of them as members of Indonesia’s middle classes (Brenner, 1998; Nilan and Utari, 2008; Sen, 1998).7 6 In a review of the demographic changes in Sumatra from the 1930s to the early 1960s, William Withington (1967, p. 156) noted that Minangkabau labour migration involved ‘large numbers of men and not a few women’. Drawing on census data for Jakarta, Withington observed that West Sumatra migrants have the highest sex ratio of any group coming from an area outside Java (with 782 women to 1000 men), and on this basis argued ‘that the thesis of a predominantly male migration from West Sumatra has been overemphasised in the past’ (Withington, 1967, p. 157). 7 Amongst the groundswell of studies on women, work, and mobility in Indonesia, few address their socioeconomic status and political influence amongst Indonesian Malays. More frequent are studies of the matrilineal Minangkabau and the Javanese. Kerlogue (2000, p. 336) speculates that one reason for this was Dutch colonial anthropologists’ interest in exploring groups with cultures that were considered more distinctive, in contrast to the cultural ‘melange’ typical of Malay societies.

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Feminist scholarship on Indonesian women’s work and labour mobility experienced a further development in response to the rapid feminisation of international labour migration experienced in Indonesia from the 1990s. This is reflected in the burgeoning scholarship on women’s transnational labour mobility, particularly that associated with domestic and care work. Studies of female transnational labour migration document the forces and infrastructures that sustain the feminisation of Indonesian labour migration, such as the modes and brokerage of regular and irregular labour recruitment, and the political economy of international migration, including international legal frameworks and bilateral agreements (Chin, 1998; Ford and Lyons, 2011; Ford, Lyons, and van Schendel, 2012; Kassim, 1997; Lindquist, 2017; Rudnyckyj, 2004). This scholarship also provide important insights into how women interpret the conditions of, and seek to exercise agency over, their migration experiences, including responses to the abuse and exploitation of labour migrants, the negotiation of family relations, and the transnationalisation of discourses and activism on human trafficking and human and labour rights (Abdul Rahman, 2005; Butt, Beazley, and Ball, 2017; Hidayah, 2018; Khoo and Yeoh, 2018; Rahman, 2009; Rother, 2017; Silvey, 2006). In relation to cultural matters, these analyses typically move from a discussion of the local socio-cultural gender relations that inform women’s negotiation of migration and remittance practices (Chan, 2017; Elmhirst, 2000; Silvey and Elmhirst, 2003; Wolf, 1992) to questions of nationality, as the migrant’s national identity is ‘thickened’ (Loveband, 2004)—or becomes preeminent—within transnational migration processes of recruitment and employment. While there is some discussion of the relationship between work-related mobility and women’s national and religious identities (Constable, 2010; Loveband, 2004; Silvey, 2006, 2007), analyses of the cultural dimensions of women’s mobility tend to concentrate on the subject of the migrant herself (Warouw, 2008; Williams, 2007).8 This includes issues such as: the migrant’s changing reputation in the eyes of her community (Bennett, 2008; Idrus, 2008); labour migration as an aspect of young women’s transition to adulthood (Chan, 2017; Naafs, 2012); coping strategies (Prusinski, 2016); and the acquisition of new dispositions (Mee, 2015). Bypassed in all of these discussions is the examination of the consequences of women’s labour mobility for the broader cultural identifications and practices of the local ethnocultural community to which the women belong. This issue is explored in the current study, which investigates the wider ripple-effects of Sambas 8 For a discussion of the relationship between migration and religiosity in Asia more generally, see Brown and Yeoh, 2018.

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Malay women’s labour migration and other forms of socioeconomic mobility on the practices, values, and cultural elements identified as ‘Sambas Malay’. Another flourishing area of scholarship in the past two decades concerns the political mobility of Indonesian women. Feminist scholarship has produced significant research on the topic of Indonesian women’s political agency and how it is changing with increasing social and economic mobility. For example, a number of studies have highlighted women’s contributions to feminist, labour, Independence, and nationalist movements in Indonesia (Blackburn, 2004; Budianta, 2002, 2003; Ford, 2008; Taylor, 1997). Other studies have focused on the role of middle-class Muslim women in shaping Islamic practices (Gede, 2004) and education (Smith and Woodward, 2014), their involvement in religious, secular, and political organisations (Blackburn, Smith, and Syamsiyatun, 2008; Brenner, 2005; Robinson, 2009; White and Anshor, 2008), as well as the effects of these in terms of women’s own subjectivities as Muslims, feminists, and/or cosmopolitans (Rinaldo, 2013; Robinson, 2008). A number of studies focus on how women’s agency shapes state-civil relations (through legislation, for example), the composition of political parties, and the direction of social development projects (Dewi, 2015; Sakai, 2010). However, as with the scholarly discussion about women’s labour mobility, only limited consideration has been given to the implications of women’s political mobility for localised ethnocultural forms of identification. Indeed, the discussion tends to be framed by an implicit methodological nationalism (Beck and Sznaider, 2006), one that situates the nation-state as the most relevant crucible in which to evaluate the intersection of women’s socioeconomic and political aspirations, constructions of gender, and (trans)national cultural flows such as religion, feminism, human rights, and development. In later chapters, I explore the ethnocultural effects that educated and professional Sambas Malay women desire to exert on local Sambas Malay society as a result of their engagement with, and translation of, ideas related to political reform, Islam, education, and development. Apparent in this later discussion is the degree to which women’s national, professional, and religious commitments do not stand apart from or transcend their identification as Sambas Malay and their investment in Sambas Malay society. There is one area of scholarship in which localised forms of identity do constitute the principal setting: the literature on decentralisation and the introduction of far-reaching regional autonomy legislation in the post-New Order era. Regional autonomy has transformed the political and cultural landscape of Indonesia; it was also implicated in changes to the boundaries and political and demographic profiles of the Sambas Regency (see

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Chapter Two). As many studies attest, such regional autonomy has fuelled often-violent expressions of ethno-territorial claims and cultural identity politics (Davidson, 2009; van Klinken, 2007). Much of this scholarship draws attention to the public role that men have assumed as local power brokers and traditional leaders. From this perspective, regional autonomy is shown as posing specific threats to women, whose agency may be limited by patriarchal communal structures and unequal gender norms (see, for example, Setyawati, 2008, p. 71; Yuliani, 2010). However, power is not the monopoly of men, nor are women only the victims of power. We should therefore ask not only how Indonesian women negotiate the local cultural-political transition associated with regional autonomy, but also how they are implicated in the production of such processes. These are questions Lugina Setyawati (2008) addresses in her discussion of the Association of Concerned Riau Malay Women. Established in 2003 in Pekanbaru and with a membership comprised primarily of Malay women from academia and government institutions, this elite women’s organisation put its weight behind initiatives designed to preserve and ‘perfect’ the Malay adat.9 Nicholas Long (2013, pp. 11-16) provides a further example in the poetess and mayor of Tanjung Pinang (Riau Island Province) Suryatati Abdul Manan, whose poetry directly addresses the question of what it means to be Malay in the context of heightened cultural politics and anxieties associated with Malay identity.10 Long (2013, p. 67) also documents the struggle of Maznah, an elderly Malay woman, to have her manuscript on the history on the Galang River published: while Maznah knew herself to be a historian and guardian of spiritually-charged knowledge, her manuscript was dismissed by the Department of Tourism—as if an old commoner housewife could know anything! The present study combines an interest in the cultural politics of decentralisation with the ethnocultural effect of Indonesian women’s work-related mobility to evaluate how elite and non-elite Sambas Malay women contribute to the production of Sambas Malay cultural and identity processes. In the 9 Adat or adat-istiadat are general terms referring to customary practices and social norms that are considered ‘traditional’, those bequeathed by nenek-moyang (‘ancestors’). Though the word adat comes from Arabic, it is typically used to refer to customs that are particular (if not unique) to local ethnocultural groups, not those that are generally shared by Muslims. During the Dutch colonial period, legal scholars developed a complex set of debates on adat laws and rights that continue to influence contemporary indigenous movements in Indonesia (see Arizona and Cahyadi, 2013, pp. 46-51). 10 Suryatati Abdul Manan has also been a controversial f igure, with critics disputing her Malay identity because she was adopted by Malay parents. However, her position as a Malay mayor underlines the fluidity and openness of Malay identity, which does not rest on blood or biological ties but on the adoption of Islam and Malay habits.

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context of the new regency of Sambas (further discussed in Chapter Two), this book examines how women, in their capacity as migrant workers, traders, craftswomen, activists, and civil servants, (re)constitute Malayness in Sambas. The book contributes a more gender-balanced analysis of the effects of socioeconomic mobility for ethnocultural continuity and change—a question seldom asked regarding Malay women’s mobility in the past, or indeed of Indonesian women’s mobility more generally. Our understanding of the ethnocultural effects of Indonesian women’s mobility is further deepened by considering women’s mobility within a border zone. Socioeconomic mobility takes on special significance in a nation’s periphery, one that is best captured by applying a border optic.

Women’s borderscopes of mobility It was the prominence of the territorial border in Sambas Malay women’s narratives of mobility that initially directed me to consider the intersection of mobility and identity processes at the edge of the nation. Women’s location within a border zone had direct consequences on women’s mobility and thus on the resulting identity processes. The significance of this geo-political context led me to employ a ‘border lens’, an approach that not only aligns with the geography of Sambas but also provides a useful conceptual device for understanding Sambas Malay women’s socioeconomic mobility in general as ‘border crossing’.11 Sensitivity to place need not return us to a notion of fixed spaces inhabited by bounded communities. Instead, it can provide a topography for the movement of peoples, cultures, and trade and the resulting fluidity and relational quality of cultural, community, and political categories (Sillander, 2016). Given Sambas’ location on an international border, such considerations lead us to the field of border studies, an arena that views borderlands as an analytically- and empirically-rich terrain for 11 Other studies of Southeast Asia advocate different conceptual lenses to analyse spatial or geographical elements. For example, in relation to the history of the seafaring migration and trade that is characteristic of archipelagic Southeast Asia, Eric Tagliacozzo (2009, p. 99) calls us to study the region in ‘oceanic terms’. Adrian Vickers (2004) deploys the concept of the ‘pasisir’ to situate the study of Malay language, literature, and identity in a trans-archipelagic field, while others have advanced concepts like ‘Zomia’ (Scott, 2009; van Schendel, 2002) and ‘convergence zones’ (Tenzin, 2017) as a way to challenge state-centric peripheralisation of borders and provide alternative readings of Asian social formations. Closer to home, in Kalimantan, Sillander (2016, p. 106) makes the case that collective identifications are acutely attached to locality; for example, ‘a typical Borneo pattern’ is for the names of ethnic groups to be derived from toponyms or place names—as is also the case with the category ‘Sambas Malay’.

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the study of the flow of people, culture, and capital (Wastl-Walter, 2012; Wilson and Donnan, 2012). Two broad sets of research interests can be identified in the field of border studies.12 The first, grounded in a critical political geography, focuses on the proliferation of borders, which are understood as mechanisms of economic and political control, exclusion, and inclusion (Jones and Johnson, 2014; Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013; Rajaram and Grundy-Warr, 2007).13 The second takes its lead from Michiel Baud and Willem van Schendel’s seminal paper ‘Towards a Comparative History of Borderlands’ (1997), placing the border at the centre of analyses of contemporary social processes in order to investigate the social, economic, political, and cultural dynamics that operate within regional fields. This second approach combines an interest in the mobility of people, capital, and goods with a recognition of the fluidity of identity politics and the mutability and porosity of territorial borders. Special significance is given to the perspectives of the residents of border zones in order to understand borders and borderlands as ‘lived space challenged and inspired by international boundaries’ (Dean, 2012, p. 222, emphasis in the original). Not viewing them as lived spaces, Dean (2012) continues, risks reproducing the dominant discourses that naturalise nation-state borders (van Schendel and de Maaker, 2014, p. 4). This book sits within this latter, broadly ethnographic study of people’s cognitive and imaginative construction of borders, and the values they attach to these understandings. One aspect of this is an interest in how changing political and economic relations give rise to new cross-border structures and meanings related to borders. In general, my research is informed by other Southeast Asian studies that explore the nature of borderlanders’ livelihoods (Huijsmans, 2019; Ishikawa, 2012; Schoenberger and Turner, 2008; Singh, 2017; Sturgeon, 2012; Taylor, 2007, 2016; Walker, 1999) and consider the dispositions and orientations of borderland inhabitants (Chou, 2006; Eilenberg, 2012c, 2014; Ford and Lyons, 2011, 2012; Gaber, 2018; Kalir and Sur, 2012; Lindquist, 2009). 12 Both fields share a rejection of state-centrism and territorialist epistemology (Brenner, 1999), subscribing to a constructivist conceptualisation of borders as ‘spatialised social relations’ (van Schendel, 2004, p. 4) that are dynamic, unstable, and contested (Brambilla, 2015, p. 15). 13 For example, Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2013) argue that the proliferation of borders at all scales is designed to take advantage of the movement of people, capital, and goods. Such borders include not only traditional territorial borders, but the establishment of special economic zones, the borders between different labour regimes, and novel forms of political exclusion. Similarly, Jones and Johnson (2014) focus on the rescaling and expansion of border enforcement. Of particular note is how border enforcement no longer rests in the hands of state agents at the border, but now encompasses a variety of state and non-state actors who patrol the border within the state’s territory (see Cooper, Perkins, and Rumford, 2014).

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More specifically, this analysis is strongly aligned with studies of borders that share similar properties to those of the Sambas/Sarawak border. This is not the ‘bloodied terrain of the borderlands’ (Castañeda, 2007, p. xiv) associated with the malquiladoras/assembly plants along the US-Mexico border or the violent political intimidation of the India-Bangladesh border, for example. It is, instead, a ‘low profile’ territorial border (Singh, 2017, p. 117) marked by minimal inter-state conflict and permeable boundaries.14 As such, the Sambas/Sarawak border provides relatively safe border-crossing for both people and goods, including forms of cross-border traffic that are, technically speaking, illegal, but which are facilitated and condoned by local norms, perceptions of neglect, and physical distance from the centre. Much has been written about the sense of peripherality that is associated with residing in borderlands and frontiers. Li captures the essence of such feelings when she writes of Central Sulawesi highlanders: ‘decades of neglect had made them sceptical that the roads, schools, and other benefits promised by government officials would actually be delivered’ (2014a, p. 13). As she continues, such neglect does not mean that these regions are ignored: ‘Frontiers are not only characterised by lack. They are simultaneously coveted places, envisaged by various actors as sites of potential’ (Li, 2014a, p. 13). Similarly, Sambas residents complain that their needs have been ignored by the government, even though the region was long a focus of economic extraction for the central government, military, and related business cronies. As van Schendel and de Maaker note, borders are positioned as spaces of ‘neglect, constraint, fear, opportunity and freedom’ (2014, p. 5). In contexts of limited incorporation into the nation, border residents’ ‘licit’ sources of authority emerge and strengthen as perceptions of marginalisation are drawn upon to justify formally illegal practices as ‘just, reasonable or simply more profitable’ (Bakker and Crain, 2012, p. 109). In turn, various state actors (military personnel and custom officers, for example) actively underwrite such licit practices in consideration of both local customs and self-interest.15 14 This is not to suggest that there has been no violence associated with this border. Chapter Two provides an account of violent episodes along the border in the 1960s, while the forced expulsion of Madurese from Sambas at the end of the 1990s can be viewed as a form of ‘citizen borderwork’ (Rumford, 2013) and the foundational moment of the new post-New Order Sambas Regency. 15 This is not necessarily an either/or situation, as borderlanders may move between compliance with state laws and subversion of state legitimacy. As Horstmann and Wadley aptly note, ‘A good deal of the time, the good [border] citizen and the outlaw are one and same, sometimes at different times, sometimes simultaneously’ (2006, p. 9). See also, Jones, 2018; Boyle and Rahman, 2018; and Sur, 2012 for a related discussion of entangled sovereignties on the India-Bangladesh border, which is characterised by far higher levels of state-sanctioned violence than the West Kalimantan-Sarawak border.

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The presence of competing norms and alternative sources of authority at the border is linked to the recognition that ‘ways of imagining power and space’ at the border may ‘differ from “heartland” practise’ (van Schendel, 2004, p. 50). Michael Eilenberg (2012c, pp. 45-46), for example, borrows O.J. Martínez’s (1994) concept of a ‘borderlands milieu’ to characterise one such local imagining of space, that of the Batang Lupas Iban of the West Kalimantan/Sarawak border. For the Indonesians struggling to survive on Riau’s Batam Island, and who pin their hopes on successfully crossing to Singapore for work, this territorial border is charged with emotions not shared by Indonesians who reside elsewhere (Lindquist, 2009). In this study, I have found it productive to conceptualise women’s local perspectives on the territorial border in terms of ‘borderscopes’. The analysis of women’s borderscopes is critical to this study for two reasons. First, women’s borderscopes orient the direction of their cross-border mobility in important ways. Second, the work-related pathways and trajectories that are the consequence of women’s borderscopes result in women’s acquisition of new subjectivities, consolidation of specific ethnocultural social relations, and engagement with a range of cultural forms and practices identified as Sambas Malay. I argue that it is these outcomes that reveal how women’s mobility is integral to the wider processes constituting the category ‘Sambas Malay’. The term ‘borderscope’ shares conceptual terrain with other non-positivist conceptualisations of the border, such as ‘borderscapes’—a term associated with the critical political geography of borders (see Brambilla, 2015; Perera, 2007; Rajaram and Grundy-Warr, 2007). In contrast, I use the suffix ‘-scope’ to signal my primary interest in investigating how women construct and understand the borders that matter to them. As a noun, ‘scope’ indicates possibility, choice, and opportunity, as well as space, range, span, or reach; as a verb, it carries the additional meanings ‘to estimate’, ‘to plan’, ‘to assess’, and ‘to evaluate’. This cluster of meanings is remarkably apt for considering the contexts, conditions, and consequences of women’s socioeconomic mobility at the borderlands, encompassing the possibility, choices, and opportunities of women’s decision-making and agency in relation to mobility, while also acknowledging the likelihood of restrictions of circumstance and location to the span, range, and reach of their mobility. We are thus drawn to consider how women—within the constraints and circumstances of their lives—perceive, evaluate, and pursue pathways of mobility that entail a—at least metaphorical—crossing of the territorial border. The concept of borderscope, therefore, does not discount the materiality of the territorial border for those who reside in its vicinity or the real

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implications the border has for those who traverse it for employment and trade. ‘Borderscope’ is intended to signal how the notion of the border incorporates conceptualisations of broader economic, political, and cultural relations and ambitions. A critical aspect here is the temporal qualities attached to the territorial border, particularly how living near a border is associated with time lag, stagnant development, and backwardness. Women’s borderscopes of mobility thus have specific temporal registers that reveal how geographical locations are ‘bordered by both territory and time’ (Hurd, Donnan, and Leutloff-Grandits, 2017, p. 1; see also Massey, 2013). In the imaginary of the border and its crossing, women’s borderscopes are animated by the ‘memories and narratives’, ‘hopes and fears that anchor’ Sambas Malays to a given territory (Hurd, Donnan, and Leutloff-Grandits, 2017, p. 1). As residents of a border zone, women’s borderscopes are grounded in a shared ‘cultural landscape’ (van Schendel, 2004, p. 3) of disadvantage. This is not to argue that women’s responses are undifferentiated; indeed, how women operationalise this appreciation of their border-zone location is quite variable and results in a range of borderscopes that condition their mobility both imaginatively and physically. This study documents three distinctive borderscopes of mobility pertaining to different social strata of Sambas Malay women: the ‘territorial borderscope’ of predominantly rural, working-class women; the ‘borderscope of marginality’ of educated, white-collar women; and the boundaries of a regional Sambas Malay culture—or ‘translocal Malay borderscope’—defined by female cultural producers. As these categories demonstrate, Sambas Malay women reference a range of borders and mobility trajectories in their borderscopes of mobility, not all involving a crossing of the adjacent territorial border. From this perspective, women perform important and varied ‘border work’ in their designation of and engagement with the specific borders that they deem relevant to their socioeconomic aspirations. Such border work results in their (re)production of borders, both concrete and intangible, as objects that give shape and direction to socioeconomic mobility. Border work is therefore a constitutive process of women’s borderscopes of mobility, one that is powerfully fashioned by women’s individual social locations and forms of socioeconomic mobility. Women’s border work, as an expression of their borderscopes, also provides a useful analytic perspective for investigating the ethnocultural effects of women’s work-related mobility. This is evident in Chapters Three, Four, Five, and Six, which examine the border work attending women’s different borderscopes to highlight the consequences of their socioeconomic mobility for the (re)inscription of Sambas Malayness.

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The multiplicity of borderscopes described in this study parallels the scholarly recognition that multiple borders exist at the border—what Rumford (2012) terms ‘multiperspectival borders’. Borders are not simply ‘historically variable geographical imaginations’ (Harper and Amrith, 2012, p. 1); instead, a number of different and competing values and meanings are attached to a border at any one time (Wilson and Donnan, 1998, pp. 21, 24). In addition, borders have long been recognised as gendered and generating different effects for women and men in terms of citizenship and migration status (Benhabib and Resnik, 2009; Donnan and Wilson, 1998; Gregorič Bon, 2017; Oso and Ribas Mateos, 2013; Stalford, Currie, and Velluti, 2009). Malini Sur (2012) compares how ‘ecologies of licitness’ pose disparate risks for female cross-border traders and male cross-border labourers on the India-Bangladesh border—a compelling example of how gendered constellations of power at the border differently enable and condition the mobility of women and men. Gender is not only a critical dimension in the study of borders, but also of mobility (Uteng, 2006). Gender-differentiated patterns of mobility are central to the reconstitution of gender relations, such as when women’s restricted spatial mobility reinforces ‘a home-bound femininity’ (Sheller, 2008, p. 285).16 For this reason, this book describes how the gender norms that organise Sambas Malay women’s socio-spatial mobility operate in relation to the territorial border. We can see how the gendering of the border precedes women’s mobility when we consider the influence of variables such as a woman’s stage of life, the types of crossborder livelihoods available to women, and gender norms that condition women’s spatial mobility. Raghuram and Piper (2012, p. 530) observe that migrant women’s construal of borders accounts for some of the dynamism of borders. However, they also add, ‘it is not only women who move across borders, but also borders that move around women’ (2012, p. 544). This ‘movement’ of borders is certainly evident in Sambas, where in the past two decades both the characteristics of the border with Sarawak and the borders of the regency have changed (see Chapter Two). Viewed from this angle, the borderscopes of mobility detailed in this study represent women’s interpretation and negotiation of the gendered opportunities for mobility that they associate with a territorial border that is in flux. 16 Having said this, mobility and immobility are ambiguous markers of gender status. For example, immobility may be a cultural expression of political power (Waterson, 1993, p. 170). Further, mobility should not be celebrated as an expression of a woman’s capacity to determine the circumstances of her life: it may be forced, viewed with ambivalence, or generate anxiety (see, Lindquist, 2009).

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Outline of the book The primary focus of this book is to provide an analysis of Sambas Malay women’s desire and determination to pursue pathways of mobility that not only move beyond the perceived disadvantage and marginality of Sambas’ borderlands, but also insert them in wider processes of identity construction that reinstate and reshape the category ‘Sambas Malay’. Just as the directions of women’s mobility are diverse, the cultural forces that arise from women’s mobility and that are broadly relevant to the definition and practice of Sambas Malay culture and society are likewise diverse. An analysis framed in terms of women’s borderscopes of mobility is therefore a means to examine the variegated ethnocultural effects of the work-related mobility of a range of Sambas Malay individuals who are active across a spectrum of productive activities. The book is based on research conducted in Sambas beginning with a brief visit in late 2007. Most interviews and the main ethnographic observations occurred during two periods of fieldwork, each four months in length, in 2008 and 2009. Additional fieldnotes were gathered on shorter visits in 2010, 2012, and 2015, as well as during visits to Brunei in 2009 and to Sarawak in 2009 and 2015.17 This seven- to eight-year period was a crucial time for political transitions in Indonesia, including the consolidation of the new regency of Sambas. Borders—both international and internal administrative—had a privileged place in these developments. Chapter Two charts the historical, political, and economic factors that have materially and discursively produced these borders. As will become apparent, there is an important relationship between fluctuating socioeconomic and political relations in Sambas and changes in the meanings attached to its boundaries. The border work of the Dutch colonial and later Republic of Indonesia governments have been pivotal for not only Sambas Malays’ experiences of marginalisation, but also their attribution of significance and meaning to territorial and administrative borders. In this context, regional autonomy and the accompanying reimagining of borders act as potent influences on women’s expectations and the directions of their mobility. Chapter Two surveys these and other important socioeconomic and political factors to provide a background for subsequent chapters’ analysis of Sambas Malay women’s mobility. Against this backdrop, Chapters Three, Four, Five, and Six consider the book’s central research question: How does Sambas Malay women’s mobility 17 Further details on the study’s research methods and information on interviews conducted are provided in Chapters Three, Four, Five, and Six.

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reconstitute the practice of, and their identification with, Sambas Malay culture and identity? Each of these chapters focus on one of three borderscopes that orient specific categories of women’s mobility: the territorial borderscope; the borderscope of marginality; and the translocal Malay borderscope. All three borderscopes represent significant employment or livelihood strategies as well as the socio-cultural orientations of three different categories of Sambas Malay women, namely, cross-border traders and labour migrants; professional, white collar workers; and cultural practitioners and entrepreneurs. As discussed in Chapter Three, the territorial borderscope has risen in importance over the past three decades to become an important focal point for the mobility of rural and working-class Sambas Malay women. This borderscope channels women towards cross-border economic activities in response to both personal motivations and their families’ socioeconomic status. Their mobility is shaped by family relations, labour histories, a range of labour migration agents, government institutions, and formal and informal border pathways. The cultural and identity implications of these women’s mobility, as channelled by their borderscope, centre on specific effects for marriage and kinship—relations that are integral to Sambas Malay adat practices. The association between Sambas Malayness and rurality is also fortified when these women invest their cross-border earnings and remittances in village-based economic activities. The significance of non-territorial borders, especially those that define Sambas as economically and politically marginalised, come to the fore in Chapters Four and Five. Sambas Malay women from a higher social class—a result of further education and professional occupations—are oriented toward crossing and challenging the borders that retard Sambas’ socioeconomic and political advancement. While the territorial border remains a feature in these women’s borderscope, it is predominantly viewed as a marker of socioeconomic disadvantage and the marginality that they associate with living at the periphery of the nation. It is this marginality, rather than the border as such, that they desire to ‘cross’. Chapters Four and Five depict the reformist agendas of Sambas Malay public sector and NGO workers. Despite differences in their approaches to combating the disadvantages and marginality experienced by Sambas Malays, the work of both groups is oriented toward improving livelihoods, women’s rights, and other economic and political measures. Apparent here is the extent to which these women exploit the mutability of conceptualisations of Sambas Malayness in line with their objectives and adjudication of what is best for Sambas Malays. The cultural and identity implications of their interventions

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are evident in areas such as adat, Islam, livelihoods, and rurality, simultaneously displacing and reinstating the internal Sambas borders associated with the urban/rural and educated/less educated divides. The translocal Malay borderscope explored in Chapter Six introduces female Sambas Malay cultural producers and entrepreneurs. These cultural producers exhibit an openness to adapting and modifying cultural practices as an expression of their belief in the perennial value of Sambas Malay culture. According to this borderscope, women’s mobility is tethered to a sense of locality, descent or inheritance, but could extend to engage with other Indonesian regional and ‘Malay’ cultural forms and processes. For these women, the critical borders first delineate Sambas Malayness as an adat budaya (‘regional traditional culture’) within Indonesia and second, situate Sambas Malays within the borders of a Malay World. Both interregional and intra-Malay exchanges present opportunities for these women to review and modify their own cultural practices. Their translocal Malay mobility heightens their enthusiasm for a Sambas Malay cultural heritage and, paradoxically, motivates them to innovate ‘traditional’ practices. The analysis of women’s participation in inter-regional and intra-Malay cultural exchanges also reveals the centrality of female cultural producers in the bordering practices that constitute and reconstitute the different scales of Malay cultural identification. Chapter Seven returns to questions raised in the earlier discussion of mobility as gendered in order to consider some general observations on Sambas Malay women’s gendered mobility. In general, my informants looked favourably upon the expanded opportunities and horizons that spatial mobility could bring and expressed pleasure in travel (see also, Carsten, 1998). This should not blind us to the fact that for some of these women, their experience of cross-border mobility was coloured by ambivalence and could lead to a rejection of return journeys. Furthermore, the transformative effects of women’s independent mobility on normative gender roles could be relatively minor. In Chapter Seven, I reflect on the gender dynamics associated with women’s mobility by considering three Sambas Malay cultural attributes: kinship, gender segregation, and what I term women’s ‘soft sequestration’. These normative gender relations, paradoxically, both enable and constrain women’s mobility. Nevertheless, there is some indication that the gender norms governing women’s physical mobility are loosening as their socioeconomic mobility deepens. The concluding chapter describes some broader implications of the intersection of women’s cross-border mobility and the constitution of Sambas Malayness. Importantly, the study offers a rejoinder to the historical

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association between male mobility and the constitution of Malayness by documenting the ethnocultural effects of Sambas Malay women’s contemporary mobility. Here, the study provides a range of voices from the periphery that are not often heard, particularly the voices of non-elite women whose aspirations and mobility contribute to Sambas Malay identity processes. The women in the study reveal a range of cultural identifications and levels of intentionality in these processes: some women’s engagement with Malayness is best characterised as incidental, while others’ involvement is conscious and directed at causing particular outcomes. Whether intended or unintended, the Malay women’s mobility has consequences for an everyday or ordinary ethnicisation (Milner, 2008). In making this argument, this study also contributes to the revision—or recentreing—of the border, in recognition of borders’ generative and productive importance. Finally, the socioeconomic and cultural productivity of Sambas Malay women’s borderscopes of mobility suggests that feelings of marginality cannot be taken as prima facie evidence of actual peripherality, given how women’s sensibilities invigorate cultural innovation and economic change.

2

Sambas as Place, Culture, and Identity

The Sambas Malay women in this study reside in a border territory coloured by a specific set of historical, political, and socioeconomic relations. Most notably, people in Sambas are keenly aware that living near the border is a marker that they are on the periphery of Indonesia. Moreover, the border’s prominence in the economic and political projects of the Indonesian state in the second half of the twentieth century has generated a sense of resentment, because the locals have received few material benefits as a result (see also, Eilenberg, 2012c). These factors, in combination with low, stagnant socioeconomic development and the perception that the status of Sambas Malays has diminished over time, explain many Sambas Malays’ feelings of economic, political, and cultural marginality. Two overlapping sets of geographic borders form the key receptacles of Sambas Malay women’s expressions of marginality and visions for forward movement: the territorial border with East Malaysia and the administrative border of the Regency of Sambas. These borders are grounded in distinct geographic, economic, and political processes that do not simply demarcate the borders in Sambas, but constantly make and re-make them. While making the border, such processes also produce the meanings and values associated with it. As discussed in this chapter, the enactment of state power is an especially important part of territorial and administrative border making. In the past, the central government’s intervention in making Sambas’ borders has been a source of feelings of marginalisation and peripherality. More recently, however, the redrawing and reconceptualisation of Sambas’ territorial and administrative borders has produced new pathways of mobility, ranging from natural resourcebased sources of income, formal and informal cross-border economic activities, labour migration, public sector employment, and investment in social development projects. The following sections contextualise perceptions of marginalisation in relation to the key economic and political transitions in Sambas, starting from the late colonial period, continuing through the era of Independence (with a focus on the New Order government), and finishing with the first ten to fifteen years of decentralisation. The colonial state both consolidated the international border between Sambas and East Malaysia and set in motion Sambas’ transition from an independent principality to an administrative unit under Dutch colonial sovereignty. The policies of the newly independent Indonesian central state further diminished the status of the regency while

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restructuring the border with Sarawak in specific ways. As discussed in the final section, policies of decentralisation have returned a measure of autonomy to the regency government and produced further shifts in how Sambas Malays evaluate the territorial border. This section provides a background on the three major effects of decentralisation that are relevant to this study: the resurgence of Sambas Malay cultural symbolism, the expansion of the public sector, and a shift from viewing the territorial border as a militarised zone to an economic one. At various points in the chapter, I introduce aspects of the lives of Kak Surya, her husband, and their two daughters. Born in 1970 in a coastal village in the north of Sambas, Kak Surya has used a variety of means to earn a living throughout her married life. For a while, she sold cooked snacks, such as fried rice, from a little pondok (‘shelter’) in front of her house. For several years, she traded in shoes, sandals, cloth, and clothing that she and her brother-in-law purchased in central Java. While operating a small shop in the village or peddling goods among her friends and neighbours, Kak Surya also grew rice for her family and tended coconut and fruit trees. It was only after she was given a salaried position in a government-sponsored program that she gave up this range of income-generating and subsistence activities. This narrative device illustrates how the life of Kak Surya and those of her husband, children, and forebears have been shaped by the geographical, political, and economic forces depicted in this chapter. The next section provides a snapshot of Sambas’ current economic and demographic profile, as well as an overview of its historical identification as a ‘Malay’ sultanate.

Economy, demography, and Malay identifications The Regency of Sambas is socioeconomically poor relative to other parts of Indonesia; it is classified as tertinggal (literally ‘left behind’), a status applied in Indonesia to areas with the lowest levels of socioeconomic development.1 During the main period of fieldwork for this study, most people in Sambas experienced financial and other hardships, although it also coincided with a modest increase in Sambas’ per capita regional income and a decline in 1 West Kalimantan is relatively impoverished in comparison with the Indonesian average, with eight of its fourteen regencies/administrative cities categorised as tertinggal in 2016. Half of these regencies share an international border with Sarawak (Sambas, Bengkayang, Sintang, and Kapuas Mulu).

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the regency’s poverty rate.2 In 2008 it was estimated that in nearly half of Sambas villages, around one third of the population was classified as poor (Surahman, 2008, p. 6). Sambas and West Kalimantan also fell below the Indonesian average in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI). In 2010, West Kalimantan was ranked 28th out of 33 provinces, with an HDI of 68.17; of the (at the time) 14 regencies/cities in West Kalimantan, Sambas was the region with the lowest HDI (64.48) (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011, p. 168). While there have been small improvements since 2005 (for example, life expectancy in Sambas rose from 60 to 61 years), Sambas still has a way to go even in terms of catching up with the West Kalimantan average. Education levels are a case in point. In 2012, 10 percent of working-age females and 4 percent of working-age males in Sambas had no schooling; around 32 percent of females and 27 percent of males had not finished primary school, while a further 32 percent of females and 36 percent of males had only finished primary school ( Kabupaten Sambas, 2013, Table 4.2.2., p. 72).3 In 2010, Sambas Regency also had the second lowest number of teachers with a bachelor’s degree in all of West Kalimantan, with more than half of teachers not having a bachelor’s degree. 4 Many of these indicators reflect Sambas’ status as a rural regency where access to schools and health services is often hampered by poor roads and limited transportation. Although urbanisation visibly accelerated during the arc of my research, around 85 percent of Sambas’ population resided in rural areas and 70 percent of the active labour force (approximately 200,000 people) worked in the agricultural sector (Kabupaten Sambas, 2012). At the time, agriculture also accounted for around 43 percent of Sambas’ economy (Kabupaten Sambas, 2012). The most important agricultural crops were rice, rubber, oil palm fruit, oranges, and pepper. However, descriptions of 2 In 2005, 15 percent of Sambas residents were at or under the poverty line; by 2010 this number had fallen to 10 percent. In 2007, the annual per capita regional income was around Indonesian Rupiah (IRD) 8.5 million (approx. US$ 850) (Kabupaten Sambas, 2008). By 2011, this had increased to approximately IRD 10.5 million (US$ 1,050) (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011, Table 9.1). Between 2006 and 2010, the gross regional income of Sambas grew by 12 percent, or around 5 percent in real terms (with prices held constant)—outperforming the West Kalimantan average (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011, pp. 138-40). 3 Around 22 percent of females and 28 percent of males had some form of secondary education in 2013. In tertiary education the discrepancy between females and males declines, suggesting that there is less discrimination of opportunity in wealthier households. However, the participation rates are very low, with 3 percent of females and 4.4 percent of males having some form of diploma, bachelor, or other tertiary qualification (Kabupaten Sambas, 2013, Table 4.2.2., p.72). 4 As reported by Tantra Nur Andi in the Borneo Tribune (20 April 2010, ‘Guru Kalbar dari 58,375 orang jumlah guru di Kalbar belum S1’, p. 40).

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Sambas as ‘rural’ and ‘agricultural’ belie the extensive linkages between rural households and off-farm work, including labour migration (see also, Rigg, 1998; Stivens, 2013). Opportunities to pursue non-farm and off-farm work are now critical to the reproduction of farms and rural communities across Indonesia (Leinbach, 2004) and, as the case of Kak Surya introduced above demonstrates, such ‘multi-local livelihoods’ (Elmhirst, 2008) were already a feature of rural women’s working lives in Sambas during my first visit. The Regency of Sambas had a population of approximately half a million during my research; slightly less than 88 percent of the population were Muslim, a little more than 6 percent Buddhist, and around 5 percent Catholic/Protestant (Republik Indonesia, 2010). It is diff icult to access reliable data on the ethnic composition of Sambas—as, indeed, it is for West Kalimantan5 in general—so I have drawn on religious statistics from the 2010 census. While it is fair to assume that most Muslims in Sambas are Malay, this assumption is problematic due to a number of Javanese transmigrants and growing numbers of Dayak Muslims (see Chalmers, 2006). Prior to 1999, the Regency of Sambas incorporated today’s regencies of Sambas and Bengkayang and the independent city of Singkawang. There were explicit ethno-territorial dimensions behind the 1999 redrawing of the former regency’s boundaries into three new administrative units, each designed to conform to a concentration of one of three local ethnic groups: Malay, Dayak, and Chinese.6 In the case of Sambas Regency, the ethnic core is viewed as ‘Sambas Malay’. This perception—together with the political and economic processes accompanying the introduction of decentralisation legislation—has pronounced implications for the Malay identity processes discussed in this book. 5 Data on suku bangsa (‘ethnic group aff iliation’) from the 2000 Census provoked such a furor from the West Kalimantan provincial government that it banned its release. In particular, there was anger from Dayak intellectuals and community leaders that the categorisation of ethnicity in terms of ethno-linguistic groupings compromised the significance of the Dayak population (see Subianto, 2009, fn. 1, p. 348). As a result, published data from the 2010 Census counts different Dayak groupings under the single category ‘Dayak’. 6 Data on religious affiliation partially confirms this presumed ethnic group concentration: Bengkayang, as a predominantly ‘Dayak’ regency, had the highest proportion of Christians out of the three new administrative units; Singkawang, as a ‘Chinese’ city, had the highest proportion of Buddhists (although Muslims outnumber Buddhists). In Bengkayang, Catholics/ Protestants accounted for approximately 58 percent of the population, with Muslims and Buddhists comprising a further 33.5 and 8 percent, respectively. In the City of Singkawang, Muslims and Buddhists made up over 80 percent of the population (42 percent and 40 percent, respectively), with Catholics/Protestants accounting for approximately 15 percent (Propinsi Kalimantan Barat, n.d.).

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The heart of Sambas Regency is the capital of the same name. The town of Sambas lies on the confluence of the Sambas Kecil, Subah, and Teberrau rivers. The town’s older settlements were built facing the river and Sambas is still best viewed from the water; from where one can observe children bathing, people fishing, women washing clothes, and small rowboats plying the rivers alongside larger motorboats, which remain important means of transportation. The town was also the seat of the Sambas sultanate for around 300 years and cultural identifications with the former sultanate remain significant for many Sambas Malays. Sambas Malayness: sultanate, culture, and identity The Muslim kingdom of Sambas was established around 1630 by Raden Sulaiman (Mahrus, 2007; Musa, 2003). Raden Sulaiman was the grandson of the ninth Sultan of Brunei (Sultan Hassan, r. 1582–1602 or –1598) (Musa, 2003; Urai, 2008), and the son of Raja Tengah (known as Sultan Tengah in Sarawak) and the youngest daughter of the local ruler of the Hindu Majapahit kingdom of Sepudak (in present-day Sambas). The first Sultan of Sambas was Raden Sulaiman’s son, who was given the title Sultan Muhammad Shafiyud-Din I (r. 1631–1668) by Sultan Muhammad Tajuddin of Brunei. This connection to Brunei, Sarawak, and the earlier kingdoms of West Kalimantan gives the Sambas sultanate a somewhat different orientation from other Malay sultanates, which look towards Malacca and ‘a line of kings descended from Srivijaya and Melaka or Pagarruyung (Minangkabau)’ (Reid, 2013, p. 87). As discussed in Chapter Six, Sambas Malays recognise this historical relationship with Brunei while still locating themselves within a wider Malay world that includes Malaysia, Singapore, and Sumatra. From its inception, the pre-colonial kerajaan (‘kingdom’) of Sambas was oriented towards trade and the incorporation of outsiders. Sultan Abubakar Tajuddin I (r. 1793–1815) is credited with allocating specific areas near the palace to construct the warehouses and residences of important groups of traders and migrants in response to the increasing presence of ‘foreign’ traders.7 So, for example, Kampung Tanjung Rengas was set aside for traders coming from Siak Sri Inderapura and Riau; Kampung Nagur for traders from south India; and Tanjung Bugis for those from Sulawesi (Mahrus, 2008, p. 100; Mahrus, Jamani, and Hadi, 2003, pp. 3–4). In the mid-nineteenth century, 7 This policy of setting aside land for newcomers is not unusual. It was, for example, an established practice and part of the legal code (or Qonun Melaka) of the Malacca sultanate, which in turn, was the basis of Qonun Sambas during the Sambas sultanate.

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Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II (r.1866–1922) continued this policy, allocating land at Tanjung Belanda for the Dutch and other Europeans to establish trading offices (Mahrus, 2008, p. 100).8 An export-oriented political economy of upstream-downstream trading linkages was typical of Malay polities (Andaya, 2008) and provided the pre-colonial basis for Sambas rulers’ wealth and control over people. This political economy connected interior regions to a trade network extending to Brunei, China, Java, Sumatra, and the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. In addition to forest-based products such as native rubbers and aromatics, the most lucrative commercial commodity in the early modern period was gold. These economic arrangements were tied to a political system marked by social divisions and distinctions,9 although—as befitting a dynamic concept of ‘Malay’ (Reid, 2013, p. 88)—status was fluid and allowed for the assimilation of Muslims from elsewhere, as well as Dayaks who converted to Islam. Chinese and Europeans were viewed as external to this conceptualisation of a Sambas kerajaan-based society, but change was stirring as the Dutch began to consolidate their authority over West Borneo. Cartographically, this transformation was the result of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Administratively, however, the change took longer to manifest. Dutch colonial rule over Sambas was consolidated in 1849, when the Netherlands East Indies government divided Borneo into two administrative divisions—the Westerafdeeling or Western Division and the Zuider-en Oosterafdeeling, or Southern and Eastern Division—each headed by a resident. The formerly autonomous sultanate of Sambas had become a region of one of the so-called ‘Outer Islands’ of the Dutch East Indies. Today, the Sambas sultanate remains an important signifier of Sambas Malay cultural identity despite the erstwhile ruling family’s lack of formal power in the post-Independence period. The two most prominent buildings in Sambas are strongly associated with the sultanate: the palace (Istana Alwatzikhoebillah, which many people refer to as kraton, the Javanese word for palace) and the adjacent mosque named after the thirteenth sultan (Masjid Jami’ Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II), which was completed in 1885. The current palace dates from the 1930s, although there has been a 8 The names, if not the ethnic associations, remain today: I lived in Tanjung Bugis for several months, and while some families recalled an ancestor originating from South Sulawesi, they nevertheless considered themselves ‘Sambas Malay’. 9 Somers Heidhues (2003, pp. 24–28) describes this system as it existed in the first half of the nineteenth century in Sambas. The sultan, members of the nobility, and appanage holders had the rights to impose taxes and to extract labour and agricultural and forest-based products from Dayak villages. Malays and Muslims were free of the requirement to do corvée labour, but still subject to a fixed annual household tax.

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palace near this site for several hundred years. The palace is particularly significant in people’s self-representation as Sambas Malays, as evidenced by the frequent interrogation about whether I had visited the palace, often with reference to the adage ‘Belum sampai ke kraton, belum sampai ke Sambas’ ( ‘[If you have] not yet been to the palace, [then you have] not yet arrived in Sambas’). In November 2007, on my first visit to Sambas, I met with the Pangeran Ratu (‘crown prince’) of Sambas (an honorific title). We sat overlooking the river in Pangeran Ratu Winata Kesuma’s pavilion-style restaurant across the road from the palace, while he discussed the history and development of the sultanate, its promotion of Islam, and what it means to be Sambas Malay. Winata Kesuma referred to one of Sambas’ most revered sultans, Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II (r. 1866–1922). Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II is regarded as an Islamic moderniser, who established the office of Maharaja Imam (‘great spiritual leader’) in 1872 to advise the sultan on matters of Islam, as well as building the first Islamic school in Sambas, the Madrasah Sultaniah, in 1916 (Mahrus, 2007; Urai, 2008). Winata Kesuma stressed the very close association between Malayness and Islam in Sambas, noting how non-Muslims are said to masuk Melayu (literally, ‘to enter Malay’) when they convert to Islam. In this way, he stated, being Malay is identical to being Muslim (‘Melayu identik dengan Islam’). This notion that to convert to Islam is to masuk Melayu is found elsewhere across Indonesia and Malaysia. However, this identification between Islam and Malayness may have a somewhat unique meaning in Borneo, where many (if not most) of today’s ‘Malays’ are likely the descendants of Dayaks who had converted to Islam (see King, 1993, p. 31).10 In many ways, our conversation reflected the standard list of features said to characterise the Malay in general, that is, with reference to the raja (‘ruler’), Islam, language, and adat-istiadat (‘custom’) (Reid, 2001). The exception to this list was Winata Kesuma’s emphasis on the non-exclusivity and openness of Sambas Malays and their ability to absorb people from other backgrounds. Winata Kesuma pointed to his own mixed origins. Citing Malay, Javanese, Chinese, and Dayak forebears, he argued that anyone could become Malay in Sambas if one marries a Malay and converts to Islam. This is a view of ‘Malay’ as a cultural category, in which ‘becoming Malay’, 10 There is also evidence to the contrary, namely that Dayaks who converted to Islam were not always fully accepted as Malay, being called anak bumi (literally, ‘child of the land’, but meaning a ‘person of the land’) or anak sungai (‘person of the river’, ‘free farmer’) (see also, Sillander, 2004; Somers Heidhues, 2003, p. 27).

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as much as ‘being Malay’, is closely identified with adopting Malay habits of sociality, dress, religion, and means of livelihood. The Sambas scholars Mahrus, Jamani, and Hadi (2003, p. 3), also note the spirit of openness extended by the sultan and the people of Sambas to migrants and traders from elsewhere. This contrasts with the more aristocratic and exclusionary strain of Malay identity politics found in the Riau Archipelago (Faucher, 2005). This accommodative attitude, they argue, is reflected in the Sambas Malay proverb, ‘kecil telapak tangan, nyiru kami tadahkan’ (literally, ‘the palm of the hand is small, [so] we receive in a winnowing basket’), which means Sambas society is open to all who come to develop Sambas (Mahrus, Jamani, and Hadi, 2003, p. 4). This proverb was also related to me shortly after my arrival in Sambas in 2008 to make the same point (in Sambas Malay: ‘kaccik telapak tangan, nyirrok kamé tadahkan’). A daughter in the household where I was staying recited the proverb, and then her older brother brought out a winnowing basket—a wide, flat woven basket used to sort rice from its chaff—to ensure my full understanding. The above depiction of Sambas Malay society as being open to people from diverse backgrounds is no doubt a popular and long-standing one. There is also much historical and contemporary evidence of in-migration to support this view. However, even a cursory glance reveals that conflict and inter-ethnic tension are also very much a part of Sambas’ history and critical to the constitution of the geopolitical borders of Sambas Malay identity. The ‘hardening’ of Sambas Malay identity Sambas and West Kalimantan more generally provide examples of how political administration of and conflicts over land, resources, and people can transform highly fluid pre-colonial identifications into the present-day, ethno-racial identity categories of ‘Malay’, ‘Dayak’, and ‘Chinese’ (Peluso, 2008; Sillander, 2004; Wadley and Smith, 2001). Nancy Peluso argues that such identity categories ‘became “real” and hardened through colonial practices’, including taxation, enrolment on land registers, census categories, and the establishment of male-dominated government authorities for each ‘group’, such as the Kapitan Cina for the Chinese, the Singo for the Dayaks, and the sultans for the Malays (2008, p. 57). However, such legal classifications and differentiated rights did not automatically cause people to think in rigid identity categories, particularly when intermarriage made categorisation problematic. It took the postcolonial government—in particular, the militarised violence, intimidation, and occupation under the New Order government (1965–1998)—to harden identities in West Kalimantan’s border

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zones. As Peluso notes, violent episodes in West Kalimantan have been potent forces in entrenching ‘broader communal identities beyond “local” ones, and a faux purification and hardening of ethnic categories among people and places that had long been “mixed” in one way or another’ (2008, p. 63). This was evident in Dayak ‘demonstrations’ against the Chinese in 1967 and 1968 (conducted by Dayak men but orchestrated by the Indonesian military), which resulted in the massacre, eviction, and forced labour of rural Chinese in Sambas and neighbouring border regencies (Peluso, 2008, p. 52). The formation of the Dayak militia Laskar Pangsuma and the killing of an estimated 1000 Chinese during these pogroms forced the ethnic Chinese population to relocate to Pontianak and toward the coast (Davidson, 2009, pp. 69–75).11 The removal of the Chinese from the border zone resulted in a visible decline in trading networks associated with border crossings and Sambas’ ports Paloh, Pemangkat, and, to a lesser extent, Singkawang (Dick, 2002, p. 30; Davidson, 2009, p. 91). Peluso (2008) and Davidson (2009) further draw a link between this ethnic violence and the bloody conflict at the turn of the new century, when young Malay and Dayak men implemented the violent expulsion of Madurese migrants from Sambas in 1998 and 1999 (Davidson, 2009).12 As a result, Malays appropriated the land and property of the Madurese and took over the sectors they had formerly dominated, such as the public transport system.13 There were a range of Sambas Malay responses to the violence in 1999, including some who felt such violence was a betrayal of Sambas Malay cultural values.14 Nevertheless, for the 11 It has been argued that this violence is a legacy of Indonesia’s Confrontation with Malaysia (1963–1966), which not only resulted in the militarisation of this border to ‘protect’ Indonesia from British neo-colonialism (Mackie, 1974) but also produced a strong ideological connection between ‘Chinese’ and ‘communism’ along the border of West Kalimantan (Davidson, 2009, p. 61). 12 There were in fact two sets of related violence. The first occurred in 1996–1997 between Dayaks and Madurese, while the second in 1999 was predominantly between Malays and Madurese. On both occasions, Madurese were forced to flee their homes. The conflict between Dayaks and Madurese eventually lead to a process of reconciliation that saw many of the displaced Madurese return to the new regency of Bengkayang. The conflict between the Malays and Madurese, however, resulted in the almost complete removal of Madurese from Sambas, a level of ethnic cleansing unknown in the rest of West Kalimantan. 13 Public buses very often have a photograph of Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II (r. 1866–1922) in the interior, above the front windscreen—a prominent marker of their Sambas Malay identity. 14 The most common justification I heard for the use of violence by Sambas Malays was they had been oppressed (tertindas) by the Madurese, who refused to adopt ways of behaviour considered appropriate in Sambas. This framing of the violence as self-defence was presented to me one evening in a village in the district of Tebas, where a friend had invited me to attend her wedding.

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group of Malays who were centrally involved in the hostility, ‘the 1999 violence against Madurese was about the identity Malay making a claim on indigeneity to justify its rightful place in a decentralizing Sambas’ (Davidson, 2009, p. 145). The violence thus altered the sense of who can stake a claim to belonging in Sambas and, with the support of the new regency, ushered in a general revival of Sambas Malay symbols and cultural organisation, including those associated with the former sultanate. The economic and political prioritisation of Sambas Malay history, culture, and arts has direct consequences on those women whose mobility was shaped by a translocal Malay borderscope, as discussed in Chapter Six. The memory of violence was still raw in 2007 during my first visit to Sambas. A number of people I spoke with assumed that it would be the focus of my research. On a more informal level, in everyday contexts I was asked if I knew there had been conflict in Sambas and whether I felt safe. Unsolicited, others were keen to emphasise Sambas was now aman (‘peaceful’). I recall one evening in 2009 when I attended a gathering of Sambas’ Zikir Maulud Association in a village close to one of the epicentres of the Malay-Madurese violence.15 The Regent or Bupati (Ir. H. Burhanuddin A. Rasyid) was also briefly present and said a few words of welcome. Spotting me sitting with a group of women in the crowd, he asked me pointedly whether I felt aman (‘safe’) in Sambas, to which I replied, ‘yes’. The Bupati returned to this point on several occasions to reinforce his message that Sambas was aman, that foreigners felt safe, that Sambas was once more peaceful and secure. While Her brothers and new husband accused the Madurese of many things that they considered oppression over the Sambas Malays, including organised criminal activities, opportunistic stealing of rice and motorcycles, and taking over land. The ascribed personal qualities of the Madurese— keras (‘hard/rude’), terlalu egois (‘egoistic/self-interested’), and suka berkumpul (‘preferring to mixing exclusively with other Madurese’)—provided further justification, as these traits were deemed incompatible with Sambas Malay norms of behaviour. In response to the inevitable question about whether I felt safe in the area, I replied that I did not fear I would be a target of violence. To this, one of the brothers added ‘not unless Kak Wendy were hitam [“black”]’, meaning ‘not unless Wendy [I] were Madurese’. Not everyone in the family saw the conflict in these terms, however. My friend’s father, a retired civil servant, proffered a quiet aside that the conflict was a tragedi manusia (‘human tragedy’). My friend provided examples of people in her village who had tried to protect Madurese families. At the time, Madurese workers were asphalting the road to their village and had rented houses along the road, she explained. Some Malay villagers hid families from the militias and negotiated their safe passage out of Sambas. Expressing her sympathy for the Madurese, my friend commented, ‘Kasihan mereka juga’ (‘Pity on them, too’). 15 Zikir Maulud is a form of sung verse in praise and commemoration of the birth and life of the Prophet Muhammad. I discuss this Islamic cultural form and its practice in Sambas in Chapter Six.

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this could be taken as evidence of the ongoing salience of keamanan (‘peace, security’) in political rhetoric in Indonesia in general (Bubandt, 2005), in this context such comments had a more sinister side: they cast the Madurese as the cause of the violence and insecurity in Sambas and affirm that their continued expulsion is the precondition for peace. Davidson (2009) and van Klinken (2008) make compelling cases for seeing the later stages of the Dayak-Madurese and Malay-Madurese conflicts as strategic, well-designed, and orchestrated manoeuvres in the game of pemekaran.16 While those instigating the violence explained the conflict in the language of grievance and specifically in assertions about how much locals were losing out to immigrant groups, Davidson (2009, p. 110) emphasises the role of urban-based elites in this interethnic competition. He implicates individuals associated with Young Malay Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Pemuda Melayu, later PFKPM), a Sambas Malay organisation, who sought to consolidate Malay political power by highlighting grievances against the Madurese and accentuating the long-standing connections between the territory of Sambas and Sambas Malay history and culture. For these elite Malays, interethnic competition also focussed on countering Dayak political success, which by mid-1999 had seen Dayak regents in four of the province’s seven regencies (Davidson, 2009, p. 120). Notwithstanding the power of the elite manipulation of popular grievances, Peluso (2008) and Fox and Swamy (2008) ponder the circumstances that inclined rural, non-elite Malays and Dayaks to participate in or condone violence sponsored by rival ethnic elites. Here, they argue, political explanations need to be supplemented with a consideration of broader economic processes. Elizabeth Morrell makes a similar point, arguing that the explosion of post-Suharto regionalism in Indonesia needs to be understood as ‘a response […] to real or perceived socioeconomic disadvantage’ (2010, p. 48). Since at least the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, Sambas has experienced extensive economic transformation due to colonial and then post-colonial governments. These changes saw the decline of some sectors of the economy, as well as the emergence of new ones. They also set in motion profound demographic and social changes that entrenched Sambas’ relative disadvantage compared to other parts of Indonesia. Economic transformation and the attendant 16 Pemekaran (literally, ‘flowering’) refers to the redrawing of boundaries and the proliferation of provinces and regencies accompanying regional autonomy. Pemekaran has been a windfall for those with political ambitions. In 1999, there were 298 regencies and self-governing cities (collectively referred to as ‘local governments’) and 27 provinces in Indonesia; by 2012, the number of local governments had increased to 493 and the number of provinces to 34 (Firman, 2013).

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social and demographic shifts also have important consequences for the women in this study, whose borderscopes of mobility have been shaped by both experiences of socioeconomic hardship and new economic opportunities. The following section provides information on significant economic developments in Sambas and their consequences for the productive activities of Sambas Malays, tracing the introduction of cash crops that continue to be important to Sambas Malay households, as well as the gradual retreat of certain economic-related mobility in Sambas. It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that Sambas Malays’ work-related mobility resumed a transnational direction—this time with Sambas Malay women among the first Sambas Malays to cross the border as transnational labour migrants.

Economic transformations The gradual extension of Dutch colonial influence beyond Java from the mid-nineteenth century culminated not only in territorial control, but also in the reconfiguration of existing economic modes and relations. Lindblad isolates three general processes that were at work in the Outer Islands during this period: the Outer Islands’ ‘slowly declining integration in the trading network of the wider region of Southeast Asia; increasing integration with the emerging Dutch colonial state and Java-based economy; and reorientation towards economic expansion and globalisation’ (2002, p. 83). Lesley Potter (2005, pp. 115-6) identifies the period 1870–1940 as critical for the commodification of Borneo’s natural environment and a shift in the perception of the economic value of forests, swamps, and grasslands. Dutch East Indies migrants from Java and Madura and Khek- or Hakka-speaking Chinese were important to this transition, both as farmers and as traders in agricultural and forest products (Peluso, 2008, p. 56). One of the first significant export crops to develop was copra, which was grown on estates and smallholdings or inter-planted with other crops from the late 1800s (Cleary and Eaton, 1995, p. 81). Within a few decades the economic significance of copra was trumped by smallholder production of rubber, which experienced spectacular growth in West Borneo, rising in export value (in Dutch Guilders) from ƒ438 in 1912 to ƒ7,296 in 1930 and ƒ22,691 in 1940 (Touwen, 2001, pp. 117–122). Coastal Malays were certainly involved in the production of rubber, but seem to have had a preference for timber felling and growing other cash crops such as copra (Ishikawa, 2010; Maulana and Irawan, 2009). Over time, however,

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rubber was to become an important economic mainstay for Sambas Malay farming households, as noted in Chapter Three. Sambas Malay and other maritime traders benefitted from the growth of cash crops such as copra and pepper and the developing timber industry. Stories of maritime trade are prominent in the early twentieth century history of the village of Sekuduk, mentioned in Chapter One in relation to the shipowner and trader Datuk Awang. Villagers recall two local maritime traders who were active at this time, Tok Kolen and Haji Karim bin Haji Taim (Maulana and Irawan, 2009, p. 4). Tok Kolen, popularly known as Nakoda Kolen, traded in salt, tobacco, coconut, and natural dye products, while Haji Karim traded betel nuts and cattle. We can get an idea of the scale of the shipping from the size of the local quay, which was large enough to berth four to six wooden sailing ships. Not far from Sekuduk—in present-day Desa Sendoyan—there was a settlement of skilled ship builders. Here, somewhere between six and seven generations of boat builders built perahu (‘sailing vessels’) that were suitable for trade from kayu Labban (a type of hardwood) (Maulana and Irawan, 2009, p. 5). Local ship captains did not just trade in commodities, but also established vertically integrated business enterprises. Ishikawa (2010) observes how nakhoda merchants from Sambas financed the establishment of coconut plantation, timber-logging, and boat-building industries along the coastal areas of northwest Sambas and Sarawak in the late nineteenth century. Kak Surya’s forebears were part of this northward movement along the coast. Desa Pantai was the place of birth for her parents and both sets of grandparents, who were tani (‘farmers’) by occupation. Kak Surya recounted that Desa Pantai was founded around the turn of the twentieth century by Muslim migrants attracted to the nearby shallow freshwater lake. Long since dried up, this lake helped establish the village as a Malay one based on irrigated rice fields. Irrigated rice and their Muslim faith distinguished the villagers from the local Dayaks, who had long practiced shifting agriculture in the area and moved further inland as Malays from West Borneo and even Peninsular Malaysia settled there. In addition to growing rice for subsistence, people produced copra and sold timber—economic activities that remain important income sources in villages. For most of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the borders between Sambas and northwest Sarawak were highly tractable, and international trade and shipping between Sambas and ports in British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies was easily accessible to local ship owner/traders. However, as Lindblad (2002) noted, the economic decisions of various colonial governments curtailed such activities. The fortunes of

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Sambas nakhoda and their coconut belt in Sarawak declined dramatically, for example, as a result of the preferential support given to local Chinese traders by the Brooke government in Sarawak (Ishikawa, 2010, p. 116). The introduction of steam shipping and the near monopoly given to Koninklijk Pakketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) in 1891 further displaced many of the nakhoda commercial networks as part of the new centre-periphery relations that accompanied this stage of European colonialism (Ishikawa, 2010, p. 39).17 Independence era For many parts of West Kalimantan, including Sambas, Independence brought further erosion of local trading and commercial activity along with the displacement of trading ports and centres. Not only did the political legitimacy of the Sambas Malay sultans not survive the transition to the new Republic of Indonesia in 1950, but the prominence of the township of Sambas—the former royal seat—was also undermined by the appointment of Singkawang as the regency’s new administrative and commercial centre in 1953.18 This initiated a process of decline in the town of Sambas. In my conversations, people referred to the town of Sambas from the 1950s until the turn of the century as a kota mati (‘dead town’). For most of this time it was quite literally on the road to nowhere, lacking economic investment and political importance: the road built during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II (r. 1866–1922) to connect Singkawang, Pemangkat, and Sambas fell into serious disrepair, discouraging northbound traffic and compromising the delivery of services to areas beyond the vicinity of Singkawang. For the first two decades of the post-Independence era, much of the territory of Sambas languished in a lack of economic development due to the economic policies of the central government (Davidson, 2009, pp. 175, 179–83). Such policies distorted exchange rates and granted import licenses ‘that favoured industrialists and politicians in Jakarta, while disadvantaging the Outer Islands, whose small-scale commodity export economies ran a brisk trade with Singapore and Penang, not Jakarta’ (Davidson, 2009, 17 á Campo (1993, p. 38) estimated that registered ‘native’ rigged vessels carried a third of the total freight in 1825, around a tenth in 1860, and one-twentieth in 1875. The situation was complex, however. While the perahu’s share of the total volume of freight declined over the nineteenth century, perahu owners adapted to the increased volume of trade overall, acting as feeders rather than competitors in some instances, and continued to play a vital role in the distribution of rice and other goods. Indeed, ‘the native perahus held their own, surviving longer and better in the less important ports and more outlying areas’ (á Campo, 1993, p. 39). 18 Law No. 44/1950 abolished the Dutch-created Federation of Kings (Thufail, 2013, pp. 170–71)

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pp. 44–45). The militarisation of Sambas during Indonesia’s Confrontation with Malaysia (1963–1966) was not accompanied by economic policies or social development programs designed to benefit the ordinary citizen. Indeed, during the New Order government, it was the substantial numbers of military personnel in West Kalimantan who would benefit the most from timber monopolies along this border. The development of Sambas’ timber industry, from which most timber was exported to Sarawak, lent a new visibility and significance to the territorial border. Forest concessions also laid the foundations for Sambas Malays’ cross-border work in Sarawak’s timber-related industries. As a result, over time the border came to signify not only peripherality, but also economic opportunities associated with labour migration. The timber industry and women’s cross-border labour migration The large-scale exploitation of West Kalimantan’s forests dates to 1967, the year the Indonesian Forest Act was passed. Under the Forest Act, all Indonesian forests were declared state property and vast tracts of land were opened for large-scale timber extraction through the allocation of 20-year logging licenses (Hak Pengusaha Hutan, or HPH) to military and corporate groups with close ties to the Suharto regime (Casson and Obidzinski, 2002; Obidzinski, Andrianto, and Wijaya, 2007). In West Kalimantan’s borderlands, the military cooperative PT Yamaker (Yayasan Maju Kerja) was given forest concessions and licenses for an area greater than one million hectares, which ‘stretched along the border from Tanjung Datu in the west to the upper Leboyan in the east’ (Wadley, 2005, p. 149). Across Borneo, forested areas declined from 81 percent in 1957 to 55 percent by 2000 (de Koninck, Bernard, and Bissonnette, 2011, p. 22). Travelling along the rivers of West Kalimantan today, one is confronted with clear-felled land that has reverted to scrubby grasslands. Here and there can be seen a long-abandoned and rusting timber mill on the riverbank, evidence of uncontrolled and rapacious logging. In this encroachment into the forests, ‘Sambas was one of the first areas carved into working concessions’ (Wadley, 2005, p. 149), and one of the first areas within Sambas to develop a timber industry was the district of Teluk Keramat, in 1970 (Farhan, 2002). The entry of the timber company CV Tauladan into Teluk Keramat produced two significant and long-lasting changes in the economic relations and mindsets of villagers: the removal of young men from agricultural work, including rubber tapping, and the fostering of households’ reliance on wage incomes. This financial dependence meant that when the accessible local timber resources dried up, men capitalised

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on their new skills to form part of the timber industry’s migrant labour force across West Kalimantan and beyond. By the 1980s, men from Teluk Keramat were working in timber crews in Riau, Jambi, Pekanbaru, and Irian Jaya. Labouring in the timber industry became the principal form of work for Sambas Malay men in rural villages, who increasingly spent a portion of their year as migrant workers in Indonesia’s, and later Sarawak’s, timber industries. Prior to this, there is little evidence of Sambas Malay labour migrants working across the border in Sarawak, unlike groups such as the Iban (Wadley, 2000; Eilenberg and Wadley, 2009) and Kelabit (Amster, 2006; Bala, 2006). Rather, cross-border labour migration seems to have emerged in response to the demand for male and female labour in Sarawak, combined with the increasing reliance of Sambas Malays on migrant wage-labour, which began with their involvement in the timber industry. Sambas Malay women’s independent labour migration appears to have been—from the beginning—predominantly cross-border. This pattern is reflected in the village surveys discussed in Chapter Three, which reflect a preponderance of female cross-border labour migration to work in plywood factories in Sarawak. The predominantly Malay villages in Teluk Keramat described by Farhan (2002) provide evidence of women working in Sarawak from the mid-1990s. While the number of male labour migrants far exceeded that of female labour migrants, a notable feature of women’s labour migration was this cross-border character. For example, in Sungai Baru, a village of 3217 people, there were 541 male and 12 female migrant labourers. All the male labourers worked in Indonesia’s timber industry, while the twelve female labour migrants worked as domestic workers in Sarawak (Farhan, 2002, pp. 70-1). Women’s wages were also disproportionately large compared to those of the male labour migrants, with men working in Indonesia earning less than a third the wages of women engaged in cross-border work. Sambas men’s participation in the timber industry also contributed to the development of an informal timber economy involving the movement of undocumented timber between Sarawak and West Kalimantan.19 Eilenberg (2012a) examines the motives and rationalisations of the local government officers who facilitate such illegal trade. Personal profit is only one element; others include seeing timber as a source of revenue 19 Estimates of this illegal trade are hard to make, but Obidzinski, Andrianto, and Wijaya (2007, p. 24) calculate that in 2004 Sarawak received 1,220,000 m3 of illegal timber from West Kalimantan, with 720,000 m3 transported by road over the Entikong and Badau border crossings and 500,000 m3 arriving by sea. They (2007, p. 531) state that timber trucks could cross the border into Sarawak unhindered if they paid IDR 100–200,000 per shipment to security personnel (such as police, army, and customs).

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for local government budgets, justified with reference to norms of local ownership. The local communities who supply the labour for felling and sawing timber also apply a specific logic that challenges a straightforward reading of such economic activity as illegal. As other writers have also noted, local perspectives in Indonesia can view the remote, exploitative state apparatus as illegitimate in its efforts to control people and resources, thus creating a degree of synergy between border communities, outside traders, the military, and immigration and customs officials (Bakker and Crain, 2012; Ford and Lyons, 2012). For example, I quickly discovered that Kak Surya’s husband was involved in a range of technically illegal work. He did not farm; instead his most common form of work was felling trees. Kak Surya often referred to this work as buka tanah (‘opening up land’), which carries positive connotations of clearing land to farm for one’s own subsistence needs (which it was not). At other times, he would be absent because he was fishing and, depending on the season, raiding turtle nests for eggs along a stretch of beach in the north of Paloh at Tanjung Belimbing that was supposedly a protected conservation zone. Kak Surya and other villagers legitimated such activities by referring to people’s poverty, the obligation of a man to provide for his family, and a sense of local entitlement. Similar logic operated amongst the Sambas Malay women described in Chapter Three, where a local perspective justified a range of technically illegal activities, including cross-border smuggling and undocumented cross-border migrant labour. Further justification is also found in the local hardship experienced during the New Order’s timber boom. West Kalimantan is one of several provinces whose gross regional income dropped significantly—indeed, West Kalimantan experienced one of the highest growth decelerations among the Outer Island provinces, largely as a result of declining timber reserves (Hill, Resosudarmo, and Vidyattama, 2008, p. 418). Demographic pressures were an additional challenge in this context. Opportunities in the forestry and oil palm sectors attracted migrants from other parts of Indonesia, mostly from the islands of Java and Madura. Starting from a relatively low baseline, West Kalimantan experienced a dramatic rise in the number of residents born outside the province: in 1971, 1.2 percent of the population were born in another Indonesian province, and by 2000 this had risen to 7.2 percent. While lower than the Indonesia average of 4.9 percent in 1971 and 10.1 percent in 2000, the growth rate is one of the fastest in Indonesia (Hill, Resosudarmo, and Vidyattama, 2008, p. 418). These factors provided the triggers for the wave of violence unleashed in Sambas following the resignation of President Suharto in 1998.

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The failure of the New Order regime to deliver socioeconomic security, the destabilising effects of the 1997 Asian monetary crisis, and the unmet political ambitions of local elites erupted into ethnicised violence and demands for decentralisation across Indonesia. The ethnic cleansing in Sambas was extreme, but in no way an exception at the time. As discussed in the next section, one important legacy of this conflict was the redrawing of the boundaries of Sambas Regency. Combined with the decentralisation of the government administration, this redrawing had a potent influence on the borderscopes of mobility of Sambas Malay women employed in local government or active in Sambas Malay cultural production. These women found themselves thrust into a range of projects designed to capitalise on the economic value and cultural significance of the territorial border. The following section provides a background on three lasting consequences of decentralisation that are relevant to the lives and livelihoods of Sambas women: the revival of Sambas Malay cultural symbols, expansion of the public sector, and creation of government strategies to accrue economic value from the territorial border.

Decentralisation Since January 2001 Indonesia has been undergoing a process of decentralisation, or the granting of regional autonomy. Regional autonomy in Indonesia is explicitly framed in terms of democracy, equity, and transparency: ‘[c] heered on by international development agencies’, reformist elements in Indonesia argued that ‘“bringing government closer to the people” would improve service delivery’, as local governments would be more accountable and provide opportunities for local communities to participate in decisionmaking processes (Buehler, 2010, p. 269).20 Unlike previous legislation aimed at 20 Aspinall and Fealey (2003) provide a general discussion of the arguments made in favour of decentralisation. One key justification for regional autonomy was the view that decentralisation would ensure public funds were more effectively and efficiently spent in line with the needs of the local populace. This assumption is far from unproblematic. Rather than ameliorating sources of conflict, regional autonomy has exacerbated old tensions and sparked new ones, particularly between different levels of government, and has generated the proliferation of new local laws (Butt, 2010). Regional autonomy has not necessarily fared any better in terms of promoting more responsive and representative forms of government. There is much that could be noted here—particularly regarding the lack of effective accountability mechanisms within most DPRDs, concerns about law and security enforcement, and the concentration of power in the hands of district heads (Crouch, 2010; Erb, 2014; Kristiansen and Trijono, 2005; McWilliam, 2011; Turner and Podger, 2003).

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limited decentralisation, Law No. 22/1999 on Regional Government involved the transfer of political and financial authority. Devolution of power was to be achieved by strengthening the authority of kabupaten (‘regency’) councils (DPRDs) in the areas of legislation, revenue and expenditure, and international cooperation. Kecamatan (‘districts’) would also have greater administrative authority over the desa (‘villages’) and kelurahan (‘neighbourhoods’) within their boundaries. Additional national laws require village heads to be elected (not appointed, as in the previous regime). There is also a special fund for village-initiated development projects (Anggaran Dana Desa or ADD) that is allocated by the central government and distributed by the regency. Furthermore, to provide greater representation of women in politics, since 2009 all political parties are required to endorse at least 30 percent female candidates (Bessell, 2010; Dewi, 2015). However, this policy has not always been a success for the women involved, given the associated financial costs.21 Regional autonomy has also been criticised for encouraging specific gender-based exclusions for women (Yuliani, 2010) and the disenfranchisement of ‘non-local’ citizens (Davidson and Henley, 2007). Much has been written about the rise of putera daerah (literally ‘children of the area’) movements and other power contestation framed in terms of the rights of local ethnoterritorial groups in the post-Suharto era (see Aspinall and Fealey, 2003; Erb, Sulistiyanto, and Faucher, 2005; Davidson and Henley, 2007; Hauser-Schäublin, 2013). The widespread appointment of putera daerah as regional bureaucrats and elected representatives is both a rejection of the past (particularly the New Order’s appointment of outsiders, often Javanese)22 and a reflection of the hope that ‘locals’ will better deliver on collective demands for economic, political, and cultural advancement (see also, Bakker and Crain, 2012, p. 110). In Sambas, ethnoterritorial rivalries and demands have been the most significant elements in the cultural politics of decentralisation. The political ambitions of both Sambas Malay and Dayak elites gave rise to violent ethnic clashes in Sambas in the late 1990s, the result of which was a division of the former Sambas Regency into two regencies (Sambas and Bengkayang) and one independent self-governing city (Singkawang) (Davidson, 2009). Within the boundaries of today’s regency, 21 These costs are considerable, as funding problems experienced by parties require candidates to subsidise their own campaigns, including media advertisements, staff, and witnesses at polling stations (Buehler, 2010, p. 274). 22 One factor that fuelled this resurgence was the way that the New Order ‘unashamedly promoted its Javanese values as the nucleus of Indonesian nationhood’ (Mietzner, 2014, p. 51). This Javanisation extended to the appointment of military and bureaucratic positions beyond Java, where 73 percent of provincial governors were Javanese or Sundanese (Mietzner, 2014, p. 51).

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women and men with strong Sambas Malay identifications have politically and economically benefited through recruitment into government employment and patronage of Sambas Malay culture. Cultural politics The violent conflict in the former Sambas Regency achieved what several Malay community and political leaders had long sought: the restoration of the political and cultural importance of the town of Sambas by making it, rather than Singkawang, the capital of the regency. For individuals associated with either the sultanate or the cultural heritage of Sambas Malayness, Indonesian Independence was experienced as a diminution of status and autonomy. Their aggrievement was heightened by the cultural policies of the New Order, including its production of a generic West Kalimantan cultural iconography in which Dayak cultural symbols and practices prominently featured. Two key figures in the struggle to regain Sambas’ political and cultural prestige were Haji Djuhardi Haji Alwi and Haji Darwis Mochtar. Djuhardi Alwi was a respected teacher of pencak silat (a form of martial arts) and co-founder of the sporting and arts organisation Kijang Berantai. Twice, in 1991 and 1992, Djuhardi Alwi publicly announced in the regency-level parliament (DPRD) that there was overwhelming popular support for the town of Sambas to be made the capital of the regency (Kabupaten Sambas, 2001, p. 196). In a similar move, Darwis Mochtar, who was a member of the DPRD, delivered a recommendation to the leader of the DPRD that the regency be divided into two regencies, i.e., into Sambas North (with its capital in the town of Sambas) and Sambas South (with Singkawang as its capital) (Kabupaten Sambas, 2001, p. 196). Following the establishment of the new regency of Sambas, both Djuhardi Alwi and Darwis Mochtar continued to promote Sambas Malay culture both inside and outside of Sambas—Djuhardi through Kijang Berantai and Darwis Mochtar in his role as head of the Sambas-based Majelis Adat Budaya Melayu (Council of Malay Adat and Culture). This intersection of culture and politics was a constant feature during my fieldwork, with the new regency providing both legitimacy and funding to promote elements of Sambas Malay culture. Not only did the two organisations above continue to receive a level of political patronage,23 23 For example, the first regent, Burhanuddin Rasyid, was for a time the chairman of the board of management of Kijang Berantai. After his retirement from political office, Burhanuddin then replaced Darwis Mochtar as head of the Sambas Council of Malay Adat and Culture in 2012.

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but the transition to the new Sambas Regency was accompanied by the visible deployment of Sambas Malay symbols and heritage, including those associated with the former sultanate. The sultanate was reinstated as a core symbol of Sambas Malay identity when the grandson of the last sultan, Raden Winata Kesuma, was installed as Pangeran Ratu on 15 July 2001.24 The choice of date is highly symbolic: 15 July was the date when the capital of the new regency of Sambas was officially moved from Singkawang to Sambas in 1999. This date also has earlier historical significance, in that the completion of the current palace of Sambas was officially celebrated on 15 July 1933 (Kabupaten Sambas, 2001, p. 199). After the creation of the new regency, the palace (Istana Alwatzikhoebillah Sambas) was renovated with funds from the local government, which also provided IRD 100 million per annum (roughly US$ 10,000) to cover operational expenses (Urai, 2008, p. 57; see also, van Klinken, 2007). However, the pull of the former sultanate should not be overstated. Another factor in the resurgence of Malay identity politics was the resurgence of Dayak identity politics in West Kalimantan. This renaissance frustrated Malay community leaders, who felt a sense of historical injustice in the lack of formal and symbolic recognition of Malay presence and cultural importance in the province (Davidson, 2009; van Klinken, 2007, 2008). Furthermore, the symbolic status of the sultanate was no match for the economic and political power accruing to the regency because of decentralisation. Regency politics has become, as Davidson puts it, ‘the only game in town’ now that influence, wealth, and power no longer follow military lines or flows of patronage emanating from Jakarta. This also explains why Raden Winata Kesuma ran (unsuccessfully) for regent in the f irst direct election. The incumbent—Burhanuddin Rasyid—won.25 The enhanced political authority and money given to this Sambas Malay-identif ied regency is one of the most signif icant backdrops for While no longer directly active in politics himself, Djuhardi Alwi’s daughter Dr Juliarti Djuhardi was first deputy regent (2006–2011) and then regent (2011–2016). 24 See Fadjar Thufail (2013) for a discussion of the cultural politics of the bestowal of an aristocratic title by Surakarta’s Kasunanan palace. 25 Burhanuddin Rasyid, the head of Sambas’ department of agriculture, was elected regent by the DPRD in May 2000. Davidson (2009, p. 138) argues he was ‘essentially handpicked’ by the Malay group most directly involved in the riots against Madurese, the Forum Komunikasi Pemuda Melayu (FKPM, or Communication Forum of Malay Youth). In 2015, Burhanuddin was the head of the latest reincarnation of this organisation, Persatuan Forum Komunikasi Pemuda Melayu, PFKPM or Union of Malay Youth Communication Forums. Burhanuddin’s electoral success confirms Subianto’s (2009, p. 346) findings that career bureaucrats and incumbents overwhelmingly dominate direct elections for regent and vice-regent in West Kalimantan.

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this study. Regency policies and funding now largely set the parameters for socioeconomic development in Sambas. They also structure Malay cultural organisations, such as the Sambas-based Council of Malay Adat and Culture (MABM), which rely on the patronage of political elites and funding from the regency government. This is highly significant for the Sambas Malay women discussed in Chapter Six, who are cultural producers and entrepreneurs. The resurrection and promotion of Sambas Malay culture by the regency government and by male-dominated cultural organisations (such as MABM and Kijang Berantai) establishes the context in which Sambas Malay women perform, produce, and exchange Sambas Malay culture. Not only does local government patronage situate Sambas Malay culture as the adat budaya daerah (‘dominant regional culture’) in Sambas, but it also seeks to represent Sambas Malay culture as an expression of a wider, translocal Malay World. The patronage offered to local Malay cultural organisations is in turn provided in the form of financial support to female as well as male cultural producers and brokers, allowing them to attend a range of cultural events or participate in cultural exchanges outside the regency. The nature of this funding and support that they receive not only shapes the available opportunities and the types of cultural displays and exchanges that are done, but it also provides the occasions at which women review and modify their own production and construction of Sambas Malay culture.26 Other key socioeconomic implications of decentralisation in Sambas relate to the growth of the public sector and improvements in infrastructure that facilitate private sector investment. A newly empowered, predominantly Sambas Malay public sector is not only central to the refashioning of the lives and material conditions of border residents, but also offers increased civil service employment for tertiary-educated Sambas Malays of both sexes, especially those under 35 years of age.27 The expansion of the regency’s public 26 Marcus Mietzner (2014) provides a somewhat different perspective on the rise of local identity politics. While acknowledging Aspinall’s (2014) interpretation that decentralisation was implemented to placate local elites and separatist tendencies, Mietzner (2014, p. 46) also observes how decentralisation has, to some extent, stabilised politics in Indonesia due to its popular support. Decentralisation, he argues, is not only (or even chiefly) supported because of improvements in public services, but also because it aligns with a ‘non-violent renaissance of local identities’ (Mietzner, 2014, p. 51). 27 In 2011, the number of civil servants in Sambas was 8042 (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011, p. 40). By regulation, new civil servants should be under 36 years of age and are recruited at entry level. Contract staff must also be under 36 to be eligible to apply to become a civil servant. There are a number of selection criteria that applicants must meet, including a general civic knowledge test (which is now administered online). There may also be job-specific criteria, but in the first

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sector has been accompanied by the construction of a new administrative government precinct to the north of the town of Sambas on the aptly named Jalan Pembangunan, or ‘Development Road’. With little in the way of local taxable income due to a lack of natural resources and developed industries, most of the money required to support local government expenditure in Sambas comes from the central government through intergovernmental transfers.28 Firman (2013, p. 185) argues that covering the costs of expanded local government administrations has accounted for the largest share of intergovernmental transfers to local governments since 2001. In the first decade of regional autonomy, intergovernmental transfers increased almost five times, from IRD 81.1 trillion in 2001 to IRD 405.07 trillion in 2011 (Firman, 2013, p. 184). Most of these transfers have been used by local governments to cover routine expenditures, notably Belanja Pegawai (‘salaries and wages’), and Belanja Barang (‘buying equipment’); only a small proportion has been used for Belanja Modal (‘capital expenditures’). In Sambas, for example, while there has been an increase in the number of teachers at the preschool, primary, and secondary levels since 2009, only a handful of new schools have been built, and those mostly at the primary level (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011, p. 67). The story is similar in healthcare, where there have been steady increases in the number of nurses and midwives since 2009 (but not in the number of doctors and specialists). There has been some investment in Polindes (‘maternal health centres’) and Posyandu (‘village communityhealth posts’), but little or no investment in new Puskesmas (‘health clinics’) or hospitals (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011, pp. 70-2). Furthermore, out of 26 areas of government administration only two areas met the Standar Pelayanan Minimal (‘minimal standards of service’) set by the central government: education and healthcare (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011).29 The low baseline of many human development indicators in Sambas is exacerbated by Sambas’ dependence on central government funding. The central government remains important for the provision of most administrative decade of the new regency, recruitment was more commonly made on the basis of an individual’s general educational attainment and not on their field of study (Harun, 2007, p. 372-3). 28 In accordance with the Law 33/2004 on Regional Fiscal Balance, there are three funds: the General Purpose Grant (Dana Alokasi Umum—DAU); Revenue sharing (Dana Bagi—DBH); and Specific Purpose Grant (Dana Alokasi Khusus—DAK). Christian von Luebke (2009) notes that own-resource generated revenues make up less than 10 percent of district expenditures, with over 90 percent covered by central government transfers. 29 This is not a unique situation, with many analysts reporting a mixed score card (Mietzner and Aspinall, 2010; Hill, 2014; Firman, 2013). Nevertheless, the comprehensive evaluation of the effects of decentralisation and local democratisation on the delivery of public services by Schulze and Sjahrir (2014) does provide some room for hope in the delivery of local public services.

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and professional forms of employment in Sambas. For example, initiatives such as the World Bank-funded National Program for (Village) Community Empowerment or Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Mandiri Perdesaan (hereafter, PNPM Mandiri-Rural) provide salaried positions to Sambas Malay women and men with a reasonable level of education.30 This was the case with Kak Surya when I first met her in 2008. She had recently stopped trading goods from Java after she was given a salaried position as a local facilitator for PNPM Mandiri-Rural. Her job was to work with her local community to develop financially sustainable enterprises operated by, and for, the community. Kak Surya had no prior experience with this type of work, but she had completed senior high school and also possessed some relevant skills as an experienced trader, having previously operated her own micro-enterprise. From her own reports, however, establishing such enterprises was proving difficult in her district, and most of the money so far released had been spent on infrastructure projects such as building roads, bridges, health clinics, and early learning centres. In her estimation, men only knew how to cut timber and women lacked confidence, even though many had some business skills from operating small sundry shops and selling agricultural produce. Her recruitment to PNPM Mandiri-Rural fuelled her hopes that an investment in her daughters’ education could translate into finding them salaried positions in the public sector. The main approach taken by the regency government to reduce poverty, provide employment, and raise district revenue has not been investing in anti-poverty or community development projects (although certain sectors of the public service are involved in such areas, as discussed in Chapter Four). Instead, its priority has been to stimulate economic growth through corporate investment. The territorial border with Sarawak has featured prominently in its plans for private sector economic growth. This focus on the economic potential of the border zone is evident in the regency’s intensification of oil palm planting in that area and the development of border infrastructures, including roads and border posts. Both the investment in oil palm and border infrastructure directly affect women’s borderscopes of mobility, as discussed in later chapters. 30 PNPM Mandiri-Rural is a part of the broader national program PNPM Mandiri, which is developed in partnership with the World Bank and funded by a number of foreign governments. The program’s objectives are to support good governance and local communities in developing and operating social service delivery, infrastructure, and anti-poverty projects. A particular focus of the program is involving marginalised groups in the selection and implementation of local projects. See McCarthy et al. (2014) for an evaluation of the challenges and achievements of the program.

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Borders as economic zones Running through this chapter has been a consideration of the intersection of geography, politics, and the economy in facilitating and shaping conditions and relations in Sambas’ border-zone. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a range of government initiatives designed to stimulate economic growth in Sambas by capitalising on its proximity to the wealthier Malaysian state of Sarawak. The continuing economic disparity between Malaysia and Indonesia over the past twenty years, as well as the demilitarisation of the border zone, have resulted in an increase in the level and value of crossborder trade (Ishikawa, 2012, p. 42)—of which local governments such as Sambas want a share. This is underwritten by a change in attitude towards borders at the central government level: that is, from defending/securing borders to capitalising on their economic potential.31 As discussed above, during the Sukarno and Suharto presidencies, the border was defined as politically problematic, which partly justified the presence of militaryrelated companies having control over the timber and cross-border trade during the New Order. In the era of regional autonomy, and with the financial backing of the central government, the regency government has sought to develop the economic advantages of its border-zone location through two main strategies. The first is the ambitious Northern Development Zone, which has seen the upgrading of two border crossings at Aruk and Temajok and a focus on road construction. The second is the intensification of oil palm planting as new road projects make once unreachable areas of Sambas’ hinterland accessible. Both strategies reflect a desire found in other border zone regencies to internationalise the local economy (open it up to foreign capital, cross-border trade, etc.) while at the same time asserting greater control over borders and the movement of people and goods (Eilenberg, 2012b; Bakker and Crain, 2012).32 31 Peraturan Presiden Nomor 23/2005 tentang Rencana Kerja Permintahan (RKP) Tahun 2006 states that the policy focus of border regions must change from a pendekatan yang bersifat keamanan (‘inward-looking, security approach’) to a pendekatan kesejahteraan (‘outwardlooking, prosperity approach’). Border security and sovereignty concerns have not been entirely erased, but increasingly security is directly connected to issues of economy. One example is the often-heated claims that physical (stone) border markers have been moved or removed so that Malaysian interests can acquire timber or land. 32 Erik Wakker (2006, p. 5) points out that ‘what exactly comprises the border zone is subject to discussion in Indonesia’ and can extend anywhere from 10 km to 100 km (thereby covering the entire Regency of Sambas). Wakker (2006, p. 6) concludes that the forthcoming Border Act (Rencana Undang-Undang Perbatasan) would be expected to settle the size of the border zone and determine the government levels and departments responsible for the management of the

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Today, Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil—an ambition already articulated in 1996 by the Suharto government (Casson, 2000, p. 8). In 2007 the area under oil palm production in Kalimantan had increased to 1,661,007 hectares, or nearly one quarter of Indonesia’s total area under oil palm cultivation (de Koninck, Bernard, and Bissonnette, 2011, p. 30). Oil palm plantations came to West Kalimantan relatively late and very slowly entered the concern of rural Sambas Malays, as the plantations predominantly employed local Dayak labourers and Javanese migrant smallholders (King, 1993, p. 286; Potter, 2011, p. 164). Despite this slow start, the Sambas Regency government has become very active in this field, with the plantation of oil palm nominated as the regency’s primary development strategy (Kabupaten Sambas, 2011). By mid-2006, at least 50 percent (319,000 ha) of the regency had been allocated for oil palm expansion (Milieudefensie et al., 2007, p. 23). Advocates argue that foreign investment and liberalisation provide an opportunity for rural Sambas Malays to invest in oil palm. Critics respond that the currently promoted nucleus-plasma model requires villagers to surrender customary or common land in return for a much smaller area planted with oil palm. This common type of allotment in West Kalimantan gives the private company 80 percent of the land, which forms the nucleus of the estate. A further 20 percent is then distributed to local society as so-called ‘plasma fields’ (Dewi, 2012, p. 169). Farmers may lose up to 20 to 30 hectares of rubber trees, rice fields, and orchards to receive two hectares of oil palm (Dewi, 2012, p. 169; see also, Potter, 2011). The experiences of other communities in West Kalimantan reveal the risks associated with oil palm, such as vulnerability to price fluctuations, farmers not having spare land on which to plant replacement trees, and the requirement to purchase inputs at the price set by companies (Dewi, 2012, pp. 170-1). The loss of livelihoods associated with the destruction of rubber trees and other crops has forced villagers to find other forms of work as migrant workers in Malaysia and low-paid day-labourers on the oil palm estates. Julia and White (2012) document the erosion of women’s right to land in Sanggau (a regency of West Kalimantan) after the introduction of a new land tenure system associated with the establishment of oil palm smallholdings. Overwhelmingly, this has seen land registered in men’s names. Li (2014b) contrasts the work conditions in a state-run transmigration oil palm plantation with those found in its later corporatised operations in border areas. At the time of writing, however, this has yet to be settled. Nevertheless, the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes a border zone has not restrained the discussion of the need to focus on wilayah perbatasan (‘border regions’) and their border zones.

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Sanggau, West Kalimantan. The former, established in the 1980s for mostly Javanese transmigrants, provided transmigrants with a ‘full set of provisions to support family life’ (Li, 2014b, p. 3), including child care and pensions. From 2003, corporatisation created labour opportunities for local men and women, but with greatly diminished working conditions. Most workers are now employed as casual or contract workers, with little choice but to accept the strenuous, insecure, and unsafe conditions of work. For landless women especially, this situation is dire: they are positioned at the bottom of the casualised plantation labour force in terms of skill recognition and pay, while at the same time alternative forms of work have been destroyed with the decimation of rubber trees and rice paddies to make way for the plantation and its linked smallholder scheme. Sambas Malays are yet to feel the full force of the consequences of corporatised oil palm investment, given the relative time lag in oil palm investment and planting. In the meantime, the aggressive land-grabbing practices of companies, the unchecked irregular issuing of permits,33 and the factional fights within villages (when some villagers support and others oppose an oil palm development) have led to an increase in the number oil palm conflicts and competing land claims (Milieudefensie et al., 2007, Table 5, p. 45). In one newspaper article concerning an oil palm project in Aruk (on the Sambas-Sarawak border), it is reported that members of the Dayak Kanayan community resorted to seizing company equipment to stop the company’s unauthorised land clearing, including the destruction of rubber trees (Painter, 2007, pp. 41-2).34 There is now considerable NGO 33 A study by Milieudefensie et al. (2007, p. 41-2) of three Wilmar subsidiaries found that all were issued with Plantation Operation Permits (IUPs) without the approval of the EIA Commission. 34 Milieudefensie et al. (2007, p. 45) report a further example of protest against unauthorised land clearing in Sambas: In 2006, land rights conflicts emerged between the communities of Desa Senujuh, in the sub-district Sejangkung, and PT WSP. The sub-district’s land area is about 6,100 hectares with 275 families…and average family cash income is as low as Rp. 300,000 (US$ 34) per month. From November 2005 onwards, PT WSP started opening land into Senujuh village. A villager noticed the clearings in the community rubber gardens in December 2005, and reported the case to the village leaders. The company continued its land clearing activity and on 19 March 2006, the villagers of Senujuh stopped 31 company workers, and confiscated an excavator and 5 chainsaws used by the workers to clear the community forest. Together with members of the local parliament and the Forestry Department, village officials wrote a letter to the company to remove its workers and equipment from Senujuh. In response, PT WSP manager Agus Pamungkas acknowledged that the workers were unaware of the border between Senujuh and Sijang. The manager apologised and a traditional sanction set by the community, approximately US$ 550, was paid. The community returned the land clearing equipment by the end of March.

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and community resistance to further oil palm planting in Sambas and other parts of West Kalimantan, with activists encouraging rubber, pepper, and cocoa as alternatives (Potter, 2011, p. 167). In Chapter Five, I discuss an example of protests against a Wilmar International subsidiary, describing how women from an NGO provided support for local village women to take an active role in this protest, despite gender relations that marginalise women’s public role in village politics. In this case, the subsidiary PT SAM was given long-term land use concessions without following the proper land acquisition procedures including consultation with affected communities. The actions of PT SAM resulted in protest actions involving concerned village women and men who were apprehensive that their rights over land would be extinguished.35 The fastest expansion of oil palm in Sambas is found in the water-laden, peat soil areas of Sambas’ border zone districts, such as Sajingan Besar and Galing (Milieudefensie et al., 2007, p. 20). These private investments have benefitted from road improvement and extension projects funded by the central government as part of its commitment to border-zone development. Road projects are not tied exclusively to oil palm expansion (although they are a critical infrastructure for it); they are also important for the regency’s plan to develop the economic potential of the border with Sarawak. Until relatively recently, cross-border interactions with Sarawak were conducted largely via jalan tikus (‘rough pathways’) that connected communities on both sides of the border. By the late 1990s, however, a substantial road network was in place, including private roads that allowed unregulated trade in high-value or illicit goods like timber, oil palm fruit, diesel fuel, and chickens. Following the redrawing of the regency’s boundaries, the potential value of cross-border trade with Sambas was dramatically reduced when the Jagoi Babang (Indonesia)–Serikin (Malaysia) border post became part of the rival regency, Bengkayang. In response, the Sambas government revisited the Indonesia-Malaysia Cross-border Agreement of 1984, which had 35 The following summarises how the 2004 Plantation Act overrides and eventually extinguishes rights: Under the 2004 Plantations Act, long-term land use (hak guna usaha, or HGU) concessions may be granted for 35 years and extended to another 25 years. This law later on was overlapped by Investment Law No. 25/2007, which allows a single concession to be valid up to 95 years. Once the company has obtained its HGU permit, the local/indigenous community who formerly managed and controlled the land under customary law lose their rights over their territory. After the expiry of HGU concessions, the land reverts to State Land; customary rights are thus permanently abolished by the granting of an HGU concession, although often local communities are unaware of this. (Julia and White, 2012, p. 999)

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proposed ten new border crossings between Sarawak and West Kalimantan. By 2013, two new border crossings had been opened in Sambas: a border crossing post at Temajok and a border checkpoint at Aruk.36 Sambas’ new border posts are not stand-alone projects, however. They are nested within the broader, integrated vision of a Northern Development Zone developed by consultants from Batam (Surahman, 2008, p. 80) and approved by the local parliament (DPRD Kabupaten Sambas) in September 2003. This master plan aims to duplicate Batam’s economic relationship with Singapore in Sambas’ relationship to Sarawak, with a focus on infrastructural development (border posts, roads, and port facilities) and economic investment in agriculture, plantations, agro-industry, industry, and tourism (Wakker, 2006, p. 36). This ambitious economic strategy is designed to capitalise on the natural resources (including gas reserves) of Temajok in the north-west and the development of a commercial and industrial hub at the border checkpoint at Aruk. As part of this proposal, Temajok in Paloh district is earmarked for the development of a liquid natural gas port facility, and Aruk in Sajingan Besar district as the site of the new border post (PPLB) and special industrial development zone. As envisaged in the master plan, Aruk’s industrial zone will be funded by Malaysian investors and provide employment to Indonesians, who will live in new housing estates to be built adjacent to the industrial zone. It is, therefore, a further example of the Indonesian state’s desire ‘to establish production zones that could not only compete with and attract investment from Malaysia, but would also keep Indonesian workers at home’ (Eilenberg, 2012b, p. 112). The establishment of a market in Aruk—in competition with Serikin (Malaysia)—is another component of the plan (Kabupaten Sambas, 2007). 36 The main difference between a border crossing post and a border checkpoint is that only wilayah perbatasan (‘residents of the border zone’)—officially, those bearing a border pass (Surat Perjalanan Lintas Batas)—can cross at border crossing posts. A border pass allows residents of the border zone to cross into the immediate border region on the other side for reasons of trade, short-term work (such as to tend their fruit trees on the other side), and participate in social activities. When I f irst conducted research in 2008 and 2009, there were only three off icial overland border posts in operation along the entire West Kalimantan-Sarawak border: two border crossing posts (Pos Lintas Batas or PLB) at Jagoi Babang–Serikin and Badau–Lubok Antu, and one border checkpoint with full immigration and customs services (Pos Pemeriksaan Lintas Batas or PPLB) at Entikong–Tebedu. In addition, border zone residents living in Temajok and Liku (in the northwest corner of Sambas) could apply for a border pass that would allow them to cross at the port of Sematan (in Sarawak) and go as far as Sematan Bazaar. Border zone residents from Aruk and Sajingan (in the north east) could also apply for a border pass to access a 10-km radius of Biawak bazaar. At the time, only people from Jagoi Babang and Seluas (in the adjoining Regency of Bengkayang) could cross into Serikin. Other residents of Benykayang and Sambas who crossed the border to attend the market at Serikin could expect to pay a bribe one or both ways.

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Very considerable sums of public money have been spent on this borderzone initiative. In just one year, 2006, the central government (APBN) and the provincial and regency governments committed more than IRD 19 billion to its realisation, most of which was spent on roads, bridges, and drainage, the construction of an immigration post, and improved electricity supply (Kabupaten Sambas, 2007). On a trip to Aruk in 2015, it was evident that the development of the border hub had a long way to go. There were only a handful of small sundry shops and a mini-bus or two of Indonesian migrants returning via the immigration post. The immigration post was virtually empty and clearly underutilised. There was also no sign of an industrial park or workers’ accommodation. Instead, most newcomers to the area were military and immigration staff. Nevertheless, the border post at Aruk has made it easier to send goods over the border, including oil palm fruit, which is now shipped to Kuching for milling. Small-scale cross-border traders like Maria of Kaliau Desa (in the vicinity of Aruk) can sell products in Biawak and return home with everyday items that are cheaper in Sarawak: ‘Kami bisa menjual hasil ladang ke Biawak, lalu pulangnya membeli kebutuhan sehari-hari seperti gula’ (‘We can sell vegetables in Biawak, then on the way home buy everyday essentials such as sugar’) (KOMPAS, 2009, p. 42). The demilitarisation of the border, the opening of a new international border crossing at Aruk, and the development of new roads have made the territorial border more accessible for Sambas residents, who may nevertheless still cross it in highly irregular ways. Indeed, the new roads and border crossings have also assisted Sambas women and men to pursue their ‘border advantage’ (Eilenberg and Wadley, 2009, p. 62) by reducing travel time and making roads passable by truck. In contrast, the regency’s other economic development focus—oil palm investment—may compel people to exploit their proximity to the border, as they respond to their loss of land and income due to the expansion of oil palm plantations. These include specific risks for women in relation to the deleterious effects of corporate oil palm companies and labour regimes on women’s land rights and local employment opportunities.

Conclusion The chief objective of this chapter has been to highlight the factors, processes, and relations that give rise to and shape women’s borderscopes of mobility, which are discussed in the following chapters. Part of this involves drawing attention to how political and economic developments, especially during

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the colonial and post-Independence eras, have eroded local political and economic autonomy in significant ways. This has taken many forms, including the decline of the maritime trading networks of nakhoda captains, the demise of the sultanate and the prominence of Sambas town, and the exploitation of land and forest resources by military-related companies. In this context, the new regency and return of the capital to Sambas town have revived hopes for the possible reversal of Sambas’ marginalisation. This future is by no means assured and the regency of Sambas is still classified as tertinggal and characterised by relatively low social development indicators. Nevertheless, the revitalisation of Sambas has to some extent enhanced women’s opportunities to work, pursue education, and participate in cultural exchanges of various types. In turn, women’s translocal experiences have influenced the practice and discursive construction of Sambas Malay culture and identity, as described in the following four chapters. Over the past 150 years, the international border has been a constant, albeit shifting, element in the political economy of Sambas. After Indonesia’s Independence, more fluid patterns of migration and settlement lost ground as President Sukarno’s Confrontation and ‘communist’ insurgency defined the border as a space of potential incursion and a security threat. During the New Order era, military-connected timber capitalists saw the border as both a point of sale and a zone of power. In the context of decentralisation, recent local government initiatives seek to capitalise on a border now inflected with more pragmatic economic potential. Interlaced and partly structured by the powerful political economies of the border is yet another border, this one characterised by the predominantly small-scale, licit cross-border economic and social relations of border residents. Extending in both directions, this border is constituted by a diverse range of everyday labour migration and trading activities, aspects of which are discussed in the next chapter in relation to Sambas Malay women’s territorial cross-border mobilities.

3

Traversing the Territorial Border for Work

The independent cross-border migration and trade-related mobility of Sambas women may not be as long-standing as that of men, but it has decisively increased over the past twenty years as Sambas Malay women have found work abroad. Similar to and for many of the same reasons as other Indonesian women, a significant proportion of Sambas women are now incorporated into transnational service and manufacturing labour circuits. Others are active as cross-border traders. The cross-border mobility of Sambas Malay women is fundamentally (but not exclusively) an economic strategy, a pragmatic response to economic hardship through the pursuit of higher wages, trade advantages, and non-agricultural work opportunities in nearby Sarawak and Brunei. Sarawak is a particularly popular destination, given its proximity and the fact that its per capita income is almost six times higher than that of West Kalimantan (Bariyah, Lau, and Abu Manor, 2012). The prevalence of cross-border mobility is manifest in the range of formal and informal cross-border migration and trade pathways and institutions. Many of these build on the earlier patterns of trade and migration noted in Chapter Two, such as Sambas Malays’ association with the timber industry. Essentially, rural working-class Sambas Malays now inhabit a cross-border social field or ‘transnational habitus’ (Guarnizo, 1997) that spans Sambas, Sarawak, and Brunei—one that channels them into well-established licit and illicit cross-border economic pathways. This chapter describes a socioeconomic borderscope that situates women as both independent labour migrants and traders, and wives, sisters, and/ or mothers of cross-border migrants. Thompson (2007, p. 4) argues that migration is ‘a particular kind of movement’ that ‘entails a work of imagination in the point of origin’ as well as ‘knowledge and desire’ about the destination. Discerning the nature of the territorial borderscope of Sambas Malay women is thus an exercise in understanding how prior information and current aspirations shape women’s cross-border migration. Moreover, their territorial borderscopes provide a basis for an analysis of the effects of cross-border mobility on the construction of Sambas Malayness and its associations with rurality. Central to this analysis are the elements of Sambas Malay culture and adat that facilitate and underwrite a territorial borderscope. Such cultural components are subject to reinstatement and/ or modification as result of rural Sambas Malays’ cross-border mobility.

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For this reason, women’s cross-border mobility has not destabilised the foundations of Sambas Malay village sociality and economy—instead, customary kinship and marriage practices have been drawn upon in ways that maintain the socio-spatial relevance of villages and reproduce practices deemed to be ‘Sambas Malay’. In arguing that women’s territorial border-crossings reinforce and reproduce elements of Sambas Malay culture and identity, this chapter offers a further challenge to a sedentary view of the Malay village.1 Such sedentary representation has served to substantiate the apparent opposition between the traditional countryside and modern city (Thompson, 2007).2 It has also concealed the degree to which interacting with wider economic processes and intermingling with non-Malay groups has not eroded local forms of identification, such as ‘Sambas Malay’, and may in fact even be critical to their (re-)constitution (Kahn, 2006; Thompson, 2007).3 There is evidence of a form of vernacular cosmopolitanism (Cohen, 2004; Vertovec and Cohen, 2002, p. 16) that is both gendered and grounded in Sambas Malay conceptions of relatedness and rurality. It is therefore important to determine which local socio-cultural processes might sustain such identifications and to what extent broader economic and social exchanges might serve to reproduce them. This chapter considers such questions through an examination of the socio-cultural mechanisms and conventions concentrated in kinship rituals and everyday practices, which act to maintain Sambas Malay identifications and reproduce Sambas Malay adat. These mechanisms explain how the identification with being ‘Sambas Malay’ persists in villages that otherwise function as translocal nodes linking villagers to localities and people beyond 1 The notion of a ‘traditional’ village economy and society has been a feature of both colonial and post-colonial discourse and policy in Indonesia and Malaysia. Breman (1982) observed that the colonial (and, we can add, postcolonial) representation of ‘the Javanese village’ was an act of misrecognition, one that repudiated the differences between villages, differentiations within villages, and dynamics associated with their integration with larger social forces. In Malaysia, the association between ‘Malays’ and subsistence-oriented, communitarian, culturally homogeneous, and sedentary villages remained pronounced for the better part of the twentieth century despite evidence to the contrary (Gullick, 1987; Kahn, 1993, 2006; King, 1993; Milner, 2008). 2 This opposition is a consequence of the colonial encounter, where self-consciously modernist representations drew on the image of a traditional village-based community. Milner (2008, p. 192) contrasts European-derived representations with those of Japanese anthropologists to reveal the effect of prior intellectual constructions on academic models (see also, Stivens, 1992). Intellectual and academic representations also influence local self-understandings (see Kahn, 1993) and have direct political effects (see Li, 2002). 3 Thompson’s (2007) ethnography of a ‘Malay’ village in the Malaysian state of Perak, originally settled by migrants from Patani, is just one example.

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Sambas. The material presented in this chapter is drawn from surveys of village-based women’s groups as well as discussions and interviews with female cross-border labour migrants and traders. 4 It is organised into four main sections that together build a picture of women’s central importance in the symbolic and economic reproduction of rural villages, even as they increasingly participate in cross-border labour mobility. Indeed, rather than viewing such mobility as a threat to Sambas Malay-identified households and villages, women’s management of their household’s economic and socio-cultural reproduction reinstates with subtle modification the local Sambas Malay norms and practices associated with kinship, rurality, and the absorption of outsiders. The first section provides a profile of Sambas Malay village women’s economic activities and educational levels, drawn from surveys I conducted in seven villages.5 The composite picture that emerges is one of Sambas Malay women’s concentration in village-based farming as well as their increasing involvement in predominantly cross-border forms of labour migration and trade. The second section describes the notable features of women’s territorial borderscope, drawing from case-studies and conversations with former and current female cross-border labour migrants and traders. The discussion in the third section provides the cultural or gender-normative background to 4 I conducted surveys in seven villages with informal women’s groups established with the support of a Sambas-based NGO (see Chapter Five). Membership was voluntary and open to all women in the village. The surveys gathered information on women’s education and employment histories, including labour migration, as well as that of household members. Details on women’s ethnic background, place of birth, and connections to people living in other parts of Indonesia or overseas were also collected. Sambas Malay culture also featured in the questionnaire, and women were asked to identify elements they considered representative of Sambas Malay culture and to provide an interpretation of their associated meanings and functions. In addition, I interviewed more than 30 current and former female cross-border labour migrants and traders, many of whom I first met when conducting village surveys. Later, I met three songket weavers who had worked in Brunei and a number of imported, second-hand clothing traders. In 2009, I briefly visited Brunei, meeting several migrant workers from Sambas. I was in Sarawak again in 2009 and 2015, where I met with Sambas women working in Kuching. I also visited the cross-border market at Serikin on two occasions, where I met several cross-border traders from Desa Rotan (see Dina below) and a former cross-border trader from Tebas, now married to a Malaysian man and living in Serikin. Most interactions with respondents occurred in conversational or social contexts and field notes were made by hand. Only three interviews were recorded: one with a cross-border trader from Desa Rotan and two with songket weavers. All the women’s names in this chapter are pseudonyms. 5 A village or desa is an administrative unit in Indonesia, one under the authority of a village head (now an elected position but formerly a central government appointment). A village is typically composed of two or more dusun or ‘hamlet’. In this chapter, I refer to ‘villages’, although in several cases it would be more precise to refer to the village in question as dusun.

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the discussion of the ethnocultural effects of women’s cross-border mobility in Section Four. The focus in the third section is on two features of Sambas Malay adat that village women noted in their questionnaires as fundamental to Sambas Malay culture and identity, namely marriage and kinship practices. The discussion highlights the central role that women play in the reproduction of these adat practices, through their dominance in household-related activities, in order to better understand how women’s cross-border mobility can impact on the ethnocultural (and not only economic) reproduction of rural households. The fourth section differentiates two sets of ethnocultural effects. First, women’s territorial borderscope and the work-related mobility it generates enacts and reproduces Sambas Malay adat norms and cultural identities related to Sambas Malay kinship (specifically, matrilocality and siblingship). Second, the financial gains of cross-border economic activities strengthen the association between ‘Sambas Malay’ identity and rurality through women’s ongoing investment in agriculture.

Profile of village women Women are the main producers of agricultural products for household consumption in Sambas and the economic contribution they make to their households is considerable. As a percentage of the total male and female labour forces, more women than men are employed in the agricultural, forestry, livestock, and fisheries sector: 79 percent of women, compared to 66 percent of men.6 Revealingly, far more women than men are ‘employed without pay’ in this sector, suggesting that women typically work on household farms (without pay). When surveyed, 54 percent of the total female labour force (over 61,000 women) had worked without pay in the previous week, in contrast with 11 percent of the total male workforce (14,450 men). Given that nearly 80 percent of women worked in the agricultural sector, we can assume that a large segment of Sambas’ female labour force works unpaid on household land holdings (Kabupaten Sambas, 2013, p. 74, Table 4.2.4). Since statistics state that 85 percent of Sambas’ population resides in rural areas, it is evident that rural households supported by the agricultural work of often unpaid female family members are common in Sambas, as was the case in the seven villages surveyed. 6 In 2012, 89,838 males and 90,127 females over the age of 15 were reported to have worked in the agricultural, forestry, livestock, and fisheries sector in the previous week (Kabupaten Sambas, 2013, p. 73, Table 4.2.3).

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A study conducted by Endang Listani (2005) in the Sambas district of Teluk Keramat showed that the economic value of women’s household and farming labour is considerable. Women’s contribution to covering the cost of the family was on average about 35 percent of the average income of husbands working in Malaysia (Listani, 2005, p. 139). In the case of husbands working in other parts of Indonesia, this rose to 50 percent. The economic significance of women’s investment in their rural households is not always acknowledged, however. Women’s farming activities, as well as their non-farm economic activities, still tend to be understood as supplementary to those of their husbands. By contrast, the Sambas Malay women in this chapter actively defended their identity as autonomous farmers – an identity which has its foundations in women’s responsibility to ensure their household’s food security and raise the next generation (Morgan, 2013, p. 7). There were important differences of geography, demography, and economy across the seven villages, which informed individual women’s cross-border trajectories and personal territorial borderscopes, as described in later sections. For this reason, they are briefly noted below.7 Desa Rotan and Desa Parit, Sejangkung district The villages of Desa Rotan and Desa Parit are located in the district of Sejangkung, predominantly a district of rubber smallholders. These villages are not far from the village of Sekuduk, the nakhoda village mentioned in Chapters One and Two. At the time of my research, most roads in this district were untarred and accessible only by motorbike, four-wheel drive vehicles or by truck. Consequently, a steady flow of river vessels took people, goods, and motorbikes between the various jetties along the Sambas Besar River and downstream to the regency’s capital. In both villages, rubber provided the chief source of income. Women’s households had between 100 and 1000 rubber trees, with tapping rubber on others’ land a source of work for landless women. Desa Rotan also has a tradition of rattan and bamboo handicraft production; there was a marked correlation between landlessness and handicraft production, with most weavers coming from landless households. There was also a strong connection between handicraft producers and cross-border trading, with four female handicraft producers regularly selling their products in the Malaysian border town of Serikin. In both villages, almost all women grew rice for household consumption, on either their own or rented land. Those who did not grow rice came from 7

The seven villages are given pseudonyms but are situated in their real districts.

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households with a salaried wage earner or with unusually large rubber holdings. However, the district is experiencing land conflict over large-scale oil palm investment. The clearance of land threatens not only smallholder rubber production, but also women’s status as autonomous farmers. Corporate oil palm developments have specific implications for Desa Rotan, as the once-plentiful local supply of free rattan and bamboo has declined because of the illegal clearing of community forests. Miranda Morgan discusses the fears expressed by Sambas Malay women over the loss of land due to oil palm expansion, quoting the concerns of a village woman from nearby Sebetaan: ‘what we have now, we own it. This is our produce. We are the ones that decide what to do [with the land]. […] If we want to make a rice field, we make one. If we want to grow rubber, we do that. What if other people control the land? What about that? We’ll have to follow their rules. For now, it’s up to us, there are no rules we have to follow’ (2013, p. 9). Desa Jaya, Desa Gelar, and Desa Seri, Tebas district These three villages are located in the district of Tebas and accessible by unsealed roads from the town of Tebas, which is connected by a sealed road to the provincial and regency capitals. The district of Tebas is famous for its oranges, and the town of Tebas is the sale and distribution centre for the district’s orange industry. In Desa Jaya, Desa Gelar, and Desa Seri orange production was the single most important economic activity, with women farming between 50 and 600 orange trees. Women who received remittances from relatives working in Malaysia remained involved in agriculture in their villages, including growing rice for their households and investing in orange groves. Of the three villages, Desa Seri had the most women with household members working in Sarawak and, as a result, women in this village reported the highest number of orange trees, with an average of 255 trees per household. Desa Pantai, Paloh district The district of Paloh is home to the sixth village, Desa Pantai (Kak Surya’s village from Chapter Two). Paloh is Sambas’ northernmost district and is viewed as remote by most people in Sambas. This remoteness accounts for some vestigial forests and Paloh’s reputation as steeped in Sambas Malay mysticism. (It is the site, for example, of the ritual antar ajung discussed in Chapter Four). There is no direct road connecting the town of Sambas to Paloh’s main centre, Liku. One must first cross the Sekura River and then negotiate a

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partly sealed, gravel road. Most women surveyed made a living from farming, including selling animals (chickens, ducks, and cows), copra, and various fruits and vegetables. Women farmed their own land or, in the case of two landless women, rented plots. A few owned rubber trees and all but one—a salaried civil servant (a midwife)—grew rice for household consumption. Desa Sungai, Sambas district The final village, Desa Sungai, is connected by a sealed road to Sambas town. It is known locally for its variety of tree crops, including durian, petai (a long green bean pod harvested from the Parkia Speciosa tree), rambutan, and coffee. Several surveyed households had also invested in rubber trees and the women farmed rice for their household. From my observation, Desa Sungai was the most class-differentiated of the seven villages. In contrast to the other villages, one-third of the women’s husbands worked in the public sector in the town of Sambas, a short commute away, or operated their own businesses. Despite this and the village’s proximity to schools in Sambas town, Desa Sungai had the lowest educational levels of all the villages: ten of the fourteen women surveyed had only primary school education (see Table 3.1) Women’s low education levels in this village were also surprising given the relative youth of this women’s group (half of the women were aged 35 or under). Desa Sungai also had the highest percentage of respondents involved in cross-border labour migration. The availability of work seemed to dampen an investment in education for daughters in this village. As one of their mothers explained, girls do not need a high school education to work in Sarawak—as, indeed, many did (see Table 3.2). In general, educational attainment across the villages was not high, reflecting the relatively low economic status of women and their households. Over half (52 percent) of the women had not studied beyond primary school and 10 percent had no schooling whatsoever. Around 16 percent of the women had attended junior high school, a further 17 percent had attended senior high school, while roughly 5 percent had post-secondary education or training (see Table 3.1).8 As the above village descriptions show, most of the surveyed women farmed rice for their own household while pursuing other economic activities 8 These figures are not atypical. Farhan (2002, p. 82) provides data on educational attainment in four rural villages in the Sambas district of Teluk Keramat. The four villages had a combined population of over 12,000 in 2001, of which almost half had not completed primary school and more than a third had only graduated from primary school.

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Table 3.1 Women’s education levels in the seven villages

Desa Parit Desa Rotan Desa Jaya Desa Gelar Desa Seri Desa Pantai Desa Sungai

Number

Did not go Primary school Junior high Senior high Other to school school school

17 19 14 20 19 24 14

2 7 1 2 1 0 0

13 7 9 10 10 8 10

0 3 3 4 3 6 1

1 2 1 4 4 8 1

1 0 0 0 1 2 2

Table 3.2 Labour outmigration (number and percentage) in seven villages

Desa Parit Desa Rotan Desa Jaya Desa Gelar Desa Seri Desa Pantai Desa Sungai

Average Number (%) of age respondents who have been internal labour migrants

Number (%) of respondents who have worked abroad

Number (%) of respondents with family who have worked as internal labour migrants

Number (%) of respondents with family working abroad

42 51 42 37 30 34 36

3 (18%) 3 (16%) 3 (21%) 5 (25%) 5 (26%) 2 (8%) 5 (36%)

2 (12%) 0 0 1 (5%) 0 1 (4%) 2 (14%)

15 (88%) 8 (42%) 11 (79%) 11 (55%) 15 (79%) 4 (17%) 9 (64%)

1 (6%) 2 (10.5%) 0 2 (10%) 0 2 (8%) 0

to gain a cash income. In general, the women came from rural households where agriculture was central, but insufficient to cover their household’s needs. In this context, cross-border mobility (whether the women’s own or that of family members) was becoming more prominent—although this varied, with some villages more deeply involved than others (see Table 3.2). Despite this variability, one common finding was that few women (or household members) migrated for work to the provincial capital of Pontianak or to other Indonesian cities and provinces. Internal labour migration was very limited in contrast to the number of family members crossing international borders to work in Sarawak’s timber/plywood and oil palm industries, or to take up ‘female’ occupations like domestic labour. While these findings are only indicative (given the number of villages presented here), the profiles of these seven village groups nevertheless capture an important segment of rural, working-class women’s current labour mobility and the generational

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changes taking place. For example, in Desa Parit village, where the average age of respondents was 42 years old, three women in their mid-thirties had previously worked overseas as domestic workers (for example, see Dahlia in the next section). None had husbands currently working abroad or in other parts of Indonesia. However, generational changes were evident: ten of the women surveyed had a total of seventeen children working abroad in Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak, and Brunei: seven daughters as domestic workers, four sons and three daughters in plywood factories, and three sons in construction. Generational changes were also highlighted in the village of Desa Sungai, where the average age of respondents was 36. There, five respondents in their twenties reported having worked in Sarawak’s plywood factors, some starting as young as 14 or 15. All five had married Indonesian migrant workers they had met in Sarawak (four from Java and one a Sambas Malay). Furthermore, ten women had at least one sibling (often more), who had worked in a plywood factory in Sarawak, while another had a sister working in an electronics factory in West Malaysia (Kedah). The surveys point to the continuing importance of agriculture in a context of increasing cross-border work. The following section elaborates on the predominant forms of cross-border work and trade in which these Sambas Malay women were involved, based on conversations with women who experienced cross-border mobility in one of four categories: factory work, domestic work, cross-border trade, and songket (‘textile’) weaving. Case studies are used to describe the general features of Sambas Malay women’s territorial borderscope. These include the importance of kinship ties and social networks that direct women’s mobility towards specific cross-border sites, as well as an expectation that cross-border work can complement agricultural work. Thus, cross-border work is understood to be either a supplementary form of work, a form of work engaged in prior to marriage and having children (or later when children are old enough to be placed in the care of relatives), or a source of remittances. The material in this section also reveals how geographical proximity to the territorial border shapes women’s attitudes towards the act and mechanisms of crossing a territorial border that is replete with economic and personal opportunities.

Border zone labour mobilities The discussion in this section extends our understanding of how women’s border zone location structures their mobility by deepening our appreciation of the significance of geographical proximity to the practice and processes

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of cross-border migration and trade. On the basis of the following case studies, we can also discern some of the central features of the territorial borderscope that informs the work-related mobility of many rural Sambas Malay women and that draws on elements including rural households’ reliance on off-farm forms of livelihood and their proximity to, and perception of, neighbouring territorial borders. As noted in Chapter Two, local opinion countenances what is technically illegal labour migration and cross-border trade.9 In one study of Sambas Malay domestic workers, half of the respondents entered Malaysia using forged documents organised by unlicensed agents (Hasan Gaffar, 2011, p. 119). Only a handful of labour agents in Sambas are registered, while a far greater number work informally. The unregistered labour brokers I met tended to be retired civil servants who were known and respected in the local area; others were individuals who, through their own trading networks, had seen the opportunity to supply specific categories of labour. Some of them had quite firm ideas about the type of irregular labour migration they would support. For example, one retired civil servant now working as an informal labour agent said he does not assist women find work as domestic workers, which he considered unsafe. He was most active in procuring work for men as agricultural workers and for women in plywood factories. Not all migrant workers recruited through unregistered labour agents ended up migrating without the necessary legal documents, although many did. In any case, such practices were not interpreted as morally dubious. This method remains the cheapest option and avoids the bureaucratic hurdles required to acquire a passport, work permit, and visa (see also, Ford and Lyons, 2011). Registered labour recruitment agents also manage much of Sambas’ cross-border migration, particularly in the timber and oil palm sectors. Documented workers typically go abroad on a two-year contract that can be extended. People who go gelap (‘illegally’) often stay for shorter periods, such as three months. Sambas Malays who lack the required work permit may also simply overstay their social visa. 9 There is a growing literature from Indonesia and elsewhere that documents how border communities inhabit a grey zone of illegality, understanding the morality of their cross-border trade and labour migration in terms contrary to legislation. For Indonesia, see Bakker and Crain (2012); Cooke (2009); Eilenberg and Wadley (2009); Ford and Lyons (2012); Ishikawa (2010, 2012); Wadley and Eilenberg (2005). See also, Abraham and van Schendel (2005). It is not only Indonesians originating from the nation’s border zones who work illegally: Indonesian President Joko Widodo claimed in 2015 that there are around 2.3 million Indonesian migrant workers worldwide, 1.2 million of whom were undocumented (The Jakarta Post, 14 February 2015). (See also, Ford and Lyons, 2011; Kassim, 1997; Lindquist, 2009).

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This border zone relationality comes to the fore when comparing women’s relaxed attitude to undocumented migration and trading activities in Sarawak with their attitude towards migration to Brunei. Three former female migrants to Brunei explained why people don’t migrate illegally to Brunei: ‘you can be arrested’ (‘bisa ditangkap nanti’), and ‘if you are arrested the fine is large, so people are fearful. If [arrested] in Malaysia the fine is small, so people will risk it’.10 For this reason, ‘lots of people are smuggled into Malaysia’ (‘banyak yang nyelundup-nyelundup masuk Malaysia’). One suggested that ‘perhaps it’s the border zone, only different ground and there’s no fence’ (‘mungkin daerah perbatasannya itu hanya beda tanah dan tidak ada pagar’). Her friend agreed, ‘You’re right, Malaysia is a big area from Sabah to [Sarawak], the border there isn’t defined, so it’s easy to cross it. If Brunei, it’s difficult. We must go through another country, the country of Malaysia.’11 Clearly, proximity to an adjacent border and the historical precedent established by kin and other community members influence women’s directional decision making. Women and men were both more likely to illegally cross a shared border—particularly one as long and uncontrolled as the Kalimantan-East Malaysia border—rather than a third-party border, such as that between East Malaysia and Brunei. These border-zone migration strategies provide pathways for the four groups of women workers considered below, namely, factory workers, cross-border traders, songket weavers, and domestic workers. Factory workers in Sarawak Factory workers constitute one of the largest streams of female cross-border labour from Sambas to Sarawak. I knew ten female factory workers who migrated as single women, aged in their mid to late teens, following in the footsteps of sisters, brothers, and fellow villagers. The desire to work to support themselves and their families was a key motivation. Greater social independence and the potential to see the world were also factors in ways that echoed Purwani Williams’ (2005, p. 406) discussion of memperluas cakrawala (‘broadening one’s horizons’).12 As single women, these factory 10 ‘kalau tertangkap dendanya lebih besar jadi orang takut, kalau di Malaysia kan dendanya kecil jadi orang berani’. (Author’s translation). 11 ‘betul, di Malaysia kan luas dari Sabah ke Kalimantan Timur perbatasan kan ndak ada yang secara tepat kan, jadi mudah masuknya. Kalau di Brunei kan sulit, kita melalui satu negara, negara Malaysia’. (Author’s translation). 12 These factors, combined with a yearning to be modern, have been noted in a number of studies of internal and international labour migration in Indonesia. For example, Lenz (2005, p. 260) argues

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workers typically lived in a hostel or group housing with other female labour migrants. Predictably, this led to socialising with other Indonesian migrants—‘an intense world of peer-oriented companionship’ (Mills, 1999, p. 131)—that created ‘new spaces of female freedom’ (McKay, 2007, p. 201). In Sarawak, these households and hostels are dominated by the two largest groups of Indonesian migrants, those from Java and those from Sambas (Ishikawa, 2010, p. 41). Inevitably, this has resulted in marriages between Sambas Malay women and Javanese men they met at work. In fact, most factory workers I encountered had formed relationships with Javanese migrants, including Siti, a former employee of a plywood factory. Siti was twenty-eight years old and married for six years when we first met. Born in a village in Tebas, Siti started working in a plywood factory in Bintulu (Sarawak) at seventeen, to support her family by becoming an independent worker. In taking this path, she emulated her older brother, who worked in a palm oil factory there. Later, her older sister also went to Bintulu to work in a palm oil factory. Siti enjoyed her five years of work in Sarawak. She shared a house with 14 other women, describing it as cheerfully ramai (‘crowded’) and bisa kita santai kan (‘relaxed’). Her housemates, who were all Javanese, introduced her to her future (Javanese) husband. Her husband was still working in Malaysia when I met Siti. She earned money from selling snacks, as well as farming rice and oranges on land bought with his remittances (they owned 100 orange trees). Siti had no plans to work in Malaysia again, despite believing it was the only viable way to save money. Siti’s example illuminates a new norm regarding young women’s labour mobility that has evolved in response to work opportunities over the border. The story of Kak Zurinah also documents how parental control over young women’s mobility has softened over the years. When I first met Kak Zurinah, she was in her mid-40s and living in Desa Pantai. Nowadays, Zurinah is relatively well off, partly due to stints of migrant work in both West and East Malaysia that enabled her to buy land for rice and fruit trees. Kak Zurinah trained as a teacher in Singkawang but never taught, as her parents prohibited her from taking up her first posting in a remote part of Ketapang (a southern regency of West Kalimantan). The expectation that unmarried daughters would remain close to home was evidently still strong at that time (Ong, 1995, p. 7). It was not until 1994, after several years of marriage there are three main factors fuelling young Minangkabau women’s migration decisions: education and training, economic reasons, and the desire to be modern. The association between salaried work in urban areas and being modern is also apparent over the border in Sarawak and figures prominently in young Bidayuh women’s decision to work in Kuching (see Hew, 2003, pp. 49ff).

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and no children, that she and her husband first worked in Malaysia—she in Kuala Lumpur for two years and he in Sarawak. Subsequently, she worked in a plywood factory in Bintulu (Sarawak) from 1997 until 2002, earning Ringgit Malaysia (RM) 1000 (US$ 285) per month. Since then, Kak Zurinah has farmed in Desa Pantai, buying land and supplementing her income with remittances from her husband, who continued to work in Sarawak in an orchard for a monthly salary of RM 800 (US$ 228). Domestic work in Brunei The following example of foreign domestic work continues this characterisation of rural Sambas Malay women’s territorial borderscope of mobility, one shaped by proximity to the territorial border and a web of cross-border labour activities. Foreign domestic work is the single most significant category of transnational work for Indonesians. The majority of Indonesian female migrants are domestic workers (IOM 2010, p. 9), and they vastly outnumber male migrants. Dahlia’s story is quite typical of Indonesian women’s labour migration, given the estimates that more than a million Indonesian women are employed in foreign domestic and care work abroad (see Abdul Rahman, 2005; Chin, 1998; Loveband, 2004; Rudnyckyj, 2004; Silvey, 2006, 2007). Dahlia was unmarried and had laboured as a domestic worker in Brunei for two-and-a-half years in her early thirties. Her Bruneian Malay employer was very demanding, insisting Dahlia do the cooking, washing, ironing, and house cleaning. Dahlia said that she was not given a regular day off and often worked until 1 or 2 a.m., only to rise again before dawn. The only time she could rest was when her employer was out. Her employer was often unkind, scolding Dahlia for being lazy or stupid, and remarking that she didn’t employ a maid to sit around and sleep all day. She was often annoyed and would take her anger out on Dahlia. In response, Dahlia would cry but remain diam-diam saja (‘silent’), as she was also threatened with being reported for having overstayed her visa. Dahlia’s experience is emblematic of the treatment often meted out to Indonesian migrant workers, who are stigmatised as a nation of ‘coolies’.13 At least Dahlia’s wages were not 13 Sukarno famously commented that colonial Indonesia was a ‘coolie between nations’ (i.e., between Asia and Australia) and that independence was the only way to stop being a coolie nation (Perlez, 2002). Government officials, intellectuals, and human rights activists have all condemned the export of unskilled Indonesian workers at different times (Loveband, 2009, pp. 91-92). More recently, the current Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, commented that he wishes to stop the export of Indonesian domestic workers to other countries, arguing that this undermines Indonesian pride and dignity (The Jakarta Post, 14 February 2015).

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withheld, and she was able to build a house with the money she earned (approximately US$ 140 a month). Now in her late thirties, Dahlia was considering returning to Brunei as a domestic worker to save money. Given that she supported herself and could never earn such money in Sambas, she felt that crossing the border for work was her sole option. This time, however, she knew something about her prospective employers because she was replacing her cousin’s friend who wanted to return to Indonesia. She also utilised an official agent so that her work status would be legal. In taking this next step, Dahlia will depend on her ‘siblingship’ with her cousin, along with authorised forms of labour migration. Akin to other cross-border workers described above, this utilisation of kinship relations is a contemporary feature of Sambas Malays’ cross-border mobility. It also has the effect of reinstating kinship as a central principal of relationality and support amongst Sambas Malays, as discussed in the next section. Cross-border trading with Sarawak and beyond Aside from kinship dynamics, highly localised village relations also shape women’s involvement in cross-border mobility. More generally, women’s border zone location is shown to inform attitudes concerning the legality of their trading, whether this relates to the sale of imported lelong (‘secondhand clothing’)14 in Sambas or goods traded at the weekend market in Serikin. Serikin lies just over the border in Sarawak. Its weekend market attracts a lively trade in prosaic items and takes advantage of currency and price differences between Indonesia and East Malaysia. The Jagoi Babang–Serikin border crossing has long been a favourite route for illegal trade between Sarawak and West Kalimantan. In the 1990s, before the establishment of a market, large quantities of rice, motorcycle helmets, lelong, beef, shallots, and chicken were trucked over the border by networks of local Bidayuh Dayaks, Sambas traders, towkay (Indonesian and Malaysian business owners of Chinese background), military personnel, and government officials.15 It is 14 ‘Lelong’ is a Malaysian term that refers to auctioned goods. 15 A Bidayuh from Serikin reported how a family member would truck shallots, helmets, lelong, and other goods from Kuching to Singkawang each week. When demand was strong, this trip was made three times a week, earning up to RM 30,000 (equivalent to US$ 8550) a week. There was little in the way of an established market infrastructure in Serikin at this time, and cigarettes, instant noodles, various snack food, textiles, canned drinks, and other goods from or to Indonesia were stored in the houses of Bidayuh traders and often walked across the border,

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one of possibly hundreds of jalan tikus (‘rough tracks’) that together form ‘a long, permeable economic membrane along the national border’ (Ishikawa, 2010, p. 84). It is also the most important border crossing for Sambas traders attending Serikin’s popular weekend market. The four women traders who regularly travelled to Serikin came from Desa Rotan, renowned for its rattan and bamboo handicrafts. Their trading activities brought together ‘household, market and environmental resources’ (Milgram, 2004, p. 191) in the procurement of their own welfare and that of their household. Serikin is a Bidayuh 16 town with Catholic churches situated along its main road. An asphalt road connects Serikin to Kuching (but not to the border), buses run from Kuching to Serikin via Bau, and there is also a car park for Kuching traders and shoppers. The market, composed of sturdy kiosks, lies at the end of this road. Behind the kiosks are large, well-constructed houses, often comprising two storeys. One Sambas Malay women trader observed the disparity between Serikin’s attractive houses and tidy, well laid out market, and the Indonesian towns she was familiar with over the border. Despite this sense of having left Indonesia, the Sambas traders felt comfortable in Serikin. First, they represented the largest group of traders at the market and spoke the dominant language of trade, namely, Sambas Malay (Pobas, 2010, p. 27). Second, interactions between locals and Sambas traders were cordial and traders reported good relations with local families, who rented them space to sleep and store their stock. Many locals also had family over the border (Pobas, 2010, p. 26). Consequently, the weight of formal borders and citizenship diminished in the context of long-standing kinship ties, a common language, and informal border-crossing routes (Ishikawa, 2010, pp. 210-211). Dina and her husband produce small items of furniture, including tables, shoe racks, and chairs, from locally grown bamboo and rattan to sell at Serikin’s weekend market.17 In addition to making and trading handicrafts, Dina also farms rice, taps rubber, and sells items bought cheaply in Malaysia carried by Jagoi Babang Dayak. An elderly Chinese gentleman in Kuching recalled the smuggling trails that operated between Sarawak and West Kalimantan during the 1950s and 1960s. He said the old trading trail that crosses from Jagoi Babang in West Kalimantan into Serikin in Sarawak continued to be heavily utilised in the post-war period as a pathway for gold, medicines, and other goods. 16 Bidayuh is the collective name for several related groups of indigenous people found in Sarawak and West Kalimantan. Serikin is located in a predominantly Bidayuh area, which also encompasses parts of the Sanggau Regency over the border in West Kalimantan. 17 They also buy and sell goods made by six independent producers. In their village, there is a loose division of labour, with women mostly being involved in making baskets and the finer components of larger products and men cleaning rattan and building furniture.

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(like sugar and oil) from her small home-based shop. When she is not planting or harvesting rice, she accompanies her husband on his weekly trip over the border, leaving their four small children with her mother. They have done this since 2003, after her husband learned such trading from a Sambas Chinese shopkeeper whom he accompanied to Serikin over several months. Their journey sitting on the floor of a truck is long and uncomfortable. It used to take up to nine hours. Since 2012, a new road to Subah (in Sambas) has halved that time. Stallholders such as Dina and her husband pay a weekly fee of RM 10 (approximately US$ 2.85) to the market, which is collected and receipted by the Malaysian police. This money is spent on improving the infrastructure of the market and town. Dina contrasted this with her negative experiences on the Indonesian side of the border, where police frequently asked for bribes. She was critical of such policing practices but did not reflect on her own actions as an independent trader who technically smuggled goods for sale across the border. This disregard for the illegality of cross-border trading was also evident in the case of second-hand clothing traders. Lelong (‘second-hand clothing’) is another commodity that is traded across the border into Sambas. The term not only refers to used clothes, but also bedding, shoes, toys, bags and—increasingly—rejects from garment factories. Many of my contacts brought lelong. Some found the material to be hardwearing, despite being second-hand. Quite a few had purchased lelong jackets for motorbike riding. Others liked the affordable, modern styles (see also, Hansen, 2000; Milgram, 2004). Fifteen years ago, much of the lelong came overland from Sarawak via Serikin. Today, it takes a sea route, via the Sambas port of Pemangkat, with merchants buying directly from ships anchored not far from shore. Sambas Malay women dominate small-scale lelong trading. In Sambas town, lelong is sold in the market, particularly on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Occasionally, temporary shops spring up—like the one on the cover of the book. In 2010, there were about nine traders with stalls in the main market street, each with clothes and other used goods piled on plastic sheets on the ground or hanging on clothes racks. One of these traders was Aminah, a former factory worker turned lelong trader. Aminah, aged 34, was married with four children of primary school age and younger. Her Sambas Malay husband worked in Malaysia tapping rubber and she lived in Tebas with her parents, who helped care for the children. Life was difficult, she declared, adding that her house was jelek (‘poor quality’). She contrasted her own home with houses in Sarawak, which she described as lengkap (‘complete’ with running water, electricity, and

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a bathroom). She believed this was a pity for people in Sambas, as Sambas and Sarawak shared the one tanah (‘land’), and yet, Sambas people cannot earn enough despite their hard work. She used this inequality to justify her involvement in technically illegal activity.18 Aminah explained how pergi ke lading (‘farming’) doesn’t bring much return, and even then, farmers may only get paid once a year. For this reason many people work in Sarawak, she stated, as she herself had done several years before. She had worked as an ‘office-boy’ in a Chinese Malaysian factory. Her experience was very positive, as she had met people from the United States and Japan and learned new skills. She had a high regard for Chinese Malaysians, referring to them as orang baik (‘good people’), and had learned some basic business skills from her employer. I asked why she didn’t return to Malaysia. In response she articulated a strong connection between place and her identity as a Sambas Malay woman and mother, answering, ‘kami orang di sini’ (‘we are people from here’) and that she was now the mother of four children. Her assumption was that fathers, who remit money, may be absent but that the mothering of young children should not be left to others and is best done in the place where one belongs. Aminah said that making money from lelong was a challenge, as there were now many traders. (As we chatted, she sold only one piece of children’s clothing for the equivalent of US$ 1). While all her fellow traders worked independently, many bought from the same supplier (‘boss’) in Pemangkat. Aminah bought her lelong in 50 kg bundles for about IRD 4 million (US$ 400). The contents were unpredictable, and traders were only told that the merchandise comes from Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. Aminah was eager to learn how to be more successful from Sambas Chinese. She explained that orang Cina (‘Sambas Chinese’) pegang (‘dominate’) the economy in Sambas, while Sambas Malays only have ladang (‘agricultural fields’). She didn’t resent her Chinese neighbours: rather, she admired their business acumen and wanted to replicate it herself. The portraits of Dina and Aminah depict a territorial borderscope informed by a moral economy that legitimates women’s right to bend rules to support their families. Their petty law-breaking was situated within the context of, and dwarfed by, the cross-border smuggling of ‘bosses’, Indonesian police, and the military. 18 Known in standard Indonesian as pakaian bekas (‘used clothing’), lelong is illegal because there is no import duty paid on these goods, and also on 14 July 2015 the Indonesian Ministry of Trade issued regulation 51/M-DAG/PER/7/2105 banning the import of all used clothing. This followed a 2012 government regulation that only newly made items could be imported into Indonesia.

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Cultural proximities of weavers in Brunei In the final case study, that of songket weavers in Brunei, there was no opportunity for women to work illegally by forging documents or over-staying social visas. This is also the only case study where the issue of cultural consanguinity between migrant workers and the host destination arose. In the other cases of labour migrants and border traders, the primary cultural ties strengthened by women’s economic mobility were those of Sambas adat-based norms of support between Sambas Malays related by village or blood. The one exception to this rule was amongst migrant songket weavers, where songket itself operated as a mechanism of cultural proximity. Songket is a hand-woven textile characterised by supplementary weft threads of ‘silver’ or ‘gold’. Malays commonly wear songket in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. General remarks about songket made by non-weavers tend to stress the uniqueness of Sambas songket. However, the comments of weavers themselves suggest a lively scene of cross-border cultural borrowing and blending.19 In Sambas, songket weavers originate from a small number of villages, where weaving typically provides a supplementary source of income.20 In the past 20 years, Sambas songket weavers have started to migrate to Brunei as documented migrant workers. These migrant weavers have returned with stories, savings, and new skills. Many described their experience in Brunei as one of working non-stop: ‘benar-benar gak ada berhentinya betul’ (‘truly without stopping’). They contrasted this with the shorter working hours and more relaxed conditions of weaving in Sambas. The songket weavers’ contractual employment terms, such as wages, living arrangements, and length of stay, were clearly defined, but their entitlement to days off was not always fully honoured. I interviewed four songket weavers who had worked in Brunei. Two had migrated as mothers of teenage children. Besides wanting to uang tambahanlah (‘earn money in general’), one weaver had specifically saved for her child’s university education. A further motivation was to develop their weaving skills and expand their repertoire of motifs. The two younger, unmarried weavers viewed working in Brunei as an opportunity to find 19 Songket is also woven and worn by other groups, such as the Balinese (Nakatani, 2015). I return to a discussion of songket in Chapters Five and Six. 20 Songket weavers are also farmers, particularly of rice for the subsistence of their households. For example, of the weavers discussed in Chapter Five, Kak Haminah grew rice and was the leader of the women’s farming group in her village for a time.

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husbands and earn money while seeing the world (‘cari jodoh sambil jalanjalan’; ‘cari jodoh, cari duit dan jalan-jalan’).21 The notion that women’s borderscopes of mobility might also invoke ideas of a common translocal Malay culture zone first surfaced in the comments of Kak Hasibah, who noted that Sambas and Brunei shared the same Malay culture. Kak Hasibah went to Brunei on a two-year contract in her mid-30s, leaving her husband and teenage son behind in Sambas (her son was in the care of her older sister). The contract was organised by a local Sambas Malay who also buys Sambas songket to sell in Brunei. Kak Hasibah lived above her Brunei workplace with four other Sambas songket weavers and earned B$ 250 (US$ 158) a month. Her primary motivations were financial (‘cari duit, uang tambahanlah’) and broadening her knowledge of songket weaving (‘saya ingin menambah pengalaman bagaimana perbandingan tenunan Sambas dengan tenunan Brunei’). She chose not to extend her contract due to becoming kurus dan capek (‘thin and exhausted’) from the pressures of work. Kak Hasibah preferred to work in Sambas, weaving no more than five hours a day; in Brunei, she had to work between eight and ten hours per day. She now wears glasses, which she blames on having to weave in the evening in Brunei (‘kalau malam kita rajin nyongket cepat merusakkan mata’). Often, she was not given Sundays off, as her employer would expect them to work. (‘Itu majikan yang ngasih, biasa orang migrasi itu dia bilang ke kami pekerja, “Eeh kenapa hari minggu gak mau kerja?”’) Another pressure was the stress of not making a mistake. Their work was closely scrutinised; if a mistake was found, they had to undo the weaving and were not allowed to use embroidery to conceal it as in Sambas.22 Kak Hasibah believed that Brunei and Sambas shared the same culture because Sambas’ rulers are descended from Brunei’s monarchs (‘budayanya di Sambas sama adat Melayu di Brunei sebab raja Sambas masih keturunan raja Brunei’) (see, also Collins, 2004). To prove her point, she drew on religion, marriage (both have saprahan), and men’s clothing (women’s clothing in Brunei was closer to Malaysia, as they wear baju kurung).23 She also stated 21 Li describes jodoh as it applies to marriage partners in the following terms: ‘The Malay language captures the idea of the mutual adjustment or “fit” of two individual souls in the concept of jodoh, which is an important element in a successful marriage. Jodoh is seen as mystically bestowed, though only retrospectively. Mutual adjustment is known to be a continuous process throughout a marriage’ (1989, p. 33). 22 ‘Kalau salah, ‘buka’, katanya. Dibukalah tuh, di Brunei susah walaupun dah banyak bikin kain katanya salah dibuka. Kalau di sini bisa kita sulam tapi kalau di Brunei ndak bisa’. 23 In Brunei, saprahan, or eating from a shared plate, is done in groups of four at a table. In Sambas, it is done in groups of six, sitting on the floor. In both contexts, the groups are segregated

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that she felt respected in Brunei as a foreign worker (‘di Brunei, dihormati pekerja asing’)—offering as an example the invitation extended to foreign workers to meet the royal family during the religious holidays after Ramadan. This example also highlighted the contrast with Malaysia, where foreign workers are never greeted as fellow Muslims, let alone invited to meet the king.24 Arguably, however, the clearest example of cultural affinity with Brunei is the songket itself. Despite different motifs and techniques, there was enough similarity for cultural borrowings between Sambas and Brunei. Kak Hasibah related how a Sambas weaver and co-worker took a Sambas motif with her to Brunei, that of bunga kayu petak. Petak (or ‘square’) is a style of weaving marked by a quadratic design across the length of the cloth and is common to both Sambas and Brunei (where it is called beragi). Sambas songket in the petak style fetches a high price in Brunei, according to Kak Hasibah. Brunei motifs and styles are similarly of interest in Sambas. Kak Hasibah recounted how she and a co-worker secretly photocopied some Brunei motifs to bring back to Sambas. Kak Hasibah brought back five motifs, which she viewed as payment in kind for Brunei’s incorporation of Sambas Malay motifs (‘kita mencipta motif bunga kayu [petak]. Kan kita senang kan udah ngambil di sana’). When she told her songket buyer in Sambas, Ibu Tenun was very excited (‘saya bilang “ini motif Brunei”. “Oohh… bagus, bagus”, katanya’). Brunei’s style of weaving is of interest to Sambas for another reason. Many Sambas weavers have learnt how to make the reverse side of their weaving rapi (‘neat’) by imitating what they or other weavers have learnt in Brunei. An example is Lin, who learned this skill while working in Brunei, and has since passed it on to her older sister, also an accomplished weaver in Sambas. This was not the only knowledge conveyed: frequent text messages and trips back to Sambas often brought information about new colours, yarns, and fashions. In Brunei, the range of yarns is extensive, and one day I accompanied Lin to a shop in Bandar Seri Begawan, when she purchased by gender. Baju kurung is a common dress for Muslim women in Malaysia and Brunei, consisting of a floor-length skirt under a long-sleeved, knee-length tunic, typically made from the same material. In Sambas, I recall seeing only a few girls wearing baju kurung, and these tended to be gifts brought back from Malaysia by relatives. 24 ‘Bedanya kalau di Malaysia kita ndak pernah bersalaman apalagi kita pekerja asing ndak pernah lah dengan raja Malaysia’. (Author’s translation). Much has been written about Malaysians’ negative perceptions of Indonesian workers (Crinis, 2005; Devadason and Chan, 2014; Spaan, van Naerssen, and Kohl, 2002). In Sarawak in particular, Sanderson (2016) reports a general distrust and even fear of Indonesians working in Sarawak’s oil palm industry.

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yarns unavailable in Sambas. When I next saw this yarn, it was in the form of songket curtains in the front room of her sister’s house. The above observations reveal a dynamic exchange and interplay of songket styles and techniques between Sambas and Brunei, as songket weavers’ cross-border work both reinforced and displaced acknowledged differences of motif and technique. For some, like Kak Hasibah, this interchange built on a broader alleged cultural ‘kinship’ between Sambas and Brunei. Lin, however, struggled to see any evidence of such kinship. The experiences of her cousins and husband had instead confirmed her sense of Indonesians’ general inferiority in the eyes of Bruneians. Lin was 27 and on a three-year contract when I met her in Brunei. Two of her cousins were also working in Brunei (her female cousin worked in catering and her male cousin in construction). She had recently married a Javanese man who worked on the same construction site as her male cousin. Lin asserted that Indonesian workers have a very low status in Brunei, although Sambas Malays—‘as people from Kalimantan’—were treated somewhat better, possibly expressing an ‘insular scale’ identity as found elsewhere in Kalimantan (see Bond, 2017). As a skilled songket weaver, Lin recognised that she garnered more respect and was better paid than many other migrant workers. While Lin did not feel ill-treated, she thought Bruneians were manja (‘spoiled’, like children), relying on the work and stamina of a foreign workforce.25 Despite these criticisms, Lin appreciated the cleanliness and safety of Brunei, the higher salary, and the opportunity to acquire new weaving skills, which she would continue developing back in Sambas. (Lin returned to her home village after becoming pregnant, thereby annulling her employment contract. Her Javanese husband also now lives and works in Sambas as a builder). The case studies presented above demonstrate the diverse range of factors that comprise women’s territorial borderscope of mobility. Some features are common across the region, such as rural households’ reliance on multiple (on-farm and off-farm) livelihoods, young women’s desire to be economically independent and to find a life partner, and mothers’ sense of responsibility to their families; other elements are more context dependent, arising from geographical location, historical precedence, and perceptions of a shared, but inequitable, land. These include Sambas Malay women’s proximity to 25 The attitude of locals towards migrants is clearly an important area of research, but one that goes beyond the scope of this book. Nevertheless, there is evidence of a decline in Malaysians’ openness towards Indonesian labour migrants over time (Crinis, 2005; Spaan, van Naerssen, and Kohl, 2002), as well as an increasing willingness to use harsh and punitive measures against undocumented workers, including caning by Malaysian authorities and civilian members of Malaysia’s People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA) (Devadason and Chan, 2014).

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more varied and highly rewarded foreign labour markets, the ability to exploit economic differences through cross-border trade, and the existence of well-established pathways—including informal ones—that facilitate their mobility. Shared material cultural traditions, such as the weaving and wearing of songket, are a further example of the importance of contextual factors. The discussion also documented the importance of kinship and village relations in the establishment of these cross-border pathways, the constitution of a remittance economy, and the practical support provided by Sambas-based family to daughters and their children. Women’s personal mobility also required the negotiation of community expectations, which endorse women’s economic roles but place limits on their independent mobility, such that women with young families, for example, focussed on Sambas-based economic activities. The implications of women’s territorial borderscope of mobility are also numerous, ranging from the very personal to effects experienced within the household, the village, and Sambas Malay society in general. It is not possible to provide an extensive catalogue of all the likely consequences and impacts of women’s cross-border mobility. In addition, I will set aside the cultural implications of a translocal trade and exchange in songket until Chapter Six. Instead, in the fourth section of this chapter, I offer a more targeted analysis of those implications that are most directly related to the (re)constitution of Sambas Malayness in villages and common to the women in this chapter. From this vantage point, the socio-cultural effects of women’s cross-border mobility are most keenly apparent in practices of kinship and marriage, which not only underpin labour mobility in wide-ranging ways, but also underwrite the continuing social and economic importance of rural Sambas Malay households and a broad association between Sambas Malayness and rurality. However, to appreciate the implications of cross-border mobility on the constitution of Sambas Malayness, some prior discussion about village women’s self-identification as Sambas Malay and their identification of cultural practices deemed to be ‘Sambas Malay’ is required. The next section provides this background information.

Village women on Sambas Malay identity, adat, and culture How important was identifying as ‘Sambas Malay’ for the village women in this study? And which aspects of their cultural practice did they identify as Sambas Malay? To address these questions, one section of the survey administered to the village women’s groups included a question on Sambas

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Malay adat (‘customary practices’) and budaya (‘culture’). Women were asked to give their own ethnicity (and that of their forbears and members of their household) before identifying elements of Sambas Malay culture and adat as a way to understand the meanings that rural women attach to the idea of Sambas Malayness (see Appendix 1). This was not an exhaustive discussion of women’s views on Sambas Malayness. Nevertheless, it did highlight a number of cultural practices associated with rituals of incorporation and elements of Sambas Malay kinship that have assumed new significance in response to women’s cross-border mobility, and are thus connected to the discussion of the ethnocultural consequences of women’s territorial borderscope. Weddings as rituals of incorporation One of the most elaborated cluster of rituals mentioned by the women was related to weddings. Within these large, ‘open house’ life-stage events, the operation of institutionalised, largely voluntary, village-based support structures were still evident. Through various groups, households contributed in money and kind to ease the burden and reduce the cost of weddings. At one wedding I observed in a village in Tebas, one group erected the communally-owned platforms and tents, while another was responsible for providing the communally-owned crockery. At least three men coordinated the cooking of curries and rice in large cookware over open fires. This activity started the day before and continued throughout the night, with groups of mostly women husking coconuts, butchering chickens, and preparing onions, garlic, chillies, and vegetables.26 Several days prior to the wedding, female neighbours dropped by with contributions of rice, eggs, chickens, and money. Only the dishwashers at this wedding were paid (although, I was told, this was not the case in the past). The collective dimensions of assisting and participating in wedding rituals were explicitly emphasised by the women, along with the rituals’ principal function of cementing ties of unity and kinship between individuals and individual families that were previously unrelated.27 26 In Sambas, men are largely responsible for cooking in such volume—as is the case in Langkawi (Carsten, 1997, p. 164) and Perak (Thompson, 2007, p. 109), but not in Kelantan (Rudie, 1994, p. 180). Nevertheless, the overall impression is of both women and men pitching in to prepare the food together. 27 The majority of Sambas Malay wedding rituals aim to unify the couple and establish relations between their respective families (for example, mandi belulus and mulang-mulangkan). They also share similarities with adat rituals enacted at the start of other new undertakings. For

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Weddings as rituals of incorporation have assumed a heightened significance given the increasing number of young Sambas Malay women marrying non-Sambas Malay men whom they had met while working abroad. This is because, on a day-to-day basis, wedding rituals play a key role in transforming the ethnic ‘outsider’ into ‘Sambas Malay’ kin. This may not be as pronounced as amongst Jambi Malays, where Kerlogue (2000, p. 338) notes that the ethnic origins of a non-Malay person are regarded as being dissolved upon marriage or adoption into a Malay family. Nevertheless, the Sambas Malay wedding practices, which are designed to turn the unrelated bride and groom (and their families) into kin, carry similar overtones. For example, the ritual buang-buang (literally, ‘to throw away’) is performed at night by a dukun (‘adat ritual specialist’) to ensure harmony between the couple and help them put aside habits associated with their former single status. A few informants identified this ritual as important for the incorporation of a bride or groom from a different suku-bangsa (‘ethno-linguistic group’) into the Sambas Malay community. This interpretation can also be inferred from the comments of Abd. Rani, a 72-year old Sambas Malay buang-buang ritual specialist: ‘The purpose of buang-buang is to make close the relations between husband and wife so that there are no quarrels and divisions. Because from the beginning we are made up of different bangsa [ethnicities] (although, originally, we are the grandchildren of Adam), so we need to grow close and build our bangsa’ (author’s translation of Kaspullah 2010, Attachment 2). The word ‘bangsa’ in the above quote is difficult to translate. It is the root word for kebangsaan (‘nationality/nationalism’) as well as for sukubangsa (‘ethno-linguistic group’), and has ‘strong connotations of ethnicity and, implicitly, territory’ (Young, 2012, p. 67). In this context, use of the term bangsa suggests that this local ritual has the incorporation of ethnic outsiders as one of its functions. In a similar vein, my friend explained that I would have to go through a similar ritual, tepung tawar, before I could be called Mak Su (‘mother who is the youngest sibling in her family’), following local Sambas Malay naming practices. This practice of referring to people in terms of their position in their family was also nominated by village women as a feature of Sambas Malay culture. Given its ability to incorporate others as family, with all the rights and responsibilities flowing from that, example, mappas is performed at weddings as well as in relation to a new house or new baby. A central component in many rituals is air tolak bala, water that is made spiritually powerful by the recitation of the Qur’an. Air tolak bala is an essential component of mappas, potong rambut, healing rituals, and buang-buang, which not only unif ies the new couple, but also wards off impure and dangerous elements. See Ikram (2004) and Rivai (1997) for a more complete discussion of these rituals.

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it is also an important aspect of Sambas Malays’ territorial borderscope: kin networks (both real and ascribed) are significant in the negotiation and management of cross-border mobility. Sambas Malay naming practices and ascriptive siblingship Known as bebase in Sambas Malay, this system of naming is widely acknowledged as a characteristic of Sambas Malayness.28 This naming practice operates within families to modify the word for sister (kakak or kak) or brother (abang or bang) to indicate where the individual falls in their sibling order. For example, the first-born daughter will be called along (for example, Kak ’long or ‘eldest sister’); the second-born will be called anggah (for example, Kak Ngah or ‘second/middle sister’), and Kak ammo is used to refer to a middle sibling who is somewhat chubby or ‘fat’. As children grow into adults, their prefix changed to acknowledge their age, so that—for example—Kak ’long becomes Mak ’long (mak or ‘mother’ is used to signify a woman of one’s mother’s generation) and Bang Ammo becomes Pak Ammo (pak or ‘father’ is used to signify a man of one’s father’s generation). According to Rivai (1997), this system of name construction signifies a profound closeness, as well as the obligation to take care of, have regard for, and give assistance to each other. While this system is used amongst people who are biologically related, it also operates as a mechanism within Sambas Malay culture to establish ties of kinship where they do not in fact exist. The particular logic at work here (the modification of the word for brother or sister) is characteristic of other Malay kinship systems (Kemp, 1983; Banks, 1983, p. 142), and has been drawn upon to argue that siblingship is the central principle of Malay kinship (Peletz, 1988, 1996; Carsten, 1995, 1997, 1998). The Malay term adik beradik (‘kin’ or ‘relative’), for example, has its root in the word adik (‘younger sibling’) (Carsten, 1995, p. 225). Siblings are also ‘perceived to be closer than any other kin both in terms of shared bodily substance and the emotional tie between them’, with the sibling bond providing ‘the model for proper, moral ‘kin-like’ behaviour’ (Carsten, 1995, p. 225).29 Yet, siblingship is also strongly metaphoric (Karim, 1995, p. 37) and operates to blur the ‘absolute distinctions between kin and non-kin’ (Carsten, 1997, p. 273) 28 In Yusriadi’s (2015, p. 84) investigation into whether the Malays in the upper reaches of the Sambas River were Sambas Malay or not, he used the presence of this naming practice as one argument for validating their claims to be Sambas Malay. 29 Nagata makes a related point: ‘similar kinds of behaviour and assistance are enjoined for kin and non-kin alike. This is reinforced by a single system of terminology of reference and address for both kin and non-kin’ (1976, p. 402).

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through its expansive and elastic capacity. This highly situational quality of siblingship offers special advantages for highly mobile populations who need to invent kin-like relations in novel contexts (Carsten, 1997; Nagata, 1976). This is also of value in Sambas, where incorporation rituals and teknonyms based on siblingship operate to transform non-kin into kin, with all the corollary personal and community obligations and support the relationship implies. My friend’s light-hearted comment about undertaking a ritual to become Mak Su thus speaks to a deeper sensibility about the incorporation of outsiders into Sambas Malay community using real and fictive kinship terminology. It also can be applied to contexts of cross-border mobility, where co-villagers, other Sambas Malays, and even friends of friends can be called upon to offer the support and closeness associated with sisters and brothers. Households, bilaterality, and matrilocality The above rituals of incorporation and teknonyms also need to be situated within the practical and ethnolinguistic relations one acquires as the result of ties to a Malay household. A full understanding of the dynamics operating here requires an appreciation of both the centrality of the household in the organisation of rural villages and women’s dominion over household activities. In the context of elevated cross-border labour mobility, women’s centrality to the function and organisation of households takes on new and challenging dimensions, but does not diminish. Janet Carsten (1995, 1997) argues that the Langkawi Malay house is at the heart of relatedness, of becoming kin, and that this is achieved largely via the work of women, given their dominance over domestic spaces (see, also Carsten and Hugh-Jones, 1995). As Carsten (1997, p. 12) argues, ‘feeding, living together in one house, fostering of children, and marriage’ are the central activities associated with kinship. Sharing rice, breast milk, and blood are seen as expressions of kinship—or ‘relatedness’—that all derive from and operate through women’s activities (Carsten, 1995, p. 228). As in the Langkawi Malay community, women in Sambas are crucial to the kinship processes that ‘give meaning to social relations’ (Blackwood, 2000, p. 16) in their roles as real (or fictive) daughters, mothers, and sisters and through their everyday provision of food and other services within households and the neighbourhood.30 In Sambas, most food preparation 30 The full quote from Blackwood (2000, p. 16) refers to kinship as an ‘idiom of social practices, a set of ideas—about relatedness, “blood”, sociality, friendship, obligation and origin—that give meaning to social relations’.

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and serving is performed by women, and much of the food required by rural households is also produced by women. The care of children is also primarily the responsibility of women. Teenage daughters follow their mothers: they are taught to cook and expected to perform household chores, serve elders and the men in their families, and care for young siblings and cousins. Once they have left school—if they remain in the village—they also support their mothers in their agricultural work. Importantly, rural women’s sustained involvement in food production, commensality, and child care does not simply reproduce the household. Rather, the activities largely performed by women—such as the cultivation, preparation, and sharing of food and the nurturing, education, and enculturation of children—are also crucial to the ‘symbolic reproduction of the community’ (Carsten, 1995, p. 13). Sambas Malay women’s own reported genealogies revealed the flexibility and absorptive qualities of Sambas Malay households. In the surveys, women were asked to give the ethnicity and birthplace of themselves, their husbands, and their parents and grandparents on both sides. They were also asked to list the members and ethnicities of their households. Except for some Javanese sons-in-law, current household members were overwhelmingly categorised as ‘Sambas Malay’. Curiously, however, several women also identified a non-Sambas Malay parent (and in some cases, two or more non-Sambas Malay grandparents). Most commonly, these non-Sambas Malay parents and grandparents were Sambas Dayak, Sambas Chinese, or migrants from other parts of Indonesia. For example, in Desa Sungai all fourteen women identified as Sambas Malay, even though one had a Sambas-born Javanese mother, another identified her father’s family as Sambas Chinese, and two ‘Sambas Malay’ sisters had a Sambas Dayak father who had converted to Islam. This pattern suggest that mixed ancestry is ‘lost’ within one generation—not in the sense that it is forgotten, but in the sense that it no longer determines a woman’s primary ethnic identity. The overall impression from the surveys is one of rapid incorporation of non-Malays into households based on residence and a bilateral ascription of ethnicity (that is, one can claim Sambas Malay identity based on either one’s mother’s or father’s side).31 An openness to marrying 31 Here are the findings from the other villages: in Desa Pantai, only one of the 24 respondents identified as non-Malay (Bugis). Two others identified as Sambas Malay, although they identif ied their fathers as Sambas-born Javanese. In Desa Parit and Desa Rotan, all of the women identif ied themselves, their husbands, and children as Malay. Most also identif ied their parents and grandparents as Sambas-born Malays. The few exceptions were in Desa Rotan, where two women had a Sambas-born Bugis father and a Bali-born Arab father, respectively,

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non-Malays and their incorporation as ‘Malay’ kin is by no means unique to Sambas. Bilaterality or cognatic kinship is often defined as the hallmark of many Southeast Asian societies, including those of the Malays, where it is seen to accord women a relatively high status in combination with a tendency toward matrilocal residence after marriage (Banks, 1983; Carsten, 1995, 1997; Errington, 1990; Karim, 1992; Hirschman, 2016; Nagata, 1995; Thambiah, 2016). However, it is not merely the exercise of a kinship abstraction—i.e., bilaterality—that is important here. Ties of residence in a Sambas Malay-identified household and village, and the concomitant practice of Sambas Malay cultural attributes, is central to this process of ethnic ascription. How then do these processes of ethnic ascription and cultural identification intersect with women’s cross-border mobility? As discussed in the next section, Sambas Malay households and kinship relations not only support women’s territorial borderscope (by providing care for young children, incorporating non-Sambas Malay spouses, and utilising the flexible ascription of sibling status to assist with migration), but are themselves reproduced as a result of women’s cross-border mobility. A further consequence—one tied to the centrality of the household and women’s self-identified role as provider of food, especially rice—is the continued importance of rural households and women’s investment in agriculture.

Socio-cultural implications of women’s territorial borderscope The principle ethnocultural effects of women’s territorial borderscope are the reinforcement of specific elements of Sambas Malay kinship, and the reconstitution of a rural, female Sambas Malay farmer. Three aspects of kinship (bilaterality, siblingship and matrilocatily) and their association with rurality are explored further below to demonstrate how village women’s socioeconomic mobility reconstitutes the absorptive, supportive, and reproductive capacities of a rural-based Sambas Malay adat. and in Desa Parit, where four women identif ied one grandparent from Java (most often their father’s father). The 14 women surveyed in Desa Jaya all identif ied as Sambas Malay, but two had Sambas-born Dayak fathers. In Desa Gelar, two women identif ied themselves as Sambas Dayak married to Sambas Malay husbands. A fourth woman identified as Sambas-born Batak and was married to a Sambas Malay husband. In these three mixed households, the women categorised their children as ‘Sambas Malay’, not as Dayak-Malay or Batak-Malay. In Desa Seri, the only non-Sambas Malays were four husbands/sons-in-law, who were all Javanese (Java-born) migrant labourers.

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Kinship and Sambas Malayness Currently, there is an emerging pattern of young, Sambas Malay women finding husbands who originate from other Indonesian provinces, as opposed to their village or Sambas more generally. This trend is a consequence of young, unmarried women’s increasing participation in cross-border migration, a form of mobility that is accompanied by a desire to not only be economically independent and see something of the world, but also to pursue possibly intimate relationships. In my study, it was predominantly female migrants who married Javanese men; there were only scattered reports of Sambas Malay men marrying Javanese or other Indonesian migrants. Rarer still were reports of Sambas Malays marrying Malaysian nationals (and there were no reports of Sambas Malays marrying Bruneian nationals). In this scenario, Sambas Malay women become critical actors in new, but not unprecedented, forms of cultural integration that lead to the incorporation of non-Sambas Malay ‘outsiders’. Bilaterality, as shown in women’s genealogies, enables the parents of both the mother’s and father’s side to be drawn upon to identify as Sambas Malay. Presumably, this custom will continue to function in this manner to allow the children of mixed marriages raised in Sambas villages to consider themselves Sambas Malay. One question this raises concerns the role of Sambas Malay adat or culture in this process. One aspect seems particularly important to ensuring children’s incorporation as Sambas Malay: the matrilocal household. Here, in addition to the practical support of matrilocal kin in underwriting cross-border mobility, the matrilocal household is pivotal to the transmission of Sambas Malay culture and identity. Furthermore, women’s work within households lies at the core of those practices that bind relatedness with Sambas Malay identity, whether this is through women’s everyday practices of growing and preparing food, of caring for children and older family members, or through women’s management of and participation in rituals and ceremonies associated with Sambas Malay adat. As both migrants and the wives of migrants, women rely upon and reinstate matrilocal residency patterns and the matrilocal household more broadly. Women whose husbands are cross-border migrants (whether Sambas Malay or not) show a pattern of matrilocal residence—often living in their parents’ house when their children are small or living nearby in their natal village if they can afford to keep their own household. Sambas Malay women who have married a fellow migrant worker typically return to their home village once they become pregnant, while their husbands often continue as contract workers abroad. Several factors inform this decision, which

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has the effect of strengthening matrilocal residency patterns in Sambas. Principal among these factors is the prohibition on family migration by low skilled workers in Malaysia and Brunei, and the repatriation of pregnant low-skilled Indonesian women from these countries. Another is Sambas’ relative proximity to husbands’ foreign workplaces and its lower cost of living. Informants stated that it suited migrant husbands to have wives from Sambas, as their wives and children would stay relatively near while they themselves continued working. Sambas wives and children were also less of a financial burden when they lived in the wife’s village and had access to productive agricultural resources. As Sambas Malay society already had a cultural preference for matrilocality, women were also accustomed to the idea of living their married life in their natal village and recognised the level of support this guaranteed from nearby parents and siblings. The support of maternal kin was certainly a factor in the lives of crossborder traders, such as Dina, whose weekend trips to Serikin with her husband were only possible because she could leave their children in the care of her mother. Mothers of older children also drew on the assistance of maternal kin, such as Hasibah, the weaver in Brunei, who was able to leave her teenage son in the care of her sister. Another factor that re-emphasises the significance of women’s natal village and family is the possibility of divorce and abandonment by migrant husbands. Several women I interviewed who had married Javanese and Sambas Malay men were either no longer married or no longer supported by their husbands. Working as a migrant labourer may weaken men’s connection to their wife and child, alongside a growing sense of being more of an outsider in their wife’s village in Sambas than they are at work in Malaysia. Another factor posited by the people I interviewed was that it is easier to leave a wife who resides with her parents and close family because she is less vulnerable and more supported.32 The cultural importance of the sibling bond also appears to be reinforced by the assistance given by siblings, and the precedence set by them, in relation to cross-border labour migration. The lack of reports of parents forbidding daughters from labour migration or insisting that they marry first indicate that these are largely practices of the past (see also, Hasan Gaffar, 2011). Central to the practical support of siblingship was its situational designation that could commonly extended to individuals 32 Peletz (1996, p. 109) records a similar sentiment among Malays in Negeri Sembilan, where it was assumed that ‘all women will marry and have children, and that they must have resources to fall back on, especially since they may not always be able to depend on their husbands’ due to labour migration, desertion, divorce, and death.

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who were not full brothers and sisters, including cousins, co-villagers, and peers. From the perspective of female migrants, having a brother, sister, or cousin working abroad reduces the risks of traveling while establishing the economic viability and social acceptance of this form of work. These sibling-facilitated pathways may also account for the fact that Sambas Malay labourers do not often migrate to areas with historical ties to Sambas, such as Lundu and Sematang in the northwest of Sarawak (Ishikawa, 2010). Instead, ‘sibling’ networks take precedence and establish fresh labour migration pathways—for example, when a brother gives advice about a factory job in Bintulu, or when a cousin helps secure a position as a domestic worker. For Dahlia, her decision to return to Brunei as a live-in domestic worker was influenced by her cousin’s connection; similarly, Siti’s work in Bintulu resulted from following in her brother’s footsteps. The elastic embrace of cousins, co-villagers, and peers as ‘sisters’ and ‘brothers’ may also allay moral concerns surrounding young women’s cross-border migration and their resulting independent socialisation. Lin’s relationship with a Javanese stranger was arguably less fraught since they were introduced (and in some sense chaperoned) by her Sambas ‘brother’ cousin. The ability of Sambas Malay kinship to incorporate outsiders as Sambas Malays and to stretch siblingship in response to specific circumstances was both a basis and outcome of women’s cross-border mobility. Sambas’ border location and the economic importance of cross-border labour migration and trade are thus highly significant factors in the continuing importance and reproduction of Sambas Malay kinship norms. A further socio-cultural effect of cross-border mobility relates to the ongoing salience of an association linking Sambas Malayness to a rural imaginary. Rurality and Sambas Malayness Most of the women discussed in this chapter viewed themselves as tani (‘farmers’). This is also how they labelled their husbands, except for those described as self-employed, civil servants, or labour migrants. For many of the women discussed in this chapter, cross-border work was one element in a more complex envisaging of a future that involved, but was not limited to, farming. Nevertheless, farming and in particular food production were important to these women.33 To this end, women invested 33 Women’s continuing involvement in agriculture even when involved in off-farm and non-farm work is not unusual. It is one of several possible contemporary agrarian transformations. See Vandergeest and Rigg (2012, p. 6) for a list of possible trajectories.

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money in their village households and farming-related resources—even women from households with very little land, such as Siti. The purchase of land, construction and improvement of village houses, and investment in new forms of cash crops are evidence of women seeking to secure their well-being in and through a rural locality. There were some differences across the sample, such as the lelong trader and songket weavers, but even here, the divergences were not as marked as one might imagine. As noted above, all but one of the songket weavers (Lin) farmed, and the cross-border trader, Dina, prioritised tending her rice f ields over accompanying her husband to Serikin. There is nothing inevitable about the way Sambas Malay women selectively utilise the opportunities of the border to manage their farming livelihoods. For example, the Ifugao in the Philippines reflect a different pattern, where cash remittances from women’s labour migration result in men’s investment in new crops and non-agricultural businesses (McKay, 2003, p. 285). In Sambas, however, it is Sambas Malay mothers who invest time and energy in cultivating productive rural futures for their households. As we have seen, this vision is one that reflects a preference for income-generating forms of agriculture while retaining women’s production of rice for household consumption. In this way, women’s willingness to reinvest in agriculture has the effect of reproducing a general association between Sambas Malayness and rurality, even as women introduce changes to the market relations and forms of agriculture in Sambas. Yet, as shown in this chapter, women’s investment in a version of Sambas Malay womanhood in which agriculture is central is increasingly premised on another model of womanhood: that of the independent, cross-border migrant worker or trader. This identity has not only been embraced by young, unmarried women as they transition into young adulthood, but also includes older women with no children or children old enough to be left in the care of other family members. The pull of rural kinship ties and livelihoods in women’s performance of their matrilocal and maternal responsibilities may also explain why the disinterest in agricultural work noted in a number of Indonesian studies is muted in Sambas (see, Naafs and White, 2012, p. 12). Women’s support of agriculture was important to women’s connection to place. Recalling Aminah’s earlier comment, ‘kami orang di sini’ (‘we are people from here’), Sambas Malay identification is also rooted to place in ways that connect kinship and locality. In Morgan’s (2011) study of oil palm encroachment in Sambas, women’s opposition to oil palm was partially framed as a defence of rubber trees, which were viewed as an ‘inheritance’ from their ‘ancestors’

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(Morgan, 2011, p. 180).34 The fact that a twentieth-century crop could be defended with references to ancestors tells us a lot about the temporal elasticity of ‘tradition’. It also emphasises the extent to which ties to place are also personalised in terms of ties of kinship. None of these effects should be interpreted as expressions of ‘traditional’ village culture: all of them constitute practical responses, albeit socio-culturally familiar ones, to contemporary economic and household strategies. Women build and maintain relations of kinship through growing rice and other foodstuffs, preparing food, having and raising children, and supporting other women in these activities. Women also produce goods for sale across the border, participate in cross-border labour migration, and invest in alternative economic activities. In general, the material presented in this chapter demonstrates an openness amongst village women to pursue new cross-border activities, intermarry with other ethnic groups, and invest in new rural livelihoods in ways that draw upon and reconstitute Sambas Malay adat, kinship, and identity.

Kinship and rurality: concluding comments on village women’s territorial borderscope The field data presented in this chapter indicates that the historical association between male mobility, commerce, and Malayness is being re-cast. There is a new female countenance to this association, the result of a marked increase in women’s cross-border mobility. At the heart of these women’s mobility lies a borderscope shaped by their proximity to the border. This territorial borderscope both informs and is informed by women’s mobility. The chief social and cultural implications of this borderscope relate to Sambas Malay kinship practices—a significant component of Sambas Malay adat—and to a broader association between Sambas Malayness and rurality. Women exhibit a range of motivations in their decision to work across the border. While primarily an economic decision, other reasons include seeing the world, finding a partner, and acquiring new skills. Despite this diversity, the general pattern is one where young women or women with no or older children participate in labour migration. Typically, women cease 34 Morgan (2011, p. 180) quotes two female farmers, one who argues that ‘Rubber is better. Rubber is from our ancestors; it is that old. It still can give us yields’, and the other who reasons ‘we do not want [oil palm] because [rubber] is business from our ancestors. When they planted long ago it was difficult, arduous’.

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cross-border work and return to their natal village when they become pregnant. They then seek forms of independent economic activity to support themselves and their children and draw on kin and community relations to assist with this work and childcare. In this way, women reside with their family of origin, thereby reinforcing matrilocal norms. Former migrants and women who receive remittances are also central to the reproduction of their village. They grow rice, harvest fruit trees, and tap rubber, in common with most village women, but also further invest in their villages by planting orange trees and rubber seedlings and buying land with money saved from their own labour migration or from their husband’s remittances. These women are thus at the centre of the creation of their own futures (as independent labour migrants, agriculturalists, traders, and artisans), which nevertheless remain anchored in their rural and gendered identities. The chapter also demonstrates the importance of considering the influence of rural working class or agricultural Sambas Malay women on contemporary processes of constituting and reconstituting Sambas Malay identity. The discussion has illuminated how Sambas Malay women’s cross-border mobility interacts with Sambas Malay adat, including practices of kinship. Through the flexible idiom of kinship, women adjust to new circumstances. Women’s selective engagement in labour migration, such as prior to childbearing or as mothers of older children, also strengthens elements of Sambas Malay culture, most prominently norms of motherhood and women’s identification as rice growers for their households. Numerous studies show how kinship relations are reconstituted as a result of broader social processes.35 To this field we can add cross-border labour mobility, which—as documented in this chapter—can reassert the primacy of selected kinship norms and practices. Women’s mobility simultaneously generates new identities associated with territorial borderscopes that in turn normalise women’s independent labour migration. These identities reflect both Sambas Malay women’s border zone location and ‘the unprecedented 35 For example, Malay kinship is shown to have undergone revision in the colonial and postcolonial periods in response to the commercialisation of agriculture, state policies, Muslim modernisers, and other broad social trends. These changes affected household structure, land tenure, and inheritance practices (see Peletz, 1988, 1996; Stivens, 1996). Rural-urban migration and urbanisation have also transformed reciprocal labour relations, forms of mutual assistance, and ties between village- and city-based kin (Li, 1989; Nagata, 1976; Ong, 1995; Stivens, 1996; Thompson, 2007, 2013). Islamic reform and resurgence, along with the ideological force of modernizing states, have further affected patterns of Malay gender relations, sexuality, and reproductive politics (Blackwood, 2000; Karim, 1995; Manderson, 1998; Ong, 1995; Peletz, 1988; Saptari, 2000; Sen, 1998; Stivens, 1998; Suryakusuma, 1996).

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opportunities for migration and wage earning’ (Naafs, 2012, p. 50) extended to Indonesian women in general. Such opportunities do not give rise to a generic Indonesian modality of female mobility. Rather, women’s participation in labour migration results in culturally-imbued and differentiated impacts. In the case of village-based Sambas Malay women, their mobility reinstates central pillars of Sambas Malayness related to the incorporative and situational qualities of kinship, in ways that suggest the operation of a local, gendered cosmopolitanism. The intersection of orientations and identities that are widespread in Indonesia with more particular ‘ethnic’ dispositions and associations is further explored in the next chapter. There, the borderscopes of mobility amongst Sambas Malay female civil servants reveal an entwinement of national and local outlooks and identifications that, like the women of this chapter, do not extinguish specific Sambas Malay cultural referents. On the contrary, women’s position as civil servants bolsters their ability to articulate and shape expressions of Sambas Malay culture and identity. In so doing, they also refer to a conceptualisation of the rural village as an essential component of Sambas Malayness—yet one marked by a profound ambivalence.

4

Public Sector Women Challenging the Borders of Marginality

For well-educated, salaried women in Sambas, the principal significance of the territorial border is as a marker of disadvantage and peripherality; it does not induce them to cross the border, unlike the farming and workingclass women described in the previous chapter. The term ‘borderscope of marginality’ employed in this and the next chapter encapsulates the feelings that educated, salaried Sambas Malay women attach to living and working in Sambas and, importantly, inform their decision-making with regard to their work. The sentiment of marginality is only partly due to the socioeconomic hardship that is familiar to many in Sambas. It is also informed by their education- and work-related mobility beyond Sambas. Their exposure to other parts of Indonesia consolidates an impression of Sambas as ‘lacking’ in precisely the fields in which they are most embedded. Consequently, these women’s desire to transcend the borders of marginality for themselves and other Sambas Malays orients them towards pathways such as university, vocational and professional training, and salaried forms of employment. A further feature of educated women’s borderscope of marginality is their ambivalence towards the international border with Sarawak. On the one hand, they have internalised the popular images of borderlands as poor and lawless sites of smuggling and trafficking (see also, Singh, 2017, p. 121). On the other, they sometimes view the border with Sarawak as an economic opportunity, especially as a point of access to Malaysian consumers and tourists. This ambivalence is at play in the comments of the public sector-employed women discussed in this chapter. While the opportunity to revitalise local handicrafts and tourism by selling goods and tourist destinations to Sarawak is viewed positively, the border is also seen as threatening Sambas’ socioeconomic future by depriving Sambas of workers. There are explicitly temporal dimensions to these oscillating border imaginaries as memories and past associations of the territorial border and its crossing collide with current hopes and fears (see also, Hurd, Donnan, and Leutloff-Grandits, 2017). When associated with the cross-border labour migration of working-class Sambas Malays, the territorial border is ascribed a negative evaluation, partially due to the women’s present-day reading of the site. In contrast, however, the territorial border as a means to access the markets of Sarawak is evaluated positively, in line with imagined future prosperity. Irrespective

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of whether the border is viewed positively or negatively, the territorial border remains a constitutive feature of public sector women’s borderscope of marginality, even though the cross-border mobility that they desire most for themselves and other Sambas women is oriented towards crossing the less tangible borders of education and socioeconomic advancement. It is predominantly in these spheres that public sector women influence Sambas Malay ethnocultural practices. In their official roles as planners and facilitators of training and economic advancement for other Sambas Malays, these women strive to reform the performance of Sambas Malay cultural practices. Their standing in the community as educated civil servants also gives them a degree of informal influence in the pursuit of their goals.1 Two groups of public sector women are considered in this chapter: civil servants and elected government representatives. Tania Murray Li’s (2007) discussion of the ‘will to improve’ as a form of government rationality can usefully be applied to both groups to better comprehend the nature and type of ethnocultural influence they effect. For Li (2007, p. 6), governmentality is exercised through programmatic actions or schemes that are designed to establish the conditions for specific forms of change by educating the desires or configuring the habits of the population. A key practice of governmentality is what Li (2007, p. 7) terms ‘rendering technical’: identifying problems or deficiencies, and developing and implementing specific interventions to rectify them. In Indonesia, the discourse of improvement is a longstanding one, with the design and implementation of ‘improvement schemes’ (Li, 2007) an established practice of government bureaucracy. The New Order popularised such practices under the rubric of pembangunan nasional (‘national development’), which operated as a legitimising ideology for its social and economic policies.2 Decentralisation has given this discourse a twist by positioning the development of regions as the pathway to national development. The public sector is now tasked with realising this reconfigured state-society relationship that prioritises the socioeconomic, cultural, and political interests of each region’s putera daerah (‘local sons and daughters’).3 1 This chapter is based on interviews and fieldwork conducted principally in 2008, 2009, and 2010. With the exceptions of Ibu Juliarti and Ibu Mu’azah, who spoke to me in their capacity as elected government representatives, all personal names in this chapter are pseudonyms. The names of their associated government departments and educational and religious organisations are real. 2 Ariel Heryanto (1988, p. 8) regarded Pembangunan as one of two ‘key-words’ (following Raymond William’s use of the term) in Indonesia during the New Order; the other is Pancasila. 3 This is not a wholesale rejection of the legitimacy of the central government. Rather, Sambas Malays in the public sector seek to recalibrate the power and authority of the provincial and

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This responsibility extends to the women in this chapter, who were each employed or held political office in a public sector dominated by Sambas Malays. Most public sector women in Sambas are working in functional positions, that is, in jobs that require expertise or training, such as teachers and health workers; very few are at the executive and managerial levels.4 Despite the gender imbalance, the rather sudden creation of bureaucratic positions in Sambas has provided educated women with a relatively rare opportunity to find work commensurate with their education. This represents the realisation of many young women’s aspiration to gain professional employment through tertiary education (Nilan, Parker, Bennet, and Robinson, 2011) and/or become civil servants (Minza, 2012). However, the generally poor reputation of Indonesia’s civil service—and its associations with patrimonialism and corruption (Kristiansen and Ramli, 2006; Mietzner and Aspinall, 2010, p. 9)—casts a shadow over their positions. For some of the civil servants in this chapter, it was this very ambivalence that fuelled a commitment to make a positive difference in local society, thus imbuing their own social mobility with a greater moral purpose. One consequence of the appointment and electoral success of Sambas Malays is the increasingly ‘blurred boundaries between adat and the administrative sphere’ (Müller, 2013, p. 102). A Sambas billboard sponsored by the local Department of Communications and Information to promote the national and local government elections in 2009 is indicative (see Image 4.1). It shows the former regent and vice-regent in formal Sambas Malay attire, including Vice-Regent Juliarti’s prominent display of Sambas songket, rather than in their official uniforms. At one level, this speaks to a possibly undemocratic association between Sambas Malayness and the Sambas Regency (where more than 20 percent of the population is non-Sambas Malay). On the other hand, it raises questions about how the women in this chapter (as Sambas Malay civil servants and elected officials) responded to the expectation that a predominantly Sambas Malay public sector would central governments, as well as Jakarta-based organisations, in their favour. As Long (2016) argues for Riau Islands, citizens may support decentralisation because they long for a new relationship with the ‘centre’ rather than hoping for complete autonomy (see also, Charras, 2005). 4 At the time of my research, female civil servants comprised around 34 percent of all civil service positions in Sambas (the Indonesian average was 46 percent). The largest group of female civil servants in Sambas were teachers, accounting for 68 percent of all female civil servants. Only around 20 percent of female civil servants was found in so-called ‘structural positions’, or managerial roles, in contrast to 35 percent of male civil servants. In Sambas in 2007, the percentage of women in Echelon 1 (the highest structural position) was 3 percent (or two women), compared to the Indonesian average of nearly 9 percent (Morgan, 2011, pp. 198-199).

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Image 4.1 ‘Exercise your right to vote’

better address the needs of Sambas Malays than former administrations had. One response was framing their activities with reference to their own Sambas Malay identification: recourse to a discourse of Sambas Malayness entitled them to speak and act on behalf of other Sambas Malays. Their justification of the exercise of power because of an intimate connection to Sambas further demonstrated that they were ‘making good’ on the promises of decentralisation.

Competent and committed In many respects, the public sector women described below are not dissimilar to other Indonesian putera daerah civil servants operating in decentralised bureaucracies, in which there is a strong impulse to reference local cultural identifications. Similar to public sector employees across Indonesia, they also experience the legacy of New Order bureaucratic cultures and structures. Despite the change of address from Singkawang to Sambas town and personnel, there was much to suggest a basic continuity between Sambas’ former centralised and current decentralised public sectors. Most of the public sector women discussed in this chapter worked within bureaucratic structures that were not all that different from those of the New Order. While more power devolved to the region, most female civil servants continued to

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occupy functional positions in departments with the same or similar names, with no greater say over budgets, resources, and policy, than they would have under the New Order. The few women in this chapter who wielded real power (for example, Ibu Juliarti and Ibu Farida) had formerly worked as civil servants in the bureaucratic structures of the New Order. Despite these commonalities, there is marked difference or new specificity in their attention to Sambas Malayness and their relationship to a borderscope of marginality vis-à-vis the adjacent territorial border. The conditions that give rise to Sambas-specific tropes of marginalisation were noted in Chapter Two. The main elements of marginalisation relevant to the current chapter are indicators of poverty—particularly in rural villages—mediocre secular and religious education, and women’s circumscribed public roles. In addressing such concerns, public sector women evaluated and modified the ethnocultural identifications of Sambas Malayness in their roles as educators, health workers, microenterprise developers, promoters of tourism, community leaders, and political representatives. In so doing, they revitalised certain markers of Sambas Malay identity through their promotion of local crafts and cultural heritage, but in ways that also contested and transformed practices, norms, and meanings. Here, they brought views and agendas that were not necessarily representative of those of all Sambas Malays, but that nevertheless shaped their professional and informal engagements with Sambas Malay members of the public. Moreover, in seeking to dismantle a geography of disadvantage, they partly reinstated the borders that defined Sambas marginality, especially those related to education and training, and how they translate into an urban/ rural divide. Their assessment of Sambas Malay villagers was marked by contradiction: villagers were seen as the repository of Sambas Malay culture and adat, but also lacking in training, know-how, and secular and religious education.5 These public servants participated in populist representations of the Malay villager as differing from the urban Malay, even though—as I argue in Chapter Three—there are strong grounds to dispute their polar opposition (see also, Thompson, 2003, 2007). 5 This is not unusual. The Riau Malay intellectual Yusuf Yusmar similarly positions the village as both the source of Malay wisdom and the site of Malay material poverty: ‘kampung bagi Melayu merupakan pusat ingatan sekaligus pusat sukma Melayu’ (‘the village for Malays is the centre of memory and also the centre of the Malay soul’) (2009, p. 45) and ‘Penduduk yang bermastautin di kantong-kantong kemiskinan inilah yang menyelenggarakan kebudayaan dan tradisi Melayu’ (‘The residents who reside in these pockets of poverty are the ones who uphold Malay culture and tradition’) (2009, pp. 45, 53). He advocates urbanisation and the movement of Malays from the village to the city as critical to modernising Malay culture (Yusmar, 2009, p. 53).

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Often public sector women’s professional and informal interactions focussed on rural Sambas Malay women and demonstrated a dedication to furthering these women’s well-being. However, this was not necessarily informed by a strong commitment to gender equality or to projects addressing the specific needs and interests of female constituents. Instead, gender norms associated with New Order bureaucratic structures—particularly as they related to an ideology of ‘state ibuism’—were still strong for many in this group and sat alongside their revitalised identification as Sambas Malay women. Julia Suryakusuma (1996, p. 101) coined the term ‘state ibuism’ to describe how New Order ideology and policies positioned women as ‘appendages and companions to their husbands, as procreators of the nation, as mothers and educators of children, as housekeepers, and as members of Indonesian society—and in that order’.6 For some of the female public servants in this chapter, there was a complementarity between this New Order gender ideology and their own Muslim Malay views on ‘woman as mother’ as the symbolic bearer of regional and national identifications (see Ibu Agama below). Juliarti Djuhardi Alwi, the former vice-regent (2006–2011) and regent (2011–2016), echoed other female political leaders in being no more likely than their male counterparts to pursue gender-focused policies (see Dewi, 2015). A medical doctor and former director of the Bureau of Health in Sambas, Ibu Juliarti was one of only 24 women directly elected to executive positions in the local government in the period 2005–2008 (accounting for only 2.4 percent of all elected executive positions) (Satriyo, 2010, p. 246). Her electoral success confirms Subianto’s (2009, p. 346) analysis that career bureaucrats and incumbents overwhelmingly dominate in the direct election for regent and vice-regent in West Kalimantan (see also, Satriyo, 2010). The prominence of Ibu Juliarti’s Sambas Malay family may also have been a factor.7 In my interview with her, Ibu Juliarti’s comments centred on social and personal barriers to women’s advancement and, in doing so, downplayed 6 ‘State ibuism’ limited the horizons offered to women in its idealised middle-class, Java-centric representation of the Indonesian woman as homemaker, mother, and supportive helpmate to her husband (Saptari, 2000; Sen, 1998; Sullivan, 1994; Tiwon, 1996). 7 Ibu Juliarti’s great grandfather (Panglima Bakran) and grandfather (H. Alwi Bakran) served as panglima (‘royal commanders’) to Sambas sultans. As noted in Chapter Two, her father (H. Djuhardi Alwi) founded Kijang Berantai in 1979, originally as an association of pencak silat (martial art) practitioners and students who wanted to keep alive the style developed and handed down by the panglima during the Sambas sultanate. Kijang Berantai is still highly regarded in this field, but has expanded to include rowing, traditional dancing, and folk songs, amongst other cultural activities.

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gender discrimination and structural impediments to women’s electoral success. Bessell (2010, pp. 228, 232-35) provides a comprehensive analysis of the barriers to women’s political success, noting how gender discrimination against female candidates within parties and the costs imposed on candidates by cash-strapped parties have weakened the gender equity objectives of recent general election and political party law reforms. 8 For Ibu Juliarti, however, the issue was women’s lack of confidence to step forward or speak out because of their limited education: My message to women is only to study, because knowledge will make them believe in themselves. Without knowledge, they don’t believe in themselves. Our [women’s] weakness is only that we don’t believe in ourselves because of a lack of knowledge and vision. […]We only want to embolden/encourage our women friends. Don’t let there be too much of a discrepancy [between men and women], don’t feel only that ‘I’m at home and don’t know anything. The person who knows is my husband, my husband knows about everything’. No, don’t let it get to that!9

In a related conversation, Ibu Mu’azah—at the time one of only three females out of 40 elected representatives in the regency’s parliament or DPRD—commented that women are hampered by their lack of organisational experience. Being active in organisations, she said, provides women with the skills and confidence to play a wider role in society. It also enhances their influence as this involvement enables women to become terkenal (‘known or recognised’), which bestows upon them a certain legitimacy to speak, give advice, and direct matters. Ibu Mu’azah did not acknowledge the institutionalised discrimination and financial barriers facing women with respect to electoral success and political parties. She did recognise, however, that women face barriers that make it difficult for them to take on wider public roles. The most significant of these barriers was motherhood. She explained that rural women juggle five roles: having children, raising children, domestic work, 8 As noted in Chapter Two, funding problems experienced by parties require candidates to fund their own media advertisements, staff, and witnesses at polling stations (Buehler, 2010, p. 274). 9 ‘Nah cuman pesan saya ke mereka [perempuan] belajar karena ilmulah yang membuat mereka bisa percaya diri, tanpa ilmu ndak percaya diri. Kelemahan kita kan cuman tidak percaya diri karena kurangnya ilmu dan wawasan’; ‘Kita cuma ingin menyemangati kawan-kawan perempuan, jangan terlalu jauh kesenjangan, jangan terlalu merasa “saya yang di rumah gak tau apa-apa ya, yang tau semua bapak, apa-apa semua bapak”. Nah jangan-jangan seperti itu’. (Author’s translation).

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social activities, and farming/productive economic activities. While their husbands sleep, women are busy in the house or in their gardens or fields, she claimed, cooking, tapping rubber, or growing rice—often with a child in their arms. Is it any wonder few of them have the time to be involved in organisations? For both Ibu Juliarti and Ibu Mu’azah, women’s participation in public spheres was important primarily in terms of their contribution to the development of Sambas. As Ibu Juliarti commented: ‘For us in the Regency [government], I always say that women have less opportunity to advance faster; their path is slow. However, if women [were permitted] to participate, then their progress would be faster. Let’s help women! They must be included in planning, in all matters.’10 This call that women be encouraged to participate was not necessarily for the benefit of individual women, or for women collectively, but rather for the benefit of Sambas. There are echoes here of an earlier New Order ‘human resources’ development perspective. Sen (1998) observed a shift in the gender ideologies of the New Order in the 1990s as the state sought to integrate Indonesia into the global capitalist order. Particularly in relation to the emerging middle classes, women were redefined as equal to men ‘as citizens and human resources for development’ (Sen, 1998, p. 44). Similarly, in the context of the new regency, women’s energies and skills also should be harnessed to advance Sambas. Ibu Juliarti’s comments on including women ‘in planning, in all matters’ also aligns with a view of male and female gender roles and interests as different yet complementary. This non-antagonistic perspective on gender relations aligns with a local gender discourse observed in other Malay and Southeast Asian societies that ‘highlights sameness, equality, and complementarity between the sexes’ (Peletz, 1995, p. 81). This complementarity has been figuratively represented in all direct elections of the regent and vice regent since 2005 in Sambas, including the latest regency elections in 2016. Here, there has been a consistent pattern of a male regent and a female vice-regent except for Ibu Juliarti’s final term, where there was a female regent and a male vice-regent. All incumbents have been Malay. The public sector women described below have responded to Ibu Juliarti’s call to advance Sambas by assisting women, either by providing opportunities directly to women or by shaping Sambas Malay culture in ways that they 10 ‘Kalau dari kami di kabupaten saya selalu mengatakan perempuan kehilangan peluangan untuk maju lebih cepat, jalannya kan lambat tapi kalau perempuan diikutsertakan jalannya lebih cepat sampainya. Jadi tolong perempuannya juga harus dilibatkan dalam perencanaan, dalam segala hal’. (Author’s translation).

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believe are of benefit to Sambas Malay society. Such actions are evident in the discussion below, which begins with an examination of Ibu Yunarti’s work within the Department of Cooperatives, Micro and Small-Medium Industry and Trade, followed by an analysis of Ibu Sari’s efforts to develop Sambas’ tourist potential in the Department of Tourism and Culture. Both these examples speak to the direct influence of female civil servants over shaping and disciplining the expression of Sambas Malay culture. The examples of Ibu Yunarti and Ibu Sari also draw our attention to the shifting yet continuing relevance of border imaginaries in their contestation of Sambas’ marginality, particularly as they relate to the lack of economic opportunities (Ibu Yunarti) and low educational status (Ibu Sari) of rural Sambas Malays. Considering the informal influence that some civil servants wield in the local community provides further confirmation of women’s significance in the construction of Sambas gender roles and the broader culture more generally. The concluding discussion highlights two themes that emerge from this chapter’s analysis of public sector women’s shaping of Sambas Malayness: their Sambas Malay-inflected commitment to serve a greater common good, and the reimagining and reordering of various borders to achieve this objective.

Women and the socioeconomic development of Sambas Ibu Yunarti was in her late 30s and working in a section responsible for developing micro industries, which in Sambas is primarily concerned with small-scale crafts, such as rattan and bamboo products, and weaving of various kinds. Yunarti, who identified as Sambas Malay, had been involved in such projects since joining the department in 2000, coinciding with the creation of the new regency administration. She had developed a sound understanding of the geographical concentration of such industries in Sambas. Different districts are renowned for different products: Sijankjung, as noted in Chapter Three, is known for rattan and bamboo products; Selaku produces woven mats and fans made from sea pandanus; Jawai is famous for furniture made from coconut tree wood; and the villages near Sambas town are the centre of songket weaving. These areas of specialisation result from the plentiful supply of raw materials and/or a concentration of skilled craftspeople in each district. A sizeable part of Ibu Yunarti’s job was to organise training programs to expand the range of goods produced by existing craftspeople as well as develop their marketing and business skills. On Yunarti’s desk were a few

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woven containers made from pandanus leaves that she referred to as fruit baskets. They were made by a group of women from a village in Selaku who typically use pandanus leaves to weave tikar (‘floor mats’). Instructors from the Universitas Islam Indonesia in Yogyakarta had trained the women for four days about the creation of alternative pandanus products. While Yunarti recognised that the women’s skill remained limited—commenting that the baskets looked rather rough (‘lihat kan masih kasar’)—she anticipated that with further practice and training, the women could extend the range and quality of pandanus goods they produced. The benefits to the women were clear, she stated, as many baskets could be made in the same time it takes to produce one mat, and each basket sells for about the same price as a mat. Training programs were also designed to incorporate knowledge of markets and customer preferences. So, for example, the women were introduced to a different, more neutral palette of colours. Apparently, local preferences are for bright colours, while outside consumers prefer more neutral shades. However, such dyes cost more and, until recently, were hard to source in Sambas. The other challenge concerned the marketing and selling of products, given that the local market is quite limited in size. Increased sales were thus dependent on sales beyond the local region. As it stands, the relative abundance of raw materials and skilled craftspeople in Sambas are potential resources to be tapped, since they have dried up in other places including Java. Overshadowing many of Yunarti’s comments, however, was the concern that the younger generation of Sambas Malays were not interested in maintaining local handicrafts due to a preference for working abroad in Malaysia. She had also witnessed several people receiving training and then becoming foreign migrant workers. It is a Catch-22: the local demand for products is small, so people’s interest in this form of work is limited. A lack of capital also means that many producers wait until they have capital before producing anything. To break this cycle, the injection of capital, new technology, and marketing opportunities are required to turn what are predominantly kerja sampingan (‘additional forms of income generation’) into steady, full-time employment opportunities. Yunarti also noted that songket weavers would rather do any kind of work in Malaysia and Brunei than stay in Sambas and weave (she estimates that between 20 and 30 percent of songket weavers are working in Malaysia and Brunei). Despite—or perhaps because of—her view that Sambas Malays are of the same ethnic stock as Malays in Malaysia (‘satu rumpun ni Malaysia sama Indonesia kan Melayu’), this exodus of workers from Sambas to Malaysia is a source of embarrassment for her. For Yunarti, the border with Malaysia

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has negative connotations, since it draws young Sambas Malays to cross it for work. This was but one of the adverse appraisals of the territorial border expressed by public sector women; they also viewed the border as the locus of family separation, a vector for sexually transmitted contagion, and a site for the potential loss of culture. Hence, Yunarti was motivated to build self-sustaining and profitable craft enterprises to provide alternative forms of work so that Sambas Malays would not have to work across the border. One of the factors is economic, as you know, lack of job opportunity. So, the other day I talked to the Sijangkung people. Actually, they don’t need to work abroad if they exploit Sijangkung’s resources. That’s what I said. Let’s try, so there’s a group task force, a working group. This has been arranged with the women’s empowerment section, working together with the partnership sector. Just by chance I have met them, let’s try, I said, let’s create a business so that people don’t go abroad. But it’s not just the industry that we need, if we just produce but the market is not there, I said.11

Notwithstanding the general concern that the number of craft producers was declining, there was no serious effort within the department to consider how rethinking gender stereotypes of craft production might broaden the pool of interested producers. Training and other opportunities tended to comply with the established gender relations of craft production: men were trained as rattan and bamboo furniture producers, even though women were often involved in producing components for furniture. Women were offered training opportunities related to songket, even though in the past—and still today, in specialised roles—men were also involved in weaving.12 After many years of effort, Yunarti was still seeking a persuasive example of market success, that is, an example of a group of craftspeople turning a part-time form of income into a principal occupation—something that 11 ‘Salah satunya karena faktor ekonomi kan ya, kurang lapangan kerja gitu, jadi maksud saya kemarin saya ngomong sama Sijangkung. Sebenarnya orang Sijangkung tidak perlu keluar kalau misalnya memang sumberdaya yang di situ dimanfaatkan. Saya bilang begitu, ya, nanti kita coba, jadi ada gugus tugas kelompok, ya, kelompok kerja udah susun itu dengan ada bidang pemberdayaan perempuan, ya itu bekerjasama dengan bidang kemitraan, kebetulan, saya sudah bertemu, kita coba deh saya bilang kita bikin usaha. Jadi jangan sampai orang keluar, tapi kan tidak hanya maksudnya perindustrian. Cuma memproduksi ini tapi pasarannya nggak ini ya saya bilang’. (Author’s translation). 12 Rodgers (2011) provides an example from Palembang of men taking up songket weaving once it became a reliable and full-time source of income.

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could anchor them culturally and economically as Sambas Malays living and working in Sambas. Somewhat wistfully, Yunarti commented: ‘if only we could have one example, one group that was really successful to show as proof, but that’s difficult’.13 Arguably, such a success would also demonstrate the effectiveness of a local civil service to her, her trainees, and the wider public. Her sense of frustration and responsibility are evident when discussing how Yunarti’s department would at times buy some of the new products to encourage the women. For example, to support a local exhibition of a new style of bag made from rattan—an innovation of female weavers in the district of Sijangkung—her department ordered 150 bags. She stated: ‘The women don’t have any capital, poor things, so they need financial support. We also felt bad because the funds from the government were long in coming. We are close to the producers and felt bad for them. The bags were a new skill, before that they’d made them in a different style. So, we ordered some, as exemplars, of a bag made from rattan. That made them very happy.’14 It also became apparent during our interview that Yunarti’s department lacked the networks and expertise to find market outlets for locally produced handicrafts. Most of their efforts were focussed on exhibiting examples at local and national craft fairs. While a few orders would often flow from these exhibitions, no major or sustained orders followed. For further sales, Yunarti’s section supplied a hotel in Pontianak. Her ambition was to create a local government-funded outlet where tourists, visitors, and others could go to buy handicrafts produced in Sambas. Finally, this eventuated in the form of a visitors’ shop on the main road into Sambas town, which opened in late 2014: Galeri UKMK, Kabupaten Sambas (The Gallery of Micro and Small-Medium Industry, Sambas Regency).15 13 ‘Kalau misalnya kita punya contoh, contoh satu kelompok yang mereka benar benar berhasil, baru orang bukan sekedar ngomong saja, [kita] berbicara terus tapi tak ada buktinya, susah ya’. (Author’s translation). 14 ‘Kita pesan aja, pesan ke situ ya berapa 150an … Itu juga mereka kewalahan gitu karena kurang gak ada modal, tidak ada modal jadi ee akhirnaya yaaa kasihan juga… pemerintah kan dananya lama keluar gitu, kita maklum juga. Kasihan kita dinas dekat sama pengrajin juga kasihan sama mereka kan. Ini mereka dapat kepandaian baru ini, ya sebelumnya mereka bikin tas kayak gini… Ini baru ni, kita pesan, jadi ada contoh tas bikin dari rotan. Ternyata senang mereka’. (Author’s translation). 15 Regent Juliarti officially opened the new gallery. It sells souvenirs, local foodstuffs, and a range of handicrafts, including long, skirt-length pieces of songket that comprise formal Malay dress for women and shorter lengths of songket worn by Malay men over trousers on formal occasions and at Friday prayers. Additionally, the Gallery sells ready-made shirts and rolls of material with printed songket motifs of different colours to cater for the new local government regulation

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Sambas Malay songket was also supported by Yunarti’s department. It had been nominated as a priority area for the five years spanning 2009–2013. In this capacity, the department provided funding to a group of female songket weavers to attend training in Pontianak on producing new products (including bags, purses, cushion covers, shirts, and souvenirs) made using a new type of loom. While still manual, the new loom was faster than the traditional looms used in Sambas, which were also limited to only producing lengths of fabric. There were no funds to invest in purchasing these looms, however, so little further support was given to the weavers to innovate their range of products. Instead, Yunarti’s department had focussed on registering the songket motifs deemed to be asli (‘original’) to Sambas, the designs tied to its identity, as part of a broader effort to ensure that Sambas retained creative control over its cultural heritage. At the time of the interview, eighteen motifs had been registered as part of Sambas intellectual property (Hak Atas Kekayaan Intelektual, or HAKI) and another 50 were identified for future registration. They were spurred into action, she explained, by a desire to stop the copying of Sambas’ motifs by other songket-making regions in West Kalimantan and beyond (see also, Rodgers, 2011). Yunarti recounted how another regency in West Kalimantan, Mempawah, had registered one of Sambas’ motifs, awan berarak. In addition to songket motifs, her section planned to register seventeen designs that are original to the interior and exterior design of houses in Sambas, for example, woodcarving and the colour and shape of roofing materials. Ukiran (‘woodcarving’) was once a highly developed skill in Sambas that has now declined. Yunarti wondered aloud why people preferred woodcarving from Bali when Sambas Malays have their own special motifs. With computerisation of the motifs, she imagined that these designs could be reproduced and incorporated in the design of furniture, wood panels, doors, and other objects. As the interview continued, it became clear that Yunarti was a passionate advocate of Sambas culture. One aspect of her role was to promote local designs to Sambas Malays, who might be unaware of their rich inheritance (‘kita promosikan. Mungkin orang Sambas sendiri nggak tahu ini ternyata motif asli kita’). While Sambas Malays do take pride in their culture, Yunarti believed, ignorance or unfamiliarity might be an issue; for this reason, she and her colleagues sought to protect and promote Sambas’ cultural introduced during Regent Juliarti’s term that school students and civil servants—irrespective of their ethnic identification—wear shirts with printed songket motifs on Saturdays (for students) and Fridays (for civil servants). For civil servants, this is a modification of an earlier civil service requirement that civil servants wear batik or some other indigenous textile on Fridays.

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heritage.16 Furthermore, she firmly believes that if the products are good quality they will find export markets in Malaysia. Yunarti excitedly related that she had already seen handicrafts such as rattan chairs from West Kalimantan when watching a Malaysian TV drama and she expected to soon see new products such as the pandanus leaf bags made in Selaku. Interestingly, it is at this point that her perspective on the border switches from something that threatens Sambas’ cultural production to one that promises its renaissance: ‘If later the border is open, we’ll have a land connection with Sarawak. What’s great is that we’d be able to send the good products to Malaysia. Bound to be successful! Malaysia is really a potential market because it is so close.’17 Her comments took on an almost evangelical tone when she announced: ‘I say, come on, let’s develop this! Local people here also have the spirit (to develop). Once the border is open, they say, we can market to Malaysia!’18 Evidently, the border features large in Yunarti’s sphere of understanding. In fact, it underwrites her plan to address Sambas Malay women’s marginality. At times, the border represents a threat to cultural production through the loss of producers as labour migrants. At others, Sambas’ border crossing with Sarawak holds the key to Sambas’ economic success. This malleability of a multifaceted border featured in my discussions with many civil servants in Sambas and was made explicit in the local regency’s own development priorities, such as the opening of new border crossings and proposed investments in the hinterland of the territorial border (see Chapter Two). However, hamstrung by limited resources, Yunarti’s ambitious goals largely floundered. Her aims were also challenged by other arms of the local administration that viewed the areas where abundant raw materials made handicraft production flourish as potential sites for the expansion of oil palm and other plantation estates. Nevertheless, her department’s work did provide some support for independent producers and helped bolster the claim that Sambas Malay culture was distinctive and of value. In this way, her work consolidated the association of handicrafts as not only forms 16 ‘Saya rasa pun rasa bangga dengan itu pun ada itu orang Sambas. Cuma karena orang nggak tahu dan itu sudah lama ndak apa ndak terlihat di mata kan ya itu’. (Author’s translation). 17 ‘kalau nanti border buka kan kita jalur darat dengan Sarawak…. yang bagus kita lempar ke Malaysia pasti laku. …Ini sebenarnya pasar potensial sih ya kita di Sambas karena dekat kan’. (Author’s translation). 18 ‘Saya bilang ya udah ayo kita kembangkan. Masyarakatnya juga semangat ya ada yang di sini. Wah kalau border udah buka katanya kita pasarkan di sana (Malaysia) ya nanti’; ‘jadi gitu rencananya, jadi supaya kita dalam rangka melindungi hasil tanah budaya kita itu’. (Author’s translation).

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of income generation, but more significantly as asli (‘original, authentic’) cultural forms and evidence of a distinct Sambas Malay identity. Still, it seemed that these same handicrafts embodied a certain marginality or primitiveness; they had to be ‘renovated’ via external training programs and adapted to suit market tastes and preferences before their value could be realised. Hence, innovation under Yunarti’s direction was required if Sambas Malay handicrafts deemed to be ‘good’ (or ‘yang bagus’ in the above quote) could be given their appropriate value. While Sambas culture and identity were deemed worth preserving, civil servants also had quite strong views on which elements should be discarded. The following section discusses the processes designed to reform an aspect of Sambas Malay customary practice while also promoting its tourist potential. This case also makes explicit the existence of an internal border of sorts that is implicit in many of the women’s comments in this chapter: that between backward, uneducated, and rural Sambas Malay villagers and modern, urban, and educated Sambas Malays.

Reforming Sambas Malay Culture The Malay words adat or adat istiadat are often translated as ‘customary law’, but they also include cultural practices, social norms, and ritual observances.19 Sambas Malay adat is typically claimed to be a central element of Sambas Malay identity, something that constitutes the very notion of Sambas Malayness (see Chapter Three). Yet the past century has witnessed the aestheticisation, folklorisation, and desacralisation of adat that is viewed as inconsistent with ‘civilised’, modern standards and acceptable Muslim behaviour (Acciaioli, 1985; Schefold, 1998; Yampolsky, 1995). In Sambas, and across Muslim Southeast Asia more generally, the need to reform adat and cleanse it of its non-Islamic cultural elements is a familiar theme (Laffan, 2003; Azra, 2004; Milner, 1995).20 One contemporary example 19 Indeed, in the context of Sambas Malay, it is more appropriate to speak of adat budaya (‘customary practices and culture’), as there is little in the way of customary law in Sambas Malay adat. 20 A key development cited here is the emergence of a reformist movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries centred on the growing number of scholars and pilgrims returning from the Middle East with new ideas on the relationship between Islam and adat (Laffan, 2003; Azra, 2004). Central to the worldview of many reformers was an understanding of Islam as rational, scientif ic, engaged, and relevant to the modern era, in opposition to what they considered irrational, feudal, and anti-modern Malay culture and traditions (see also Milner, 1995).

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of such cleansing occurred during my fieldwork. It concerned the ritual antar ajung, which had come under considerable scrutiny by sections of the Sambas Malay community for its syirik (‘polytheistic’) elements. For many generations, this ritual has been performed by five villages along the southern beach in the northern districts of Paloh and Teluk Keramat. It is performed annually, prior to planting rice, to ensure a plentiful crop. It involves the construction of a small-scale wooden sailboat, or ajung, complete with sails and miniature figures (see Image 4.2). Following an evening of siak (‘trance rituals’), where the village adat specialist requests the support of dato’ (‘local spiritual powers’) to capture malicious spiritual forces and stow them in these model boats, the boats are cast into the sea. The people most involved in the communal activities relating to the construction of the ajung, the siak rituals, carrying the ajung down to the water, etc., are not surprisingly village dukun (‘adat specialists’) and the villagers that are most enmeshed in rice production. In the socio-economy of the village, these are often people with limited formal schooling and few non-village economic resources. They also tend to be in their middle age or older. This is particularly true of adat heads and other adat specialists, such as the men and women who fall into trance and communicate with the dato’. In one village, the ritual almost disappeared about fifteen years ago when the adat head died. The current adat head, his son, claimed he didn’t know how to perform the ritual, but after a couple of bad harvests, people in the village asked him to revive it. He took it on, improvising and drawing on his inherited abilities. In this village, most of the ritual specialists directly involved in the proceedings of this ritual are in fact related. The female relatives of the adat head are particularly important, as they are the ones who fall into trance—an ability that they also view as inherited. The shrinking social basis of antar ajung and particularly the aging of adat specialists may also account for some changes over the years—specifically, the practice of several villages combining to perform the trance rituals. Crowds of locals usually gather to observe this ritual, bringing with them a mixture of scepticism and caution. People who at one moment laugh at what they see as a purely performative element will nevertheless hurriedly get out of the way when a ritual specialist in trance moves in their direction. There is also a level of ambivalence amongst villagers about the efficacy of the ritual for determining a good or bad harvest. In addition, the antar ajung ritual has attracted criticism from outsiders as being un-Islamic. A respected religious teacher and retired high school teacher in Sambas town told me that similar boat rituals designed to dispel ominous spirits (mengobati kampung, known as ancak in Sambas

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Image 4.2 Ajung during siak ritual

Malay) had been held on the town’s rivers in previous years.21 These rituals disappeared over time as people learned more about Islam through 21 I was also told that this tradition originated in the former kingdom of Siak, on the island of Sumatra. Supporting this theory are the many references to siak and bersiak in the ritual, particularly to refer to people who go into trance.

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religious lectures, such as Friday sermons, and the discussion of what is tak boleh (‘disallowed’) and tak baik (‘frowned upon’) in Islam on religious occasions and public holidays. From his recollection, such rituals started to cease in the 1980s as people became more saleh (‘pious’) and aware of these rituals’ syirik or polytheistic elements. He presented this change as an organic process, underplaying the probable involvement of the Ministry of Religion.22 Returning to antar ajung, it is difficult to measure the direct influence of such criticism, as most locals I spoke to in Paloh (including a range of villagers, a school teacher, a local government officer, and an imam) saw no necessary contradiction between the ritual and Islam. More direct has been the impact of the local Department of Tourism and Culture, which for several years has been actively manufacturing the Festival Budaya Antar Ajung (‘Cultural Festival of Antar Ajung’) on the beachfront at Tanah Hitam in Paloh.23 As part of the Cultural Festival of Antar Ajung, villagers in the area (whether or not they have a tradition of antar ajung) are invited to participate in a shared launch of one or more sailing boats. This contrasts to earlier practices when villagers independently launched their own boat on an auspicious day and at a spot adjacent to their village. The Department of Tourism and Culture also announced a competition with prizes for the best constructed boats, setting specifications regarding their size and quality to ensure the boats are of interest to spectators. In addition to the spectacle of twelve or more ajung being cast into the Natuna Sea, the Festival also includes a Sambas Malay cultural show, with women performing Sambas Malay dances, and stalls selling food, drinks, and plastic toys, as well as new and used clothing. 22 There has been careful state regulation of religious affairs in Indonesia since Independence. The Ministry of Religion, established in 1946, has overseen religious instruction (including religious sermons) and been instrumental in the discontinuation or desacralisation of cultural practices and spiritual beliefs since that time (Crouch, 2013; Picard and Madinier, 2011). One of the first actions of the Ministry of Religion was to establish six national religious councils (one for each of the recognised ‘religions’ of Indonesia (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism). The state’s grip on establishing the legitimate place of religion in society and politics tightened during Suharto’s presidency (1966–1998). Leaders of Islamic organisations, for example, were forced to proclaim their loyalty to the Pancasila and a ‘Belief in One God’, rather than to Islam, as the New Order regime sought to quell potential political challenges. The New Order period thus saw a ‘form of state-orchestrated religious normativity’ develop, one that mandated religion as a sign of civilisation and loyalty to the nation if it posed no threat to the regime (Bubandt, 2012, p. 185). 23 Following a restructure of the Directorate of Culture in the early 2000s, culture has been linked more closely to tourism than to education, as was the case during the New Order era (Jones, 2013, p. 190).

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On the eve of the 2009 Cultural Festival of Antar Ajung, I met Ibu Sari from the Tourism section of the Department of Tourism and Culture in the adat house in the village of Setia in Paloh. In her late 30s and—unusual for a Sambas Malay civil servant—unveiled, Sari wore a long-sleeved ‘DINAS Parawisata’ (Department of Tourism) t-shirt over black trousers. She asked me how often I had come to see antar ajung, and when I told her this was my second time, she berated me for not bringing other tourists and visitors from outside Sambas. The discussion then turned to the following day’s cultural festival. Sari mentioned that she was very careful with her choice of words: she did not refer to the event as adat but rather as a festival budaya (‘cultural festival’) and preferred to call the boats prahu antar ajung (‘antar ajung boats’). She related how there would also be Sambas Malay dancing and Zikir Nazim (a practice recognisably Islamic and strongly associated with Sambas Malayness, further discussed in Chapter Six) at the Cultural Festival. Ibu Sari was concerned that people might view the Festival as antithetical to the teachings of Islam and was therefore careful to frame the event in terms of a cultural and tourist show. She emphasised how unik (‘unique’) antar ajung is, arguing that for this reason it ought to be promoted. During the ensuing discussion of her department’s tardiness in promoting this event, Ibu Sari attributed the lethargy to the establishment of the new regency. For several years following the move from Singkawang, there had been a shortage of funding and facilities, including offices. Many staff members had to travel each day from Singkawang to Sambas, which was exhausting. She herself comes from Pemangkat and found the initial years very difficult when the road was still in a state of disrepair. For these reasons, 2009 was the first year that the Department of Tourism and Culture had really invested energy and funding in this event. It had been a slow process, however, and quite an effort to get all the villages to agree to hosting a combined event. Consulting with all the adat heads had not been easy, she stressed. Initially, most were not keen to collaborate because, in the past, villages had performed antar ajung on different days. She also approached villages that had no tradition of antar ajung. Eventually, nine villages agreed to join in, bringing with them around 12 ajung. Her department also contributed IRD 7 million 24 and provided a cup for the winner of the ‘best boat’ and prizes for the runners up. The judging criteria would be based on the boat’s colourfulness, level of detail, and quality of 24 A friend later told me that each of the nine villages—including hers—received only IDR 250,000, about the cost of a typical ajung that is between 1-2 metres in length and 20-30 cm wide. The speculation was the district and village heads syphoned off the rest.

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carvings. Boats also had to be at least 2.5 metres in length. The point, she stressed, was to encourage villages to make the boats look attractive for visitors. Implicitly, her understanding was that adherence to a local Sambas village tradition was secondary to the re-creation of an authorised and newly ‘authentic’ Sambas Malay cultural event. Ibu Sari and her colleagues in the Department of Tourism and Culture were not concerned that their appropriation and commercialisation of antar ajung might offend adat sensibilities. Their absence of concern was not misplaced. Many villagers actively participated in the Cultural Festival and a carnival feeling permeated the day; the crowds were large, with young people and families coming from miles around on the back of motorbikes and trucks. (Sari later estimated that 2500 people attended the festival). For locals originating from villages with a tradition of antar ajung, the festival created a sense of pride that their local culture was on display. Many also appreciated the economic benefits that the festival brought to villagers, who sold refreshments and local produce on the day. However, it is noteworthy that some villages constructed two ajung—one for the Festival and one for their private ritual. When asked why, the sister of the dukun (‘adat specialist’) in one village explained that they have a strong allegiance to performing antar ajung both as a mark of respect for the adat of their nenek-moyang (‘grandparents/ancestors’) and out of fear of the consequences if they do not. Therefore, while they participated in the larger cultural event with a 2.5-meter boat, they had also sent two smaller ajung out to sea several evenings before. This seems to constitute a case of villagers profaning their own ritual to protect it, as Bernard Sellato (1995) found elsewhere in Kalimantan (cited in Yampolsky, 1995, p. 716). A later interview with Ibu Sari discussed the planning behind the Cultural Festival. She described how her section had employed a strategy to develop an annual calendar of events and attractions that were unique to Sambas, which could then be promoted to attract tourists from outside. They also wanted to ensure that the events were spread around different districts to boost local district economies. Furthermore, the department’s strategy was related to the regency’s plan to open the border between Sambas and Sarawak; they hoped to encourage tourists and others travelling between Pontianak and Kuching to make the journey through Sambas. In celebration of the new regency, July 1 was already dedicated to an annual rowing regatta held on the river in front of the palace in Sambas town. June 1 had been settled upon as the annual date for the Cultural Festival of Antar Ajung. Unlike the rowing regatta, however, antar ajung was offensive to some people who considered such rituals to be syirik. The response, and later

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the goal, of her section was clear: ‘to turn customary practice into culture’ (‘Kita pindahkan dari adat itu menjadi budaya’). As Sari explained, ‘antar ajung is a customary practice of these villages’ (‘antar ajung ada adat istiadat mereka’), but ‘it is against Islam and therefore unlawful and forbidden’ (‘Adat itu tentangan dengan Islami, itu haram, dilarang’). Hence, her department slowly reinvented the custom, transforming it into a cultural show. This process is pelahan-pelahan (‘slow’, ‘step-by-step’), she commented, as such negotiations take time. Hence, Ibu Sari would only make suggestions—How about building a larger boat? How about we include dancing? In this way, she hoped the villagers would forget or let go of the old associations and develop new ones, without losing the form of this tradition (‘Saya memberi ide saja – ukurannya dua meter paling kecil, saya isi juga tarian – supaya mereka hilang yang begitu, muncul yang lain. Tapi sama bentuknya’). By pursuing this strategy, her section hoped to build a large, successful cultural event that celebrates this unique art of sailing model boats (‘Festival itu semakin besar, semakin bagus. Nanti seni layar keunikan dan kebagusan’). In reclaiming and reinventing this tradition, she asserted, they would transform the old-fashioned, backward-thinking that supported such rituals (‘Itu adat, itu pemikiran orang yang terdahulu, yang terbelakang, yang begitu, bukan?’). In this way, she aimed to transform the marginality of these villages—characterised by the villagers’ uneducated, mystical, and superstitious traditions—to create a cultural practice suitable for marketing to visitors from across the border and elsewhere. In different ways, Ibu Yunarti and Ibu Sari each pursue a project of reclaiming and remaking Sambas Malay identity by drawing it back from the economic and social margins of disadvantage and/or supposed ignorance. Clearly, both women work in organisational structures that not only provide the resources for but also set the direction of their activities. Nevertheless, there is something of a personal agenda in their resolve to change Sambas for the better by transcending the borders of disadvantage and peripherality as they perceive them. In both cases, the actual border with Malaysia figures prominently in their thinking. For Ibu Yunarti, the border is a double-edged sword that threatens cultural production but also promises access to a lucrative market. For Ibu Sari, the principal border to be traversed is that between the opinions and interests of urban, educated Sambas Malays and those of more remote villagers. Having said this, her border-crossing is not without reference to the territorial border with Malaysia. Indeed, the district with most of the ‘backward’ villages that practice antar ajung also lies directly adjacent to the border that now promises future tourist revenue.

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The earlier rendering of the border as a marker of backwardness—i.e., the closer villages were to the territorial border, the more backward their status—is being refashioned as a site of cultural heritage, opportunity, and a source of tourism. Thus far, this chapter’s analysis of the influence of Sambas Malay women in the public sector has focussed on the effects of their professional activities and responsibilities, especially as they relate to matters of Sambas Malay culture. The next section considers the substantial informal influence that some public sector women wield in their local community through an analysis of their role as community leaders. Their roles as community leaders led to a bolstering of public sector women’s authority to define the proper relationship between Islam and Sambas Malay adat, as well as a reinstatement of the strong identification of women with motherhood. It starts with an anecdote from my fieldwork before examining the influence of women involved in Badan Kontak Majelis Taklim, or BKMT, a mosque-based Qur’an study network. The objective of this discussion is to illustrate the informal influence that civil servants have within predominantly female Muslim spaces, where the teachings and teachers of Islam provide solutions to the challenges of everyday life and advice on the acceptable elements of Sambas Malay adat.

Informal influences: Islamic guidance and education I first met Ibu Agama at a wedding, where she was invited to give a speech to the other female guests. Ibu Agama was a religious teacher at a primary school in Tebas and was active in several educational and religious networks. She embodies the informal influence that civil servants, particularly teachers, have within predominantly female, Muslim spaces. In such contexts, the negotiation of everyday issues is represented as a moral challenge, and consequently their proposed solutions are posed in terms of moral values—on this occasion, relating to motherhood and citizenship. Ibu Agama is typical of the middle-aged teachers I encountered, who were well known as accomplished public speakers and often invited to talk to women at public gatherings. Men and women are typically segregated during formal ceremonies such as weddings (see Chapter Seven), and this segregation provides regular opportunities for female community leaders to share impromptu advice or deliver more formal speeches to other women. Sitting inside the house were about fifty women waiting for the bride and groom, who would sit under the dais erected on one side of the room. At

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the time, male visitors were sitting under tarpaulins outside participating in a male-only recitation of Zikir Nazim (see Chapter Six). Ibu Agama was in her mid 50s and wore a pale-coloured Palembang songket skirt, a lace kebaya (a blouse-dress worn by Indonesian women on formal occasions), and a jilbab (‘headscarf’). She was invited to speak by the host, Ibu Rusdah, who was a member of the same BKMT Qur’an study group. Ibu Agama began with the customary greetings (thanking the host and apologising in advance for anything she may say that does not sit well with the audience). She stressed that the morning’s gathering was all about bersilaturahmi (‘building friendship and goodwill between Muslims’) and after a short apologetic and humorous pantun (‘Malay rhyming verse’) about her standing and us sitting, she turned to the topics of marriage, motherhood, and the forthcoming general elections. Ibu Agama emphasised that marriage represents an important stage in a Muslim woman’s life—equal to becoming a mother. Not everyone is given the responsibility of becoming a mother, she said, and it is a special responsibility that requires women to shift their priorities to their children. She noted that women are the tiang negara (‘pillar of the nation’) and have a sacred role in Islam, paraphrasing the well-known Hadith, ‘Heaven is beneath the mother’s sole’ (‘Syurga di bawah telapak kaki ibu’). Resuscitating the New Order gender ideology that by honouring their kodrat (‘biologically ordained role’) women serve the interests of not only the family but also the nation (Robinson, 2009, p. 5), Ibu Agama proposed that when mothers perform their role well, the nation prospers. Bad mothers, on the other hand, can merusakan negara (‘destroy the nation’). ‘But how to be a tiang negara?’ asked Ibu Agama. To achieve this, one must dress appropriately as a Muslim woman and educate one’s children to be good Muslims. Ibu Agama continued with some specific advice on how to handle the problem of pornography on mobile phones, observing that local primary school children had been found with pornography on their phones.25 Ibu Agama’s final theme related to the upcoming presidential elections, and she encouraged the women in the room to exercise their right to vote. She said the most important thing was for women to vote according to their own preferences (‘sesuai dengan selera hati masing-masing’), but she also warned against voting for those who promised the world (‘jual kecap manis’). In giving her opinion on the forthcoming election, Ibu Agama demonstrated the easy slippage between a discussion of women as mothers and women as citizens that was fostered 25 This was part of a much wider moral panic over mobile phones and pornography in general in Indonesia (Allen, 2007; Pausacker, 2014).

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during the New Order. She also continued a role established during the New Order, that of local-level bureaucrats and community leaders acting as mediators for state programs and ideology (Setyawati, 2008, p. 81).26 Critical to the sustained power of the New Order’s gender ideology were organisations such as Dharma Wanita (an auxiliary organisation of civil servants’ wives) and the PKK (or Family Welfare Guidance) (Budianta, 2003, p. 157), whose ‘social programs and rhetoric mimetically extended the family to [the] nation with women as mother as the key to its integrity’ (Adamson, 2007, p. 16). To this list, we can add the organisation BKMT. As noted above, Ibu Agama was a well-respected member of a local mosque-based Qur’an study network, Badan Kontak Majelis Taklim (BKMT). BKMT is a national organisation that aims to increase women’s religious knowledge and understanding of various aspects of Islam. Taklim means to study or to seek knowledge, particularly Islamic knowledge. BKMT is not under the umbrella of the Department of Religion and its current national head is a former minister of women’s empowerment. In the past, BMKT has been criticised for promoting a form of religious normativity that posed no threat to the New Order by positioning Islam as subordinate to the nation.27 More recently, the organisation has branched out to encourage secular education and support women in becoming more economically independent through microcredit services and business skills. This mosque-based Qur’an study network has mushroomed in Sambas since the early 2000s. During my research, the head of BKMT in Sambas was Ibu Mu’azah (the DPRD member introduced at the beginning of this chapter). Ibu Mu’azah told me that BKMT first came to Sambas in 2001. At that time, there were between 26 PKK (or Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga) was initiated in 1974 to implement family welfare programs at the neighbourhood and village level. It was mandatory for women to join and the leadership structure of the PKK followed the administrative structure of government, with the local village leader being the wife of the village head. According to PKK rhetoric, a woman is ‘first a reproductive agent, then a faithful wife and mother, and an unpaid domestic worker and consumer. She is a citizen last and paid productive worker not at all’ (Sen, 1998, p. 41). Dharma Wanita predates the New Order government, but during the New Order it was made compulsory for all female civil servants and wives of civil servants to join the organisation. Once again, the organisational structure paralleled that of the civil service structure. Sen (1998, p. 41) notes the explicit gender ideology of its aim to increase women’s participation in national development: namely, ‘in accordance with the nature/duty (kodrat) and position of women as wife and housewife’ (emphasis in the original). 27 Robinson (2009, p. 198) provides some background on the establishment of this organisation in 1981. It was set up by a female ulama named Tutty Alawiyah to coordinate local women’s Qur’an study groups, some of which had been in existence since the 1940s. Her close association with the New Order is evidenced by her later service as a member of the MPR and as Women’s Minister in 1998–1999.

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100–200 members, most concentrated around Tebas. By 2009, there were 70 groups with about 4000 members covering all of Sambas. BKMT gets its operational funding from the regency government (APBD or Anggaran Pendapatan dan Belanja Daerah), and perhaps for this reason its focus areas align with the four principle priorities of the regency: education, health, ekonomi rakyat (‘economic welfare’), and religion. From her own perspective, Ibu Mu’azah desires Sambas to live up to its reputation as the serambi Mekkah (‘verandah of Mecca’). For her, religious education was crucial so that ‘the spirit of the verandah of Mecca isn’t lost’ (‘semangat serambi Mekkah tidak akan hilang’).28 In villages across Sambas, BKMT is referred to as Permata or Persatuan Majelis Taklim, where it is strongly associated with a pengajian (‘regular religious study class’), which would normally include a ceramah (‘religious talk’) about education, moral wellbeing, healthcare, and women’s role in Islam. Most of the local leaders and committee members of BKMT are Sambas Malay women associated with the public sector, including elected politicians but more commonly active or retired teachers and other civil servants. Members and leaders alike tend to be married and middle-aged or older.29 One primary focus of these talks, according to Ibu Farida, is to encourage women to play an active role as parents so that their children become good Muslims. Ibu Farida, a Malay originally from South Kalimantan, was a district head of BKMT and a section head in the Department of Religion. Women’s role as mothers, she stated, extends to creating homes that are harmonious, where behaviour is prilakuan Islami (‘in accordance with Islam’). The timing of the regular meetings varies—they can be once a week, once a fortnight or monthly. Some of the lessons can be quite elementary, such as on ibadah, that is, how to pray. As Ibu Mu’azah noted, there are still many women who did not have the opportunity to learn such things dengan sempurna (‘perfectly’, ‘properly’) when they were small.30 Support 28 Sambas’ claim to be the Serambi Mekkah rests on several prominent Sambas-born ulama or religious teachers, including Syekh Ahmad Khatib Sambas and Maharaja Imam Muhammad Basiuni Imran (Mahrus, 2008, p. 98). 29 One reason is that many younger village Malays are working across the border in Malaysia. Another is that there are also a number of religious-oriented youth organisations in Sambas, such as Remaja Masjid (for unmarried Muslims, run through various mosques) and Karang Taruna (a national organisation that is run through the village structure by Nasional Pemuda Indonesia). 30 Today, religious instruction is a compulsory component of the school curriculum. This regulation was introduced in 1967, although in some parts of the country it was only in the mid-to-late 1970s (Smith-Hefner, 2007, p. 395). Also of note is that fact that in 2012, 42 percent of working women in Sambas had either no schooling or did not complete primary school (see Chapter Three).

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comes in other forms, too, such as giving money and provisions to families who experience a sudden emergency or to poor families at the beginning of the school year and at times of religious celebrations. Other forms of assistance are surprisingly secular. Ibu Farida gave two examples from the district of Sambas: two cases of women borrowing from the arisan (‘savings group’) established by Permata members to fund the set-up costs of their small businesses—selling second-hand clothes imported from overseas (or lelong, as discussed in Chapter Three). Taking their lead from Pontianak, where a BMKT cooperative works with other small businesses to provide heavily discounted or free goods, BMKT in Sambas has also established a cooperative to provide capital and other support to village women. Participation in such groups can have a marked influence on the perspective of village women. In 2008, I met (and surveyed) a 56-year-old Sambas Malay woman in the village of Desa Sungai. Mak Teh had three daughters and very limited schooling, having only attended some primary school classes. In 2008, she commented that her daughters did not need education as they could make good money working over the border. And indeed, her daughters left school after the primary level and all found factory work in Sarawak. I met her again in 2010. This time she was wearing a headscarf and had become a regular at her local women’s BKMT mosque group. She related how she enjoyed this group and the opportunity to learn about Islam. In fact, this was the first time in her life that she’d had the opportunity to study at all—much less study Islam. Upon enquiring what she had learned, she replied that she now realises the value of education and wishes she had been given the opportunity to study as a young woman. Most of all, she regrets not encouraging her daughters to stay in school longer. Given the proliferation and popularity of BKMT across villages in Sambas over the past decade, it is relevant to enquire to what extent BKMT seeks to curtail adat and other practices at the local level that may be considered counter to the lessons of Islam—and, in doing so, challenge or influence Sambas Malay culture and identity. I directed this question to Ibu Farida. She explained that many adat practices have mystical elements (‘hal-hal yang bau-bau mistik’) and that, from the perspective of religion, it is clear when a practice is tidak baik (‘not good’), haram (‘should not be performed’), or is syirik (‘polytheistic’). Her approach is to try to understand why the practice continues (Does it have an economic role? Does it represent a skill or ability that has social value?) with the intention of persuading people to discontinue it over time. Hence, Ibu Farida and other public sector women aspire to influence women’s performance of Sambas Malayness by ‘perfecting’ their understanding of Islam (see Setyawati, 2008). Their

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informal activities are guided by a socio-spatial imaginary of Sambas Malay women’s peripherality and lack of knowledge (particularly village women), as well as an understanding of the intangible borders that need to be defended (for example, those that situate Sambas Malay women in a moral universe of motherhood and nationalism) and those that need to be breached (including the lack of education, un-Islamic practices, and poverty). Even in their informal activities, female civil servants were accorded—and they assumed—the right to define problems and solutions on behalf of less empowered Sambas Malay women—a practice these civil servants engaged in for the ‘greater good’. In essence, they were crafting practices to restyle Sambas Malay culture and identity. In the final section of this chapter, I consider two attributes that underlie the reformation and revision of Sambas Malay identity and culture that is evident in public sector women’s desire to combat the borderscope of marginality. The first concerns the infusion of local ethnocultural elements into the women’s governmental approach to deliver ‘the greater good’ or enact ‘improvement schemes’. The second speaks to the borders and bordering work entailed by the women’s efforts to traverse Sambas’ position of socioeconomic disadvantage and supposed cultural backwardness.

The greater good: concluding comments on public sector women’s borderscope of marginality A dominant motif in the above discussion is public sector women’s desire to improve the economic and social circumstances of Sambas. This is not necessarily representative of all civil servants or local government officers; as seen in this chapter, however, a significant number of public sector women do exhibit a level of commitment to, and identification with, the welfare of Sambas residents, particularly the Sambas Malay majority. These women’s professional responsibilities and the informal influence they accrue through those responsibilities, are also shown to advance specific representations of Sambas Malayness, including constructions of Sambas Malay womanhood and Islam. Their promotion and modification of Sambas Malay culture reveals a strong Muslim-Malay inflection, which needs to be situated not only in the context of the new predominantly Sambas Malay regency but also in the broader governmental and institutional arrangements in Indonesia (for example, BKMT). Ibu Yunarti’s and Ibu Sari’s approach to the development of Sambas provide examples of the governmental rationality of civil servants who

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devise, develop, and implement interventions in the form of training programs and small financial enticements to modify villagers’ behaviour in specific ways. These interventions are designed to foster processes that they believe to be beneficial and/or eliminate those they deem undesirable. For Ibu Yunarti, this involved struggling with limited market opportunities and constrained resources to renovate, and thereby preserve, Sambas Malay material culture. The desire to capitalise on Sambas Malay adat was most explicit in the systematic way Ibu Sari set about transforming antar ajung from a local rice-related ritual into an item on the regency’s calendar of tourist events. This involved the identification of elements deemed to be of value and encouraged (through, for example, establishing a competition with awards for the best ajung), the demarcation of certain parameters (such as the length of the ajung, setting a fixed date for the Cultural Festival, etc.), and strategies aimed at encouraging the discontinuation of the mystical attributes of the ritual over time. Ibu Agama and other leaders of BKMT were also agents of governmentality. Their influence in informal contexts and within voluntary community organisations was not only an extension of their public sector positions, but also part of local government-funded and -supported programs and organisations designed to instil ‘proper’ Islamic norms and practices amongst Sambas Malay women and, by extension, their children. While I have no doubt that the opinions offered by Ibu Agama at the wedding were her own, being a religious teacher gave her comments an air of authority, in the same way that Ibu Farida’s role within the Department of Religion reinforced her legitimacy as a district head of the BKMT. One of the most curious aspects of this discussion is how Ibu Sari, one of a minority of female Sambas Malay civil servants who did not wear jilbab, nevertheless endorsed a set of propositions relating to village adat as superstitious, backward, and offensive to mainstream Muslims. If her sole motivation was to encourage tourism, would it matter if syirik elements remained? The spectacle of trance might even heighten the enjoyment of their touristic gaze. We must conclude that her comments here—whether or not they reflect her personal view—conform to the dominant discourse in Sambas and within Sambas’ public sector. How then are we to understand this? While not starting from the same ground as New Order processes that sought the aestheticisation of ritual, the enhanced authority given to Islam to determine the acceptability of aspects of Sambas Malay adat moves in the same direction—namely, towards its desacralisation. This raises the prospect of whether people’s Muslim identifications may override their Sambas Malay ones and, in extreme cases, lead to the irrelevance of a distinctive Malay identity. This is too large a question to address here. However, it is worth

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noting why this is unlikely in the current context. First, decentralisation depends on the ongoing significance (and investment) in the attributes that are seen as making Sambas unique or distinctive. This is also important to public sector women, whose ‘local’ credentials legitimise their capacity to speak and act on behalf of other Sambas Malays. Another factor that is relevant in Kalimantan is that the ethnonym ‘Malay’ differentiates some indigenous Muslims from Christian Dayaks (Hawkins, 2000). Furthermore, this ethnonym differentiates between Muslim Malays and the small, growing number of Muslim Dayaks who choose not to be absorbed into local ‘Malay’ communities, but instead want to retain their Dayakness (Chalmers, 2006; Sillander, 2004; Sillander and Alexander, 2016). Finally, as discussed in Chapter Three, while being ‘Muslim’ can be a basis for bridging difference (for example, the incorporation of non-Malay Muslims through marriage), it does not nullify the significance of being ‘Malay’. In this chapter, I do not want to suggest that public sector women’s interventions and opinions were wholly successful or unreservedly heeded. Ibu Yunarti was conscious of the difficulties and failures, for example, caused by people who have received training but still migrated for work, or by her organisation’s inability to find secure markets and outlets for women’s handicrafts. In the case of the Cultural Festival, Ibu Sari was surely aware that the money allocated to villages to encourage them to invest in larger and more eye-catching ajung did not always reach the producers. Moreover, while the villagers of Tanah Hitam seemed to embrace the Cultural Festival, private, quiet antar ajung rituals continued to be performed. Similarly, the influence of BKMT community leaders was presumably strongest among women who had expressed a prior desire to become a better Muslim by joining a local Qur’an study group. The point here is that irrespective of the success of their ventures, these women desired to transcend certain borders of marginality through the renovation and reformation of Sambas Malay adat and culture. This required a level of border work on their part, in the identification of those borders (including the territorial border) that pose problems for—or, alternatively, are important to—the integrity of Sambas Malayness. The processes of ordering and re-ordering borders can be observed, for example, in Ibu Yunarti’s and Ibu Sari’s comments relating to the territorial border. Here, they managed the ambivalence that they felt towards the territorial border: on the one hand, in the past it had negatively determined Sambas’ peripherality as a source of exploitation and contagion, but on the other hand, it currently stands as a positive market opportunity and source of tourism. They are thus accompanists in the re-imagining of the territorial

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border (in concert with local government development strategies). This is not the only border work performed by these women. They also ‘patrol’ the border between the educated and less-educated (secular and religious) Sambas Malay woman (and men) in their judgements of acceptable/unacceptable and progressive/backward elements of local culture and society—a border that often divides rural from urban Sambas Malays. Moreover, the borders of assigned gendered differences are also a feature of the women’s borderscope. While gender equality is valued for its general relevance to the advancement of Sambas, conventional and differentiated gender norms are also endorsed by projects (such as Yunarti’s) that comply with established gender-specific occupational and labour divides, and manifest through the focus on women’s special role as mothers in their family, community, and nation. Outside their role as mothers, women were not given special treatment or viewed as a distinct case of disadvantage requiring additional resources. Instead, the concern expressed in public sector women’s comments—i.e., those relating to ‘what holds women back’—was part of a broader concern relating to what holds Sambas back. This is not a strong feminist line calling for affirmative action or gender-specific programs, and therefore is in contrast with the approach to overcoming Sambas Malay marginalisation adopted by NGO workers, as described in the next chapter. The border work implicit in the professional activities of the women in this chapter acts to bring Sambas Malay culture and society back from the margins. Their employment is thus inherently framed by a borderscope of marginality—albeit, a changing and malleable vision—that informs their actions. The same dynamic is also observable in the next chapter, where a different group of educated and relatively empowered NGO women seek to negotiate a borderscope of marginality for the benefit of other Sambas Malay women. NGO workers demonstrate a more pronounced concern with the gender-specific barriers that women face in the construction of Sambas marginality. This is also accompanied by a more collaborative approach, one that views Sambas village women as having valuable skills and viewpoints. If in this chapter disadvantage is to be overcome by bringing Sambas Malays into a new centre that is predominantly defined by the priorities of educated civil servants, the next chapter displays NGO women’s more decentred approach to overcoming disadvantage, one where ‘the marginal’—as represented by Sambas Malay village society and village women—is viewed as already constituting a new centre.

5

NGO Women Contesting the Borders of Marginality

This chapter continues the discussion of educated Sambas Malay women who challenge the strictures of Sambas’ socioeconomic and political peripherality through forms of cross-border mobility related to education, training, and more profitable forms of livelihood. Its focus is a West Kalimantan NGO that is well known for its activities in Sambas. Outside public service and a limited number of private enterprises, NGOs offer one of the few employment opportunities for tertiary-educated women in Sambas. The discussion in this chapter concentrates on female activists, predominantly Sambas Malay, who are involved in the NGO’s pemberdayaan perempuan (‘women’s empowerment’) program, or WEP.1 These women’s borderscope of mobility is the least territorially anchored of the borderscopes analysed in this book. Even more than the public sector women described in Chapter Four, the NGO women did not pursue avenues to advance their own or other Sambas Malay women’s interests that involved movement of people or goods over the international border. However, the territorial border remained a constitutive feature of their borderscope, as it was considered emblematic of Sambas’ marginality; it was this marginality, rather than the border, that must be crossed to contest Sambas Malay women’s disadvantages. There is considerable overlap between the borderscope of the NGO women and that of the public sector women described in the last chapter. Both share a vision of Sambas Malay advancement, understood as educational and socioeconomic ‘border crossings’; both also demonstrated an educated/ uneducated divide in their programs that was animated by a reading of the past as uneducated and the desired future as educated. Their imaginaries of the borders that need to be crossed place Sambas Malay women in a specific borderlands territory that was further coloured by a distinction between rural and urban. 1 This chapter is based on close observation of the activities of the NGO’s Women’s Empowerment Program, as well as numerous informal discussions with WEP staff and a review of the NGO’s publications and press releases. The WEP was not only a site of research; women associated with this program provided me companionship and crucial research support (such as contacts, transportation, and accommodation). All personal names, as well as the names of the two Sambas-based associations, Kerabat and Berkat Tenun, are pseudonyms. In order to preserve anonymity, I have also omitted identifying features of the NGO from my description of it and some details relating to women’s comments as quoted in this chapter.

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There were, however, differences between the two groups. First, a concern with gender and other forms of structural inequality was only prominent amongst the NGO workers. Another significant difference relates to the forms of power and influence exercised by the two groups. While there was an element of governmentality in the work of the NGO activists, they did not have access to formal political power or the authority of the government like the public sector women had. WEP activists had to work more intimately and intensely with village women to gain their cooperation. They also had to attend more closely to women’s self-identified interests and pathways of socioeconomic mobility so as to retain their relevance. For this reason, the notion of ‘trusteeship’ is a more appropriate characterisation of the interventions of NGO workers, rather than ‘governmentality’, which was used in relation to public sector women. Trusteeship is not the expression of a ‘will to govern’, but rather the expression of a desire to build people’s own capacities and thereby foster beneficial processes (Li, 2007).2 NGO women translated and adapted a diverse range of norms, manifestos, and idioms, including those of gender equality, Islam, human rights, and democracy, for the Sambas context. From this reservoir of possibilities, their appointed task was to support Sambas Malay women to select tools that would allow them to cross the borders of disadvantage. This focus on the trustee’s intent better aligns with the informal influences of the NGO staff, which were predicated on ties of trust and mutual respect, as well as on women’s voluntary participation in the projects. These variances between the NGO and public sector women may be subtle, but they are significant because they gave rise to different mechanisms of effecting ethnocultural changes. In short, WEP activists were highly invested in the lives and priorities of village-based Sambas Malay women. This positioning was reflected in the design of their projects, which retained the village as a significant site of Sambas Malayness even as they sought to reimagine women’s position in its socioeconomic and political core. WEP’s focus on the rights and welfare of predominantly Sambas Malay village women did not simply reflect the location and priorities of their prospective beneficiaries, however. The activists also exhibited a sensibility that has been noted in descriptions of Indonesian activist circles more broadly, one associated with the movement to defend Indonesia’s adat 2 While trusteeship and governmentality are interlinked in Li’s (2007) discussion of government rationality, the difference between them usefully distinguishes the type of influence that the women in this chapter had or sought to have. Li (2007, pp. 4-5) defines trusteeship as ‘the intent […] to develop the capacities of another to enhance their capacity for action’.

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communities (Mietzner, 2014; Moniaga, 2007; Sangaji, 2007; Sanmukri, 2013).3 While the NGO’s charter makes no claim to defending a Sambas Malay adat community, a commitment to respecting and working with local community norms and practices was evident in the NGO’s approach to selfdetermination, environmental protection, and justice, as well as the value placed on the village as a setting where Sambas Malays’ contemporary and future welfare could be pursued. 4 Another factor is the cultural-political milieu of decentralisation, which compels smaller NGOs (like this one) to position themselves as representing a ‘local’ community. In West Kalimantan, the strength of localist discourse has resulted in a loose division of labour between different NGOs, where Catholic- and Dayak-identified NGOs tend to work with Dayak groups and Malay- or Muslim-identified NGOs work with Malays and other Muslim groups. This partition alone acts as a catalyst for the further consolidation of localist identifications. For this reason, the WEP activists’ own identification as Muslim was also a significant part of their ethnocultural influence, despite working in a non-religious NGO and within programs oriented towards secular goals such as democratisation, community development, and environmental protection.5 3 A prime example is AMAN, or Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago), which formed in 1999 to defend the rights of Indonesia’s indigenous groups (see, Arizona and Cahyadi, 2013). 4 The socio-spatial focus of the WEP’s activities—the rural village—also overlaps to some degree with recent laws that characterise Indonesian villages as sites of mutual support, solidarity, independence, family, sustainability, and democracy. See for example Law of the Republic of Indonesia, Number 6/2014, About Villages (Republik Indonesia, 2014). However, the NGO’s projects were more critical and transformative of social relations rather than supporting a neo-conservative view of the ‘communitarian village’ (Li, 2007). This was particularly clear in the activities of the WEP, where the efforts of NGO workers to strengthen village women’s socioeconomic position and political participation referenced unequal gender and other social relations in villages and Sambas more generally. 5 It is unlikely that the NGO women would refer to the NGO as ‘secular’. There is a general avoidance of the word ‘secular’ in Indonesia due to its negative associations. While agama (‘religion’) is widely considered good (even natural), secularism is commonly viewed as a synonym for atheism, amorality, and communism (Butt and Lindsey, 2012, p. 230; see also, Rinaldo, 2013, p. 155). Still, forms of secularity do exist in Indonesia. For example, there are ‘secular’ non-religious political, legal, and institutional norms and provisions in Indonesia’s Constitution and laws, which NGOs such as the WEP draw upon. These provide an infrastructure on which to build projects framed in terms of rights, equality, political participation, socioeconomic development, and so on. Such legislative and Constitutional supports include the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); the establishment of a National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) in 1998; the support of human rights (Law No. 39/1999), and the Constitutional guarantee of citizens’ equality and freedom from discrimination (Colbran, 2010, p. 679).

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This chapter considers the ethnocultural effects of the WEP on the constitution of Sambas Malayness from several angles. Two sections examine, first, the socioeconomic projects and, second, the political activities initiated by female NGO staff. This is followed by a consideration of the informal influence—as models of Sambas Malay womanhood—wielded by young NGO women amongst their village peers. The concluding discussion comments on the multiple ideational border-crossings and translations entailed by the NGO women’s village projects. Their flexible deployment of a diverse range of discourses—including those on Sambas Malayness, Muslim womanhood, women’s rights, and socioeconomic empowerment—is shown to constitute a form of critical cosmopolitanism. The educational and organisational contexts that shaped this cosmopolitan orientation are outlined in the next section, which provides a background of the NGO, its female staff, and the nature of their commitment to Sambas.

Resolute and grounded A small group of Sambas Malay student activists studying at a university in Yogyakarta established the NGO in the late 1990s. This was a time of heightened student activism, when Muslim values, a belief in democracy, and demands for justice provided the moral foundation of calls for political and social transformation. The NGO’s founders sought to transform the regency of Sambas from the ground up by empowering the local community. Its vision statement refers to the development of a strong ‘Pesisir’ community characterised by political dignity, economic self-reliance, gender equality, and ‘local wisdoms’. This reference to pesisir (‘coastal areas’) situates the West Kalimantan NGO within a predominantly Malay cultural sphere.6 Their commitment to a model of development based on pembangunan berbasis masyarakat (‘the needs and principles of local society’) and ‘local wisdoms’ recognises the intrinsic value of local social and cultural norms. Local Sambas Malay kinship norms also informed the style of interaction within the NGO. Connected by the bonds of ‘siblingship’ (see Chapter Three) developed during their time as Sambas Malay students in Yogyakarta, the founders transferred this sentiment to their organisation. Within the NGO, colleagues referred to each other using the idiom of siblingship (kak, bang), and the prohibition on colleagues entering romantic relationships (including 6 The association between Malays and pesisir is noted in Chapter One and further discussed in Chapter Seven.

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marriage) could be read as an extension of an incest taboo, not merely an Islamic concern with modesty and chastity. The WEP grew out of the determination of one founder, Sharifah, who wanted to direct some of the NGO’s resources towards the advancement of Sambas Malay women. Over time, this resulted in a bifurcated set of programs and workers within the NGO: male workers, whose projects focussed on the environment; and female workers, who were involved in WEP projects. To support the WEP projects, predominantly tertiary-educated Sambas Malay women were recruited to establish women’s groups in rural villages, conduct gender-awareness training, and foster the socioeconomic development of Sambas women. Most women involved in WEP were graduates from the provincial university in Pontianak, but a few had studied at other Indonesian universities. All were under 40, indicating that their high school or university years coincided with the post-Suharto reformasi movement. Coming of age during the reformasi era encouraged them to view Islam, democracy, demilitarisation, and local self-determination as central to overcoming authoritarianism, cronyism, violence, and the socioeconomic stagnation of Sambas. Ani, for example, was attracted by the possibility of grassroots employment and improving the lives of women, while Lena had consciously sought work outside the patrimonialism of the civil service (Smith-Hefner, 2007, p.407). The young women formed part of an expanding social base of women’s activism in the post-Suharto era that combined ‘local community-based and humanitarian perspectives […] with critical and political perempuan (“woman-based”) consciousness’ (Budianta, 2002, p. 37).7 The early years of the NGO coincided with several important nationallevel gender initiatives that further consolidated the WEP’s approach. One of the most significant was the Presidential Instruction, Mainstreaming Gender in National Development in 2000 (Inpres No. 9, 2000). The other was the new Ministry of Women’s Empowerment headed by Khofifah Indar Parawansa, ‘perhaps the first truly feminist women’s minister’ (Robinson, 2009, p. 143). There had been a Women’s Affairs Ministry since 1978, but the change of name signalled an emboldened, more critical gender-relations approach towards issues affecting women. The choice of the word ‘empowerment’ is also noteworthy, as it later became the central paradigm of WEP’s approach towards the advancement of Sambas Malay women. According to Khofifah Indar Parawansa, ‘Empowering women is achieved by improving women’s 7 Parallels are also evident between these women and some of the Solidaritas Perempuan activists documented by Rinaldo (2013).

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role and status in national life through […] institutions that struggle for the actualization of gender equity and justice’ (quoted in Robinson, 2009, p. 157). For structural and resource reasons, much of this struggle has landed on the laps of NGOs workers, such as those in the WEP.8 The NGO women were thus part of a national conversation about Indonesia’s problems and solutions, albeit one shaped by international debates and paradigms such as gender mainstreaming and empowerment. To achieve their women’s empowerment objectives, the NGO established an all-female program concentrated on areas of concern to women. Such decisions provided a level of legitimacy to the female staff, who had to negotiate broader community expectations of appropriate work and interests for young women (many of whom were unmarried). Their concentration in areas concerned with women aligned with local norms of gender segregation (see Chapter Seven) and conformed to the organisation of other long-standing institutions in Indonesia such as the Family Welfare Program (PKK), whose activities were predominantly run by female cadres and directed at women. The fact that most of the women wore the veil might have communicated to the onlooker that the women were not thoroughly Westernised or ‘career women’ (Adamson, 2007, pp. 26–28), as well as increasing their own self-confidence and sense of moral control, an association found in other studies (Smith-Hefner, 2007, p. 402). Their feminist orientation, in a context where such ideas could be perceived as Western and ‘secular’, required the women in this organisation to ‘tread carefully to avoid accusations of being anti-Islamic’ (Rinaldo, 2013, p. 195). However, as discussed later, the ‘practical effects’ of veiling (Brenner, 1996, p. 675) should not be overstated for this case. The work of these young women demanded both physical and discursive mobility. In terms of travel, they made regular day visits to Sambas villages, travelling slowly on motorcycles over rutted roads, narrow tracks, and timber planks. They also frequently travelled to Pontianak and other parts of Indonesia to participate in training programs and workshops. They traversed a diverse range of values, principles, and attitudes, including ‘Western’ human rights discourses, feminist notions of gender equality, Islamic principles of justice and modesty, and a strong identification with the Malay women of Sambas. Their educational attainments were also 8 Robinson (2009, p. 149) describes the hurdles faced by the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment as a state ministry without direct representation regionally. The Minister can request that provincial and district governments establish dedicated units to implement gender equity programs, but as these units are funded by regional governments, few have been established.

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noteworthy for Sambas and reflected the fact that most were the daughters of households in which education was highly regarded and/or near Sambas town or Singkawang—for many years the only towns that had high schools. Their own experience of traversing borders of marginality informed the WEP’s emphasis on training, organisational skills, financial literacy, and public speaking as potential solutions for women’s low status. Thus, in their community development role WEP activists balanced a spirited reformism—based on their education and involvement in Islamic, feminist, and democratic social movements—with their grounded experience of growing up and living in Sambas. It mattered to these women that they also identified with the borders of marginality they were contesting. Their identification as Sambas Malay women assisting other Sambas Malay women motivated them and injected emotional force into their work. According to Sharifah, a co-founder of the NGO, this direct, intimate knowledge ensured that their activities remained relevant and suitable, in contrast to NGOs that employed—in her words—a gaya internasional (‘international style’) or gaya Jakarta (‘Jakarta style’) approach. This did not mean that the NGO was not in close contact with other NGOs at both the provincial and national levels. In fact, it was very well integrated into national networks. However, it saw its strength in—and was recognised by others for—its local credentials and focus. A close relationship with Sambas village women was vital to the success of the NGO women’s activities. Their organisation did not have the funds to ‘buy’ women’s involvement and lacked governmental or administrative authority to impose their will. Their influence was far less direct than that of public sector women; it largely worked through the provision of information, persuasive examples, and bolstering local women’s confidence to avail themselves of opportunities. NGO women’s influence was therefore dependent on local women’s positive response to its programs. Hence, NGO staff worked hard at overcoming the presumed barriers between themselves and village women. They typically communicated in the local Sambas Malay dialect when speaking with women’s groups and other Sambas-based audiences. They also displayed cultural familiarity and respect in their interactions, using Malay kinship terms as polite forms of address. The idiom of kinship provided shared models and norms that governed the relationships between activists and village women. At times, actual kinship relations also connected individual WEP staff to villages and women’s groups. In this way, shared experiential, linguistic, and social ties laid the foundations for NGO women’s involvement in the economic empowerment of village women and enhanced their legitimacy as actors

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in the socioeconomic and political transformation of Sambas.9 The WEP’s initial promotion of a credit union, designed to strengthen village women’s economic status, is discussed in the following section. This initiative gave rise to the formation of various village-based women’s groups, which in turn fuelled WEP’s small business activities and the formation of inter-village alliances and networks of village women. The discussion below focusses on issues of economy, and the section after that focusses on politics. This is, however, a somewhat artificial division. As will become clear over the course of this chapter, the development of women’s economic activities was closely connected to both the growth of women’s social networks and their political voice.

Women’s economic empowerment From its early days, the NGO focussed on improving the economic standing of Sambas women. My review of its programs revealed that ‘empowerment’ was almost exclusively defined in terms of women’s economic standing and political participation.10 In explaining why this is the case, it is useful to consider the village women’s self-defined priorities. In several workshops I attended, participants expressed a principal interest in economic issues, followed by a desire to develop their political voice to counter their lack of influence at the village and regency levels. The success of the WEP’s promotion of a credit union and women’s groups, described below, reflected village women’s capacity to pursue opportunities in line with their self-determined interests—in this case, their largely autonomous productive activities. The establishment of a credit union in Sambas was modelled on a successful credit union set up by NGOs associated with West Kalimantan’s Dayak communities. As a legal entity, the credit union remained quite separate from the NGO. However, several female NGO workers were members of the 9 In common with village women in Chapter Three, kinship was a powerful, living current of identity, solidarity, and support for the NGO women. While the negative effects of kekerabatan (‘kin relations’), are acknowledged—such as patrimonialism and collusion—kinship is overwhelmingly viewed as a positive tie that generates a sense of care and mutual responsibility. As one NGO female staff member explained to me, kerabat are the people who harus dibantu (‘must be helped’); they should contribute—even just a little—to family members’ furthering of their studies or assist with the cost of life-cycle rituals or help a family member in trouble. 10 There were no projects, for example, that addressed domestic violence or women’s right to divorce. There were workshops on women’s legal rights, but in one that I attended the focus was political rights related to village governance, voting, and women as political representatives.

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credit union, and a few served on its board or were involved in its training programs. There was also a close connection between the credit union and the establishment of various village-based women’s groups in Sambas. In fact, the first women’s group, created in 2004, was initiated by a group of village women interested in becoming members of the credit union. As Sharifah explained, ‘The women’s groups are aware that women are extremely limited and marginalised in terms of access to credit and banks to start or develop productive enterprises—and this [is the situation] even though in West Kalimantan most small and micro enterprise owners are women’.11 These early women’s groups became models for women in other villages. At times, the NGO organised meetings between women from different villages so they could share their experiences, thereby fostering interest in the credit union and the establishment of new women’s groups. The founding of groups followed a similar format: a few local women formed a women’s group and simultaneously became credit union members; after training, they explained the benefits of the credit union to other women in their village. NGO staff also recruited new credit union members. During the monthly women’s group meetings, I would sometimes observe one or two NGO women in private discussion with potential recruits. NGO women would also act as intermediaries for those who could not visit the credit union to deposit funds. The recruitment of new members required patience, I was told, as some local mosque leaders identified the credit union as ‘Christian’ and the membership drive as ‘Christianisation’.12 Despite this and other setbacks—such as village women’s low education and unfamiliarity with the workings of financial institutions—the NGO women continued to promote the credit union using both their own and others’ stories to demonstrate the credit union’s financial benefits to women. In its totality, this process formed part of a broader WEP strategy to strengthen women’s economic position. Ani, an NGO worker, explained the NGO’s commitment to the credit union thus: credit union membership has clear benefits for women, most of whom 11 ‘Mereka sadar bahwa dalam mengakses modal usaha untuk membuka dan perkembangan usaha produktifnya perempuan sangat terpinggirkan dan mengalami proses marginalisasi. Padahal kita tahu sebagian besar para pengusaha kecil mikro yang ada di Indonesia dan Kalimantan barat adalah perempuan’ (Author’s translation). 12 Christianity is often viewed as a threat to Islam and Christian proselytisers are commonly believed to seek converts amongst Muslims, even though there is scant evidence of this occurring in West Kalimantan. Nevertheless, the colonial-era success of Catholic and Protestant missionaries in converting Chinese and Dayak groups to Christianity fuels this fear, which in recent times has been stoked by radical Muslim groups such as Laskar Jihad. For an overview of the history of Muslim-Christian relations in Indonesia, see Arifianto (2009).

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do not have bank accounts and lack the documents, such as land certificates, that are required to secure credit. As one songket weaver stated: ‘it’s difficult to ask for help from the bank, because we need collateral. And the collateral must be more than the money we borrow. If we borrow 5 million [rupiah], the collateral must be land. The collateral is worth twice as much as what we borrow’.13 Through the credit union, however, if women have a savings account, they are able to borrow money (‘kalau di CU tabungan ada dan kita bisa meminjam’). Ani noted that women also lacked the confidence and experience to go to a bank, most of which are located in Sambas town. As a result, she continued, women kept their money at home, had no access to loans, and had difficulty saving large sums. In contrast, women found the low-key, personal approach of the credit union less intimidating than a bank. She explained that simply by becoming a member, village women could expand their knowledge and self-confidence, with new members receiving training in basic money management.14 From the NGO’s perspective, there were other benefits derived from women’s membership in the credit union. The formation of women’s groups associated with credit union membership provided a platform where they could inform women of their political rights. Also, the NGO’s local staff in Sambas took a keen interest in the group members’ welfare and often structured its activities around the needs and composition of these groups. NGO staff also assisted with ad hoc issues relating to group members, such as supporting local women standing for election and assisting villagers in defending their rights. Moreover, the women’s group members became the principal beneficiaries of NGO workshops and training opportunities. This generalised strengthening of women’s position from the ground up has broader significance for the NGO women. As Ani noted in relation to her village-based women’s empowerment work, women who are healthy, intelligent, and creative strengthen the Sambas Malay community as well as the nation (‘kaum perempuan yang sehat, cerdas, dan kreatif diyakini 13 ‘Sulit kalau kita minta bantuan ke bank karena kita harus ada jaminan. Jaminan itu lebih mahal harganya daripada uang yang kita terima. Kita pinjam uang 5 juta, jaminannya harus tanahlah … nah … lebih besar ke jaminannya dua kali lebih besar dari pada uang pinjaman’. (Author’s translation). 14 Ani’s support for the credit union was not explicitly expressed in Islamic terms, such as those of ukhuwah (‘solidarity’) and keadilan sosial (‘social justice’) (see Sakai, 2010, pp. 417-418). Although these or similar values were not necessarily absent in guiding Ani’s reasoning about the benefits of the credit union for the poorer and less educated women of her community, she probably would have avoided such language as the credit union did not conform to Islamic or syariah banking principles.

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akan memperkuat bangsa dan negara kita’). The empowerment of village women as a mechanism to pursue Sambas’ advancement is evident in two examples of the WEP’s socioeconomic programs: small business development and songket weaving. Both of these had practical benefits for village women in terms of increased confidence and skills. In relation to this chapter’s overarching interest in how WEP staff (re)constituted Sambas Malayness through their work, these examples highlight the implicit conceptualisation of the Sambas Malay village contained in the WEP activists’ borderscope and promoted through their activities. This was a concept of the village as economically self-reliant, bound by ties of solidarity, and grounded in women’s common pursuit of economic and political agency—and yet, at the same time, outward-looking and open, and situated within networks that spanned local, regional, national, and international spatial scales. From this perspective, village women and their villages needed to be remade in ways that both strengthened local identifications and simultaneously implanted translocal orientations and connections into the very fabric of village structures. Small business development One element of the WEP is the promotion of group members’ cottage industries. This is related to the desire to develop women’s economic self-reliance. In mid-2009, NGO staff prepared a stall to display and sell products made by the women’s groups at an exposition organised by the local government. The riverside expo, held opposite the kraton (‘palace’), aimed to showcase Sambas’ culture and local enterprises to a predominantly local crowd. A stage erected at one end was the site of various cultural performances conducted over five days. These included Chinese, Malay, and Dayak dances (by female dancers), all-male zikir groups, and young, mostly male, bands playing contemporary music. Along the riverside was a range of stalls, including those of local government departments displaying projects and providing information to the public. Several stalls sold new and used clothing, toys, and food. Other stalls marketed local products, including the one run by the NGO, which promoted handicrafts and food products made by the village women’s groups. A large banner advertising the credit union hung at the back of the NGO’s stall. In front, several glass cases displayed sweet and savoury snack foods, packets of locally grown coffee, pepper and spice mixes, sacks of rice, some fresh produce, baskets, and lengths of songket—all produced by the women’s groups. Ani, the female NGO staffer coordinating the stall, organised

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volunteers from the women’s groups to operate the stall in shifts. Most of the volunteers were highly enthusiastic. Some travelled from distant villages, necessitating an overnight stay in Sambas. Consequently, the credit union’s nearby office was quickly transformed into a hostel and resting place for the women (and their small children). Not all the women allocated shifts were actual producers of goods on sale, and a few complained that volunteering deprived them of time to farm (it was approaching the rice harvest). Ani’s broad justif ication for involving the women—even those who did not produce the items for sale—was that the event not only afforded women an outlet to sell their products, but also provided an opportunity to learn small business skills. The NGO had funded Ani’s attendance at a three-day small business training program in Bogor (Java) prior to the expo, and she applied these skills to organising the stall and maintaining an inventory of goods, their producers, their prices, and the quantities sold. During the volunteers’ shifts, the women played their part, restacking shelves, pricing replacement items, and recording sales and the money owed to producers. The expo was only one of several efforts by the NGO to expand small business opportunities for village women through the mechanism of village women’s groups. When working with such groups, WEP activists concentrated on developing women’s existing occupations, such as handicraft production, snack food making, and farming. From the point of view of the NGO worker Fadzillah, supporting women’s craft production—in this case, weaving baskets from bamboo and pandanus leaf—is an avenue to women’s empowerment, one that can also increase young women’s interest in preserving the local knowledge and culture of their village.15 During the monthly meetings with the women’s groups, Fadzillah encouraged the women to focus on the quality of their products and explore new market opportunities, such as using social media to sell their goods. As far as I know, social media has not been successful in increasing sales. The greatest impact of such technologies is arguably their re-classification of village crafts from local goods to translocal commodities. (This is also the case for the Facebook page of Berkat Tenun discussed in the next section). The WEP team’s focus on developing and marketing women’s localised knowledge and skills was not confined to the products described above. The NGO’s sponsorship of songket is especially compelling, as it highlights 15 ‘Pendampingan kelompok perempuan di bidang kesenian merupakan langkah alternatif dalam memberdayakan perempuan. […] Dengan cara pemberdayaan terhadap kelompokkelompok pengrajin ini lah akan lebih membangkitkan semangat generasi muda serta merangsan ketertarikan mereka dalam pelestarian budaya kearifan lokal di desa’. (Author’s translation).

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the relationships established between this NGO and other national and international NGOs. This example accents the importance of intersecting transnational feminist dialogues, nationalist developmentalist discourses, and the socioeconomic objectives of village women in contesting Sambas’ marginality as defined by the borderscope of WEP staff. Songket As part of its efforts to expand economic opportunities for Sambas women, the WEP drew on funding and other support from a range of national and international partner organisations who were similarly committed to improving the welfare of self-employed women in the informal sector. A key organisation was the Indonesian Association for Support for Female Entrepreneurs (ASPPUK), a nation-wide network dedicated to supporting small businesswomen.16 Another important partner was Cita Tenun Indonesia, an Indonesian organisation committed to the promotion of the country’s hand-woven textiles (most of which are produced by women). In association with ASSPUK and Cita Tenun Indonesia, the WEP established a project for songket weavers in one Sambas village in 2013. The Sambas songket project represented one local component of a larger project involving ASSPUK and Cita Tenun Indonesia, the aim of which was to increase the environmental and economic sustainability of women’s hand-woven textiles in Indonesia and the Philippines.17 West Kalimantan was one of eight provinces involved in the project in Indonesia, and Sambas songket weavers were the only participating group from West Kalimantan. Ani took pride in this fact, believing that it signalled Sambas songket’s semakin mendunia (‘increasing eminence’) in the world of Indonesian textiles. This recognition did not come without effort. In 2014, for example, songket weavers from several villages, paraded a 161-metre length of songket in Pontianak as part of that city’s 243rd birthday celebrations. The women took sixteen months to weave this cloth: the longest, unbroken length of songket on record (as awarded by the Indonesian Record Museum). Ani and those women involved in promoting songket, aimed to increase recognition 16 ASPPUK is a network of 54 NGOs across 20 provinces. Their main priority is to support female micro-entrepreneurs through training projects, technical assistance, product development, and marketing, amongst other things. See: http://asppuk.or.id/. 17 The Netherlands’ government and the Delegation of the European Union to Indonesia funded the project for five years for more than €1.7 million. Hivos Regional Office Southeast Asia is a further partner organisation that oversees the project’s administration in Indonesia and the Philippines.

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of Sambas songket in the hope that this would translate into more sales and the improved welfare for Sambas weavers. One broader objective that was visible in the project’s activities in Sambas was training weavers in the production of natural dyes using locally-sourced leaves and plants. If songket weavers in Sambas once utilised natural dyes to colour their yarn, this knowledge is long lost. Unlike the producers of other textiles such as ulos, ikat, and lurik, it is likely that songket weavers have always imported coloured yarn along with the metallic thread that gave songket its characteristic shimmer. Nowadays, predominantly synthetic dyes and synthetic ‘metal’ yarns are used in songket production. The use of natural dyes in the project’s activities was shaped by the objectives of and opportunities provided by the external partners and their funding bodies. Nevertheless, the NGO did not view this as a case of external imposition. Rather, the WEP workers viewed themselves and the songket weavers as participants in a transnational dialogue on women’s socioeconomic empowerment in which national and international collaboration was important. Furthermore, despite the obvious innovation of using natural dyes, Ani viewed her organisation’s involvement as a tool to help preserve an ‘authentic’ Sambas songket. She considered the mass production of textiles using synthetic materials as a method of marginalising hand-made textiles. Moreover, Ani hoped that the promotion of natural, environmentally-friendly textiles would provide consumers with more choice, insisting that the softer hues of the natural dyes could even ‘have a calming effect on the eyes’ (‘meneduhkan mata yang melihatnya’).18 One important preliminary stage of the project was the nomination of a skilled weaver to attend a training program in Java on natural dye production. Kak Haminah was an obvious choice for two reasons. First, with funding from Garuda Indonesia, she had already experienced the rare opportunity of representing Sambas songket in its inaugural inclusion at Indonesia’s largest craft trade fair, Inacraft, in Jakarta in 2009. Second, Kak Haminah had previously demonstrated her initiative and leadership skills. On her return, Kak Haminah had been instrumental in establishing the group Berkat Tenun, which was composed of songket weavers in her village. In 2012, this group was rewarded with a UNESCO Award of Excellence in Handicrafts for their songket shawl. Kak Haminah quickly embraced the 18 ‘Kami berusaha menjaga keotentikan tenun kain songket Sambas supaya tetap lestari’; ‘menjamurnya produk tenun massal yang diproduksi pabrik dengan bahan sintetis, membuat kain tenun tangan kian terpinggirkan’; ‘konsumen tidak punyai pilihan lain, karena memang minimnya informasi tentang tenun yang ramah lingkungan’. (Author’s translation).

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use of naturally dyed threads and shortly after the training program won a prestigious World Craft Council Award of Excellence for Handicrafts (Southeast Asia Program) in 2014 for her cotton and silk songket using natural dyes. In 2015, I attended a demonstration of natural dye techniques at Kak Haminah’s house. Other Berkat Tenun members were present, as were several other weavers interested to learn more about natural dyes. Ani was also there. The colours we created ranged from yellow to more muted hues of mushroom, cream, and grey. There were 15 colours in all, made by mixing five plant extracts found locally in plentiful supply—such as coconut husks and sweet potato plant leaves—with three different mordants (lime, alum, and iron sulphate). Ani summarised the hopes of her organisation and those of Berkat Tenun when she said that slowly, with training, weavers could raise the quality of the songket that was available to consumers.19 While the exploration of new natural colours was a valuable part of this process, I would argue that the growth in women’s confidence and skills—due to their involvement in training and other organised activities—was of greater worth. Their increased self-assurance and proficiency were shown in their willingness to communicate new skills, exchange information, and interact with women and men beyond their village. Essentially, these village women’s own spatial and social imaginaries of mobility had expanded as a result of their participation in the WEP project. Amongst village women involved in these programs a sense of achievement has flourished, along with a new awareness that their village is connected to an expansive network of personal social contacts and interconnected organisations on the local, national, and even international levels. Other studies of artisan weaving cooperatives and groups have reported similar findings, with women’s participation in such groups providing development of leadership skills and greater confidence in public forums (see, Eber, 2000; Lynd, 2000). This process is evident when considering the example of Kak Haminah in greater depth. Even prior to her involvement with the NGO, Kak Haminah possessed some leadership skills, since she was the head of one of the kelompok tani wanita (‘women’s farmers groups’) in her village. However, her influence was limited to this village group and farming matters. Indeed, when I first met her, she was learning songket techniques from her younger sister, who worked in Brunei. Later, Kak Haminah won national and international awards for her weaving and 19 ‘Melalui berbagai pelatihan para penenun perlahan mampu meningkatkan standar kwalitas tenunnya yang ditawarkan kepada konsumen’. (Author’s translation).

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now trains other women in the use of natural dyes and the quality standards promoted by ASSPUK and Cita Tenun Indonesia. What transpired to make this possible? The answer, I suggest below, lies in her willingness—and also in the opportunities presented to her—to become involved in new forms of organisation and networks through her involvement in WEP. When Kak Haminah was in her late 30s, she was one of the first women to join the newly formed WEP women’s group in her village, a decision connected to her family ties to an NGO staff member. Her leadership skills soon became apparent and she was made the group coordinator. This resulted in her attending the WEP’s Women’s Congress in Singkawang and getting involved in the foundation and later leadership of an inter-village women’s network, Kerabat. As a member of her village women’s group, she and other songket weavers were invited to sell their products at the waterside expo discussed above. Kak Haminah attended most days of this event, recording sales and learning about book-keeping. Not long after, due to the higher profile she gained at the expo, she was chosen to represent Sambas at the Inacraft trade fair in Jakarta. This was a turning point in her life. The experience brought a change of style in the way Kak Haminah dressed, spoke, and generally presented herself. She told me how at the Inacraft trade fair she had felt embarrassed and tongue-tied when speaking to visitors. She said that other women in nearby stalls spoke fluent Indonesian—and even some English. This enabled them to explain to visitors the different handicrafts on display. She felt self-conscious, she explained, about her proficiency in Sambas Malay and discouraged that she could not properly promote Sambas songket. Upon her return, she made a concerted effort to listen to the television and practice Indonesian (as distinct from Sambas Malay). I noticed that she also started to wear more contemporary forms of veiling and longer, more draping styles of shirt-dresses that were atypical of village women. She returned with other ideas, too, and was instrumental in establishing a group of local songket producers, Berkat Tenun, which later established its own Facebook site to promote and sell their products. By 2013, she was the elected head of Kerabat, an umbrella organisation representing all of the village women’s groups established by the NGO (described in more detail in the next section). Her self-confidence and authority increased even further after the NGO selected her to be the local trainer in the ASPPUK project. This led to training about natural dyes in Java, and to her personal World Craft Council award. She now trains other weavers (including her younger sister) and thereby affects the ongoing construction of Sambas Malay weaving and womanhood via her expanded personal and professional networks.

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A notable effect of the WEP’s activities has been providing village women with opportunities to involve themselves in different levels of organisation. Their participation has then resulted in new opportunities that take them beyond their village. Kak Haminah is a clear example of the broad-based empowerment that the NGO’s WEP has offered some women. With very little reference to gender itself and by concentrating on women’s existing economic activities, the NGO has enabled women like Kak Haminah to broaden their own personal horizons and those of their fellow villagers, including other Berkat Tenun members. The same approach is found in all of WEP’s projects, whether they are directed at women’s handicrafts or farming, most women’s economic mainstay. It is not that the particularities of the training are unimportant—it is just that the significance of the NGO’s activities cannot be narrowly judged in terms of women’s increased output, book-keeping competency, raised incomes, and so on. Lena summed it up rather succinctly when referring to training on the use of natural fertilisers and pesticides in the production of rice. Her comments reflect how the NGO workers understand the objectives of training programs: ‘The aim of meetings and training is to support [women] farmers’ control over their fields and the independence of people’s organisations, especially that of Kerabat. It’s not just material on the sustainability of farming’.20 The socio-spatial mobility experienced by women involved in the NGO’s WEP has had the further effect of reconfiguring the village as one node amongst many within an expanded translocal network. Women’s villagebased economic activities are not only important to the reproduction of households (something feminist scholarship in Indonesia has long argued), but are also promoted for their potential commercial value beyond the village economy. In this reading, the village is not a site of economic marginalisation to be transcended through urbanisation or outmigration, but rather a viable, translocally connected component within the regional economy. This reimagining of women’s village location as a new centre of sorts can only be secured by strengthening women’s access to and control over village resources and decision-making processes. Thus, in addition to a focus on economic empowerment, NGO women also strove to improve village women’s political participation through their village-based groups. Recalling the comments made by Ibu Mu’azah in the previous chapter, women need involvement in organisations to develop the skills and confidence to 20 ‘Ini tujuan dari pertemuan dan pelatihan-pelatihan untuk mendorong kedaulatan petani atas lahannya dan kemandirian organisasi rakyat khususnya Kerabat. Tidak hanya materi pertanian yang berkelanjutan’ (Author’s translation).

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participate in political decision-making. The following section considers how WEP staff encourage forms of political agency amongst women through village women’s groups and their related association, Kerabat.

Women’s political empowerment From the perspective of the NGO, the founding of village women’s groups was never an exclusively economic strategy. Indeed, Sharifah made this very point in an early interview. When the village groups were still being established, the objective had been to draw on women’s existing experiences, capacities, and knowledge as the basis for more strategic aspirations. In line with this vision, in 2009 the NGO organised a three-day Women’s Congress, where five representatives from each of the village women’s groups were in attendance.21 The aims of the Women’s Congress were to increase women’s political participation and establish mechanisms to more effectively monitor the regency government for gender discriminatory policies. As noted in Chapter Four, women’s participation in formal political structures in Sambas is below the national average. During the Congress, the NGO invited several locally prominent female civil servants and members of parliament to speak on the topic, ‘Towards a self-reliant society through empowerment of women and gender equality in the realisation of women’s rights to associate, have a voice and be economically active’. A major outcome of the Congress was the establishment of a new umbrella group, Kerabat, with representatives from each village women’s group. The choice of the name Kerabat (literally, ‘relatives’) suggests that the women also recognise this association as connecting women of a common, territorially informed, Sambas Malay origin. The theme of the Women’s Congress further situates the NGO in the national and international discursive spaces discussed earlier, where terms such as ‘empowerment’, ‘women’s rights’, and ‘gender equality’ are standard fare. At the same time, the WEP’s activities were firmly rooted in village-level organisations. This suggests that the Sambas Malay village was understood as both a site of gender oppression and marginalisation and a site of socioeconomic and political renewal for Sambas, particularly regarding the participation of Sambas Malay women. The two examples given below highlight the potential political agency of village women as 21 The impetus for the Women’s Congress was the first Forum of Women’s Organisations of West Kalimantan in February 2009. This was the first time that women’s groups and representatives from all but one of West Kalimantan’s regencies/cities met to discuss shared strategic objectives.

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constructed by this NGO. These examples of advocacy and protest reveal how NGO staff understand the social, economic, and political significance of village women. Their efforts to support village women’s agency were often contested or thwarted by competing interests, but irrespective of the outcome the extent to which NGO women understood the village as a site for collective advancement is quite clear. This vision of the village as pro-woman, democratic, self-reliant, and outward-looking, where women’s collective agency could achieve positive outcomes for Sambas, provided a powerful rationale for the NGO women. Sharifah believed that although Sambas Malay women are able to contribute a better perspective on the ethics of living (‘perempuan sekarang […] mampu memberikan sebuah perspektif terhadap tata kehidupan yang lebih baik’), the commonly held view (‘pandangan umum’) is that women do not have the right to be involved in public matters (‘perempuan masih belum berhak dilibatkan dalam urusan yang berhubungan dengan publik’). Sharifah found that village women often lacked a sense of their rights, choosing to defer to their husband’s decisions (‘sering seorang istri akan mengikuti keputusan yang diambil suaminya’). Her organisation was committed to challenging such views through advocacy about women’s right to be involved in all levels and structures of decision-making. Advocacy One topic frequently discussed by WEP staff during their monthly visits to the village women’s groups was how to involve women in village governance structures, and how women might have a voice in their village’s development planning consultation processes (Musyarawah Rencana Pembangunan Desa). Sharifah explained the objective of the WEP’s regular meetings as increasing women’s awareness that ‘they have rights that must be met, protected, respected, and promoted by the nation through its administration.’22 To this effect, training about women’s political rights and gender mainstreaming in development planning was sometimes conducted in the village women’s groups. Women also commonly presented problems to NGO workers about the management of their village, particularly concerning the release of Anggaran Dana Desa or ADD (‘village development funds’). In general, monetary blockages did not occur at the regency-level in Sambas. Instead, 22 ‘Pertemuan rutin ini diharapkan mampu meningkatkan pemahanan dan kesadaran perempuan bahwa mereka mempunyai hak-hak yang harus dipenuhi, dilindungi, dihormati dan dipromosikan oleh negara melalui pemerintahannya’. (Author’s translation).

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the real problems lay at the village level when village heads refused to release funds. According to Sharifah, in Sambas, if the kepala desa (‘village head’) is good, then the management of the village will also be good.23 Women also complained about the quality and adequacy of the public sector. In response, the NGO supported Kerabat in making representations to the local government. In 2010, Kerabat representatives supported by Sharifah and another WEP staff member made a representation to the local government branch of Badan Pemberdayaan Perempuan dan Keluarga Berencana (Women’s Empowerment and Family Planning). The primary request was that a new local regulation be introduced to the regency-level parliament (DPRD) to make it compulsory that women constitute at least 30 percent of village administrative positions.24 There were then 186 villages in Sambas, but only one female village head. Furthermore, out of 1098 members of Badan Permusyawaratan Desa (‘Village Consultative Boards’), only 23 were women. While women did feature in some village administrative units, they were concentrated in the divisions associated with women and children, such as PKK (renamed in the post-Suharto era to Pemberdayaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga, or Family Empowerment and Welfare Movement). For Sharifah, this suggested that little had changed since the New Order, when women were excluded from development planning (she offered the example of family planning policy: why was it only forced on women?). Expressing a gender mainstreaming argument, she found it unacceptable that policies on the regulation of village life ignored women’s priorities and needs.25 23 Antlöv, Wetterberg, and Dharmawan (2016, pp. 164-165) argue that from 2004, village heads had more power and less accountability, after the reforms (introduced in 1999) that mandated the direct election of members of Village Representative Boards were replaced with the requirement that members be appointed ‘through representative deliberations’. At the same time, Village Representative Boards were renamed Village Consultative Boards. 24 This is in line with a number of electoral reforms, which have introduced a 30 percent quota for female candidates, such as Law 12/2003 on General Elections (Bessell, 2010, p. 228), Law 2/2008 on Political Parties and Law 10/2008 on General Elections (Bessell, 2010, p. 232). The 2008 reforms stipulated a minimum 30 percent quota of female candidates on party lists, a minimum of 30 percent female membership in any new political party, and to contest the election each party must have at least 30 percent women in regional executive boards and central party leadership (Bessell, 2010, p. 232). A number of the more progressive articles of the 2008 General Elections Laws were later successfully challenged in the Constitutional Court, thus resulting in a level of pessimism amongst women’s activists who argued the quotas alone are insufficient to facilitate women’s access to parliament. For a discussion of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, see Bessell (2010, pp. 232-235). 25 ‘Tidak berlebihan ketika sebuah kebijakan yang diambil untuk tata kehidupan desa, tidak melibatkan kepentingan dan kebutuhan perempuan yang merupakan penduduk desa tersebut’. (Author’s translation).

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The women’s proposal was not warmly received. Instead, the civil servants present denied any responsibility, saying, ‘Oh no, that doesn’t concern us. That is the responsibility of another agency [the Community Empowerment and Village Government Board]’. The Women’s Empowerment officials remained blind to the connection between political participation and women’s empowerment. Even after the relationship was explained, they were unwilling to acknowledge that they could facilitate the advancement of such an initiative, suggesting that they could only be ‘resource people’. Sharifah viewed this as typical of the many public officials who were ignorant of the scope and responsibilities of their department (a reality that some of the public sector women discussed in Chapter Four contested daily). What she did find truly gratifying, however, was the directness of the Kerabat women, who asked questions and challenged the government officials. Many officials believed that village women were bodoh (‘stupid’) and wouldn’t answer back, she said; hence, the officers of Women’s Empowerment and Family Planning were taken aback by the women’s retorts. For example, the women asked why contraceptives were not free (women were paying IDR 15,000 per month for an injection, or IDR 5000 per month for tablets). The response was that they are only free for households categorised as ‘poor’, that is, where the household only eats one meal a day and the house has dirt floors. The women from Kerabat challenged the relevance of this definition of poverty, arguing, ‘We’d be dead if we only ate once a day, as we are farmers’ and ‘no matter how poor we are, we still have floors so that snakes and other animals don’t come inside, especially when it rains’. Here, the women expressed a sense of arivu (‘consciousness’, ‘awareness’), a term Kalpana Ram (2008) uses with reference to female Tamil Dalit activists who developed a sense of pride in relation to a new-found awareness and knowledge that enabled women to question and challenge conventional ways of behaviour and understanding. The ability of civil servants in the example to dodge issues and deny responsibility reveals the true limitations of this sort of advocacy. However, the following discussion provides an example of what can happen when appeals to the local government are ignored. This case concerns a political protest involving villagers’ defence of the economic foundations of their villages. The background story to the protest action is described below; the WEP staff were central to facilitating village women’s public participation in the protest. Justifying their involvement, the NGO women made several specific claims regarding women’s de-facto ownership and control of land and women’s right to participate in the politics of village life. The WEP workers sought to enact a new vision of village women’s rights that placed

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women (together with men) at the centre of village affairs. At the same time, the village women adopted this new vision of themselves and their villages and, in particular, viewed their village-based activities as being of value and worth a fight. The next section describes how WEP activities shaped women’s reinvigorated understanding of and confidence in both themselves and their villages. Protest The protest in 2008 concerned two proposed oil palm concessions affecting several villages in three subdistricts of Sejangkung, Galing, and Telok Keramat. Miranda Morgan (2013, p. 1) provides a summary of the event: On June 24, 2008, up to 7,000 people participated in a protest unprecedented in the small capital of Sambas district in the province of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. They demanded that the Bupati [Regent] withdraw plantation permits to their land, which he had earlier granted to two companies. One of these companies, PT Sentosa Asih Makmur (PT SAM), a subsidiary of the Wilmar Group, had started to make advances to establish an oil palm plantation on a 16,000-hectare concession. Smallholders from across three affected sub-districts united to fight against their imminent dispossession. When the Bupati finally met with protesters, he announced that he was withdrawing PT SAM’s permit to the land, ending the threat of dispossession for these smallholders. Among the protesters present that day were a significant number of otherwise apolitical women who, for the first time, turned up to protect their land.

Morgan (2013, pp. 5-6) notes two central triggers for the protest. One was the grievance that PT SAM had received a Plantation Business Permit and was planting seedlings without undertaking the required environmental assessment and community consultation. The second, more serious, concern was the lack of ‘empty’ or ‘idle’ land suitable for the proposed concession. Most land earmarked in the concessions was already under cultivation, with the great majority of farmers in possession of Surat Keterangan Tanah (‘Land Information Letters’).26 Sharifah related how the villagers had acted quickly, 26 Surat Keterangan Tanah (or SKTs) are generally recognised as evidence of ownership when the land is under cultivation. If land is acquired by the state, landholders with SKT are entitled to compensation. These letters do not constitute official land ownership certificates, which can only be issued by the National Land Agency.

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recognising that their customary use of this land was under threat since Plantation Business Permits last for between 90 and 100 years. With the support of NGO and other community leaders, farmers in the threatened villages formed a farmer’s association—Serikat Tani Serumpun Damai (STSD)—to convey their opposition to the oil palm concession to the regency-level House of Representatives (DPRD) and the regent. When talks and verbal agreements broke down, the decision was made to hold a peaceful protest that would assemble in front of the DPRD before marching to the regent’s office (Morgan, 2013, p.6). From my own observations at the time, the protest was also precipitated by threats against members of STSD and a vicious attack on Haji Iskandar, the coordinator of STSD and village head of Sekuduk. Haji Iskandar was set upon in the early evening of Monday 9 June, receiving serious blows to his head and back. It was widely believed that the attack was instigated by PT SAM. Indeed, the secretary of STSD, Syahrial, stated in the Borneo Tribune that the attack on Haji Iskandar had followed several threats from parties associated with the company (Rahman, 2008). Within hours of the assault, a crowd of people and motorbikes assembled outside the hospital in Sambas town. This is how I first learned about the assault—by driving past the hospital with Ani on our way home from a women’s meeting in a village close to where the assault occurred. The following day, the NGO women from the WEP discussed the events of the previous day and their own sense of mounting tension in Sejangkung. Ani and I recounted our unusual encounter with a policeman in Sejangkung on the same day Haji Iskandar was attacked. Not only did he know our names, but he asked Ani directly whether she was from STSD. She said ‘no’, but explained that her organisation gives support to STSD. He asked for our mobile phone numbers. We replied that this was not necessary, as we were just visiting for a few hours. He insisted, saying that it would be good for keamanan (‘security’). The NGO women’s usual confidence was momentarily shaken. They subsequently resolved to travel in groups of four when going to villages in Sejangkung for a while and avoid travelling back late in the day. They also voiced their concern for the safety of women associated with STSD, including the few female STSD field coordinators. These women had taken on roles and activities that many villagers would regard as best performed by men. What we did not know at that time was that these series of events and triggers would lead to women from the affected villages actively participating in the June 24 protest a week later. Morgan (2013, p. 2) has explored the conditions that promoted women’s ‘unlikely participation’ in this protest. Her interviews revealed a hesitation

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on the part of many women to be involved in direct political action, although the majority agreed that the oil palm concession would have deleterious impacts on their ability to farm and provide for their families. As noted in Chapter Three and reinforced in Morgan’s analysis, the existing gender division of labour positions women as most responsible for growing crops to sell and for household subsistence. Women feared losing access to land and their autonomy over which crops to plant if the concession were to proceed. In discussing their decision to participate (or not) in STSD activities, Morgan’s informants revealed a great deal about the taken-for-granted, male-dominated nature of political agency in Sambas: Upon receiving information about the proposed oil palm plantation, local community leaders (all men) attempted to resolve the issue through conventional means in typical formal political spaces […] Only 10 (of 42) women reported attending one of these events. Of the ten, most went to oil palm-related meetings in their own communities. Only two went to one of the many hearings in the House of Representatives in Sambas. Despite having what could be considered ‘sufficient’ motivation to reject oil palm, the meetings and hearings did not seem to offer women opportunities to take political action against the development. (Morgan, 2013, p. 12)

What then led to women participating in the protest action? Clearly, women were motivated by the risk that the plantation permits posed to their own livelihoods. They were also angered by the lack of acknowledgement of their ownership of the land and the climate of fear and violence that PT SAM had incited. Nevertheless, the question remains: What enabled them to take the unprecedented step of representing their own and their community’s interests in a public protest? Several of Morgan’s informants stated that their participation was due to the encouragement of NGO supporters, who argued that women should attend to defend their rights. This ‘invitation’ gave women space to attend, while their participation bolstered numbers at the protest and was therefore largely endorsed by both men and women (Morgan, 2013, p. 14). NGO support of women’s participation went beyond providing informal permission to attend the protest, however. As I observed, many NGO women in this chapter had developed close ties of cooperation and support with the women and women’s groups in various affected villages. These ties in turn provided accommodation, transportation, and a language of rights to support the actions of female protesters and activities of female field coordinators. Indeed, in the case of Dinah, her confidence and ability to

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represent her village as a field coordinator was facilitated by the day-to-day support offered by the NGO women discussed in this chapter. Dinah was in her mid-twenties and liked to wear jeans and a denim jacket over a tight t-shirt. Like other village women of equivalent age and education, she did not wear the hijab. Dinah had completed junior high school and wished to continue studying, but her family’s economic situation made this impossible. In many ways, Dinah was an unlikely member of STSD in that she was young and female (she was married but without children). WEP staff quickly recognised Dinah’s intelligence and political potential. They began offering Dinah opportunities to participate in the public hearings related to the oil palm plantation proposal, paying for her transportation and subsidising her accommodation. Dinah would stay overnight in an NGO woman’s home when she needed to attend hearings and meetings in Sambas town. Sharifah explained that they wanted to support and encourage Dinah to become a leader in her village. This was important, she stressed, because usually women are overlooked as potential village leaders. Sharifah’s organisation also funded Dinah’s attendance at meetings outside Sambas, arranging accommodation in the homes of other NGO women in Pontianak and beyond. On one occasion, Dinah represented her village at a meeting organised by the parent company of PT SAM, the Singapore-based Wilmar Group, with representatives of the regency government. The NGO women, particularly Ani, Fadzillah, and Mashitah, also used the women’s groups to encourage women’s political participation in the protest. Even where there were no village groups, they would sometimes visit the affected villages and meet with women there. For example, Ani and Mashitah had visited Dinah’s village even though there was no established women’s group there. They travelled by motorboat and stayed overnight, as only one or two boats visited the village daily. They were largely motivated by a desire to shore up support for Dinah, who had been criticised for her frequent travelling in her role as a STSD field coordinator. At the request of the women from Dinah’s village, Ani and Mashitah made a repeat visit. Mashitah felt that acts of intimidation in the escalating oil palm conflict required a demonstration of solidarity—such as their support of women in the embattled villages. She added that it was crucial to encourage village women at such times, to demonstrate to them that they have a legitimate place in making decisions that will affect the future of their community. While women had a clear sense of their hak (‘right’) to land, including their authority to make decisions regarding the use of that land, they were not always confident that they had the right to defend these rights publicly.

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According to Sharifah, specific qualities inherent to women were also important assets in conflict situations. She defended her organisation’s support of women’s political participation in village affairs by referring to women’s sifat-sifat feminin (‘feminine qualities’), including gentleness, compassion, care of children, and long-term thinking (‘lemah lembut, kasih sayang, menjaga keturunan, memikirkan generasi muda depan’). In addition to the defence of women’s economic rights and political participation, the inclusion of such qualities formed part of her vision of a just and vibrant Sambas Regency, one in which the village and village women played a foundational role. This was not a defence of the village as a self-sufficient and self-contained unit. As Sharifah and other WEP staff were very aware, most villages affected by the proposed plantations were already firmly inserted into global market relations and reliant on rubber and other cash crops to survive. Instead, their support of village women’s protests was a response to the environmental and economic threats that monocrop plantations posed to the economic self-reliance of village women and their households. It was an intervention designed to strengthen women’s control over the translocal economic and political relations affecting their lives. Through this and other WEP activities, the women involved in WEP influenced village women’s political agency in myriad ways. This influence did not amount to a radical social transformation in the distribution of power or women’s position in formal political structures. Nevertheless, it did result in small, incremental changes to some village women’s view of their political rights and participation. One of the enduring legacies of the NGO’s village women’s groups has been the development of village women’s own voices, social networks, and organisational capacities. Members of village-based women’s groups have enhanced their capability to advocate on behalf of other women. NGO women have also provided support and resources to women like Dinah who have taken on more overt political roles. Kerabat created a Facebook site, while its members have initiated various village activities (including organic farming) and organised gatherings independent of the NGO women—the latest a picnic after Ramadan, for which women covered their own transportation and food costs (see Chapter Seven). Essentially, the NGO women’s legacy is that Kerabat now generates its own dynamism. There are strong parallels with Julia Elyachar’s (2010, p. 453) conceptualisation of empowerment as the strengthening of women’s social practices by supporting the communication channels and social infrastructures used by women to transmit semiotic meanings and economic value. WEP’s activities resulted in novel infrastructures and expanded communication channels, while simultaneously transmitting a positive

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appraisal of women’s activities and worth, which in turn had the effect of supporting and extending women’s capacity to act in important ways. From this perspective, we can see how NGO workers’ borderscope of marginality gave rise to activities and actions that resulted in the enlargement of village women’s own spatial and social imaginaries. So far, this chapter’s discussion has explored the influence of WEP projects and activities, including their training and economic programs, as well as the direct support stemming from their close ties with women’s village-level organisations. It identified how WEP projects—informed by NGO worker’s borderscope of marginality—have changed the way some village women approach socioeconomic mobility. There is an explicit connection between mobility and identity in WEP’s programs, which sought to enhance village women’s socioeconomic prospects and participation in civil society by enlarging their range of and reasons for travel. By participating in WEP events, village women were encouraged to re-evaluate their role and re-imagine their potential as Sambas Malay women. They did this by venturing into new sites and locations to learn new skills, participate in conferences, and pursue their own social, economic, and political agendas. In the following section, I speculate about WEP women’s indirect influence on village women stemming from their visits to villages and how they conduct themselves during WEP activities. This discussion draws on my observations of these young women’s behaviour and interactions, and of the version of a young Sambas Malay womanhood they presented—one that combined education, visible piety, respect for Sambas Malay cultural norms and social relations, and a level of economic affluence. Despite the nebulous nature of such observations, the following discussion directs us to consider the intersection of work-related mobility and identity from an additional perspective: the performance and embodiment of religious and cultural values. Village peers desiring such identifications were likely influenced by the NGO women’s modes of behaviour and dress and, through the subtle realignment of their own conduct and dress, contributed to altering broader constructions of Sambas Malay womanhood.

Informal influences: embodying a modern Sambas Malay woman WEP activists embodied a version of a modern Sambas Malay woman who was educated, economically independent, mobile, fashionable, and religiously observant, but also simultaneously remained embedded in Sambas Malay sociality and culture through family ties and norms of social

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interaction. They also personified a Sambas Malay woman who was vocal and proactive. For the younger village women who were their peers, the WEP workers presented a viable model of a worldly, devout, and stylish Sambas Malay woman who was—in a word—‘urban’. As noted at the outset, the NGO in which these women worked was not regarded, and did not represent itself, as a religious organisation. The WEP activists were not doctrinaire and were more likely to reference feminist, nationalist, and community development agendas than Muslim ones. Indeed, the NGO’s programs were notably silent on the question of religion and I never observed WEP activists deploy Islam as ‘an effective mobilising framework’ (Rinaldo, 2008, p. 1799). Yet, despite the non-religious nature of the organisation and its projects, there was something palpably ‘Muslim’ about the NGO and its activities, and it would be near impossible to differentiate the religious and non-religious in the activisms of these young women.27 Their activism was motivated by sentiments of collective care towards Sambas Malay women and their own religious moral reasoning. These inflected not only their understanding of the community they primarily served, but also were apparent in the gender norms and codes of conduct in the NGO. At the NGO headquarters, workspaces were separated, with male workers occupying one section and female workers another. When travelling to attend training or workshops in Pontianak or Jakarta, women in the organisation travelled in pairs, often staying with female colleagues or contacts on the way. Even when travelling to village meetings within Sambas, women travelled two to a motorcycle and often in groups of four. While the reason proffered was that of safety, travelling with another woman or in a group made easier the social negotiation of young women travelling independently. Given that it was a Malay NGO working predominantly with Malay groups, aspects of the activities organised by the NGO women inevitably incorporated religious elements: these included Islamic greetings and idiomatic phrases, the organisation of activities to 27 Numerous studies document how Muslim activists, both conservative and liberal, draw from a mix of seemingly incongruous sources, including Islamic norms and laws, civil law, and human rights conventions (see, for example, Al-Ali, 2000; Jacobsen, 2011; Abu-Lughod, 2013). Indonesian studies of women’s activism also observe how it is animated by a variety of values and norms, including those considered religious and secular (Brenner, 2005; Blackburn, Smith, and Syamsiyatun, 2008; Robinson, 2009; Rinaldo, 2013). Indeed, some of the most explicitly Islamist female activists in Indonesia are members of political parties whose leaders are currently elected members of parliament, and thus participate regularly in secular norms and activities associated with elections and the administration of government (Rinaldo, 2013). (The utility of this dichotomy has been questioned in other Indonesian studies, such as Rudnyckyj, 2010).

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accommodate prayer times, the timing of events (e.g., fewer events during the fasting month of Ramadan), and informal social events facilitated by the NGO in line with the Islamic calendar. The WEP staff’s modest style of dress, together with their restrained interactions with the opposite sex, further marked them as Muslim to outsiders. Time was always set aside in their work schedule to pray, with Ani, Lena, and colleagues borrowing prayer mats and women’s billowing prayer vestments during village visits. Their religiosity was confirmed by another visible sign: wearing a headscarf or veil. This was not imposed by the organisation, as the WEP workers were mostly of the opinion that wearing a veil remained a matter of choice, not coercion. Moreover, while several women in the organisation did not wear a headscarf, all the WEP staff wore one, or adopted it over time, such as Ani and Lena. When I asked Ani her reasons for permanently wearing a headscarf, she replied that she felt ready—inferring that this decision was a weighty one in that it cannot be unmade (Smith-Hefner, 2007, p. 400). Lena also took to wearing a headscarf after the birth of her first child, explaining her decision was connected to her desire to be a good (Muslim) mother. Both Ani and Lena had attended university at a time when Islam was entering the public sphere as a moral framework for social reform (Smith-Hefner, 2007, pp. 396-398). Their decision to veil was carefully deliberated and perceived as an act of religious and gendered agency, one in which choice was ‘intrinsic to their moral agency as Muslims’ (Jacobsen, 2011, p. 76). While these young women’s veiling was undoubtedly an expression of ‘women’s Islamisation’ (Frisk, 2009, p. 15), it was also an avenue for the conspicuous display of fashionability for Ani and Lena. Lena and Ani both enjoyed buying and wearing new jilbab (‘head covering’) and matching accessories, although they preferred different styles—Lena tended towards more enveloping forms of jilbab and clothes; Ani preferred jilbab that could be tightened around the neck or tucked into the top of a shirt. They were not alone. Other WEP and NGO staff who had veiled for a long time tended to wear simpler and, in some cases, longer veils that cloaked their chests, shoulders, and upper backs. Yet there was still an interest in different styles (high on the head, gathered around the neck, etc.) and accessories, such as pins to keep the jilbab in place or brooches attached to headscarves. In addition to veiling practices, an interest in fashion was also highlighted through contemporary styles of Muslim women’s clothing or busana Muslimah modern (that is, long, loose-fitting shirts or dresses over trousers), shoes, and handbags. In comparison to most village-based Sambas Malay women, the NGO workers had more available cash. Their higher disposable incomes were due

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to two factors: their salaries and other economic pursuits; and their tendency to marry later than other young women. As single women, they had more freedom to spend money on clothes and other consumables, such as handbags, mobile phones, and make-up. Catalogue shopping was one way they kept abreast of fashion trends, and catalogues were excitedly exchanged between the NGO’s WEP staff and other young working women on fixed salaries in villages, including teachers and health workers. Several NGO staff were even part of a multi-level catalogue shopping company, Sophie Paris, which focussed on clothing and accessories for women and children. Several times a year they would receive an Indonesian-language catalogue oriented towards the Indonesian market in terms of clothing styles (including Muslimah attire and accessories). Through this, they earned a percentage from their direct sales to customers and a commission on the sales of anak buah (‘recruited team members’). Lena and Mashitah joked that they were competing for both sales orders and anak buah. One primary arena of this competition was the village women’s groups, particularly the younger female members. While the NGO women modified their speech and actions in line with local village practice in their interactions, the informal influence they exercised was primarily one-way and reflected the seductive pull of an increasing urbanism in Sambas’ villages. For younger village women, the appeal of the urban was strong, particularly the ideas and images gleaned from television and their own experiences of work and education. Thompson (2007) argues that Malay villages in peninsular Malaysia are thoroughly infused with a modern urban culture due to the influence of work, education, and the media. This infusion may not be as pronounced for many rural residents of Sambas, but nevertheless the increase in transportation and travel, penetration of television and, more recently, the internet, and rising levels of urbanisation have brought the urban to the village in ways that reinforce villagers’ sense of playing ‘catch up’ to the town. Within this space, the WEP workers modelled a version of urban culture that altered village peers’ imagining of modern Sambas Malay womanhood. On a visit to a village in the district of Tebas in mid-2008, I noticed some village women leafing through the new ‘Bienvenue’ Sophie Paris catalogue that Mashitah had brought. While they browsed through it, I asked Ismah, a primary-school teacher and mother of a five-year-old daughter, whether she found the prices expensive. Blouses, for example, ranged from IDR 120,000–IDR 170,000 (US$ 12-17). There were some discounted items around IRD 70,000 (US$ 7), as well as expensive shirts at more than IRD 200,000 (US$ 20). She replied that the items were expensive according to ukuran kampung (‘village standards’), but that she could afford to buy the items

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on credit, paying off a little at a time. She also mentioned that she would take the catalogue to work and see if any of her colleagues were interested in buying anything. She liked looking at the catalogue, as Sambas had such limited shopping. She explained that to have any choice one must travel to Pontianak. On that day no one bought anything, but Mashitah was not discouraged as she felt that the women would text her later. She would then text the order to the agent in Pontianak. Payment is arranged later—and here the issue of trust is very important, as the customer pays (or makes a part-payment) only after they receive their item. The influence of such catalogues is somewhat negligible in mediasaturated regions of the world. However, in 2008, there was no distribution of popular print media outside of a few towns in Sambas. Newspapers had very limited circulation and were only available in the towns of Sambas, Tebas, and Pemangkat. Television, on the other hand, was pervasive, and the sole source of advertising for most Sambas Malays. In the towns, there were a few warnets (‘internet cafés’) that were largely dominated by adolescent boys playing videogames; it would take several more years for wireless access to become more widespread, allowing people to access reasonably regular internet services in the office or at home. The closest shopping mall was in Pontianak, which explains why the opening of a shopping mall and supermarket in Singkawang in 2015 was deemed worthy of visit by Kerabat women (see Chapter Seven). While more people and organisations in Sambas now have access to the internet—and indeed Sophie Paris has a well-developed online marketing presence today—it is not so long ago, and for many village women it still remains the case, that flicking through a glossy catalogue was one of only a few popular media channels available to them with which they could negotiate a sense of identity. There has been a steady and highly visible trend over the past decade towards more fashionable and encompassing forms of Muslimah attire amongst the women in Kerabat and among those involved in WEP projects in general. The Facebook pages of Kerabat and Berkat Tenun, as well as those of individual WEP women, provide pictorial evidence of changes to the dress and head coverings of women involved in WEP activities. The direct role of WEP staff in stimulating such changes is difficult to measure: there are a number of possible contributing influences, including public sector women and organisations such as BKMT. WEP workers’ influence was arguably strongest amongst women like Ismah, who was of a similar age, educated, and enjoyed a level of disposable income, while having less opportunity to travel widely beyond the village and district. Some village women may also have sought some of the ‘practical effects’ of veiling (Brenner, 1996)

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by adopting more recognisably Muslimah clothing. However, the situation relating to women’s decisions to dress in a particular style is rather more complex. For the NGO workers, their decision to veil was connected to their view of Islam as an ethical framework for the conduct of their lives and work (Al-Ali, 2000; Adamson, 2007; Jacobsen, 2011; Mahmood, 2005; Rinaldo, 2013). Islam also constituted an aspect of Sambas Malay ethnocultural resurgence, so women’s decision to embrace more identifiably Muslim forms of dress could also be an articulation of their local identification (Faucher, 2005; Rachmah, 2008; Setyawati, 2008). Muslimah dress, in particular, can function as a symbol of being middle-class, urban, and educated, in ways that sit comfortably with consumer capitalism (Brenner, 1996; Frisk, 2009; Martin, 2014; Rachmah, 2008; Smith-Hefner, 2007). The significance of this infusion of piety and capitalism into this discussion is its representation of what Sambas Malayness could (should) look like once the borders of marginality have been successful crossed: namely, educated, worldly, religious, and consumerist. It may be a partial representation, in that it is a highly gendered image of the young, modern, educated, and well-travelled Sambas Malay Muslim woman, but that makes it no less important. A final point to make in relation to the informal influence of the WEP workers is that they delivered a very different message than their male NGO colleagues, who performed their urbanity by driving a car (as distinct from a motorbike) and demonstrating familiarity with technologies such as computers, GIS (Geographical Information System), drones, and mapping systems. The visible expression of Muslim identity through dress was not a feature of men’s clothing, nor were they as restricted as women by gender norms of mobility, such as travelling after dark (see Chapter Seven). It was only amongst female colleagues that a visible display of Muslim identity through dress was central to a performance of middle-class and urban identity (as it was amongst the public sector women discussed in Chapter Four). This highly gendered configuration of modern, urban Sambas Malayness confirms the extent to which the bodies of women continue to be critical to constructions of the nation and community in Indonesia, as elsewhere (Pausacker, 2015; Stivens, 1998; White and Anshor, 2008; Yuliani, 2010; Yuval-Davis, 1997).

Cosmopolitan trustees: concluding comments on NGO women’s borderscope of marginality The border work performed by the WEP workers in this chapter is an act of filtering: they interpret and translate the terminologies, discourses, and

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paradigms derived from their linkages with national and international organisations into projects and activities meant to combat Sambas women’s marginalisation. These national and international connections not only provide funding and support for village-level programs, but also influence NGO women’s borderscope of marginality via the language and paradigms of gender empowerment. There are strong parallels with women activists elsewhere in the way they have sought to combine local values and practices with discourses of democracy, civil rights, and gender equality (see, for example, Ram, 2008; Robinson, 2008). This synthesis of ideas originating from a multiplicity of locations is characteristic of a ‘rooted’ cosmopolitanism (Skrbis and Woodward, 2007), which is both ‘grounded and unbounded’ (Werbner, 2008, p. 21). Their activities were ‘grounded’ in the lives and experiences of Sambas Malay woman (including their own), yet ‘unbounded’ in terms of the ideas they drew upon and the political reach of their endeavours. They were enmeshed in a diversity of discourses institutionalised in the fabric of education, government, and international development, and their ability and self-appointed task of synthesising and translating ideas and idioms from different contexts demanded a high degree of cultural openness, hybridity, and syncretism. In this way, NGO workers use the tools derived from the traversal of their own marginality (through education, training, and networking) to instigate projects that contest village women’s marginality. This is not to argue that ideas and interpretive paradigms promoted by the WEP activists were necessarily taken up by all village women. However, the ethnographic evidence in this chapter suggests that the pre-existing processes and borders that constrain village women’s socioeconomic and political mobility are being contested and even traversed by some village women through the vocabulary of activism and political action they have gained from their contact with NGO women. It is not only NGO women who are participants in workshops, training programs, and meetings across Sambas, West Kalimantan, and other parts of Indonesian. Increasingly, village women are also experiencing a broadening of their geographic horizons, whether in relation to the scale of their own mobility or through the reconfiguration of village-based products in line with national and international tastes, as experienced by Kak Haminah. Furthermore, the organisation of the WEP worked to minimise some of the problematic aspects of women’s empowerment programs noted elsewhere. For example, the collective organisation of its programs (including the credit union, women’s village groups and Kerabat) potentially offset the depoliticisation associated with credit and empowerment programs that promote neoliberal norms of the self-reliant

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citizen and capitalist economic growth (Batliwala, 2010).28 Moreover, in relation to this small and stridently independent NGO, there was much to admire in WEP workers’ commitment to combating economic disadvantage and political marginalisation through political mobilisation and advocacy. While the NGO could not deliver wide-ranging empowerment to its fullest measure, their projects nevertheless provided women with a measure of confidence and enhanced capacity within both their existing social practices and the new opportunities made available by the WEP. Returning to the chapter’s central concern—the ethnocultural effects of WEP activists’ borderscope of marginality—this chapter has shown how their understanding of the pathways beyond marginality involve the positive estimation of villages as a source of Sambas Malay women’s economic selfreliance and political agency. Naturally, the village was not the sole source of this, as Sambas Malay women could clearly be active in other economic sectors and at other levels of politics. Nevertheless, the village was conceived as a critical site for enriching Sambas Malay women’s economic status and political power. The village was also envisaged as outward-looking, open, and situated within networks that spanned local, regional, national, and international spatial scales. Such representations ‘remade’ village women (and their villages) in ways that strengthened local identifications while simultaneously instilling translocal orientations and connections within the fabric of village structures. This reading of the village also offered a specifically gendered interpretation of women’s strengths and importance. It drew on the existing gendered division of labour and women’s concentration in village-based productive activities in ways that were informed by a ‘perempuan-consciousness’ understanding that women’s gender roles and constructions of femininity resulted in different priorities and perspectives from those of men. Following Elyachar’s (2010, p. 453) terminology, one of the ‘central semiotic meanings’ transmitted through the socioeconomic infrastructures and communication channels established by the NGO’s empowerment program was the construction of a Sambas Malay village woman who was emboldened by the possibilities open to her both within and beyond her village context. Stepping back from the NGO women’s formal project work, this chapter also examined how NGO workers’ behaviour and personal pursuits modeled a version of a pious, educated, and employed Sambas Malay woman. 28 Such criticisms are not without their own problematic politics, however, in that they fail to recognise the multidimensionality of empowerment and the diversity of women’s circumstances (Kabeer, 2009).

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These ‘encultured women’ (Macklin, 2009) provided an exemplar for how education and employment could strengthen, rather than detract from, women’s Muslim-Malay identifications. Within this representation stands a woman who is aware of her rights and remains loyal to her identification as a Sambas Malay. The WEP worker’s familiarity with a variety of forms of discourse, modes of behaviour, and styles of dress embodied the sorts of knowledge, experiences, and self-confidence that could be gained from exposure to wider public spheres and concepts originating beyond the village. Their presentation, conduct, and even catalogues brought the town into the village, thereby muting the perceived socio-cultural distance between Sambas Malay villages and urban lifestyles to some extent. While not all village women could or did aspire to replicate these forms of dress and conduct, the young NGO women nevertheless embodied one version of Sambas Malay womanhood that informed other women’s understandings of the possible personification of Sambas Malay womanhood. In this way, WEP staff avoided an uncritical localism or essentialism of ‘Sambas Malay woman’ and ‘Sambas Malay village’. Although there was a degree of generalisation on their part concerning the condition and lives of village women, their projects customarily took an uncompromising and critical view of village inequalities. Therefore, while the NGO’s projects had the effect of designating Sambas Malay women as central to the renovation and defence of Sambas Malay village society, crucially this vision was to be realised by reforming village relations to expand women’s social, economic, political, and geographical mobility. Through the development of village women’s translocal linkages and networks, the NGOs envisaged and initiated a pathway for village women to move beyond constraining social, economic, and political circumstances. The mobility they made available to village women was also a mobility of the mind and imagination, one that broadened village women’s conceptual horizons and transformed their identification as marginal in ways that emphasised the role of socioeconomic mobility in initiating a new status or form of personhood (Vergunst, Whitehouse, Ellison, and Árnason, 2012, p. 6). This notion of traversing marginality through mobility and translocal linkages is also a feature of the following chapter, which considers the constitution of a translocal Sambas Malay cultural borderscope.

6

Creating a Translocal Malay Borderscope The Council of Malay Adat and Culture prepares Sambas to become a cultural centre of the Malay World (MABMonline.org, Sambas)1

This chapter documents examples of women who are producers and entrepreneurs of Malay culture and how they contribute to the construction of Sambas Malayness. These women’s activities involve multiple border crossings, all associated with the claim that Sambas Malay culture is related to, yet distinct from, other Malay societies in West Kalimantan and beyond. In this way, women cultural producers and entrepreneurs are directly involved in the negotiation of Sambas Malays’ identification with, and relationship to, wider cultural fields.2 The cultural borderscope that is the focus of this chapter is primarily translocal, and is most directly associated with performative and display-oriented cultural practices that are somewhat removed from the quotidian enactment of adat associated with the lifecycle rituals and norms of social intercourse discussed in Chapter Three. These translocal displays and performances of Sambas Malay traditional 1 Translated from ‘MABM siapkan Sambas menjadi pusat budaya Melayu Dunia’ (Iwan, 2013). This is the heading of an online news report about a seminar held in Sambas and associated with the Ninth Festival of Malay Arts and Culture organised by the West Kalimantan Council of Adat and Culture (MABM). 2 This chapter is based on interviews and participant observation conducted during my f ieldwork. In Sambas and Pontianak, I interviewed the heads of several prominent cultural organisations, whose real names appear in this chapter: H. Arpan (Sambas Arts Council), H. Darwis Mochtar (Sambas Council of Malay Adat and Culture), and H. Imin Thaha (West Kalimantan Council of Malay Adat and Culture). I also interviewed the authors of publications on Sambas Malay culture and tradition, including H. Muin Ikram and two Malay academics at the University of Tanjungpura, Dr Pabali Musa (who later served one term as vice-regent of Sambas) and the Rector, Professor Dr Chairil Effendy (now retired and the current head of the West Kalimantan Council of Malay Adat and Culture). Although I refer only minimally, if at all, to direct comments made during these interviews, I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the participation of these public figures and scholars in my research. All other research participants who appear in this chapter have been given pseudonyms. These include staff in the Departments of Tourism and Culture and of Education; a number of Sambas Malays involved in local rumah budaya (‘cultural houses’), and a female songket entrepreneur. Kampung Madu is also a pseudonym.

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culture, or adat budaya, depend upon the mobility of both producers and products, and result in a representation of Sambas Malay culture as one of Indonesia’s numerous adat budaya daerah (‘regional traditional cultures’) and/or as a specific expression of a wider dunia Melayu or alam Melayu (‘Malay world’). The translocal Malay identifications attached to Sambas Malay culture that develop as a result of women’s participation in translocal cultural activities are nevertheless grounded in a perception of distinctively local—even inherited—artistic and cultural practices. Territory and place are still important, as women’s identification with locally-grounded Sambas Malay cultural resources remains a source of pride. The revival of interest in Sambas Malay adat (‘customs and traditions’), budaya (‘culture’), and seni (‘arts’) is one example of the widespread resurgence of local cultures and identities across contemporary Indonesia, including other ‘Malay’ areas (Acciaioli, 2007; Sakai, 2009; Long, 2013; van der Putten, 2011; van Klinken, 2007; Setywati, 2008).3 At the time of my fieldwork, this was evident in the recent publication of collections of Sambas Malay fables, folktales, royal histories, dances, and songs in book, CD, and DVD formats. 4 Likewise, instruction in Sambas Malay language was being trialled at selected junior high schools as a component of the National Education Ministerial Regulation on Local Content in school curricula.5 One Sambas Malay language textbook that was developed for this purpose is written entirely in Sambas Malay with some chapters on local fables, folktales, and pantun (Malay rhyming verse, or ‘pantōun’ in Sambas Malay), and others featuring additional aspects of Malay culture, such as crafts, arts, and history. As noted in Chapter Two, this revival in Sambas has been 3 Many collected editions and monographs, as well as numerous articles have addressed the interrelationship between decentralisation and the revival of adat and culture more generally in Indonesia (see, for example, Davidson and Henley, 2007; Morrell, 2010; Tyson, 2010; HauserSchäublin, 2013). 4 There are also older compendia, commentaries, songs, etc., compiled by budayawan (‘cultural specialists’) such as H. Mawardi Rivai and Muhanni Abdur during the New Order. I found some of these pamphlets and booklets in the Sambas town library, including H. Mawardi Rivai’s (1997) Kamus Bahasa Melayu Sambas [Sambas Malay Dictionary] and the typed-manuscript by Muhanni Abdur (c. 1990) Cukilan Adat dan Budaya Sambas [A Snapshot of Sambas Tradition and Culture]. Mawardi Rivai was a writer and reporter who participated in the influential 1996 Seminar on Adat Melayu Serumpun held in Malacca and the 1996 Simposium Melayu Sedunia (‘Malay World Symposium’) at Mindanao State University, Merawi City, in the Philippines. Muhanni Abdur was a teacher and later worked for the Dewan Pemangku Adat within MABM Kalbar. 5 Two textbooks have been prepared by Al’ Amurzi called ‘Mahér Bahasé Mélayu Sambas: Pelajaran mulok. Bahasé daérah Mélayu Sambas untōuk SMP’ [Want to Speak Sambas Malay: Lessons Local Content. Regional Language Sambas Malay for SMP] (Kabupaten Sambas, 2008). The relevant regulation is Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Nomor 22, 2006.

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accompanied by the renovation of the former palace, the reinvigoration or establishment of Malay cultural organisations, and the appropriation and display of Malay cultural symbols and identities by local political leaders. This renewed interest in Sambas Malay language, history, and culture is contemporaneous with the revival of interest in a transnational Malay ecumene in Southeast Asia (and beyond). Minako Sakai (2009, p. 62) argues that in Sumatra, the increased attention given to serumpun Melayu (‘a collective Malay identity’) was a reaction to the end of the New Order and policies that ‘concentrated power in Jakarta, marginalising Sumatran and other Indonesian Malays’.6 She further argues that there was a deliberate suppression of ‘serumpun Melayu cultural affinities’ by the New Order as part of maintaining ‘a strongly unified Indonesian republic’ (Sakai, 2009, p. 63). The comments of the women described in this chapter reflect such sentiments, indicating that during the New Order Sambas Malays saw themselves as not only ‘far from the national capital Jakarta’ (Morrell, 2010, p. 48), but also marginalised within the province of West Kalimantan and indeed in their Singkawang-centric regency. For Sambas Malays, this cultural revitalisation has occurred in tandem with their participation—as ‘Sambas Malays’—in a range of ‘Malay’ cultural and sporting exhibitions, competitions, and dialogues within West Kalimantan, other parts of Indonesia, and in Malaysia. Johan Schimanski’s (2015) approach to the aesthetics of bordering is relevant to understanding how regional and international arenas are important for the bordering practices associated with the demarcation of Sambas Malayness. Specifically, his observation that bordering practices are not restricted to the lands contiguous with the border (2015, p. 35) is relevant to understanding the importance of participating in cultural events beyond Sambas for female cultural producers’ making and remaking of Sambas Malayness. Facilitating this revival are new Malay cultural organisations in Indonesia, as well as Malaysian organisations, such as the Malay World, Islamic World (Dunia Melayu Dunia Islam, or DMDI).7 There are close institutional ties 6 Serumpun translates as ‘the one grass’ or, as more commonly expressed in English, ‘the one stock’. When conjoined with Melayu, serumpun (or rumpun) invokes a translocal collective identity of Malay peoples and the assumption that Malays share certain cultural elements irrespective of where they live within a regional alam or dunia Melayu (‘Malay World’). 7 The aims of DMDI are: 1. to become the reference point concerning socio-cultural and economic aspects of the Malays for the Malay world; 2. to revive Malacca’s past as an Islamic centre; 3. to promote tourism to Malacca; and 4. to create stronger ties among the Malay and Islamic communities in the world (Sakai, 2009, p. 65). The f irst DMDI convention was held 18-21 October 2000 (Sakai, 2009, p. 64).

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between Indonesian Malay cultural organisation and the DMDI, which has sought to involve Malays from across Indonesia in its activities. The outward reach of the DMDI is also a manoeuvre designed to position Malacca at the centre of a regional Malay world and as representative of Malay ‘core values’ (Andaya, 2004, p. 75). While the language of these interactions tends to stress cultural affiliation, there is also an economic dimension—at least from the perspective of some Indonesian Malay leaders who are keen ‘to create a new economic node spanning the Strait of Malacca’ (Sakai, 2009, p. 64). Jan van der Putten similarly notes how the notion of a shared Malayness has ‘become an increasingly fashionable term for attempts to build networks between regions in Indonesia and abroad’ (2011, p. 221). An important dimension of the cross-border Malay cultural exchanges organised by the DMDI, he argues, is the promotion of cross-border ‘Malay economic development (pembangunan ekonomi serumpun)’ (2011, p. 225).8 Until recently, Indonesia’s cultural policies were characterised by the desire to ‘domesticate’ Indonesia’s diverse cultures by making them serve the goal of national unity (Schefold, 1998). During the New Order, this was most explicit in the cultural policies that selectively promoted and modified cultural expression in several ways. This included the ‘aesthetisation’ and ‘desacralisation’ of cultural forms (Acciaioli, 1985) to make them suitable for the purposes of nation-building and tourism. Priority was given to those aspects of culture most amenable to the display and performance of a ‘Nusantara concept of culture’ (Taylor, 1994)—such as ‘traditional’ styles of clothing, architecture, dances, puppet shows, and songs. This display of regional cultural diversity was accompanied by processes of standardisation, aestheticisation, and homogenisation. Thus, the multitude of Indonesia’s ethnolinguistic groups was reduced to a far smaller number of ‘regional cultures’ that tended to conform to provincial boundaries (Schefold, 1998; Taylor, 1994). During the New Order, West Kalimantan’s contribution to Indonesia’s diverse cultural landscape was represented by generic Dayak representations and iconography. The history and culture of West Kalimantan Malays were largely invisible, while an equally unrepresentative and homogenised conceptualisation of Dayak culture (as expressed through dance, the long-house, and handwoven textiles) was promoted. 8 This is not so lucrative in terms of Sambas. Different ‘Malay’ identity movements in Riau in the post-Independence era have been concerned with the control of natural resources—and thus territory—rather than ethnicity (Sakai, 2009, p. 76). In Sambas, there are some natural gas fields, but no timber, leaving only oil palm and the border to be exploited.

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In this context, translocal processes of cultural display and exchange in the post-Suharto era have taken on additional significance in the production of an alternative narrative of regional identity. In the case of Sambas and other Indonesian Malay groups, participation in a Malay world signals an alternative narrative of Malayness as a rich and regionally-important depository of wisdom, norms, and material and expressive cultures. Not surprisingly, cultural displays in translocal arenas become central to contesting the view that Sambas is peripheral and marginal. Being invited to participate in serumpun Melayu events and winning regional and international competitions stand as proof of the cultural prestasi (‘success, achievement’) of Sambas Malayness (Mee, 2017). In the contemporary era, the construction of, and participation in, a regional Malay world is the ultimate rejection of a ‘periphery’ subject-position—one that implicitly challenges the view that Indonesia’s territorial ‘borders’ are the only ones that matter. As Schefold (1998) reminds us, processes of cultural selection are situated in a larger social context. Just as New Order cultural policies reflected certain political and economic interests, we need to ask what political and economic influences are at play in the current resurgence of more localised identities. Furthermore, we need to inquire into the processes of selection and redefinition that are operating at the local level. As discussed below, the economic and political objectives of the local government powerfully inform the Sambas Malay cultural renaissance. Additionally, and as argued in this chapter, local cultural producers also play a role through their production and improvisation of Sambas Malay material culture. The cultural resurgence in Sambas, as elsewhere, has been underwritten by a flow of funds and other forms of political patronage from the regency government to local Sambas cultural organisations. Three high-profile cultural organisations deserve mention here: the Sambas Council of Malay Adat and Culture (Majelis Adat dan Budaya Melayu Sambas, or MABM Sambas), the Sambas Arts Council (Dewan Kesenian Sambas), and the West Kalimantan Council of Malay Adat and Culture (Majelis Adat dan Budaya Melayu Kalimantan Barat, or MABM Kalbar). MABM Kalbar was founded in 1997 with the mission to preserve the diverse Malay cultures of West Kalimantan (its motto borrows the legendary words of Hang Tuah: ‘Tak Melayu hilang di dunia’ or ‘Never shall Malays disappear from the world’).9 The origins of the West Kalimantan MABM are connected to the desire 9 In Malay literature, Hang Tuah is a legendary warrior from the court of Malacca. His alleged oath is commonly cited by Malay activists and organisations in Indonesia and Malaysia, sometimes being written as ‘Tak Melayu [akan] hilang di bumi’.

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of a group of Kalimantan Malay intellectuals and cultural proponents to construct a customary law and cultural organisation for Malays akin to that already established by the Dayaks of West Kalimantan. To rival the Dayak organisation’s rumah adat (or ‘customary house’), the MABM Kalbar also built a rumah adat for its headquarters—a massive raised wooden structure in the provincial capital, Pontianak.10 Since the mid-2000s, the Festival of Malay Art and Culture has been the principal event organised by MABM Kalbar.11 Both the Sambas Council of Malay Adat and Culture (MABM Sambas) and the Sambas Arts Council have close relationships with a range of regional Malay organisations (including DMDI) through their links with MABM Kalbar. MABM Sambas was established in 2000, and is one of several MABM Kalbar-affiliated organisations. MABM Sambas is also responsible for managing funding applications for participants and support personnel to attend the Festival of Malay Art and Culture. The Sambas Arts Council was founded in 2002 by Malay and non-Malay community leaders, who shared a commitment to the preservation of the arts and culture of the main ‘local’ cultural groups—that is, Malay, Dayak, and Chinese.12 With funding from the local government and institutional linkages with MABM Kalbar, these and other Sambas Malay cultural organisations provide an infrastructure 10 The then-head, Darwis Mochtar, told me that Professor James T. Collins was very influential in introducing the idea that local Malays must work together to promote their culture. Collins’ (2004) linguistic studies suggest that the Malay spoken in West Borneo is the original Malay. This seems to have galvanised the local West Kalimantan Malay population and impressed upon them the need to acknowledge their similarity—as serumpun—rather than allow their differences to separate them. Darwis Mochtar also noted that the Dayaks in West Kalimantan already had Lembaga Adat and a Rumah Adat (Adat organisations and an Adat house) and that the Malays were being left behind. The idea of a provincial-level cultural organisation was a recommendation that came out of the Borneo Dialogue. It took a few years to realise, but the idea finally took shape in Pontianak around 2000. The need for representatives from the different regencies was recognised, and this was how Majelis Adat dan Budaya Melayu in Sambas was established. 11 MABM Kalbar’s Festival of Malay Art and Culture is financially dependent on the local government of the host regency for the festival’s set-up and organisational costs. Host regencies also seek financial assistance from the provincial government to develop facilities and fund travel costs. Teams wishing to participate in the festival must apply to their regency government, usually through their department of tourism and culture. 12 During my fieldwork, the head of the Arts Council was H. Arpan, who was also reputedly an enthusiast of the Sambas Malay dance, Tari Tanda’ Sambas. This Dewan Kesenian should not be confused with the network of Dewan Kesenian (or Arts Councils) established under Suharto’s New Order Government, although it was quite likely informed by this model. The difference is that the new Dewan Kesenian in Sambas seems to have resulted from a local initiative following the establishment of the new regency. For a discussion of a similar initiative in Makassar, South Sulawesi, see Morrell (2001).

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for the translocal display and performance of Sambas Malay adat budaya. In 2014, for example, these organisations facilitated over 100 people to attend the Festival of Malay Art and Culture in Putissibau. This included Ibu Tari (discussed below), who managed the Sambas Malay dancers and was the penghias pengantin (‘make-up artist and bridal dress coordinator’) for the Sambas Malay contenders for the ‘Best Malay bride and groom’ competition. To reduce costs, participants and organisers travelled over 26 hours by car and were billeted with local families. As noted in Chapter Two, there are deep ties between these organisations and the political establishment in Sambas. Prominent Sambas Malay men such as Djuhardi Alwi and Darwis Mochtar—who were formerly involved in the campaign to have Sambas town reinstated as the capital of Sambas—became active in the promotion of Sambas Malay culture through their leaderships of organisations such as Kijang Berantai (Djuhardi Alwi) and MABM Sambas (Darwis Mochtar).13 However, despite their power and influence, these politically well-connected cultural organisations do not tell the full story of cultural resurgence in Sambas. Responding to my questions about high-profile cultural organisations, a former head of the department of tourism and culture cautioned me: ‘Wendy, don’t just consider organisations like ___! There are lots of groups in society that also want to preserve Malay culture, only they lack the resources.’ Such groups include village-based and small-scale rumah budaya (‘cultural houses’), cultural associations, and sanggar (‘cultural studios’). Heeding his advice, I learned about the centrality of women in their capacity as practitioners, teachers, and entrepreneurs within small, local groups in the construction of Sambas Malay cultural and identity. Continuing the theme of women as cultural producers, this chapter concentrates on three case studies documenting Sambas Malay women’s contribution to the current Malay cultural renaissance in the fields of zikir, dancing, and songket. The Sambas Malay women involved in these pursuits not only exhibit pride in what they see as Sambas Malay cultural resources, but also redefine translocal Malay symbolic and material cultural resources through their personal involvement in an array of organised and informal 13 These organisations have also received political support. As mentioned in Chapter Four, Juliarti Djuhardi, who served first as vice-regent and then later as regent, is the daughter of Djuhardi Alwi. As noted in Chapter Three, the twice-regent Burhanuddin A. Rasyid was the chairman of the board of management of Kijang Berantai and, after his retirement, replaced Darwis Mochtar as the head of MABM Sambas. He also became head of Persatuan Forum Komunikasi Pemuda Melayu, PFKPM or the Union of Malay Youth Communication Forums following his retirement.

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cultural exchanges. Furthermore, many of these women are energised by the opportunities that the translocal displays of Sambas Malay culture present, and are active in further reviewing and innovating Sambas Malay cultural forms. Such dynamics lie at the very heart of the connection between Sambas Malay women’s mobility and processes of Sambas Malay culture and identity construction. Women’s involvement and expertise in Sambas Malay culture rarely gives them power akin to that wielded by the men who control Malay cultural organisations, although for some, such as Ibu Tenun and Ibu Tari, it does enhance their local status, which may also further their economic standing. Women’s fields of interest and expertise rarely challenge local gender or political hierarchies, given that they are in female-concentrated arenas (songket and dancing) and village-based forms of entertainment (Zikir Maulud). The innovations that they initiate are largely non-controversial. In contrast to the female puppeteers in Bali (Goodlander, 2016), they reproduce cultural processes that typically conform to gender norms and hierarchies and are largely profane in nature. Before beginning this discussion, however, I diverge briefly to note not only the range of opinions on the topic of ‘Sambas Malay culture’, but also the elusive quality of ‘culture’, which makes it impossible to definitively define a ‘culture’ or isolate its distinctiveness.

On the topic of Sambas Malay culture During a car trip from Pontianak to Sambas at the beginning of my first period of fieldwork, a Sambas Malay woman (who would later become a friend) gave me two pieces of advice. The first was that when people ask me what I am researching, just say budaya (culture). A few may further inquire about my focus, she said, but the value of studying culture in Sambas is recognised because culture is masih kental (lit. ‘still thick’). The second piece of advice was to be sure to differentiate Sambas Malay culture from other Malay cultures in West Kalimantan, such as those of Pontianak Malays, Mempawah Malays, and the Malays of Sukadana. While we are all Kalbar Melayu (‘West Kalimantan Malays’), she said, local pride is strong, and each has ties to specific regions through their royal families. Pontianak, she explained, traces its lineage to the Arabian Peninsula, Mempawah to the Bugis of South Sulawesi, Sukadana to the Siak kingdom in Sumatra, and Sambas to Brunei. I would hear these claims (that Sambas culture is still strong, and that Sambas Malays have ties to Brunei) repeated many times during my research. It is worth pausing to consider both assertions,

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as they raise two issues of general relevance to this chapter’s analysis of Sambas Malay cultural production. The first relates to the necessary, but often subterranean, processes of reconstruction and realignment required to keep claims of cultural distinctiveness and relatedness alive. The second considers the claim that culture is ‘still strong’ in Sambas, given the variety of viewpoints regarding the actual content or constitution of Sambas culture. The Sambas–Brunei connection is a point not only of relatedness, but also of distinctiveness, marking Sambas Malays as different from neighbouring Malay groups. This connection was most often raised in terms of the dynastic connection between the sultans of Brunei and Sambas (as noted in Chapters Two and Four). I do not know when the word ‘Malay’ was first employed in relation to Sambas, but Reid (2004, p. 22; 2013, p. 112) notes that in the case of Brunei the use of Melayu to describe the sultanate and its Muslim subjects came relatively late (in the early 1800s). Still, the connection is real enough, given that the first sultan of Sambas was the grandson of the Sultan of Brunei.14 There are also popular cultural connections to be found, such as the existence of similar folk stories in both places. For example, a well-known folktale in Sambas relates the bitter fate of two beautiful and much-loved royal siblings, Bujang Nadi and Dare Nandung, who were buried alive for committing incest by their tyrannical father and king, Raja Tun Unggul. The young lovers were buried together in the Sebedang hills (near Tebas) along with a golden rooster for Bujang Nadi and a golden loom for Dare Nandung. It is said that for many years, people could hear the loom and the crow of the rooster. I was, therefore, momentarily surprised to come across a small, elegant mausoleum encompassing the crumbling tomb of Raja Ayang in the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan. Raja Ayang was beautiful, much-loved, and interned in an underground house for the similar crime of incest with her royal sibling.15 Their story is told on an engraved marble plaque, and supported by fragments of stone inscriptions indicating that Raja Ayang lived during the reign of Sultan Sulaiman (r. 1432–1485)—thus predating the foundation of the Muslim kingdom of Sambas. 14 There are also connections to Sarawak. Larsen (2012) provides evidence that the early Muslim rulers of Sambas may have exercised jurisdiction over Sarawak on behalf of Brunei. That is, that the rule given to Sultan Tengah by the Sultan of Brunei was passed on to his son Raden Sulaiman, the first Muslim ruler of Sambas. 15 It is recorded there that Sultan Sulaiman punished them by building an underground house—provided with sufficient provisions and a chimney for ventilation. Both stories also suggest a long-standing prohibition against incest that may only partly relate to Islam. Carsten (1995, p. 227) argues that a corollary of the importance of siblingship in bilateral kinship systems is an abhorrence of incest between siblings.

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While the dynastic relationship remains alive, the awareness of this shared folklore has not been cultivated. This draws our attention to the highly selective nature of the processes that keep alive certain connections (such as royal ties) while leaving others unacknowledged (such as folk histories). Recently, there has been a reclamation of the relationship between Brunei and Sambas. Not far from Sambas town and lying between the village of Lumbang and the Teberrau river, lies an old Muslim grave. For most people, it is simply referred to as Keramat Lumbang (the spiritually powerful or sacred site or keramat of Lumbang). According to Machrus Effendy (1995, pp. 9-10), who visited Keramat Lumbang in the early 1990s, ‘There is found a grave that is not well looked after. Every Friday, residents visit there, to make a pilgrimage (‘berziarah’) or to go in fulfilment of a promise (‘berkaul’)’. At the time the grave was nameless, and Effendy was unable to get information on who was buried there.16 When I visited the site fifteen years later, the grave was housed under a secure tin roof, supported by external walls of concrete and wooden lattice. It had been named the grave of Syech Abdul Jalil al-Fatani, a Muslim scholar from Patani (southern Thailand). Entry is via a door, with a sign asking visitors to remove their shoes. Stepping inside onto cool, white floor tiles, the visitor sees the grave in the middle of the room, surrounded by a low yellow fence and billowing yellow curtains which give the impression of a four-poster bed. Rather incongruously, the grave itself is a simple mound of dirt. A local man showed me around and explained that I should take a little bit of soil off the grave and mix it in water. People drink it if they feel unwell, he said. There was also no sign of the numerous Friday pilgrims. A friend who lives in the vicinity told me that few people visit the keramat these days. She had been once or twice, but only to accompany friends. She has not drunk the soil from the grave, or even collected it, because she doesn’t want to believe that such mystical things exist, even though ternyata (‘in fact’) she knows they do. The locals in and around Lumbang now tell the story that Abdul Jalil was one of seven brothers from Brunei who came to Sambas in the early years of the sultanate. Whatever the reality,17 Abdul Jalil’s and Sambas’ 16 ‘Disitu terdapat sebuah batu nisan (makam) yang kurang terpelihara dengan baik. Setiap hari Jum’at banyak dikunjungi penduduk setempat untuk berziarah dan berkaul. Namun hingga kini belum seorangpun yang dapat memberikan informasi, siapa gerangan yang dimakamkan’ (Effendy, 1995, pp. 9-10) (Author’s translation). 17 Patani was a leading centre of Islamic learning in Southeast Asia, so it is not improbable that a member of Brunei’s royal family studied there and acquired the title ‘Syech al-Fatani’. According to Ahmad Fathy al-Fatani (2002, pp. 30, 59), several scholars from Patani visited

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association with Brunei were strengthened when a group related to the royal family of Brunei came to Sambas around 2005 to locate the graves of the seven brothers. This group identified the keramat at Lumbang as belonging to one of the brothers and paid for the gravesite to be restored. The royal connection is not only symbolised by the yellow curtains and paint work; relatives of the Brunei royal family also visit the keramat every few years after first paying respects at the kraton in Sambas. Of interest are the selective processes of appropriation and synchronisation that are essential to remaking/maintaining the historical connections between Brunei and Sambas. As this chapter demonstrates, similar processes also operate to animate Sambas Malays’ translocal Malay world identifications, and women are integral to these processes. The declining popularity of Keramat Lumbang also invites further comment on the claim that culture is still strong in Sambas. Commonly, I was informed that Sambas Malay culture was pure, unique, and untouched by time (‘Budaya Melayu Sambas masih unik, masih asli’). Yet, one paradox of my research was that while Sambas Malay culture was routinely represented as something real, lived, distinctive, and worthy of preservation, I was frequently made aware of the range of opinions on, contestations over, and levels of uncertainty about Sambas Malay culture. Throughout my time in Sambas, I heard competing claims regarding Sambas Malay adat budaya. Some focussed on its connections to orthodox forms of Islam; others sought to retain mystical elements of story, myth, and ritual. There were comments that beyond Sambas town—in districts such as Sejangkung and Paloh—one could find culture that was unique and intact. On the other hand, some informants suggested that it was not so much a question of geography as of demography, given the lack of interest and knowledge amongst today’s youth. Such ideas have given rise to the concern that Malay Sambas adat budaya could menghancur (‘shatter’) as villages become more exposed to external ideas and the older generation dies out. There may be some justification for this concern, although the reality is certainly more complex. On a visit to a village in Tebas, I met Zainab, a 24-year old who was waiting to hear from her unregistered agent that she had secured work in Sarawak. Despite her youth, Zainab had already worked and lived in Sarawak on four occasions, having left school at the end of the primary level. Zainab struggled to provide examples of Sambas Malay adat budaya (‘customary practices and culture’). Finally, she came up with the examples of Sambas Malay weddings, the Sambas starting in the 1800s. For example, Sheikh Daud al-Fatani (1769–1847) stayed in Sambas around 1820, and the Sultan Muhammad Safiyudin became one of his students.

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importance of respecting one’s parents, saling membantu (‘helping one another’), and gotong royong (‘participating in communal activities’). When prompted, she readily agreed that Islam was an important aspect of Sambas Malay culture, but then admitted that she had no religious education (‘tidak masuk pengajian’). In general, she thought that young people of her age were interested in Sambas Malay adat budaya, but also acknowledged that some consider it to be remeh (‘trifling’) and prefer things that are modern (‘lebih suka kepada yang modern’). Taking my lead from comments that Sambas Malay adat and culture are strong in villages, I asked women in my survey of village women’s groups to identify and elaborate on significant features of Sambas Malay adat budaya. Women’s responses primarily focused on rituals and practices related to the life-cycle as well as the avoidance of misfortune and sickness (see Appendix 1). Some answers referred to social practices, such as calling people according to their position in the family (e.g., along, anggah, and ude, as discussed in Chapter Two) and the obligation of mutual assistance (e.g., membuat tarup, gotong royong); several others noted expressions of material and expressive culture, including zikir, dance, and songket. Several women also explained that they maintain these rituals, practices and cultural forms principally because they are handed down by their nenek-moyang (‘ancestors’). Others also said that they are maintained because they are eff icacious. 18 For example, Nazihah, aged 49, from a village in Sejangkung commented that ‘there aren’t any changes, things can’t be lost, because we fear the many sicknesses that could befall us, such as ill health, not becoming pregnant, and many others besides’.19 Yet, inconsistently, women also noted changes to adat and culture that they had observed. Several women commented that since the death of the dukun (‘ritual specialist’) their village no longer performed certain rituals. Other women noted that certain aspects of adat rituals had been dropped, because of a general perception that they were syirik (‘polytheistic’). These changes and departures from tradition 18 Judith Nagata (1974b, pp. 93-97) classified the meanings of adat amongst urban Malays in Malaysia into four categories. The first and most popular is also the most similar to the answers given by the women in the survey, namely, ‘generic-descriptive’ that includes behaviours, rites of passage, and distinctive features of rituals. Some also spoke of the responsibility to follow the practices of ancestors, which would fit with Nagata’s second category, the ‘symbolic-traditional’. The third category—that of adat understood in terms of a ‘religious definition’—was not stated explicitly, although a number of the examples of adat they provided are Islamic rites. Unlike Nagata’s informants, however, there was no mention of a concern with ‘social sanction’ if adat was not performed (her fourth category). 19 ‘Tidak ada perubahan. Tidak bisa dihilangkan karena takut banyak penyakit yang akan menimpa seperti suka sakit, tidak hamil, dan banyak lainnya lagi’. (Author’s translation).

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did not appear to be a source of consternation. Women’s staunch support of adat budaya, and their relatively relaxed attitude to changes within it, should not be taken to infer that tradition is thereby ‘invented’, in the terms suggested by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983). Rather, as the following discussion of zikir, dancing, and songket demonstrates, there is a strong measure of elasticity in how Sambas Malays transmit and codify Sambas Malay adat, culture, and art. The case studies in this chapter reveal how women’s identification of their cultural practices and productions as ‘Sambas Malay’ entails three distinct practices of border work, each requiring a degree of situational interpretation. The three boundaries concern, first, establishing the ‘Sambas Malay’ credentials of their cultural practices through an emphasis on their locally-inherited quality (whether from ancestors, parents, or their place of birth). Second, women practitioners’ cultural activities entail the identification and acquisition of new skills, styles, audiences, and markets as a way to assert the perennial value of ‘Sambas Malay’ culture. This adaptivity may itself be an inherent quality of Sambas Malay culture: allowing change without compromising a practice or person’s identif ication as Sambas Malay. Finally, cultural practitioners (re)produce ‘Sambas Malay’ culture as a form of translocal identity—both as an adat budaya daerah (‘regional culture’) within Indonesia, and as one component of a transnational Malay world—through their participation in cultural exchanges that they consider broadening of the reach, worth, or commercial value of Sambas Malay culture. Zikir is one example of a translocal Islamic cultural practice that is considered a core component of Sambas Malay adat budaya. In general, zikir is associated with men’s collective recitation of zikir during life-stage rituals. Below, I consider the example of Zikir Maulud, a popular, quasi-religious form of entertainment, and examine women’s place in a new Zikir Maulud Association that brings together village-based Zikir Maulud groups as part of a regency-based Sambas Malayness.

Zikir Maulud: characterising a Sambas Malay–Muslim regency Zikir is a verse sung in praise of God. One form of zikir that has long been popular entertainment in Muslim Southeast Asia is Zikir Maulud, a form of sung verse praising and commemorating the birth and life of the Prophet Muhammad. The verses, written by Syekh Ja’far Al-Barzanji, are accompanied by the rebana (a kind of drum), tahar (‘tambourine’), and

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gendang (a two-headed drum). In the past, the jepin dance was a common accompaniment. Al-Barzanji’s text has become a part of Sambas Malay art and culture (‘telah berubah menjadi sebuah seni budaya belaka’) (Mahrus, Jamani, and Hadi, 2003, p. 81). A retired schoolteacher and neighbour of mine during fieldwork confirmed that zikir had menjadi adat (‘become adat’), even though it was originally introduced in Sambas as a means to spread Islam. In Sambas, specific zikir (arranged by al-Barzanji) are performed on different occasions. One of the most popular is the Zikir Nazam, which is recited collectively by men at weddings. The former regent, Burhanuddin Rasyid, is quoted as saying that Zikir Nazam ‘lives on in the centre of Sambas society’ (‘zikir nazam tetap hidup di tengah masyarakat Sambas’) (Mahrus, Jamani, and Hadi, 2003, p. 117). Sirakal is another al-Barzanji zikir, which is recited by men during the ritual associated with praying for the well-being of a new-born baby (see also, Mahrus, Jamani, and Hadi, 2003, p. 81). In 2006, around twenty village groups established the Arisan Zikir Maulud or Zikir Maulud Association. The Association coordinates a monthly Zikir Maulud evening (held on a rotating basis in each of the member villages) and an annual competition. The then-regent Burhanuddin Rasyid is credited with providing the leadership for the Association’s formation in consultation with several men involved in village-level sanggar and zikir groups. During his term, he would occasionally drop in on the Zikir Maulud evenings (see Chapter Two). He also donated prizes to the annual competition for several years. The evening performances that I attended had a very religious ambience, with the event taking place in the forecourt of the local mosque. All women covered their head with either a closed cap and veil or a jilbab and sat to one side. The men sat on the other side and also wore some form of headwear, most commonly the songkok, a black hat associated with Malay and Muslim men. I was also informed that Zikir Maulud had been ‘toned down’ as part of the process of establishing an inter-village association. This included discarding highly emotional displays and spontaneous jepin dancing—a process that is reminiscent of the ‘modernising’ and ‘cleansing’ undertaken by New Order cultural policies and Muslim reformists.20 Further standardisa20 Syed Naguib al-Attas (1963) provides a discussion of such processes. In the late 1950s in the Malaysian state of Johor, he observed the Ratīb Samman ceremony. He described it as involving ‘swaying, stamping, dhikir, and ecstatic experiences’, during which time devotees in a trance undertook activities that normally would be painful and harmful, such as coming into contact with fire (al-Attas, 1963, p. 84). Although once popular in Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra, where it had been ‘typically performed in public at religious feasts, housewarming parties, in fulfilment of vows, [and] to ward off famine’ (al-Attas, 1963, p. 79), its performance was already something of a rarity at that time, having been severely criticised by orthodox Muslims. Al-Attas

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tion of the format and regularisation of the association’s calendar of events strengthen the impression that inter-village Zikir Maulud is qualitatively different from the earlier village groups and those that have continued outside the association.21 One conspicuous feature of the Association’s Zikir Maulud evenings was the predominance of women. In striking contrast to the zikir performed exclusively by men during life-cycle rituals, most performers on these evenings were women. Female performers were quite literally ‘centre stage’ at the Zikir Maulud evenings that I observed. As the principal representatives of their villages, the women also took great care with their appearance, typically wearing coordinating outfits (see Image 6.1). When it was their time to perform, the women sat on the carpeted floor of the stage erected for the occasion, with the text in front of them. The percussionists sat behind, partially obscured by the women. Many of the percussionists were husbands of the women and some also performed in the men-only recitals during the evening; in this case, they usually performed with men from other villages to augment the numbers. Men and women performed in mostly separate roles on these evenings, with predominantly female performances of zikir and male-only percussionists. Zikir Maulud evenings started after the final prayers of the day and continued well into the night. They also took place in villages where participants had to travel for several hours, or even most of the day, to reach, as in the case of Temajok. Although Sambas Malay women are competent motorcyclists, on these occasions, women tend to travel as pillion passengers. The distance to be covered, in combination with the overnight nature of the events made it normatively preferable for women to travel with a male relative, who in most cases was their husband (see Chapter Seven). Al-Barzanji’s text is written in Arabic, and none of the women I spoke with had a verbatim understanding of the text. They were generally familiar, however, with the stories recounted in the text and drawn from the life of the Prophet Muhammed: the miracles associated with the birth and early years of the Prophet, through to the dramatic and dangerous times associated with (1963, p. 79) recalls that when he asked the Grand Mufti of Johore about the Ratīb Samman, the Grand Mufti ‘showed much agitation and waved the question aside, preferring other topics for discussion’. 21 Not all village-based Zikir Maulud groups became part of the Association. Other women who were members of local groups also spoke of how much they enjoyed their regular recitals. One woman in her early forties related how she looked forward to her weekly meetings on Thursday evenings as a time to forget about her worries and stress. She said her group had once or twice joined a group from a neighbouring village, but in general were content with meeting on their own.

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Image 6.1 Zikir Maulud Association evening

Islam’s early years in Mecca and Medina. Thus, the women’s often forceful, loud, and emotionally-charge recitals did not rely on ‘reading’ the text, but rather on the emotions generated by its recital. Women reported that these evenings were a source of spiritual elevation, relaxation, and socialising. Their enjoyment of the performances of other groups was also evident, as women in the audience recited along to the better-known verses. There was also scope for village groups to express their creativity by devising their own lagu (‘tunes’) for the recitation of the verses. In general, the establishment of the Association has fostered more inter-village socialisation and a greater focus on learning and practicing of Al-Barzanji’s text for some groups of women. Even though their recital does not require a literal understanding, it nevertheless entails tuition and practice in correct pronunciation and expression. Teachers were thus highly valued and under some pressure to continue teaching, even when they might wish to retire (as one female teacher in her 60s grumbled). Most women in the Zikir Maulud Association were middle aged or older (forty years and above). A schoolteacher in her mid-40s in my neighbourhood said that fewer women were being taught Zikir Maulud. She stated that she had learnt zikir as a girl but had not taught it to her tertiary-educated daughters.

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She was also not involved in any zikir group herself, preferring her regular women’s Qur’an study group organised through the Badan Kontak Majelis Ta’lim (see Chapter Four). A retired male high school teacher and my former neighbour mentioned that the youth preferred other forms of entertainment and that their interests did not incline towards zikir (‘minat orang pemuda ngak cenderung ke situ’). However, he also reasoned that, as Zikir Maulud is associated with old people (‘dianggap untuk orang tua saja’), perhaps young people think they can learn it later. It may turn out that the popularity of Zikir Maulud as a Sambas Malay art and cultural practice is on the decline, as I have argued elsewhere (see, Mee, 2012). The point here is that women’s involvement in Zikir Maulud through their participation in village-based groups has been central to the development of a regency-wide circuit of performances. Certainly, women could not do this without male percussionists, teachers, and relatives who are available to ferry them to villages across Sambas. However, there would be no regular inter-village calendar of events without the participation of these women, who contribute to most of the performances and who, as representatives of their village, are careful to ensure that their appearance forms an expression of village solidarity. Zikir and the Zikir Maulud Association have come to constitute an important and authentic expression of Sambas Malay culture—one in which women are integral to its production. The Zikir Maulud Association has promoted closer ties between villages and a greater sense of a shared Sambas Malay identity, fostering people’s mutual recognition as Sambas Malay and strengthening their connections with the new Sambas Malay regency. The women involved in the Zikir Maulud Association can be said to ‘perform’ the new regency and its Sambas Malay identity. Under their direction as performers and producers, Zikir Maulud becomes the expression of a modern and sanitised form of ethnoterritorial identity. Like zikir’s dual appeal to both an authentic Sambas Malay identity and a shared belonging to a Muslim community beyond Sambas, Sambas Malay dance also speaks of translocal borders. Once again, women cultural producers are central to this border work of situating Sambas Malay dance as simultaneously local and translocal.

Dancing across borders In the past two decades, Sambas Malay dance has been undergoing processes of change and adaption as well as revival. It is likely that, similar to traditional dance forms elsewhere, adaption has occurred due to changes in

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older dance conventions and performance spaces, as well as in response to audience expectations. From this perspective, the influence of traditional styles is still evident—in the music and gestures—but these have been adapted to create something ‘different but similar’ (Nor, 2001, p. 66). I was told many times that Sambas Malay dances combine Arabic and Malay elements, and thus are associated with Islam. In the past, they were performed by men as a form of entertainment. Over time, they became social dances performed by men and women, and incorporated into weddings and other adat ceremonies. Two dances were often mentioned as uniquely Sambas Malay: Tanda’ Sambas and radat ( jepin was identified as common to Malay societies).22 Traditionally, Tanda’ Sambas and radat are accompanied by one or two vocalists, a rebana (‘tambourine’) player and, in the case of Tanda’ Sambas, a tabuh (‘drum’) player. Over time, these dances have been modified, with the introduction of creative elements. Furthermore, as a form of contemporary practice, and especially as a form of artistic performance, dancers today are predominately female. Processes of modification have also been initiated as a result of Sambas’ altered political landscape. In the context of the new regency, Sambas Malay dance has become an important representative element of Sambas Malay culture. Local government funds have been directed toward notable dancers and leaders of Sambas Malay dance sanggar (‘cultural studios’) as part of the politics of displaying Sambas Malayness. There are continuities with a New Order ‘touristic view of culture’ (Acciaioli, 1985) in which performance-based cultural forms—such as dance—were especially prioritised. The main difference is that a regency-level cultural identity is now promoted over standardised provincial and national identities. Female performers and teachers of dance have played a key role in these processes of innovation. The case of Ibu Tari below suggests that her adaptation to changing dance styles and preferences, as well as her accommodation to political contexts, are creative responses to the opportunity to develop and promote a much-loved art form, that of dancing. In this context, encounters that broadened her horizon were not viewed as movement away from Sambas Malay styles of dance, but rather as a means to ensure their continuation, albeit in a modified version. Ibu Tari was a highly accomplished performer and teacher of Sambas Malay dancing, despite working full-time in the Department of Education 22 Ibu Tari described Tanda’ Sambas as a cheerful social dance that is unique to Sambas (‘Tanda’ Sambas itu memang khas Sambas saja, itu tarian pergaulan muda-mudi yang selalu riang gitu ya’).

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for all her adult life. She retained her passion for Sambas Malay dances by performing whenever possible, teaching it in schools and in her sanggar, and supporting groups of dancers in regional and international competitions and displays. She also instituted various innovations to attract young people to dance and to enhance local dances’ public performance. During her time as a primary school principal in Sambas town, Ibu Tari introduced Malay dancing as part of Friday morning gymnastics. She boasted that all pupils at the school could dance (‘disitu ada seluruh anak bisa menari’), including the dance she created for the school—Senam Tari, or ‘Gymnastics Dance’—based on Sambas Malay dance styles. Even after Ibu Tari moved on from the position of principal, her legacy remained: on a visit to the school, I found the assembly area full of students dancing jepin and Tanda’ Sambas. This is not the only school in which Ibu Tari had introduced Malay dancing. Her motivations are many, but two central ones are her belief that dancing creates balance—seimbangan—that is important to children’s intellectual development, and, as a person interested in art and culture, she also seeks to promote Sambas Malay dance because it teaches social graces such as politeness and self-discipline.23 Ibu Tari was born in 1954 and grew up in Singkawang, the capital of Sambas Regency at the time. She recalls that even as a very young girl she would climb up onto the stage to watch Malay dancing.24 Her first lessons in dancing were experienced at home in her village, first by watching the dancing held on special occasions (such as weddings), and then by learning from a teacher in her village. Her love was nurtured during high school when she attended Sekolah Kesejahteraan Keluarga Pertama (a girls-only domestic science high school), which encouraged her interest in the arts. She joined a sanggar in Singkawang, and started to perform regularly at official functions during her time at teacher’s college. By the time she completed college, Ibu Tari had mastered a range of traditional Sambas Malay dances and was one of twelve dancers from across West Kalimantan selected to attend training in Jakarta. (Despite the judges’ decision, someone else—with better political connections—went in her place). It was not until she was 23 ‘Saya bilang untuk mengimbangi antara otak kiri dan kanan, kalau selalu dijejal dengan mata pelajaran yang melatih kecerdasan ya. Seni juga harus dimasukkan supaya dia itu seimbang’; ‘kita karena orang budaya, jadi saya kepingin malah mengangkat tari itu’; ‘sebenarnya anak-anak itu juga dilatih tata karma […] supaya mereka juga sopan terhadap kita yang tua. Saya selalu menanamkan disiplin’ (Author’s translation). 24 ‘Waktu kecil saya itu kalau ada acara, bibi saya kalau bawa saya nonton, selalu suka naikkan saya di atas pentas, duduk. Mungkin itulah yang membuat saya suka [tarian]’. (Author’s translation).

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sent to teach at a school in the Regency of Sintang (a mountainous regency further inland) that she had the opportunity to take on a leadership role as a teacher of Sambas Malay dances. Until this point, she described herself as a pengikut (‘follower’) but finding herself in Sintang without a sanggar and still wanting to dance, she became an innovator of traditional dancing for the students in her school.25 This was well received, and her students would dance at all the important school events, such as at graduation ceremonies. At the same time, Ibu Tari expanded her own repertoire and knowledge by training a group of women from Dharma Wanita. She acknowledged that she also learned from this experience and from the opportunity to dance with women from other regions.26 In 1982, Ibu Tari returned to Sambas, this time to Sambas town. She and her husband settled in Kampung Madu, the village where her family traced their roots. She explained that the people from Kampung Madu have the reputation for being artistic; the village was famous for its orkes (‘bands’) and for the fact that nearly everyone there can dance (‘iyah, lingkungan sini jarang tidak pandai menari, di desa saya’). Her own ability, she believed, was inherited (‘bakat dari orang tua’), an inheritance that she has passed on to her daughter. It was from her home village that Ibu Tari further developed Sambas Malay dancing by introducing it to the local primary school and taking leadership of a new sanggar in her village. As Ibu Tari’s involvement in dancing grew, she was confronted with the challenges of having children while continuing to develop her art. She talked about the diff iculty of training for the opening festival of the provincial-level MTQ Musabaqah Tilawatil Qur’an competition in Singkawang shortly after giving birth: ‘I had given birth less than two months ago, just gone 40 days. I was instructed to train, and said “how is this possible? The taboos here are strong”.’27 Ibu Tari found a way around the customary taboos following childbirth by asking that the training be held nearby and by taking the baby with her. She would continue to manage these competing demands by taking her children with her when she travelled, saying that her ‘children grew up on the road’. Her travels have taken Ibu Tari to many parts of Indonesia. She views this travel as an opportunity to garner new knowledge (‘kita cari ilmu baru’), beginning with her time in Sintang. There is a strong theme in Ibu 25 ‘Rupanya saya jadi pengembang di sana […] Dulu saya hanya ikut-ikut tapi belum laku banyak, hanya sekedar pengikut’. (Author’s translation). 26 ‘Ada satu orang, istri kepala dinas kehutanan, dia juga senang seni. Dia orang Bali, jadi kami nggabung, di sana saya banyak belajar’. (Author’s translation). 27 ‘Saya melahirkan belum dua bulan, baru habis 40 hari. Saya udah disuruh melatih, ‘aduuh’ saya bilang ‘gimana? Orang sini pantangnya besar’’. (Author’s translation).

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Tari’s narrative of the importance of dancing and training beyond Sambas. Such experiences have furthered her knowledge, promoted new ideas, and developed her skills. In 1997, Ibu Tari led a team of Sambas Malay dancers to participate in the Festival Keraton Nusantara held in Cirebon. She reported that their dancing was greatly appreciated by the attending ‘kings’, possibly because it remained unchanged and original (‘di situ, rupanya dapat sambutan bagus dari raja, mungkin karena kami tarinya masih asli’). According to Ibu Tari, her most valuable experience was participating in an international dance carnival in Jakarta in 2002. With dancers from different regions of Indonesia and 35 other nations, she performed in twelve locations across ten days, relishing the exposure to other dance forms and the interaction with other dancers. Since the establishment of MABM Kalbar, Ibu Tari has also been involved in several intra-Malay events. In 2007, she took a group of Sambas Malay dancers to an event organised by DMDI in Malacca as part of an exhibition that focused on Malay songket across the Malay world (see Ibu Tenun’s case study below). Their air tickets and accommodation were funded by the local government, while other expenses were covered by DMDI. Her association with intra-Malay exhibitions and dialogues has continued through her participation in the annual (now biennial) West Kalimantan Festival of Malay Art and Culture organised by MABM Kalbar. Ibu Tari expressed her appreciation for the new regency. While Sambas arts had long been famous (‘Sambas itu dari dulu keseniannya itu sudah terkenal’), earlier there had been little support or opportunity to develop Sambas Malay dancing through training and performances outside the regency before the new regency (‘kalau dulu-dulu, kesempatan untuk keluar daerah kan dulu jarang’). Before the new regency, Ibu Tari believed they had only received the scraps of leftover funding (‘Kalau sisa mereka kita dapat, selalu ada’). By contrast, the current regent and local government cared about Sambas Malay culture and provided them with opportunities to work together: ‘Honestly, our regent and political representatives care […] Because of the attention from the government, we can work together’ (‘Kebetulan kami punya pak bupati, punya wakil itu peduli. […] karena perhatian dari pemerintah itu besar sehingga bisa kerjasama’). Since the formation of the new regency, other sources of funding have also flowed into her projects. For example, Ibu Tari was involved in an arts appreciation program organised by the Ikatan Kesenian Jakarta, part of which was to implement an eight-week dance program in five senior high schools across Sambas. Such experiences have been invaluable for Ibu Tari’s ongoing involvement in Malay dances, which have subsequently developed into creative dances. Ibu Tari emphasises that while these dances were based on Malay dances

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(‘dasarnya dari tari melayu,’), she remained open to their ongoing development to keep them alive (‘Ya kita memanajemen mereka supaya ini bisa ndak putus ya’). Ibu Tari stressed that the important thing is to prevent the loss of [Sambas Malay] heritage (‘kehabisan warisan’). Maintaining people’s interest in Sambas Malay traditions, she explained, meant adjusting to people’s changing preferences. She noted that this was particularly the case with young people, who are not so interested in traditional forms (‘anak muda jaman sekarang tradisional kurang suka, jadi kita juga menurut artinya selera ya’). Students in her own sanggar, she said, preferred the creative dances. She was adamant, however, that tradition was not being forgotten, as the creative dances were based on traditional dances such as rodat, jepin, and Tanda’ Sambas (‘Jadi lebih senang kreasi, tapi tidak meninggalkan tradisi. Kalau kami, ee memang dasarnya dari tari tradisional’). Despite Ibu Tari’s initiative and energy, she believed there was a shadow over local dancing (‘sekarang nampaknya agak redup ini’) because most of the talented dancers left Sambas after high school to go to university. This affected the core dancers in her sanggar, who left before they had reached an advanced level (‘itu sekarang udah pada tamatkan, ini artinya mengajar ndak pandai selesai’). She mused wistfully, ‘If only they lived here…’ (‘kalau mereka berdomisili di sini…’), before recounting her favourable impression of Sarawak’s Cultural Village. Under the auspices of Sambas’ Arts Council, Ibu Tari had accompanied a group of Sambas dancers to perform at Sarawak’s Cultural Village. She was impressed that the village provided housing and childcare to the families of its full-time artists. Ibu Tari viewed the Sarawak Cultural Village as a template to be emulated, but also recognised that the conditions in Sambas were not yet ready for it (‘saya pikir ‘Oo itu boleh ditiru!’ Tapi kita kan lihat juga keadaan daerah kita sini baru mulai’). As a Sambas Malay woman, Ibu Tari was an active proponent and producer of Sambas Malay culture. She consciously pursued opportunities to promote Sambas Malay dancing within Sambas and its neighbouring districts. Further, she engaged with the broader Indonesian Malay community and, through her dance teams, connected with other Malay dance groups beyond the national sphere out into the wider Malay world. The notion of tradition or cultural authenticity (in terms of Sambas Malayness) remained central to her work, and her embracing of innovation was not deemed antithetical to this goal. Instead, it was viewed as essential to preserving this art form. Her dynamic approach as a cultural producer of Sambas Malayness pushes the boundaries of what may be understood as ‘traditional’ while reinvigorating through innovation. Underwriting this openness to innovation was a translocal mobility that broadened her experience and networks. It also provided

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vital opportunities to develop new skills and engage fresh audiences in the task of sustaining the perennial value of Sambas Malay culture. Ibu Tari’s public performances and displays acted to flag the distinctive quality of Sambas Malay culture while simultaneously claiming its membership in a wider Indonesian and Malay world. The case of Ibu Tenun below continues this discussion of the significance of Sambas Malay women who are entrepreneurial cultural producers. Like Ibu Tari, Ibu Tenun takes custodianship of an aspect of Sambas Malay culture that she deems authentic and of perennial value and operates within a translocal milieu that feeds the reinvigoration of her cultural interest, songket.

Songket’s expanding commercial horizons Songket has been discussed at several points in this book. In the discussion below, I focus on the role played by Ibu Tenun, a weaver and entrepreneur, in promoting the heritage value, cultural reach, and commercial opportunities of songket. Ibu Tenun’s translocal borderscope is not only a response to songket’s economic potential and possible achievement of cultural status, but also to the challenges of retaining a rich, local songket craft industry. Referred to as kain tenun adat Sambas (‘Sambas customary weaving’) and in Sambas Malay as kain lunggi, songket came to Sambas in the early 1600s with migrants already skilled in its weaving (Surahman, 2000). It is said that every Sambas Malay household must have at least one set of songket—a large unsewn piece of material to make a skirt and a narrower piece for a shawl (or selendang). Songket also forms part of the hantaran or wedding gifts sent to the bride by the groom’s family (Ibu Tenun stressed that this was wajib (‘compulsory’)) and is worn at weddings by the bride, groom, immediate family, and some guests. There is even a song written in honour of the cloth, extolling its beauty and pride of place in Sambas.28 Since decentralisation, 28 Below is the f irst verse of ‘Kaing Lunggi’ written by Bulyan Musthafa (1989) in Sambas Malay, Indonesian, and English: Kaing Lunggi tannunan Sambas /Kain Lunggi tenunan Sambas/Songket the woven cloth of Sambas Betatahkan sullamman bannang ammas /Bertatahkan sulaman benang emas/Inlaid with gold thread Kaing Lunggi am boan Sambas /Kain Lunggi kebanggaan Sambas /Songket the pride of Sambas Dalam majjlis Kaing Lunggi terigas /Dalam majelis kain lunggi bagus/At gatherings it’s appropriate to wear songket

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the predominance of Sambas Malay symbolism associated with the regency has included the conspicuous display of songket. For example, in political pamphlets and campaign portraits, regents, vice regents, and their spouses are all typically attired in songket (see Image 4.1, Chapter Four). On occasions such as Independence Day (17 August), the installation of government officials and official openings, government offices and public spaces are decorated with songket wall hangings. When ‘national dress’ is specified as the dress code, or when formal attire is required at official government functions, Malay women oblige by wearing a long songket skirt and shawl, and Malay men a knee-length piece of songket (or, sabuk) over a high-necked, long-sleeved shirt over trousers. As a method of weaving, songket’s use of supplementary metal weft is widespread in Indonesia and is commonly recognised as a heritage textile (Aragon, 1999; Kerlogue, 2000; Nakatani, 2015; Rodgers, 2011).29 In the postIndependence period, there has been a general democratisation of songket across the songket-producing areas of Indonesia. Earlier associations between songket and Malay rulers have been weakened: no longer are specific colours and patterns the prerogative of rank, and the use of gold- and silver-coloured metals and synthetically-dyed cotton-rayon yarn has made songket more affordable (see also, Rodgers, 2011; Uchino, 2005). Nevertheless, songket retains an association with nobility and local ethnoculture (Nakatani, 2015; Rodgers, 2011). In Sambas, these associations are particularly attached to the wearing of a long skirt and matching shawl by women. This operates as a public gesture of affluence, elegance, and Sambas Malayness. The level of songket commercialisation in Sambas does not equal that found elsewhere. For example, it pales against Palembang’s songket sector, which dominates much of the Indonesian, Singapore, and Malaysian markets and where the products are produced in small family-run businesses that employ weavers (Rodgers, 2011; Uchino, 2005). Sambas songket does not circulate in an international tourist market, like Bali’s songket does (Nakatani, 2015), although it does supply a local tourism market via hotel outlets in Pontianak.30 Nevertheless, Sambas songket has gained symbolic and economic importance over the past decade. 29 In Sambas, songket is not embedded in inter- or intra-village social relations of exchange as is the case for other handwoven cloth in Indonesia. Willejehm de Jong (2000, p. 264) provides an example of this in Flores, where the giving and receiving of handwoven cloth is decreed at important life-stage events and institutionalised into a formal division between weaving and non-weaving villages (where it is taboo to weave). (See also, Aragon, 1999). 30 Because of this, many Sambas people can afford to buy songket. Sambas songket has not experienced the price increase (and fluctuation) that Nakatani (2015, p. 40) records for Bali, where tourism and songket’s fashionableness has made it out of reach for many Balinese.

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A range of processes has lifted the profile of Sambas songket, many the consequence of the new regency’s assertion of its Sambas Malayness. As discussed in Chapter Four, the new regency government has sought to protect the intellectual property of Sambas motifs, as well as to assist with songket innovation and marketing. Sambas songket has also benefitted from a resurgence of interest in Indonesian ‘traditional’ textile practices on the part of national organisations concerned with raising Indonesian women’s socioeconomic status (ASSPUK) and/or developing the market potential of regional textiles in Indonesia’s high-fashion sector (Nakatani, 2015). As we saw in Chapter Five, Kak Haminah benefitted from the amalgamation of these interests, and her World Craft Council award brought Sambas songket out of relative obscurity. Not to be underestimated here is another important factor: that of the initiative of Sambas weavers. After their experience of working in Brunei, many Sambas weavers have refined their weaving styles and experimented with new patterns, materials, and products. Weavers’ openness to cultural borrowing and modification is no doubt long-standing and not exclusive to Sambas. Rodgers (2011) and Uchino (2005) document Sumatran songket weavers’ several-century-old propensity to adopt new threads and incorporate new motifs and colours. Similarly, Rodgers’ (2011, p. 355) observation that ‘songket’s motif repertoires are intensely cosmopolitan and some are near pan-Southeast Asian’ provides evidence of the sustained inter-regional trade of this textile and its composite elements. As considered below, a fourth factor is the role of local entrepreneurs, who work in tandem with such enabling processes to promote songket and facilitate the efforts of other interested stakeholders. The case of Ibu Tenun is informative here: without her prior investment in songket, there would be fewer weavers in Sambas and no local promoter to assist the regency and others in the nomination of Sambas songket as a heritage textile. Ibu Tenun is not the only woman to play an important role in the revitalisation of songket in Indonesia. Ibu Sity Bambang Utoyo, a Palembang woman of noble descent, was instrumental in the revival of Palembang songket in the mid-1960s (see Uchino, 2005, p. 218). Rodgers (2011) has also studied the creative role of songket ‘heritage entrepreneurs’ in West and South Sumatra. Rodgers documents how these heritage entrepreneurs position themselves as ‘designers’ (2011, p. 357) and work closely with weavers to create songket that is accessible to Indonesia’s middle-class consumers while maintaining the excellence and heritage of traditional songket. Rodgers describes the relationship between entrepreneur and weaver as one of mentorship. In contrast to the highly transactional relationship between weavers of ‘traditional’ cloth and entrepreneurs that has been reported in other parts

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of the world, she discerns a ‘less overbearing and more solicitous approach’ on the part of Sumatran entrepreneurs, one in which ‘they broker tradition more softly, eschewing overt commercialization of craftwork’ (2011, p. 359). Ibu Tenun displayed a similar softness of style in her relations to weavers and her approach to blending cultural and commercial logics in promoting songket. Like many of the shop owners in Rodgers’ (2011) study, Ibu Tenun was also a former weaver. Born into a songket-producing village in Sambas in 1945, Ibu Tenun learned to weave from her mother and was arguably Sambas’ most highly-regarded songket promoter and entrepreneur at the time of this study. Her business depended on regular monthly orders from Medan and Pontianak. The size of these orders varied but was usually between five and ten lengths of songket. She stated that her Medan buyers were only interested in the best quality and would advise her on the style of motifs and colours to be used. This in turn influenced local weavers’ understanding of changing tastes in relation to motifs, thread, dyes, and design. She also received ad hoc orders from people in Sambas. She engaged around twenty local weavers to meet these orders, most of whom work from home.31 Ibu Tenun’s business venture started small: with only two pieces of her own songket to sell in Singkawang in the 1970s. Within four years, however, she had employed five weavers. Her own success did not blind her to the barriers still facing women in business; she related to me how difficult it was for her to access a bank loan in 2006, despite years as a successful businesswoman. She was asked to provide a land certificate and proof of ownership of a motorbike to get a loan of IRD 5 million (about US $500). Finally, she had to access the money from a different source because none of these certificates was in her name. At various points in our discussion Ibu Tenun emphasised the importance of women working, and of a wife and husband working together to support the needs of the children (‘jangan sampai anak-anak tidak lengkap’). There is no reason to be poor here, she claimed, as there are many opportunities to 31 As noted in Chapters Four and Six, most songket weavers work under commission or sell directly to an agent like Ibu Tenun. Kak Hasibah, introduced in Chapter Three, sells most of her songket through Ibu Tenun. She had tried to sell it directly to shops in Pontianak but found it difficult to recover her costs even though she gained a higher price for her songket. (Only an initial instalment was paid up front and she had to wait until the songket was sold to receive the balance). It also required her to make several trips to Pontianak, as she did not have a bank account for cash transfers. (‘lebih baik kan jual ke Ibu Tenun. Jual ke Ibu Tenun waktunya yang deket saja, uangnya langsung cash. Walaupun mahal harganya [di Pontianak], tapi kita kan susah untuk membeli bahan lagi, bahan benang, benang emas, nah kita kan belikan lagi untuk bikin kain lagi’) (Author’s translation).

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make money. At the very least, one can plant sayur kangkong (‘water spinach’, which grows anywhere). While her primary motivation in the 1970s was to contribute to the family, she stated that she was also motivated by a desire to preserve the culture of Sambas songket (‘jangan sampai hilang budaya kita’). When the family moved back to Sambas town several years later, Ibu Tenun developed her interest in revitalising the Sambas motifs that had almost died out. She pointed to examples of motifs that were framed on the wall, explaining that they were from the 1950s, when people embroidered songket designs on the bags of wheat flour as samplers. The framed samplers served to remind her of the skill and creativity of her mother and other songket weavers in the past. In her opinion, ‘our parents were more creative’ (‘awal orang tua kita lebih kreatif’) than contemporary songket weavers. Today, all weavers do is variasi (‘variations’) of older motifs. However, Ibu Tenun did not nurture a nostalgic desire to return to a golden past, but instead looked to the future, when innovation and commercialisation would ensure the survival of Sambas songket. This could be the next phase in songket’s ongoing story in Sambas. Ibu Tenun identified several different phases in the history of songket production in Sambas. In the pre-Independence era it was the family of the sultan who kept the craft alive, as most people couldn’t afford to wear songket made with gold thread. From the 1950s, when they stopped using real gold, songket become more affordable to people in Sambas and the influence dari pasar (‘influence of the market’) has led to innovations in songket production. From the 1970s, mostly kain selendang (‘shawls’) and sabuk (‘knee-length pieces’) for men were produced for the local market. Then in the 1980s an economic boom resulted in demand for sabuk from Kuching (Sarawak).32 The 1990s, especially the financial crisis in 1997, marked a decline of the demand for songket, and a stagnation in terms of diversification and development of motifs. Since 2000, there has been some recovery and, according to Ibu Tenun, this is largely due to greater diversification of songket products, including songkok or peci (brimless hats worn by Malay and other Muslim men) trimmed with songket, and the sewing of songket into shirts, bags, cushion covers, and so on. There are now no restrictions on the wearing of songket: even patterns that were once gender-specific are now worn by both men and women. For example, Ibu Tenun pointed to a men’s shirt with a bunga mawar (‘rose’) motif that was once only worn by women. While she believed that songket was supported by the local government, she stated 32 This coincided with the decline of Malaysia’s own handloom songket industry (Mohamad, 1996).

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that greater commitment and fresh approaches were necessary to capture a wider market for this textile, including its promotion as a obyek wisata (‘tourist object’). Ibu Tenun was not only noteworthy as a woman who had established a commercially viable business from songket: she was also generally recognised in Sambas as a custodian of Sambas songket knowledge and history. Ibu Tenun bought and sold, and also exhibited, songket from her house in the centre of Sambas town. Visitors were welcomed into her front room to peruse the songket available for purchase or place an order, and also to learn about the history and production of songket. The walls of her front room were decorated with samples, explanations, newspaper clippings, and awards that Ibu Tenun received for her contribution to the development of songket. She has participated in exhibitions of Malay culture in both Indonesia and Malaysia. While such exposure was vital to the success of her business interests, Ibu Tenun also believed that expanding the market was critical for the survival of Sambas’ songket traditions. Only through product diversif ication and enhancing its marketability would a greater number of young people be attracted to songket as a form of employment. Ibu Tenun believed that education and exhibitions were important mechanisms for expanding the appreciation, cultural reach, and commercial horizons of Sambas songket. Education was important for attracting young people to consider weaving as a potential form of employment. She was concerned about the declining interest in learning this skill amongst young women (‘minat generasi muda sudah kurang’). Indeed, interest in the profession was only found amongst those whose mother or grandmother was a weaver. Beyond that, it was very difficult to interest young people (‘di luar, sangat sulit’). She stressed that no manual, no book, existed to teach a person how to weave songket: one must learn through direct observation and early exposure to weaving. Ibu Tenun hoped that more could be done in schools to stimulate interest. She was helping her son write a book, which at the very least, she stated, could help Sambas students learn more about songket. Exhibitions were also crucial to the promotion and commercialisation of Sambas songket beyond the local level, according to Ibu Tenun. Local government funding enabled her to participate in exhibitions in Jakarta and Malaysia, and for this, she said, she must say terima kasih (‘thank you’). She showed me a news clipping of an international exhibition in Jakarta. There was a photo of a garment made by a fashion designer that incorporated a length of kain cual. For sale for IRD 1.5 million (US$ 150), Ibu

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Tenun commented that the actual amount of cloth used in the garment was minimal.33 Other songket exhibitions that she recollected included ones organised by DMDI and held in Malacca. She spoke of the songket exhibition and seminar held in 2007 (the same one Ibu Tari attended) and the exhibition of five different ‘Malay’ regional styles of songket, including from Sambas, Palembang, and Terengganu (Peninsular Malaysia). I asked Ibu Tenun how Sambas songket had been received at the exhibition. She replied that people from Malaysia and elsewhere were surprised to learn that there were Malays in West Kalimantan (‘kurang tahu Sambas punya orang Melayu’), let alone Malays with a tradition of songket weaving. Furthermore, people were kagum lagi (‘further amazed’) by the large number of motifs found in just one length of Sambas songket. She explained with some pride that one length of songket from Sambas could have up to twenty motifs, whereas songket from Palembang may have only ten. Exhibitions such as these also presented an opportunity to correct the common misconception that Sambas songket merely copied the motifs from Palembang. Ibu Tenun offered the example of the motif pucuk rebung (‘bamboo shoot’), stating that it was a Malay ciri khas (‘feature’), something shared by all Malays, and part of a warisan (‘shared heritage’). Given that we are satu rumpun (‘one stock’), Ibu Tari said, we should not be surprised that pucuk rebung is also a motif in Sambas. Yet, she also urged me to look closely, clarifying that not all pucuk rebung are the same, and even in Sambas there are different versions. The Malacca exhibition resulted in an MOU to develop a commercial arrangement between Sambas songket weavers and buyers in Malacca. However, Ibu Tenun was not confident that this would amount to anything for two reasons. First, people in Malacca want a low price but expect high quality and, second, there is a shortage of weavers to fill the orders. She calculated that about half of all the weavers in Sambas are occupied at any one time with orders that come directly from Sambas people. This did not allow time for many additional orders. For Ibu Tenun, the biggest challenge facing the development of songket in Sambas was the dearth of weavers due to the draw of employment in Malaysia and the fact that most weavers come from only a few villages, so the pool is limited. The primary cause, however, was the ‘issue of income’ (persoalan penghasilan), that is the low income generated from weaving. Currently, weaving is predominantly a way to earn a supplementary income. People need to be confident that weaving, as a 33 Ibu Tenun did not express any concern that the commercialisation of songket would result in its denigration, an issue that may emerge later because of further commercialisation (Aragon, 1999; Nakatani, 2015). She would likely be distressed if market forces lead to a decline in quality.

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form of full-time work, can meet their daily household ‘needs’ (kebutuhan). She estimated that there were 500 weavers in Sambas, but not all of them were working as weavers and those who did viewed it as a side job. The 50 or so weavers who worked in Brunei were lured there by the possibility of well-paid full-time work. Working in their usia produktif (‘most productive years’) in Brunei had some advantages as the weavers were more disciplined in their approach to quality and produced songket that was ‘neater’ (lebih rapi) and ‘better’ (lebih bagus). Ibu Tenun elaborated on the shortage of weavers with a reflection of how deeply impressed she had been (‘saya kagum sekali’) to see a group of Dayak women weaving ikat together. She explained that the weavers had amazing memories for very intricate patterns and their work was rapi (‘neat’). What struck her most was the women’s akrab sekali (‘closeness’) and sense of solidarity. The Dayak weavers were part of a collective supported by the KOBUS Foundation that had enabled them to develop their craft and attract new weavers. They had also exhibited their weaving in the Netherlands. She ruminated on the possibilities of establishing a similar collective for Sambas weavers, something that would ensure a better salary and attract new weavers. In the end, she thought it would be susah (‘difficult’), as songket weavers tend to work on an individual basis. For this reason, she returned to the hope that exposure and education at school may develop young people’s interest in weaving, while diversification would lead to greater financial returns. Ibu Tenun acknowledged that the income from songket was incommensurate with the level of skill involved. Nevertheless, weavers must maintain standards (‘kita harus bagus sesuai dengan harganya’). Ibu Tenun felt a degree of responsibility towards her culture (‘bertanggungjawab ke budaya’) and cared deeply about the quality of songket production. An uncle once told her that songket is like a painting: one piece can comprise many beautiful colours (‘satu lembar bisa berwarna-warna yang indah’). She took pleasure from well-made songket (‘kesenangan saya’), saying that it pleased both the producer and the wearer (‘kepuasaan sama orang yang mengerjakan dan orang yang pakai’). It was important to her that weavers maintained a high standard so as ‘not to disappoint our ancestors’ (‘jangan sampai mencewakan orang tua kita’) whose creation songket was (‘mereka menciptai kain songket’). For Ibu Tenun, knowledge of changing tastes, openness to innovation, and participation in exhibitions at home and beyond are integrated in a desire to perpetuate songket as an aspect of Sambas Malay material culture that is attractive to the next generation of weavers. Her public displays of

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songket, merchandising, and efforts to conserve it as a unique expression of Sambas Malayness—albeit at times in a reinvented form—represent a form of cultural communication. This communication transmits the message that Sambas Malay culture stands as a distinctive form of translocal identity (within Indonesia and the Malay world). As in the previous case studies, Ibu Tenun complicates the answer to questions such as ‘Who owns, defines, and objectifies Malay culture?’ We have become accustomed to analyses of elite machinations and ambitions in the making of identity. In contrast, this chapter is a study of more pedestrian processes of cultural production, including the activities of women recognised as having cultural expertise. The women in this chapter articulate a desire to preserve Sambas Malay culture, yet—as we have seen—they also play an important role in the plural and decentred processes of cultural innovation and change in Sambas. As discussed in the concluding comments, their cultural production was an expression of their attachment to a ‘traditional’ culture that was simultaneously ‘home-grown’, a manifestation of perennial values, and yet amenable to change as a result of contact with outside ideas and practices. At times, they expressed a desire to enhance the marketability of Sambas Malay culture; this was, however, not merely in the narrowest commercial sense, but in also terms of its appeal to an audience—including the next generation.

Refashioning the perennial: concluding comments on women’s translocal Malay borderscope Women’s everyday re-creation and modification of adat budaya in Sambas goes largely unremarked. Yet, it creates a remarkable—in both senses of the word—cultural repository that can be drawn upon in the further delineation of a ‘distinctive’ Sambas Malay culture, one that is grounded in the lives of Sambas Malays and the places where they reside. It also constitutes an important inflection of a broader Malay culture. This chapter has documented how women, in their capacity as producers, teachers, promoters, and entrepreneurs of Sambas Malay culture, intersect with broader cultural, political, and economic processes. It has recorded women’s contribution to the contemporary construction of a translocal Sambas Malay identity and the ways women push the boundaries of existing constructions through their innovations. Their efforts also establish Sambas Malayness as a distinctive regional culture and a legitimate component of the Malay World.

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All three case studies also exhibit the following features, to varying degrees. First, women’s translocal Malay borderscope drew on the local credentials of Sambas Malay cultural forms as part of their pitch to be recognised as a legitimate, yet distinctive expressions of Malay culture. Second, all three were undergoing processes of adaptation as women adopted new styles, approaches, skills, and audiences in line with a view that the perennial values of Sambas Malay culture would remain intact despite adaptation. Women’s openness to broadening their own cultural horizons, whether through joining a regency-wide Zikir Maulud Association, participating in training programs, exhibitions, and performances, or expanding commercial opportunities relates to the third feature of women’s translocal Malay borderscope of mobility: the importance of sites of performance, training, exchange, etc., perceived as beyond the local to the consolidation of their perception (and that of others) that Sambas Malay culture is both a distinctive, local identity within Indonesia and part of a translocal Malay world. These three features—local grounding, perennial value, and translocal identification—formed the core of the borderscope of the women in this chapter. Their borderscope combined a perception of everyday practices and culture, an openness to adaptation and change, and translocal identifications associated with the performance, exhibition, and exchange of Sambas Malay culture. This locally grounded yet translocally oriented cultural borderscope was also their principal defence against cultural loss and obsolescence. It also speaks to the broader point that ethnicity is a process of ‘transformation through encounter’ (Tsing, 2015, p.100). In the context of this chapter, mobility was central to such ‘encounters’: adaptation and the ascription of translocal identity was bound up with the mobility of product and producer. It was not only where women travelled geographically, but also, and more importantly, the expansion of their horizons: the opportunity to learn more, to broaden their general knowledge of related arts and culture, to exchange ideas with other cultural practitioners, and to expand their perception of Self, their place, and their activity beyond the local. Depending on the context, mobility could consolidate a regional Sambas Malay identification and the view that Sambas Malayness was a distinctive culture within Indonesia’s heterogeneous ethnoterritorial landscape, or confirm Sambas Malays’ status within a serumpun Melayu (‘Malay world’). The gender of these producers and entrepreneurs also featured in their mobility. In the case of Zikir Maulud, women’s ability to participate in these events was partly a reflection of their age and that of their children. On the other hand, as the life stories of Ibu Tenun and Ibu Tari show, female cultural producers also found ways to manage the responsibilities

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of work and family. Women such as Ibu Tari attended to the demands of motherhood by bringing their children with them to work, and others such as Ibu Tenun justified their cultural commitments by asserting the duty of a mother to support her family. Women’s mobility was also governed and facilitated by gender norms. For example, husbands assisted wives to attend Zikir Maulud evenings, and women travelled in groups or under the auspices of government-funded schemes, Arts Councils, and the like, to attend exhibitions and training. This discussion of the interrelationship between women’s mobility and Sambas Malay gender roles and norms relating to women is continued in the next chapter.

7

Mobility and the Reconstitution of Gender

This study’s focus on mobility reflects the highly visible physical movement of Sambas Malay women as they pursue socioeconomic, cultural, and political objectives. Earlier chapters have examined the implications of women’s socioeconomic mobility for the composition of Sambas Malay culture, adat, and identity. In considering the consequences of women’s mobility, some effects on Sambas Malay gender relations have become apparent. In this chapter, I revisit the discussions of female cross-border migrants and traders, public sector employees, NGO staff, and cultural producers to reflect upon the interplay between key gender relations and norms, and women’s socioeconomic mobility. Evident here is the paradoxical way gender relations both enable and constrain women’s mobility by establishing the terms and conditions under which women’s socioeconomic mobility is deemed normative. As Tamarkin observes, ‘Theories of mobility are also necessarily theories of constraint’ (2017, p. 306). There are also indications of the loosening of such gender norms as women’s socioeconomic mobility deepens in response to broader social forces, including the policies of the new regency, transnational capitalism, a cultural urbanism coloured by Islam and consumption, national and international community development, and—not least—the geography of Sambas’ border-zone location. Despite their common experience of living in a border-zone, the significance of geography for the gender norms governing women’s mobility was not uniform. Proximity to East Malaysia, as much as distance from recognised centres of politics, education, and culture, variously impacted the acceptability of women’s mobility. So, for example, historical precedent and cultural proximities supported the geographical horizon of rural workingclass cross-border mobility in which women’s informal crossings could be sanctioned along with those of men.1 In this context, women’s cross-border mobility may not provoke anxiety or community concern to the same extent as labour migration further afield (Eilenberg and Wadley, 2009). The prestige of travelling to centres of education, training, and governance in 1 The ethnic composition of Sambas and Sarawak are similar, although the proportion of Malay to non-Malay indigenous peoples and nationals with Chinese heritage differ. Malay Muslims in Sarawak, Sambas, and Brunei also share cultural and religious similarities; linguistically, the official languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei derive from the same (Malay) root.

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Indonesia also provided endorsements for women travelling for training and professional reasons. NGO and public sector women revisited their early adult experiences of tertiary education when work-related travel took them to Pontianak (the provincial capital) and Java. Their travel, and that of their female beneficiaries, was funded by organisations that were ‘official’ or ‘professional’ in nature and was presented positively as movement towards the centre for the benefit of Sambas. Such arguments served to excuse travel that might otherwise be viewed as too frequent, too far, and too insecure (in the sense of requiring women to stay in hotels or the homes of strangers). Similar forms of justification also countenanced the translocal mobility of Sambas Malay cultural producers, who were funded by various government and cultural organisations to attend exhibitions and training beyond Sambas. In much the same way, their travel could be framed as a public service (for the benefit of Sambas Malays), particularly when it involved connecting with organisations located in the centres of education, culture, and power. Irrespective of the circumstances that condoned the mobilities of specific groups of Sambas Malay women, all of the women in this study had to contend with the social force of cultural models that conditioned the generally acceptable parameters of women’s mobility. The following discussion considers three features of Sambas Malay culture that exerted a powerful, general influence on the physical mobility of the women in this study: soft sequestration, kinship, and gender segregation. These cultural modalities gave rise to characteristic norms and expectations that governed the parameters of socially acceptable work-related movement for Sambas Malay women. As noted in Chapter One, the approach to mobility in this study is not confined to physical movement alone: rather, it is understood as multidimensional in its inclusion of temporal, aspirational, socioeconomic, and cultural dimensions. Nevertheless, the ability to observe the conditions and circumstances of women’s physical mobility makes it a useful, yet understandably partial, measure of changes in the gender relations of mobility. Overall, this book documents an expansion in the reach of women’s socioeconomic mobility over the past two decades. However, again as observed in Chapter One, socioeconomic mobility alone is an unreliable measure of women’s status and autonomy. For example, scholars differ as to whether transnational female labour migration results in ‘new assemblages of gender, power, economics and culture’ (Yeoh and Ramdas, 2014, p. 1203), which may or may not enhance women’s status and autonomy (see also, Parreñas and Choi, 2016). Female labour mobility does not necessarily

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challenge gender roles and women’s subordinate position in the household when, for instance, it reinforces women’s association with domestic and care work, or when women’s motivations to migrate align with local gender norms relating to their roles as mother or daughter (Butt, Beazley, and Ball, 2017). The preceding chapters have provided evidence of women’s positive engagement with the opportunities they associate with translocal mobility. Explored below are questions concerning the effects of women’s mobility on the local gender norms governing mobility, and whether such effects are to the benefit or detriment of women’s autonomy.

Soft sequestration and mobility One of my first memories of the town of Sambas was its café culture. On most evenings low plastic seats and tables appeared in the central market street and increasingly along the river waterfront. Here, people congregated to drink, snack, and smoke. While I say ‘people’, most were men (and they were the only ones smoking). I longed to sit outside in the relative cool of the evening drinking coffee, but this never happened. My acquaintances and housemates were women and, whether married with children or not, most would not have entertained the idea that they could possibly lounge outside after dark to chat with friends. It was not that women did not go out in the evening: they often did to visit friends at home, buy food, eat out, or run an errand. The waterfront was also a popular place with women, young people, and children in the cool of the late afternoon. Women were not banished from these public areas. Rather, it was the general sense that the call for the Maghrib prayers—between 5:30 and 6:30 in the evening—was also a call for women to return home (and to pray)—or what H. Mawardi Rivai (1997, p. 122) refers to as sarrap malam in Sambas Malay. Sometimes women who were not occupied with children would enjoy the close of the day by sitting on their veranda and chatting to neighbours. But by the final call to prayer, Isha (between 7 pm and 7:30 pm), it was clear that most of the women I knew were at home, with windows and doors closed against mosquitoes and the night, unless they had specific reasons for being out, and usually then only in the company of family. Maghrib coincides with sunset, Isha with nightfall. So, from one perspective, sarrap malam is about safe-guarding after dark. However, the gendered nature of this practice and its timing (coinciding with Muslim prayer times) lends this norm an Islamic authority that was also a potential curb on women’s independent travel, particularly when it required spending the

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night away. In such circumstances, most women ask the permission of their husband or parent. There is usually no obstacle when the norms of gender segregation, chaperonage of young women, and women’s restricted mobility are observed. An example will clarify this point. On two occasions, I needed a friend to take me on the back of their motorbike so that I could attend a Zikir Maulud evening. This necessitated us staying overnight in villages some distance from Sambas town. On both occasions, unmarried women provided the transport, both of whom asked their father’s permission beforehand. Consent was given, partly because, I believe, we were attending an event connected to a local mosque where there would be many other women, as well as appropriate gender-segregated lodging provided by a local Sambas Malay family. This generalised conformity to gender norms relating to sarrap malam was also evident in the arrangement of travel related to the NGO’s WEP projects. Ordinarily, WEP workers travelled in pairs by motorbike and were, as a rule, close to Sambas town, if not already back home, by Maghrib. On numerous occasions, women were billeted to stay with WEP women so that they could attend training or workshops without having to travel at night. Soft sequestration also conditioned the arrangement of travel for women and, especially, the minimisation of women’s solo travel. WEP workers travelled in pairs, but also often in larger groups. Village women’s trips were arranged so that at least a small group of women from the one village could travel together. In the case of WEP’s support of Dinah (in protest of oil palm expansion in her village), Dinah was accompanied by a female WEP staff member if travelling to Pontianak, for example, and would stay overnight in the home of female NGO workers either there or in Sambas. Part of this desire to accompany Dinah was to provide moral support in her protest activities; clearly, however, it was also to facilitate Dinah’s mobility to places where there were no family or kinship connections to provide oversight. As discussed below, real and fictive kinship could create the sense that proprietary was being observed. In this way, as much as soft sequestration placed limits on women’s mobility, it was not an iron law but one that could be bent with the appropriate arrangements such as the presence of other women. There is further evidence that this gender norm is far from fixed and is in fact undergoing modification in response to women’s expanded socioeconomic mobility. Progressively, over my visits to Sambas, I became aware of exceptions to sarrap malam, which began to acquire the feel of a new norm amongst certain groups of Sambas Malays. This was particularly evident amongst female students at the new polytechnic, who lived independently in dorms or rented

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rooms in the town. Increasingly, these women could be seen socialising in groups in the evening and sitting in outdoor cafés with boyfriends—in ways that mirror other Indonesian tertiary students living away from home, but which were novel for Sambas town. The socioeconomic mobility of further education has thus led to a rise in the number of young women socialising outdoors in the evenings in single and mixed-sex groups. Most of these young women wear a veil, typically over jeans and a loose top. For some of these predominantly first-in-their-family tertiary students, donning the veil may provide a measure of certainty regarding acceptable behaviour when living away from home to pursue higher education (Nagata, 1995, p. 107). Be that as it may, it is not the veil that gives rise to these women’s mobility; rather, it is their desire and that of their families for socioeconomic mobility through education—which has been made possible by the new regency—that has increased women’s mobility and the visibility of young veiled women. Socioeconomic mobility was not always accompanied by women’s adoption of the veil, however. I once met a cross-border trader in Serikin without her characteristic jilbab. She explained its absence in terms of the heat; the fact that she was in a non-Muslim environment may also have contributed to her decision. The dangers of overstating the ‘practical effect’ of veiling in relation to mobility (Brenner, 1996, p. 675) were also apparent amongst female cross-border labour migrants. The songket weaver Lin and her cousin did not wear a head-covering with their jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts when I met them on their day off in Brunei. While this was not unusual attire for young Malay women in Sambas’ villages, the more general point is that there were alternative ways for young women to negotiate their independent mobility other than through a display of Muslim piety. In this study, and as discussed below, kinship relations provided a mechanism of accommodation—and not just for cross-border migrants—through the capacity of Malay kinship to adapt to suit new contingencies (Nagata, 1974a, p. 92).

Kinship and mobility While certain norms constrain women’s ability to sit in coffee shops and mix freely with unrelated men, Sambas Malay women do exercise high levels of everyday independent mobility. During the day, at every turn one sees women travelling independently by motorcycle, bus, and boat as they go about their daily business. The chief reason for this mobility is women’s important productive role within households. It is entirely unremarkable to see a woman on a motorbike. Women are also the predominant passengers

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in the public buses, trucks (covered and fitted with wooden benches for passengers as well as goods), boats with outboard motors, and ojek (‘taximotorcycles’) that ply the major road- and waterways as well as connect Sambas to Pontianak in the south and more recently to the border post at Aruk in the north.2 It would be wrong, therefore, to conclude that Sambas women were significantly restricted in terms independent mobility due to the norms of soft sequestration. The principal reason for this was the strength of the norms and relations that supported women’s role as economically productive members of their households. These norms of kinship situated women’s mobility within an expandable ‘domestic sphere spanning different geographical sites’ (Stivens, 2013, p. 144), one that endorsed Sambas Malay women’s work-related labour mobility. This is not to minimise the mobility challenges faced by some women, particularly women with young children. It was often quite difficult for women to attend events that took them away from their home unless such outings were associated with family obligations. Many times, I heard critical comments from women about the way they are perceived in terms of dapur, kasur, sumber or ‘kitchen, mattress, (re)source’ (that is, being responsible for cooking and housework, being there to sexually service their husband, and to give birth to children). I also heard concern expressed for one married woman who ‘was looking old before her time’, closely followed by a remark that husbands are angry if their wives are not at home. (A year later, this woman had fled her home and was in hiding from her husband, who had been violent towards her for many years).3 The preference for nuclear households found amongst Sambas Malays (and indeed Malays elsewhere), in combination with the Islamic and social authority over his wife and children given to a married man, rightfully leads us to consider the husband/wife dyad in relation to Sambas Malay women’s mobility. However, to focus on this relationship to the exclusion of others is misleading, given the extent to which households are located within a wider range of kinship relations ‘that 2 Women’s prevalent use of public transport reflects the extent to which women commonly travel with children, are less likely to have a motorcycle driver’s licence, feel hesitant to tackle longer distances given the state of the roads, and defer to men’s ownership and thus use of the household’s motorcycle. It is less common for women to drive cars or have a driver’s licence. Female civil servants and NGO women whose organisations have access to four-wheel drive vehicles do not drive them and indeed—in the case of WEP programs—have limited access to them. The transport sector in general is male dominated, with young men active in the ojek and motorbike tyre repair services, and Sambas Malay men driving and operating boats and buses. 3 Gender-based forms of violence frequently occur between kin and within the household in Indonesia (see, Bataramunti, 2006; Saraswati, 2013).

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surpass the husband/wife relationship’ (Blackwood, 2000, p. 13). Similarly, in Peninsular Malaysia, Ong observed that ‘adat practices and kindred relations provided women a measure of autonomy and influence in everyday life that prevented a rigid observation of male authority’ (1995, p. 166). Of course, such wider relations and adat practices can also place limits on women’s socioeconomic mobility. 4 Peletz’s (1995, pp. 82-83) ‘practical’ affinal exchanges presumably could cut both ways (i.e., providing support and demanding reciprocal obligations). Civil servants and NGO women had to manage the care of children, cooking and cleaning for their household, as well as meeting the wider community and kinship obligations placed on adult women. In a few cases, married women from this social stratum employed other women as part-time domestic workers. The demands of the household and community on women’s time could pose difficulties for women who wanted to attend the training courses discussed in Chapters Four, Five, and Six. In some cases, women requested that such events be limited to only two days, so that they would only spend one night away from home, or older women with grown-up children were chosen to attend. The small per diem paid to WEP participants to attend training courses run by the NGO was further explained as helping replace women’s loss of productive work hours. Despite such obligations and impositions, women’s mobility was also socially sanctioned by a range of household and kinship norms and duties, with other household members, including husbands, stepping in to cover their absence.5 In this study, three kinship norms acted as significant enablers of women’s mobility: motherhood, flexible sibling relations, and matrilocality. The kinship relation most remarked upon by Sambas Malay women was that of motherhood. Arguably, the most noticeable constraint to women’s mobility comes after they have children. As mothers of small children, women are often reluctant to travel, particularly if it means staying 4 Carsten (2013, p. 247) noted the ‘double-edged qualities’ of Southeast Asian kinship studies. She observed how the inclusive tendencies of Malay kinship can have ‘a coercive tinge’ (see also, Carsten 1997, pp. 6-7, 275-280). Nagata (1976, p. 402) also remarked upon the practical effects of people’s ambivalent relationship to kin, arguing that ‘the ideals and reality of kinship behaviour are often widely discrepant and are popularly recognised to be so’. 5 Hirschman (2016, p. 39) reports on a Malaysian study by Noor Laily Abu Bakar and Rita Raj Hashim (1984) of childcare in low-income urban families with working women, which found that Malay husbands assisted their working wives ‘with cleaning, marketing, washing clothes, and cooking’ in both urban and rural households. Hirschman does not interpret this as gender equality, but rather views it as evidence of ‘the openness for women to participate in economically active roles, and at least a willingness of many men to assist with childcare, marketing, and other traditionally feminine domestic duties’(2016, p. 40).

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overnight, unless they can entrust the care of the children to a (female) family member. Of course, it could also be that this reluctance is because they are given less discretion to travel by their husbands and families once they have children. This restriction on the independent travel of mothers of young children was most evident in the experiences of female cross-border migrants. It was generally only women without children and the mothers of teenaged children who pursued such work opportunities (see Chapter Three). Other factors inhibiting women’s cross-border mobility were restrictions imposed by Malaysia and Brunei on labour migrants being accompanied by children and the return of female labour migrants found to be pregnant. As children grow up, however, women’s mobility increases—as seen by the older weavers who went to Brunei. Yet, significantly, norms of Malay motherhood also qualify women to pursue independent social and economic roles (Karim, 1992; Ong, 1995; Rudie, 1994). In relation to the village women in this study, the importance of food production was evident in their ongoing involvement in rice production—an activity that Dinah, in Chapter Three, prioritised ahead of her cross-border trading. Malay motherhood cannot be construed as a ‘private’ domestic role resulting in ‘women’s ‘invisibility’ and domestication’ (Karim, 1992, p. 13). On the contrary, woman acquire social status and greater authority over economic decisions with motherhood (Karim, 1992, p. 13; Blackwood, 2000, pp. 8-12). Conformity with an ideology of the male provider led some Sambas Malay women, such as Ibu Tenun in Chapter Six, to frame their requirement to work in terms of supporting their husband to provide for their children. However, this portrayal of women as wife/mother first and economic agent second is contradicted by the reality of women’s actual economic contribution as well as the degree to which they exercise control over their economic activities. Sambas Malay women showed a high degree of discretion over their productive activities, including the freedom of mobility to undertake these pursuits and a commitment to defending their status as productive workers. For example, female protesters drew on their productive role in their household to defend land threatened by oil palm plantation expansion. The work of civil servants and NGO workers offered economic independence and the opportunity to utilise their professional competencies, as well as avenues to improve the socioeconomic status of Sambas Malay women and society more generally. Cultural producers such as Ibu Tari and Ibu Tenun combined family and cultural obligations in their work, which once again was not only of economic value but also productive of broader cultural and social worth. Women also exercised considerable discretion over the type

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and circumstances of the work they pursued, such as whether to make songket in Sambas or in Brunei, and whether to invest in agricultural pursuits or explore other economic ventures. The examples of Kak Surya in Chapter Two and the lelong trader Aminah in Chapter Three further reveal how women as mothers try out different productive pursuits, from running a small food outlet and labour migration to investing in new trading ventures. Much of the socially acknowledged importance attached to women’s economic activities derived from their gendered role as mothers. Additionally, other kinship norms also supported women in their efforts to pursue socioeconomic mobility. As daughters, young women also had expectations of supporting their household placed on them. Li (1989, p. 49) noted the dramatic change resulting from the number of unmarried daughters in Malay households in Singapore who were working. Li (1989, p. 50) reports that unmarried working daughters gave their mothers about a third of their income, while lower expectations were placed on sons, who ‘are felt to be less close emotionally to their mothers’ (1989, p. 53). In Sambas, grown-up daughters who were part of a village women’s group also reported assisting their mothers with their farming and other economic activities. This—and other forms of direct financial support—was the flip side of the matrilocal practices and matrilocal kin support that provided direct assistance to women with children in becoming labour migrants, or whose husbands worked abroad as labour migrants. The elasticity of kinship through the idiom of siblingship also had widespread relevance to a broad range of women, who found this an especially useful means of forging ties of mutual support in contexts of mobility. Expansive sibling ties were evident in Chapter Three’s discussion of village women’s involvement in cross-border labour migration. Women often followed in the footsteps of their siblings, or else blazed a trail for their siblings to follow. Having a brother or sister at the same destination provided migration pathways and, arguably, reassured would-be migrants while lending an air of respectability to young, unmarried women’s travels. It is remarkable how little concern was expressed over young women working in Sarawak’s manufacturing sector, in contrast to the disquiet over young female domestic workers. In terms of unrestricted mobility and what this might mean for norms such as female soft sequestration, female factory workers have far more freedom than domestic workers. Perhaps it is the lack of a ‘sibling’ to support a young woman in the privatised zone of the foreign household that contributed to such concern. Factory work, on the other hand, typically provided single-sex dorms and housing that expanded women’s sibling base and provided opportunities to develop close ‘familial’

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relations through the sharing of cooking and household activities. The experiences of Siti and songket weavers living above their place of work in Chapter Three recall Carsten’s (1997) emphasis on relatedness as a process that develops around a common hearth. As noted earlier, a ‘sibling’ in relation to women’s mobility could refer to a biological sibling, cousin, peer from the same village, or another Sambas Malay. For example, young women studying at university in Pontianak and Yogyakarta noted the important role of the Sambas and West Kalimantan dormitories for inculcating sibling-like relations between otherwise unrelated people from Sambas. Sharifah spoke of her fellow Sambas students as her family, and the NGO she later formed with some of these friends continued to be influenced by certain sibling-type relationships. The organisation’s prohibition against intimate relations between staff was no doubt informed by Islamic norms regarding sexual chastity and modesty, but it was also consistent with a sibling incest taboo within an organisation characterised by joking relationships between male and female staff and where the founders assumed the roles of older brother/sister. Women in the WEP extended this logic in their big sister-like support of village peers such as Dinah, and in the everyday interactions with village women with whom they were close. A further consequence can be discerned from the strength of siblingship—namely, how siblingship supports an emerging identity amongst Sambas Malay women of being independent economic actors, separate from but complementary to their role of mother. Other Indonesian studies of young women from the rural lower middle-classes document how their aspirations for non-agricultural work and further education are bound up with a sense of an independent self (Nilan, Parker, Bennett, and Robinson, 2011). Their increasing education and exposure to ideas associated with urbanism (Thompson, 2007) do not entail a rejection of marriage, motherhood, and a daughter’s financial obligation to her family, but instead situates these gender roles as supplementary and complementary to the identification as an independent economic agent. In the current study there is evidence that this subject position is also strong across a range of young Sambas Malay women and that ties of siblingship are significant to women’s achievement of this identity by enabling women to pursue the educational and employment opportunities related to the territorial border, the new regency, and global capitalism. One consequence of young women’s socioeconomic mobility is a subtle realignment of gender norms in relation to unmarried daughters. Several unmarried women in their early- to mid-30s in this study have invested the

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money earned by working in building their own homes that are separate from their parents’ houses. The unmarried domestic worker in Desa Pantai used the money earned in Brunei to build a house. Similarly, an unmarried salaried worker bought a house in a new housing estate in Sambas town. Even though her parents also lived in Sambas town and had relied on their daughter to do the cooking, her parents supported her move because they saw value in their adult daughter establishing her own house. This may also reflect the importance of personal autonomy that is characteristic of bilateral societies (Carsten and Hugh-Jones, 1995, p. 17). Accompanying such changes has been a re-evaluation of women’s economic role, one that has partially dislodged the evaluation of women based on their economic contribution as a mother and wife. Once again, however, it is not kinship norms that result in a broader evaluation of the value of women’s work beyond their roles as mother, wife, and daughter; rather, kinship norms are utilised to pursue personal objectives that become available to women in relation to educational, employment, cultural, and professional opportunities. Discursively, the gender ideologies of the New Order and conventional Islam still position women’s economic role in terms of mother and wife. Yet, this is not the only available representation of working women. The ‘professional woman’ as an icon of Indonesian capitalist modernity, which came into prominence in the later years of the New Order (Sen, 1998), provides an alternative set of representations, including that of the Muslim-identified, white-collar, professional working woman. In Sambas, the iconic representation of the modern ‘working woman’ has coalesced around the figure of the educated, hijab-wearing Muslim woman now prominent in the new regency. These include women visible in the public sector, within NGOs, and as Sambas Malay cultural producers, but also—increasingly—non-elite women attracted to a model of Sambas Malay womanhood that recognises the value of women’s work beyond their duties as mother and wife. For such women, kinship is evaluated for its ability to support their work—as professionals, as agents of social change, or as producers of cultural heritage—in ways that reveal the extent to which the assessment of their work is tied to their sense of personal and social worth. The value and legitimacy of mobility thus entails a broader set of evaluations that may include, but is not limited to, the value placed on their roles as mother, wife, and daughter. There is one final gender norm that is pertinent to Sambas Malay women’s mobility, that of gender segregation. Commonly, gender segregation is viewed as a measure of female subordination that is closely associated with Islam and aspects of female sequestration. However, the following discussion of gender segregation considers the ways gender segregation amongst Sambas

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Malays actually buttressed women’s decision-making in relation to gendersegregated social and economic activities, including their own mobility and travel. From this perspective, gender segregation provided women with a level of control and management of their own work-a-day lives and was not indexed to gender inequality in a straightforward manner.

Gender segregation and mobility A strong impression generated by my time in Sambas is the extent to which women and men lead separate lives. Numerous studies of the Malay world have documented the degree to which everyday social interactions are segregated by gender, but there is some debate over the source of this segregation. Is it patriarchal in tone and derived from Islamic precepts that emphasise male authority and the regulation of female sexuality, or does it express an indigenous and more egalitarian organisation of gender as complementary? Shelly Errington (1990, p. 39) focusses on the egalitarianism and complementarity of gender in her depiction of ‘Centrist Archipelago’ societies (including Malay societies). Most commentators on Malay gender relations recognise elements of this characterisation, while also pointing out how Islamic gender ideology hierarchically orders and differentially empowers gender differences. Peletz, for example, describes the situation amongst Negeri Sembilan Malays as one that tends ‘to deemphasise gender and sexuality, and to highlight sameness, equality and complementarity between the sexes’, while noting that ‘there are certain areas in this society in which gender distinctions are culturally elaborated; for example, women are invariably portrayed as the “spiritually weaker” of the two sexes’ (1996, p. 3). Peletz (1996, p. 105) links the development of Islam to a weakening of the non-hierarchical complementarity of gender and the corollary emphasis on male and female distinctions. However, where it is strong, adat serves as an important counterweight to the force of Islamic gender dichotomies due to its emphasis on bilaterality (Karim, 1992, p. 8) and the lack of gender-based hierarchies of rank (Karim, 1992, p. 14).6 As I observed such practices in Sambas, gender segregation is a common lived expression of gender differences, but not one that necessarily confers male authority or control over females. For example, male and female 6 Adat does not make Malay societies ‘equal’. Rather, rank is based on other attributes such as age and seniority, being married, socioeconomic position, honour, and nama (possessing a good ‘name’) (Karim, 1992, pp. 6-7, 14, 22).

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household members tend to occupy separate sections of the house (see also, Waterson, 1993, Ch 8). There is interaction, of course—people sitting together to watch television, for example—but it is quite common for husbands and wives to eat at different times and sit in adjacent rooms. When there are visitors, this informal gender segregation becomes more pronounced. Typically, women sitting together occupy the interior section of the house, while men collect towards the front, often smoking. However, if the visitors are mostly women, the men of the house are just as likely to retreat to the back and give up any claim to the more public space in the front. Gender segregation becomes more formal during public and religious occasions. At these times, the space of women and children and the space of men are clearly demarcated. Furthermore, on many such occasions, men are accorded more prestige due to the religious duties they—and only they—perform. Men’s ‘prerogatives of spiritual power’ (Ong and Peletz, 1995, p. 7) draw upon implicit cultural assumptions that men possess more reason and religious knowledge than spiritually weaker and more emotional/ passionate women (Peletz, 1996). This is particularly clear in the case of a death, where men from the family and village of the deceased gather to recite verses of the Qur’an. Female relatives and neighbours cluster in the back of the house bringing food and sometimes money and helping prepare a meal for the men reciting in the front of the house. However, not all ritual occasions delegate a lesser status to women. The difference appears to hinge on the performance of specific Islamic rites. Marriage and weddings are good example of this. The nikah (‘marriage ceremony’) can be read as an exchange between men: female relatives sit behind the men, who are responsible for the conduct of the formalities between the two families. The bride herself need only signal her consent. This contrasts with the non-hierarchical gender segregation during the wedding celebrations. For example, at weddings in Sambas, guests eat in the traditional style of saprahan—that is, six people sit on the floor and eat from a large, shared plate—and the gender segregation is rigid, but non-hierarchical. If space allows, women and men are served at the same time, but in gender segregated streams or lines. Guests wait their turn to be invited to sit in groups of six as the trays of food are passed to them. Male guests are served by men, and female guests by women. Preferential treatment is only extended to VIP guests and to any hajis and hajjahs (men and women who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca) present. They will be invited to eat before the other men or women as a mark of respect. As these examples show, even though gender segregation can contain elements of female sequestration and normative gender roles that emphasise

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women’s subordinate role in Islamic ritual and on public/formal occasions, gender segregation at other times tends to be non-hierarchical. It is also a norm that—when complied with—tends to support rather than constrain women’s independent mobility. Most of the women in this study were concentrated in predominantly female forms of work. Rural women tended to work in either female-dominated forms of agriculture or craft production. This did not mean that men were entirely absent, but that tasks were aligned with an existing gendered division of labour. Female labour migrants were also channelled into feminised forms of work—whether on the factory floor, as domestic workers, or as weavers—and, except for domestic workers, into gender-segregated accommodation. The public sector constituted the major exception to this rule, although even here women tended to predominate in some areas (such as in healthcare and teaching). As we have seen, the NGO’s programs were organised by a gender divide, one that saw women exclusively involved in the WEP. The projects and opportunities offered to women by WEP staff also tended to be organised as women-only. This was most noticeable in the small business training and handicraft skills development projects offered to women through the public sector and WEP. The general conformity with norms of gender segregation evident in such programs enhanced the acceptability of women’s participation, including any travel that this may have incurred. In doing so, it also reinforced existing gendered divisions of labour and the principle of gender segregation. Despite this concurrence with dominant gender conventions, the mobility pursued in line with gender segregation did nevertheless result in the creation of new networks, expanded skills, raised self-assurance, and novel forms of work-related mobility. Women also seemed to enjoy their gender-segregated interactions, demonstrating the extent to which compliance with norms ‘can be a source of pleasure and meanings as well as subjugation’ (McNay, 2016, p. 45). This is evident in the following example. In July 2015, several leaders of Kerabat (the umbrella organisation of women’s village groups discussed in Chapter Five) organised a gathering for its members by the beach in Singkawang after the fasting month of Ramadan. The initiative came from village members, not from the WEP staff, and it was the first time that members of Kerabat arranged travel that was purely social and recreational in nature. The day out also reflected the women’s growing sense of confidence and interest in religious education. The trip to Singkawang took the better part of the day and involved a ceramah (‘religious talk’) by an ustazah (‘female religious teacher’), a picnic lunch on the beach, and a visit to Singkawang’s new shopping mall. The women from Sambas

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hired a bus, with each woman paying her share of the bus rental and the entrance ticket to the beach. Women also supplied their own provisions. The bus was packed with women and a few preschool-aged children. The outing complied with gender norms in that they travelled as a group of women (the only adult male was the driver); with norms of motherhood (small children who could not be left unchaperoned for the day were brought along); and finally, with norms of soft sequestration (the women anticipated being home before dark). They could have further justified the outing with reference to performing a halal bihalal (‘Islamic virtue’) in that way. This is certainly how the bus driver explained the trip when he tried to haggle down the price of the entrance ticket to the beach for the women. However, the trip was in no sense typical or commonplace for the women involved. It was in fact quite a departure from most women’s day-to-day productive and household activities and could not have been justified in these terms. It was really a picnic by the beach, made more enjoyable by a religious lecture and the opportunity to view a new shopping mall (the closest one to Sambas). This example shows how the expanded communication channels and social infrastructures developed by village women’s involvement in the WEP could be built upon to extend women’s capacity to act (Elyachar, 2010). In this case, the WEP’s gender-segregated programs created opportunities for women to broaden their social networks and, on the basis of their enhanced social capital, initiate further gender-segregated interactions conceived of as recreation. In general, the discussion in this chapter documents a dynamic context in which women exercise increased opportunities and discretion over the ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘why’ of travel. Yet, the fact that the majority of their mobility remains embedded in the conventional gender codes governing women’s mobility raises questions concerning the extent to which women’s mobility can be understood as an expression of their autonomous capacity to act.

Mobility, autonomy, and women’s status This chapter has discussed how women’s socioeconomic mobility is conditioned by the operation of soft sequestration, kinship, and gender segregation, noting the degree to which Sambas Malay women’s mobility largely conformed to the dominant modalities of female mobility. However, there were also visible changes within these normative practices in response to women’s increasing degree and breadth of socioeconomic mobility. This subtle ‘displacement from within’ (McNay, 2016, p. 45) is made possible by

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the indeterminate, contradictory, and intersectional quality of the norms relating to women’s mobility. It is an example of a more general quality of ‘the “indeterminacy” and ambivalent nature of gender processing’ amongst Malays (Ong and Peletz, 1995, p. 10; see also, Peletz, 1996). In the current study, the interplay of different norms and their sometimes-competing rationales accommodated novel forms of intentional mobility, albeit within certain constraints. For example, the multiple standpoints within kinship, the divergent principles of gender segregation (gender complementarity and gender hierarchy), and their intersectional possibilities could further women’s socioeconomic mobility in response to emerging opportunities. In this way, the three modalities of mobility (gender segregation, kinship, and soft sequestration) provided a flexible set of normative resources that could be tweaked to support women’s socioeconomic mobility in ways that generated further possibilities for women. Sambas Malay women’s expanded horizons of work-related mobility gives rise to the further question of whether this mobility results in a corresponding improvement of status and autonomy. Roxana Waterson (1993, p. 170) notes the temptation ‘to equate mobility with independence, freedom, and power and its reverse with dependence and confinement’, but insists that spatial mobility is an unreliable indicator of women’s gender status (Butt, Beazley, and Ball, 2017; Parreñas and Choi, 2016; Sheller, 2008, p. 285; Yeoh and Ramdas, 2014). A further issue affecting the discussion of mobility and autonomy is the masculinist and modernist understandings that are implicit in the concept of the free, autonomous self (Stivens, 1996, pp. 240-41). Feminist scholars are critical of the ‘ethnographic commonplace to sum up women’s economic control with “autonomy”’ (Blackwood, 2000, p. 13)—and to this we can add ‘women’s economic mobility’. By contrast, Karim (1992, p. 8) locates Malay women’s sense of self and autonomy in their ‘fluid, loose, interlocking social networks, ego-centric ties and a diffusion of role and status concepts in relation to gender’, rather than their ability to act freely without constraint (see also, Rudie, 1994, p. 103). A further complicating factor is that any adjudication of women’s mobility requires the arbitration of potentially discordant perspectives. What, in this context, constitutes appropriate measures against which to evaluate women’s socioeconomic mobility? And what weight should be given to Sambas Malay women’s own experience and evaluation of mobility, which may make no reference to, or place much store in, mobility in relation to gender? In general terms, the evidence in this book indicates that women’s work-related mobility has not resulted in greater social precariousness, an increase in specific gender risks for women, or a loss of their independence

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to act. On the other hand, there is little change for most women in terms of political authority and their gender status vis-à-vis men. Furthermore, most of their socioeconomic mobility operated within existing gender norms and ideology, even if these could be reconstituted to some extent in response to women’s mobility. Despite this uneven picture, many Sambas Malay women are better off now than during the former authoritarian, militarised central governments. This is particularly clear in the case of the women in the public sector, NGO workers, and female cultural entrepreneurs in this study, all of whom have been given expanded opportunities for socioeconomic mobility. The situation of rural households is mixed, but even there most women demonstrated an adeptness at successfully combining agricultural pursuits and various forms of cross-border mobility to their benefit. The most precarious group of women in this study are those whose livelihoods are threatened by oil palm expansion. The risks are considerable, as shown by the experiences of smallholders across West Kalimantan (discussed in Chapter Two). This precariousness was not due to women’s work-related mobility per se. Oil palm expansion, however, could undermine women’s economic security and thereby force them into insecure, casualised work or exploitative forms of labour migration over which they could exercise little control. To date, this has not occurred on a noticeable scale in Sambas. Instead, work-related mobility has resulted in a range of beneficial outcomes, including employment, income generation, the acquisition of cultural prestige, education, political and social influence, and social capital and networks. Women’s socioeconomic mobility was also a precursor to women’s renegotiation of their social identities and to their uptake of new statuses and senses of personhood (Vergunst, Whitehouse, Ellison, and Árnason, 2012). Socioeconomic mobility signifies not only movement across space, but also personal, socioeconomic, and cultural growth. This was evident in the range of subjective status and identity changes that either motivated women’s work-related mobility or were a consequence of it, including those pertaining to motherhood, Sambas Malayness, Muslim womanhood, middle-classness, the urban and the modern, specialist recognition, and personal aspirations (to see the world, to become independent, to marry)—just to name a few. Blackwood (2000, p. 14) proposes that one way to evaluate women’s power is in terms of their ability to create and negotiate social identities related to class, rank, ethnicity, and gender. Taking her lead from Henrietta Moore, Blackwood argues that ‘social identities bestow certain claims, entitlements, and rights to individuals and groups, which in turn privilege or disadvantage them in everyday practice’ (2000, p. 14). From this perspective, women’s

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capacity to create or enhance their social identities is ‘one of the strongest expressions of power’ (Blackwood, 2000, p. 14)—and for Sambas Malay women, this was directly tied to the exercise and experience of mobility. Yet, care must be exercised in evaluating changes to social identities and aspirations associated with women’s mobility, as their benefits to women are diff icult to evaluate. For example, how long would women’s social networks or cultural prestige last if not for the active support of NGOs or the current alignment between cultural producers and the regency government? There may also be unpredictable effects going forward. For example, what might be the long-term consequences of socioeconomic mobility that authorises select groups of women to define Sambas Malay womanhood in more explicitly Islamic terms? Could this limit ‘the agential possibilities of Muslim women from other social strata and with affinities to other ideologies’ (Bangstad, 2011, p. 23-33, cited in McNay, 2016, p. 48)? Currently there are countervailing forces at play, including gender and kinship norms that spring from more egalitarian adat-derived interpretations of gender differences (see also, Blackwood, 2000; Karim 1992; Nagata, 1995). However, this is a highly dynamic situation, and in other Muslim- and Malay-identified regencies there are now local laws that regulate women’s mobility and clothing (Setyawati, 2008; Yuliani, 2010). Despite these qualifications, my own evaluation of Sambas Malay women’s mobility remains positive. Even though women’s socioeconomic mobility largely conformed to existing constructions of women’s gender norms and, at times, furthered gender conservativism (for example, in the comments of public sector women, or through an Islamic-infused urbanism and the reinforcement of gender segregation), I find this neither surprising nor necessarily problematic. Sambas Malay women’s work-related mobility inescapably operates within culturally-inscribed gender relations, as do all forms of intentional action. More compelling in this case is the high degree of procedural autonomy (McNay, 2016, p. 43) that women exercised in relation to their mobility. Sambas Malay women in this study demonstrated a significant level of choice, reflexivity, and control in responding to the opportunities available to them in areas of employment, education, cultural exchange, training, and income generation. They also exhibited intentionality and discretion with respect to both the material returns as well as their changing statuses and identifications that derived from their socioeconomic mobility.

8 Conclusion This book examines how Malay women, through their mobility, produce and reproduce Malay culture and identity. It does this through an exploration of the cultural significance of the mobility of Indonesian women who identify as Sambas Malay and reside in a border zone of Indonesia. Given the ways socio-spatial practices emerge out of and define place, a related aim was to consider the influence of women’s border-zone location on the meanings and directions they inscribe on their mobility. More than one border was found to influence Sambas Malay women’s mobility, including the territorial border with East Malaysia, the administrative border of Sambas Regency, the amorphous borders of a translocal Malay cultural realm, and the metaphorical borders associated with socioeconomic disadvantage and political marginality. The outcome is a study of how Sambas Malay women’s mobility is culturally generative; specifically, it investigates how women’s cross-border work and mobility shaped the practices and meanings associated with Sambas Malay culture and identity. The implications for Sambas Malayness arising from women’s work-related mobility varied, a consequence of different socio-spatial imaginaries—or borderscopes of mobility—that derived from individual women’s social group memberships and socioeconomic activities.

Revisiting borderscopes and borders In this study, Malay women’s mobility is predominantly conceptualised in terms of border crossings, that is, movement across borders. A border optic was adopted in recognition of both women’s actual territorial border crossings and the extent to which women’s border location shaped their perspectives on socioeconomic mobility, whether or not this mobility entailed crossing the territorial border. The study’s emphasis on the importance of women’s imaginative construction of the border on the direction and orientation of their work-related mobility does not deny the significance of the border’s material and concrete qualities, however. It mattered, for example, that the border was relatively free of conflict and remained porous. This did not mean that the border was free of tyranny or restrictions: border authorities were notorious for imposing informal taxes on people’s movements and the prohibition on dependent children accompanying migrant workers had real implications for the women in this study. Moreover, the territorial

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border demarcated two distinct national economies and currencies that channelled the flow of capitalist investment, commodities, and labour migrants in specific directions. Yet, however much the Sambas/Sarawak border was ‘constituted first and foremost by regimes of practice’ instituted by administrative, political, and economic actors, women’s engagement with the border was also ‘anchored in more intangible’ discursive constructions of the border (Hurd, Donnan, and Leutloff-Grandits, 2017, pp. 1-2). Territorial borders are generative of distinctive social, spatial, and cultural bordering practices, which in turn give rise to cultural associations and significations (Taylor, 2016, p. 146). To study borders thus requires a measured approach, one that balances the recognition of territorial borders’ materiality with their cultural associations and significations (Cons and Sanyal, 2013, p. 6). In this study, the term ‘borderscope’ is intended to capture the rich multivalences of borders, acknowledging the multi-scalar economic, political, and cultural processes that shape Sambas as a border zone as well as the structuring effects of the meanings and associations that borderlanders attribute to their border zone. The concept thus lends itself to multiple interpretations of the value and meaning of the borders affecting Sambas Malay women through its emphasis on the indivisibility of the subjective and symbolic, and the concrete and material, in the lives of women residing in this border regency. The ways Sambas Malay women responded to their common border-zone geography differed. The fact that borders are relationally and temporally contingent was foregrounded by the diversity of responses apparent even amongst groups of women who shared much in terms of their social and cultural backgrounds. Women’s diverse reading of the opportunities attending to their border location also confirmed the indeterminacy that is intrinsic to people’s production and enactment of borders. This was especially clear in women’s designation of the borders that needed to be crossed to expand their economic, social, and cultural resources, as characterised in the three borderscopes of mobility (the territorial borderscope, borderscope of marginality, and translocal Malay borderscope) studied here. Each borderscope shaped women’s insertion into, and interpretation of, specific relations of economy, politics, culture, and geography. Common to all three borderscopes was women’s lingering sense of inhabiting a region marked by disadvantage and marginalisation. In this, Sambas Malay women conformed to a territorialist or state-centric epistemology in their definition of themselves as marginal to the centre (van Schendel, 2004). As discussed in Chapter Two, colonial and postcolonial processes of territoriality have marked Sambas as at the periphery (vis-à-vis the centre) and resulted in Sambas Malays’ sense of economic and political marginalisation. Though scholars such as Baud and van Schendel

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(1997), Dean (2012), and van Schendel and de Maaker (2014) rightly insist that we study borderlands as societies, cultures, and economies in their own right, in this study I highlight how the weight of centralist assumptions had already impregnated the perspectives of these borderlands women. This gave the border and women’s bordering processes a relationality and temporality; their ‘cross-border’ mobility was shaped by evaluations of their past and present, and by their anticipated future in which disadvantage and peripherality could be rectified by crossing specific borders. It was certainly not the case that as a result of women’s mobility the restrictions of the past had necessarily given way to women’s desired ‘future freedom’ (Li 2014a), but such teleologies were characteristic of their borderscopes of mobility. In seeking to annul or exploit borders, women invariably reinstated existing ones and/or created new ones. Borderlands are marked by ‘multifarious manifestations of center-periphery interfacings’ (Tenzin, 2017, p. 556); in this study women’s border work hinged on an ordering of practices and perspectives related to gender, education, urbanity, rurality, religion, Malayness, and mobility in terms of their distance from the favoured centre. Their border work was also an exercise of power, in that power is often exercised in the processes of demarcating inclusion/exclusion and hierarchies of worth. For this reason the geography of women’s mobility was highly selective: women’s borderscopes oriented them towards specific destinations that were deemed to be more advanced or viewed as preferred metropolitan centres, rather than considering the full range of accessible translocal spaces. Critical factors in determining the worth of destinations were the opportunities they presented for personal development, socioeconomic improvement, and/or cultural growth. The significance of mobility for the acquisition of skills, knowledge, and personal development was a general feature of all the borderscopes discussed in this book. Border crossings, as a form of translocal mobility, took women beyond their immediate locality and everyday experiences and furthered women’s reflexivity, shaped their judgement, and exposed them to new cultural horizons. Women’s mobility was also shown to have wider cultural ramifications and is identified in this study as a primary mechanism for the maintenance, alteration, and generation of practices and conceptualisations of Sambas Malayness.

The significance of women and Malayness For this study to offer a counterweight to the historical association between male mobility, commerce, and Malayness, the findings need to satisfy two

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assumptions: first, that the mobility of women has broad cultural implications for the conceptualisation and practice of Malayness; and second, that it matters that these women identify strongly as ‘Malay’, rather than as Indonesian, ‘Muslim’, or as members of a society in which there are Malays. In the following summation, I address these assumptions with reference to the material presented in earlier chapters to argue that the cultural effects of mobility on Malayness are indeed mediated by gender (i.e., that women’s mobility does matter) and that women’s ethnic identity (as Sambas Malay) is also crucial to these effects. Turning first to the issue of Sambas Malay women’s cross-border labour migration and trade, the discussion in Chapter Three provided a borderlands’ perspective of women’s independent labour migration in a part of West Kalimantan where studies of Malay women’s cross-border economic activities are scarce. Here, we saw some specifically female migrant labourers, such as domestic workers and the less known example of songket weavers. These women exhibited not only strategies developed ‘to acquiesce, co-opt, transgress, and ignore the sovereignty of the state’ (Jones, 2018, p. 36), but also the importance of people’s ability to access cross-border opportunities if they are to benefit from them (Schoenberger and Turner, 2008, p. 671). Critical factors that determined access included women’s stage of life (single, married, motherhood, etc.) and ongoing ties to villages and agricultural production. Proximity to the border, familiarity with the forms of work available over the border, common linguistic and cultural patterns, and women’s location in cross-border networks were also highly significant for women’s ability to access cross-border forms of work and trade. This relationship between gender, life stage, village-based economic activities, and cross-border migration is dynamic. Not all former labour migrants return to agriculture: some used their newly acquired skills to start small businesses, such as the lelong trader discussed in Chapter Three. Some songket weavers, such as Lin, make a living weaving full time upon their return from Brunei. Other women, such as cross-border traders, combine handicraft production and agricultural work. Despite such variation, all of the women remained closely tied to their villages, if not because of their ongoing involvement and investment in agricultural work, then because of the support and childcare offered by their families, which enable women to pursue independent economic activities in line with their perceived obligations to their children and household. Apparent here is the extent to which rural women utilise labour migration and cross-border trade to endorse their self-identification as independent farmers who are responsible for both subsistence and cash crops.

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Women’s labour mobility thus underwrites the social and economic reproduction of rural Sambas Malay households in surprising ways, including buttressing an association between Sambas Malayness and rurality. This is not an expression of ‘traditional’ village culture, however. For one thing, there is no ‘tradition’ of women’s independent cross-border labour mobility as such. Rather, it is a practical response to economic contingency and young women’s desire for financial and social independence. In pursuing this path, however, certain elements of Sambas Malay village socio-cultural norms and practices are affected and, in many cases, reinforced. One such change relates to the increased cultural acceptance of young women’s independent mobility. There are even expectations placed on some daughters to pursue such opportunities to support their family. Many young women relish the opportunity to earn money while seeing the world (and perhaps meeting a husband). A further change relates to consolidation of the importance of sibling relationships, already a primary relationship of support and intimacy amongst Sambas Malays. This is a consequence of cross-border sojourners’ use of real and fictive kinship ties to facilitate their mobility. Other elements of Sambas Malay kinship relations called upon in response to women’s cross-border mobility include the existing mechanisms for the incorporation of ‘outside’ sons-in-law. With more young women finding partners while working in Sarawak and Brunei, the rituals and social practices to incorporate outsiders are called upon in new ways. The absorption of these women’s children of mixed ethnicity as ‘Sambas Malay’ also reinforces bilaterality and other orientations within Sambas Malay adat and culture that attach identity to where one is born and one’s practice of Sambas Malay cultural features and language. This is further indicated by the way cross-border migration reinforces Sambas Malay norms of matrilocality. It must be acknowledged that this is only partially due to women’s cross-border mobility: the strengthening of such norms is also a consequence of husbands’ and fathers’ cross-border labour migration. In this context, male absences and remittances are push factors as well as enablers of women’s performance of their rural and gendered identities (as agriculturalists, artisans, mothers) in ways that reproduce Sambas Malay norms of bilaterality and matrilocality. To paraphrase Kahn (2006), it is not too great a leap to argue that young women’s cross-border mobility provides a contemporary example of the role of interstitial and interactional processes in the (re)making of (Sambas) Malayness, one that builds on and in turn fosters vernacular cosmopolitan dispositions. The borderscope of marginality provided the opportunity to consider the difference that employment and social class make to women’s mobility

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and its consequences. This is a borderscope suggestive of the optic that Cons and Sanyal call for ‘to explore the various meanings of marginality in border-zones’ (2013, p. 6). The border work associated with this borderscope was laden with normative judgements relating to the cause of and solution to Sambas’ marginalised status. The perspectives espoused by public sector and NGO women nominated a range of different centres and peripheries, both internal and external to Sambas. There were also implicit and explicit political agendas associated with the appointed tasks of these educated, relatively empowered women, who sought to bring aspects of the dynamic centre to the unchanging periphery for the benefit of other Sambas Malay women. Their reformist agendas had both formal and informal effects on constructions of Sambas Malay womanhood and Sambas Malay society. Whereas public sector women wielded direct influence on Sambas Malayness through the government projects they implemented, NGO women sought to persuade through collaboration and example. The public sector examples in Chapter Four focussed on women’s professional and ex-officio engagement with a Sambas Malayness that they identified as rural, backward, lacking in information, and possibly superstitious. They pushed for a new Sambas Malay identity that was forward-thinking, educated, and, if not urban, open to modifying and realising the potential of village-based crafts and culture. They operated on the assumption that Sambas Malay culture and society would benefit from renovation, outside ideas, and the expansion of commercial opportunities. Their orientations to overcoming marginality were infused with a bifurcated view of the territorial border as both evidence of socioeconomic disadvantage (through the steady outward stream of labour migrants) and a potential source of socioeconomic advancement (through cross-border tourism to Sambas and the commercialisation of Sambas products). To overcome marginality, and located within the new regency’s administration, they supported Sambas Malay handicraft producers to attend training courses and encouraged Sambas Malays to realise the touristic value of their adat rituals, so that villagers too could cross the borders of marginality that hold back Sambas’ Malay population. While their activities aligned with government plans and objectives, not all public sector women’s ‘will to improve’ (Li, 2007) was a mere implementation of government policy. They were also motivated by an ethics of moral and social improvement that they believed would be beneficial for the Sambas Malay population at large. Their identification as Muslims shaped their representation of Sambas Malayness, including that of Sambas Malay womanhood. The public sector women valued gender equality for its general relevance to the advancement of Sambas. Their

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statements generally reinstated conventional (non-critical) Sambas Malay gender relations (for example, women’s ‘sacred’ responsibilities as mothers, ‘male’ and ‘female’ forms of handicrafts, etc.), which they promoted through formal and informal channels. The conventional quality of their relationship to Islam also came to the fore, particularly in informal gender-segregated settings and their involvement in female-only organisations (for example, BMKT), where they stood out as articulate and educated women in positions of influence. NGO women involved in the Women’s Empowerment Project (WEP) were also motivated by ethical commitments, including to women’s rights and social justice. They projected an alternative vision of the Sambas Malay village. Once a site of women’s socioeconomic and political marginalisation, they believed that the village could be the locus of Sambas Malay welfare if women’s rights and other issues of discrimination and disempowerment were addressed. To achieve this vision, women’s low level of education and subordinate status in many rural households had to be reversed by means of projects that economically and politically empowered women. This was accomplished by collaboration, in recognition that Sambas Malay village women have valuable skills and viewpoints to contribute. For the same reason, the NGO women encouraged village women to develop and sustain village groups (such as Berkat Tenun) and inter-village associations (such as Kerabat) as platforms for the women’s own projects and initiatives. One of the enduring legacies of the WEP is the support of village women’s own voices, social networks, and organisational capacities. The work of the NGO women was inherently cross-border, drawing on ideas, debates, and funding arrangements that crossed local, national, and transnational boundaries. Their project activities also encouraged other Sambas Malay women to take a translocal approach to the revitalisation of Sambas Malay village economies and political relations by providing opportunities to attend workshops, training programs, exhibitions, etc., and through the translation and implementation of feminist and transnational community development ideas. The presumption that borders are challenged through education, training, and broadening one’s cultural and personal horizons underlines, once again, the intangible, non-concrete quality of women’s conceptualisation of borderscopes and borders. The borders of assigned gender differences were also a focus in the activities of WEP staff. In contrasted with the public sector women, NGO women had a more explicit engagement with overcoming gender-specific barriers facing Sambas Malay women. In their efforts to strengthen village women’s socioeconomic position and political participation, they sought to influence

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village women’s evaluation of the social relations in their own villages. That this was successful can be seen in examples of women’s emboldened political advocacy, the spurring of their interest to participate in workshops and training, and in the enhanced confidence and leadership of some of the women involved in the NGO-supported women’s groups. Finally, while the NGO workers did not possess the social standing and legitimacy of public sector women, they nevertheless exercised informal influence, particularly amongst similar-aged and salaried women. WEP staff projected an image of a contemporary Sambas Malay woman who was mobile, worldly, pious, self-confident, and loyal to Sambas Malay social conventions and values while not being constrained by practices of the past. The examples of Sambas Malay women as producers, innovators, and creators of Sambas Malay culture discussed in Chapter Six demonstrate women’s central role in shaping the practice and performance of three cultural forms strongly associated with Sambas Malay adat and culture: Zikir Maulud, dancing, and songket. Women’s mobility—in particular the opportunities afforded by travel to broaden their knowledge of related arts and culture through interactions and the exchange of ideas with other cultural practitioners—was instrumental to the display, differentiation, and thereby codification of Sambas Malay culture. These events could also broaden the cultural reach, worth, and commercial value of Sambas Malayness. Women’s translocal Malay borderscope thus depended upon the mobility of producers and products alike. Women were open to broadening their own cultural horizons and modifying their cultural performances, whether through joining a regency-wide Zikir Maulud Association, participating in training programs, exhibitions, and performances, or expanding their commercial opportunities. Importantly, their modification of cultural forms did not equate with cultural loss or abandonment. For the women involved, adaptation enabled the continuation of a ‘distinctive’ Sambas Malay culture that is grounded in the lives of Sambas Malays and places where they reside, and such reworking buoyed the expression of this regional and Malay culture. The display and performance of Sambas Malay adat budaya discussed in Chapter Six result in three overlapping representations of Sambas Malay culture depending on the context: as an ethnoterritorial expression of the regency’s Sambas Malay core; as one of Indonesia’s numerous adat budaya daerah (‘regional cultures’); and as one manifestation of a wider dunia or alam Melayu (‘Malay world civilisation’). The wider translocal impact of Sambas Malay producers should not be underestimated, even as it goes largely ignored by the centres of power that sponsored women’s

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involvement, such as the DMDI in Malacca and cultural institutions in Jakarta. Van Schendel has argued that ‘contemporary borderlands provide privileged sites for research on how particular scales become constituted’ (2004, p. 10). From this perspective, we can see how the translocal mobility of Sambas Malay cultural producers produced translocal regional Malay identifications not only in Sambas but also elsewhere. Furthermore, drawing on the distinction that Tapp (2007) makes between the centrifugal forces operating at the border and at the centre, we can argue that the translocal mobility of borderlanders plays a crucial role in the political projects of centres. Tapp (2007, p. 209) argues that in dominant centre-periphery models of borderlands the centre is the site of centrifugal force related to economic and political change, whereas the periphery is the site of centrifugal force related to cultural authenticity. In the case of a translocal Malay cultural sphere, Sambas Malay cultural producers created authentically charged Malay cultural products predicated on the purity of their peripherality, which served to reinforce the legitimation of a translocal Malay cultural zone. From the perspective of the regional government and of nationalist institutions and cultural organisations, the recovery and display of genuine cultural alterity from the periphery also serves to def ine national and regional identities and interest. This not only buttressed the view that Indonesia was comprised of diverse, peacefully coexisting ethnoterritorial groups, but could also legitimate the borders and ethnoterritorial demands of overlooked border regions. The understanding of socioeconomic mobility as a precursor to women’s adoption of a new status or altered sense of personhood was further documented in Chapter Seven’s evaluation of the effect of women’s mobility on gender relations. The discussion in that chapter illustrated the reciprocal conditioning effects of Sambas Malay gender relations on women’s mobility, and women’s mobility on Sambas Malay gender relations. Beginning with a description of three features of Sambas Malay culture that are pertinent to women’s work-related mobility (soft sequestration, kinship, and gender segregation), the discussion illustrated mobility-related changes that were occurring within existing gender codes. Here, processes of iteration and adjustment—which drew on the contradictions, indeterminacy, and interrelationship inherent in Sambas Malay gender norms—enabled and supported the further expansion of women’s socioeconomic mobility. In reaching the cautious conclusion presented in this chapter—that women’s mobility largely benefitted their gender status and autonomy— priority was given to women’s capacity to determine the direction and circumstances of their socioeconomic mobility. However, it must still be

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recognised that these women largely operated within existing gender codes that governed women’s mobility and in conformity with conventional gender roles. This evaluation also rested on an assessment of women’s work-related mobility that went beyond a consideration of material gain alone—although this was surely important. This seemed necessary given the range of less tangible borders associated with women’s socioeconomic mobility and these borders’ close connection with matters of personhood, culture, and identity. The less concrete borders to be crossed were many, including: expanding one’s experience of the world; finding a partner; achieving financial independence; being a good mother; acquiring knowledge (including religious knowledge), education, and cultural status; improving conditions for Sambas Malays; pursuing a modern urban lifestyle; and developing new networks and forms of social capital. Women did not necessarily script their journey in such terms in advance. More often, these borders emerged in the process of pursuing or fulfilling socioeconomic mobility through their initiation into revised/alternative versions of Sambas Malay womanhood or their exposure to ideas that changed their perspective on, and practice of, Sambas Malay culture and identifications. Nevertheless, irrespective of how far the women in this study progressed in relation to their specific borderscope of mobility, they showed considerable autonomy and resourcefulness in defining and pursuing the material and immaterial objects they personally associated with socioeconomic mobility. In this way, women brought their own experiences and realisations to bear on the possibilities and value of mobility, thus enriching their future borderscope. More broadly, the evidence presented in the earlier chapters and summarised above challenges preconceptions of gender in relation to borders and Malay cultural processes. First, it contests conceptualisations of the border as gendered only as a consequence of its crossing (or attempted crossing) by documenting the extent to which borders are gendered well in advance of their crossing. As we have seen, women’s borderscopes were strongly conditioned by gender roles associated with motherhood and marriage, as well as gendered social identities associated with Sambas Malayness, Islam, rurality, middle-classness, the urban, the modern, and economic independence. The borders they sought to cross were further preconditioned by dominant modalities of mobility, as described in Chapter Seven. Second, this study’s retrieval and revalorisation of Sambas Malay women’s ‘cultural work’ arising from their mobility rebalances the association between male mobility and Malayness. As documented in this book, Sambas Malay women’s diverse mobilities had as one of their effects the (re)production and (re)signification of material objects and less tangible

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identifications associated with Sambas Malayness. In the final section, I end where I began—with some closing remarks on the characterisation of Malayness as mobile.

Malayness and mobility—a final word The last two decades have seen the establishment of numerous Malay and Nusantara Studies centres as well as museums of Malay civilization in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, all celebrating the achievements of a regionally-based rumpun Melayu (‘Malay stock’). In recent years, this characterisation of Malays has achieved greater prominence in both the scholarly and popular literatures, with the publication of several books over the last decade charting the contours and characteristics of Malays as a group and exploring the nature of a Malay world. Yusuf Yusmar, a ‘Riau Malay’ and former Director of the Centre for the Study of Malay Culture and Language at the University of Riau, is an example of a scholar who has actively participated in the Malay World movement. Yusmar (2009, p. 46) argues that Malay became the language of business, trade, and diplomacy across peninsular and insular Southeast Asia due to the Malays’ orientation toward ‘laut, selat dan sungai’ (‘sea, straits, and river’) and identification with the coastal areas. Such writings, however, have been criticised for their tendency to ‘ossify’ Malay culture in their mostly romantic discussion of a greater Malay world (Ibrahim, 2007, p. 657). Critics of Malay world studies respond by exploring the constitution of Malayness in ways that go ‘beyond the notion of ethnicity with identifiable markers’ (Mohamad and Aljunied, 2011, p. xiv), recognising the extent to which Malay ethnicity is a form of modern identity that has hardened over time in highly contextualised and politicised settings. For this reason, the nomenclature ‘Sambas Malay’ and the prominence of the theme of mobility in this book are not intended to signify a coherent or homogenous ethnocultural identity in which mobility is understood as a fixed and ‘authentic’ attribute. Rather, this study’s exploration of Sambas Malay women’s mobility has emphasised the contemporary social, cultural, and political processes that keep alive the association between Sambas Malayness, migration, economic exchange, and Islam. My approach here has been to apply a ‘dynamic concept’ of Malayness (Reid, 2013, p. 87), one in which decentralisation processes, the increasing reliance on labour migration, and the re-conceptualisation of borders from ‘unruly territory’ to ‘economic zones’ are shown to play a key role in strengthening both the

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translocal and mobile dispositions of women and the salience of Sambas Malay identity. The analysis of the ethnocultural effects of Sambas Malay women’s mobility presented in this book is also informed by the monographs of three of the most authoritative scholars on Malay history and identity: Joel S. Kahn’s Other Malays (2006), Leonard Andaya’s Leaves of the Same Tree (2008), and Anthony Milner’s The Malays (2008). These studies are as distinct as they are distinguished in their conceptual and empirical approaches. Yet, their very differences yield valuable insights into the mechanisms through which women’s mobility constitutes their identification as Sambas Malay. It is from Milner (2008, p. 16) that I borrow the concept of ‘Malayness’—one developed to address ‘the bewildering diversity and contradiction’ that confronts any study of ‘the Malays’. Milner is loath to affix any ‘essential’ descriptor to Malays and his preferred cultural or civilisational approach to the study of Malayness underlines an emphasis within Malay groups on the performance or enactment of Malayness (through language, custom, dress, norms, etc.), rather than highlighting blood lines and ties of descent. This perspective on Malay identity, I believe, is extremely apposite for a mobile, dispersed, and decentred cultural group. It also resonates with examples of the incorporation of in-migrants and the bilateral absorption of children described in this study. Sambas Malay identity is shown to nestle within people’s practice of Sambas Malay culture and their association with Sambas Malay communities, rather than resting upon specific lines of descent. Kahn’s (2006) ethnogenesis approach to the origins and development of Malay identity provides quite another perspective from which to situate the relationship between mobility and Malayness. Kahn’s ‘Other Malay’ identity is one that was forged from the social interaction and community formation of diverse groups of spontaneous migrants who migrated to and settled in the frontier regions of Malaysia and Indonesia around the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on similar languages, customs, and religion, these migrants built social cohesion and shared identity through their encounters. From this perspective, Malays have not ‘spread’ across insular and peninsular Southeast Asia as much as they have emerged through social encounters. In the present study, the extent to which Sambas Malay identity is shown to develop through encounters of migration and translocal mobility recalls the openness and interactional qualities attendant in the identity processes suggested by Kahn (2006). Andaya (2008) also considers the origins of Malay identity, in this case concentrating upon the longue durée. He discerns a political dynamic behind the shifts in ethnic identity formation, transformation, and splintering across

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what he terms the ‘Sea of Malayu’. This politicisation of ethnic identity is, for Andaya, tied to increasing economic competition amongst erstwhile ‘Malay’ trading polities on either side of the Straits of Malacca. Andaya’s focus on the fluidity of ethnic identities in response to a highly mobile context of trade relations and advantage has a contemporary parallel in the political and economic display of Sambas Malay culture and identity within a wider Malay world. Not unlike the ‘Malay’ rulers of old, connections within a dunia Melayu are fostered by the regency government for both internal and external political and economic objectives. This in turn facilitates the mobility of Sambas Malay cultural producers and entrepreneurs, whose mobility of self and product generate translocal Sambas Malay identities. Sambas Malay women’s mobility is thus shown to be animated by processes of cultural enactment, cultural encounters, and cultural politics; all three play a role in the construction of Malay identity processes in Sambas. Yet, Sambas Malay women’s mobility is not merely a vestige of earlier circuits of Malay mobility. Women are not simply the inheritors of translocal pesisir relations and orientations, as Yusmar (2009) might argue. This is not to deny how the mobility of people and ideas is invoked by Sambas Malays in their construction of Sambas as a place and culture. We see this, for example, in references to Sambas as ‘the verandah of Mecca’ and folk theories about the etymology of the word ‘Sambas’ (as derived from Chinese, Dayak, and Malay names). The proverb quoted in Chapter Two that suggests Sambas Malays are open to outsiders is another aspect of this. However, drawing on historical narratives and long-standing proverbs that reference mobility, openness, and related concepts may say more about contemporary concerns than cultural continuities. Further, there is overwhelming evidence presented in this study that identity is constructed and transformed because of mobility, rather than mobility per se being an element of identity. Where historical and cultural precedence does seem to matter is regarding very practical and pragmatic concerns, such as cross-border pathways, justifications for informal and illegal cross-border practices, transnational professional networks of NGO workers, and newly formed regional ‘Malay’ associations. As Gerhard Hoffstaedter has argued with respect to Malays’ cosmopolitan heritage, mobility is likewise ‘largely a product of expediency’ (2011, p. 190). In the case of Sambas Malay women, this expediency is largely structured by living in a border zone, one now overlaid with the cultural politics of regional autonomy. People, place, and time periods intersect in unpredictable and complex ways to shape local notions of culture and identity (see also, Tagliacozzo, 2009). For Sambas Malay women, the meaning of Sambas is highly significant for their practice and evaluation of mobility. Living at

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the ‘periphery’ enhances the importance of ‘translocal’ mobility as a means for personal and broader Sambas Malay advancement. However, place is also aspirational and dynamic (Hurd, Donnan, and Leutloff-Grandits, 2017; Massey, 2013), and Sambas as a place is interpreted through women’s temporal and spatial prisms—in which their mobility is associated with the re-centring of Sambas Malays’ marginalisation. Women’s borderscopes of mobility revealed a desire to escape peripherality and expand their horizons through a variety of context-dependent ways. For some women, this was to be achieved through cross-border work conducted in towns and cities viewed as more developed than Sambas. For others, intra-regional Malay cultural exchanges—particularly those associated with centres of Malay culture—provided opportunities to recentre Sambas Malayness. For still others, the social advancement of Sambas Malays was sought through recognised centres of education and training. Movement away from the periphery was also understood as more than just physical movement across space; it encompassed the gaining of the intangible and immaterial mobility of ideas, skills, expertise, familiarities, and understandings alongside the mobility of goods. Emerging from the multiplicity of women’s mobility, in terms of both form and orientation, Sambas Malay women renovated, reformed, and reinvested in aspects of Sambas Malay culture and identity. The hallmark of this study is the documentation of the cultural productivity of Sambas Malay women’s cross-border mobility. Through the lens of three borderscopes of mobility, typical of four groups of women, the chapters record women’s reconstitution of Sambas Malayness through processes of cultural continuity and innovation related to their mobility. In making this argument, the study contributes to the revision—or recentreing—of border zones as generative of social change, and of the productive role that borderlanders play in this (Horstmann and Wadley, 2006; Giersch, 2010; Tenzin, 2017; Yü and Michaud, 2018). Moreover, in this re-evaluation of assumptions of who and what is marginal, this study calls for the recentreing of women’s position in the study of borders and Malayness. In recording the effects of women’s mobility on the redefinition of Sambas’ borders and Sambas Malayness, this book advances the argument that we move women from the margins to the centre of public discourse and scholarship on Sambas society and the constitution of Malayness.



Glossary of Selected Foreign Words

adat adat istiadat adik beradik ajung antar ajung

custom or customary law customs, traditional practices kin or relative model wooden sailboat used in rituals a harvest ritual associated with the removal of malignant spirits anyaman handwoven baskets, mats, and related products arisan a savings group asli original bersilaturahmi building friendship and good will between Muslims buang-buang literally, ‘to throw way’ but also the name of a ritual for incorporating a bride or groom from a different ethnic group budaya culture bupati regent ceramah a religious speech cerita local stories desa village dukun adat specialists dunia/alam Melayu Malay world gotong a communal task Hadith pronouncements, actions, habits of the Prophet Mohammed haj pilgrimage to Mecca hajji male who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca hajjah female who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca halal bihalal a gathering that performs an Islamic virtue halus refined hikayat historical epics hijab headscarf or longer veils worn by Muslim women hilir-hulu upriver and downriver ibidah Islamic lesson on how to pray imam Islamic official Isha Final obligatory daily Muslim prayers (here between 7 pm and 7:30 pm) jalan tikus footpath, unpaved track, or road

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jilbab

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a form of head scarf or covering worn by Muslim women kabupaten regency cloth or fabric kain kain lunggi Sambas Malay for kain songket kain selendang shawl cloth a skirt-length piece of songket kain songket village kampung coarse (as opposed to refined) kasar subdistrict kecamatan kekerabatan kinship additional income stream, work on the side kerja sampingan people to whom you are related kerabat kerja (to) work, as in productive activities and paid employment kilang timber mill kongsi overseas Chinese clan association kotamadya self-governing city kraton palace lelong used clothing Maghrib Fourth obligatory daily Muslim prayers (here between 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm) masuk Melayu literally, ‘to enter Malay’, but in this context converting to Islam Melayu Malay nakhoda independent shipowner-traders pangeran ratu crown prince panglima royal commander pantun Malay poetic form pasisir see: pesisir pegawai negeri sipil civil servants (also pegawai) pemekaran literally, ‘flowering’, but used to describe the redrawing and division of regencies and provinces pencak silat a form of martial arts perdayaan perempuan gender empowerment pesisir coastal area preman criminals (based in organised crime rings) propinsi province Puskesmas health clinic putera daerah indigenous

Glossary of Selec ted Foreign Words

raja rombongan rumah budaya rumpun Melayu sabuk

233

ruler work crew cultural house ‘Malay stock’ knee-length piece of cloth worn over trousers as part of Malay dress for men cultural studio sanggar saprahan Sambas traditional style of eating where six people share food from a large central platter sarrap malam a Sambas Malay norm that women should be inside the house at dusk selendang shawl seni arts serumpun Melayu possessing a transregional Malay identity siak trance rituals songket a type of Malay cloth interwoven with metallic thread songkok a black hat associated with Malay and Muslim men suku ethnic group surau prayer house syair poetry syirik polytheistic tari dance tertinggal ‘left behind’, less developed towkay Indonesian and Malaysian business owners of Chinese background tenun woven textile zikir a form of sung verse in praise of God



Appendix 1

The following is a list of the items mentioned by the women as examples of Sambas Malay adat. By far, the largest sub-category is related to wedding rituals. There are also a number of rituals related to avoiding danger and giving thanks for good fortune. For this reason, these categories are given separate headings. See Ikram (2004) and Rivai (1997) for fuller descriptions and explanations of these rituals. Here, I give women’s own explanations, which were not always consistent. – Tuang minyak is performed when a woman is seven months pregnant with her first child, to keep the unborn baby safe in the womb and ensure a safe birth. – Tepung tawar/akekah/potong rambut/gunting rambut is to pray for the well-being of a new-born baby (depending on the village, this can occur after 7, 9, or 40 days). May also involve pejajak/turun tanah, in which the baby’s foot is placed on the ground. Only after this ritual is it deemed safe for the baby to leave the house. – Mandi Tuhan is done from birth up to the age of 3 to keep the child safe from spiritual disturbances (‘godaan Setan’, ‘Roh gaibnya tidak menggangu’). In Paloh, it is supposedly performed when a child cries a lot. – Hataman/Hattam is to celebrate a child learning how to recite the Qur’an. – Sunatan is the circumcision of boys and, according to some respondents, girls. – Miare kematian/ruwahan/bilangan hari/membaca Tahlil are prayers said for those who have died. This most commonly occurs on days 7, 15, 25, 40, and 100 after the death, but also as an annual remembrance for up to three years. Wedding rituals: – Lamaran is engagement, when the families set a wedding date. – Arisan/pacoan is a form of mutual help to reduce the cost of the wedding by providing plates, tents, spices, oil, etc., as groups of volunteers cook the food, wash up, etc. – Antar pekatan is where neighbours and fellow villagers take eggs, rice, oil, meat, etc., to the bride’s family to help ease the cost of providing food to guests at wedding.

236 Appendix 1

– ‘ngarak pengantin means to accompany the bride or groom to the place of bersanding, usually with music from tanjidor (brass instruments and drums). – Bersanding, or ‘enthronement’, is where the bridal couple sit on a dais and receive well wishes from guests. Couples typically wear traditional Malay attire made from songket in matching colours. – Sapraham is where six people eat from a common dish. It is designed to unite people and strengthen ties of silaturahmi (‘religious solidarity’). It is not just a feature of weddings, but also of any formal gathering. – Mandi belulus, buang-buang, balik tikar, makan damai, and mandi jale-jale are rituals to unite the bride and groom and keep them free of disagreement. I was told that only a section of society still practises these rituals; several comments were made that mandi belulus and buang-buang had been modif ied (to remove elements considered polytheistic). – Mulang-mulangkan means to unify the two families and transfer care of the bride to the husband. – Bepalam is where the bride and groom have to stay at the bride’s home for three days after the wedding, but this is now in decline. Avoidance of danger/bad luck or to give thanks for good fortune – Bepapas/mappas/tepung tawar is performed on any number of occasions to protect a new undertaking or give thanks for good fortune (e.g., building a new house, moving house, a new baby). Several women commented that it is now considered syirik (‘polytheistic’). – Berobat kampung (‘to fortify the village’) and tolak bala (‘to avoid misfortune’) are used to safeguard the village, household, individuals, and the harvest. In one village, tolak bala is no longer a harvest ritual because of the general opinion that it is syirik. Now, people pray together on a Friday morning before sharing a meal instead. – Antar ajung is performed in Paloh to keep the padi (‘rice fields’)safe from sickness and infestation (see Chapter Five). – Mugas tahun/mas tahun/bangas tahun is to make an amping (‘rice cracker’) from ripening padi to ensure a good harvest. Aspects have been modif ied or dropped (i.e., those related to safeguarding the harvest, keselamatan padi sebelum panen), as they are considered syirik. There is also an associated traditional artform—aluk galing—in which women take it in turns to pound the rice with different-length pounders while singing, but this survives only in a modified, creative dance form.

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Index

1997 Asian monetary crisis: 48 Acciaioli, Greg: 113, 166, 168, 182 adat (‘customary norms’): and administrative sphere: 101 and BKMT: 124 definition of: 20 n. 9, 113, 176 n. 18 and gender inequality: 205, 210, 216 and Islam: 113 n. 20, 120, 126, 210 and kinship: 28, 64, 87-90 and marriage: 28, 66, 85-6 and mobility: 66, 96 mystical elements of: 119, 124, 126, 174, 175, and NGO activism: 130-1 reformation of: 101, 127 revival of interest in: 166 rituals: 114, 176, 222 specialists: 114, 118 see dukun syirik: 114, 116, 118, 124, 126, 176, 233, 236 women’s views on: 84-5, 176, 235-6 see also desacralisation adat budaya (‘customary practices and culture’): 176 and mobility: 165-6 performance and display of: 165-6, 171, 224 revival of interest in: 50, 52, 113 n. 19, 166 and Sambas Malayness: 50, 52, 166 women’s (re)production of: 177, 195 and young people: 176 see also dancing; songket; zikir agriculture: contribution to Sambas’ economy: 33 and cross-border work: 71 investment in: 59 and labour migration: 34, 220 men’s work in: 45, 66, 72 and the Sambas labour force: 33 unpaid work: 66 women’s investment in: 66, 68, 71, 90, 93 n. 33, 92, 94, 212 see also rurality Ahmad Khatib Sambas: 16, 123 Al-Attas, Syed Naguib: 178 Andaya, Leonard: 14, 15, 36, 168, 228-9 Andaya, Watson see Watson Andaya, Barbara antar ajung: 68, 114-19, 115, 126, 127 Aspinall, Edward: 48 n. 20, 49, 53 n. 29, 101 Association of Concerned Riau Malay Women: 20 ASSPUK: 141, 144, 189 attire: class dimension: 157-8, 160 formal: 101, 188 gender dimension: 160

men’s: 188 Muslim: 121, 157, 158, 160 Sambas Malay identified: 38, 155 trade in see lelong; songket women’s: 81 n. 23, 121, 159, 188, 203 see also songket; veiling Barnard, Timothy, P.: 13 n. 2, 14, Baud, Michiel: 22, 218 BKMT (Badan Kontak Majelis Taklim): 120, 122-4, 126, 127 Blackwood, Evelyn: 88 n. 30, 96 n. 35, 205, 206, 214, 215-16 bordering practices see border work border posts: 54, 58-9, 60, 204 borders: ambivalence towards: 99, 127 administrative: 27, 31, 36 constructed nature of: 22, 24, 25, 167, 217 cross-border mobility: 24, 63-4, 70, 71-84, 100, 129, 199, 206, 215 and economic zones: 22 n. 13, 55-60, 227 gendered: 26, 226 illicitness: 58, 63, 72 n. 9 intangible: 25, 28, 100, 125, 218, 223 licitness: 23, 26, 61, 63 and marginality: 23, 31, 99, 218, 225 and the New Order: 45, 55, 61 porosity of: 22, 43, 77, 217 and state-centrism: 19, 21 n. 11, 22 n. 12, 30, 218-9, 225, 230 translocal: 181 see also peripherality; individual territorial borders; temporality borderscope: ‘borderscape’, difference from: 24 concept of: 12, 24-5 of marginality see borderscope of marginality territorial see territorial borderscope translocal Malay see translocal Malay borderscope borderscope of marginality: 99-100, 103, 221-2 and NGO women: 129, 155, 160-2 and public sector women: 100, 125, 128 border studies: 21-3 border work: 25, 27, 29, 125, 127-8, 160, 167, 177, 181, 218-19, 222 border zones: borderlands: 22, 24, 63, 219, 225, 230 economic potential: 54, 55-60 and marginality: 12, 23, 27, 28, 30, 99, 222, 225 and mobility: 12, 13, 21, 71, 199, 217

260 Index perspectives of residents of: 22, 24, 25, 63, 99, 218, 230 trade: 55, 58, 60, 76 Borneo: Borneo Dialogue: 170 commodification of natural environment: 42 deforestation in: 46 division of: 36 West Borneo: 36, 42, 44, 170 n. 10 Brenner, Suzanne: 17, 19, 134, 156 n. 27, 159, 160, 203 Brunei: domestic work in: 71, 75-6 migration to: 71, 73, 80, 92, 206 royal family: 15 n. 4, 35, 175 and Sambas sultanate: 35 songket weavers in: 65 n. 4, 80-4 ties to Sambas Malay culture: 81, 82, 172-4, 175 trade network with: 36 work opportunities in: 63 Budianta, Melani: 19, 122, 133 care of children: 79, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 105, 154, 205-6 see also women, mothers Carsten, Janet: 14, 29, 85 n. 26, 87-8, 89, 90, 173 n. 15, 205 n. 4, 208, 209 Chinese: 34, 38, 39, 79, 89 Cita Tenun Indonesia: 141, 144 civil service: continuity with the New Order: 102-3 impact of regional autonomy: 52-3, 101 men employed in: 69 status of women: 101 n. 4 see also Sambas Malay public sector women class: and attire: 160, 189 and gender equality: 106 influence on mobility: 28, 99, 221 middle: 17, 19, 104 n. 6, 106, 160, 189, 208, 215, 226 working: 14 n. 3, 25, 28, 63, 70, 96, 99, 199 classical Malay texts: 14-15 colonial period see Dutch colonial period conflict: and boundaries of Sambas regency: 48 Confrontation (Indonesia-Malaysia dispute, 1963-1966): 39 n. 11, 45 Dayak demonstrations (1967–68): 39 ethnic: 39, 48 see also ethnic cleansing under the New Order: 38 oil palm: 57, 68, 150 Sambas-based conflict 1998–99: 39-41, 39 n. 14, 47, 50 cosmopolitanism: 132, 160, 189, 221, 229 craft production: 67, 99, 103, 107-13, 127, 139, 140, 142-4, 222-3 see also songket

cultural borderscope see translocal Malay borderscope cultural display: 165-97 and adat budaya: 166-7, 171, 172 and Sambas Malay identity: 169 cultural exchange: cross-border: 168 translocal: 169 women’s involvement in: 29, 52, 61, 177, 196 cultural organisations: Malay: 52, 167-9, 170, 172 male-dominated: 52 Sambas: 169-71 see also individual cultural organisations cultural performance: 165-97 and adat budaya: 166-7, 171 and Sambas Malay identity: 169 cultural production: 13, 15, 25, 29, 48, 52, 112, 165-98 dance: 116, 117, 139, 168, 171, 178, 181-7 Darwis Mochtar: 50, 165 n. 2, 170 n. 10, 171, 171 n. 13 Davidson, Jamie S.: 20, 39-40, 41, 44, 49, 51, 51 n. 25, 166 n. 3 Dayaks: Christian: 34 n. 6, 127, 137 n. 12 conversion to Islam: 36, 37 n. 10 cultural organisations: 170 culture: 50, 168 demonstrations (1967–68): 39 descendants of: 37, 89 groupings: 24, 34 n. 5, 46, 57, 76, 89 identity politics: 51 Muslim: 34, 127 NGOs: 131, 136 palm oil: 56 weavers: 194 see also conflict; Serikin decentralisation see regional autonomy deforestation see forestry; land, clearance desacralisation: 113, 116 n. 22, 119, 126, 168 Desa Gelar: 68, 70, 89 n. 31 Desa Jaya: 68, 70, 89 n. 31 Desa Pantai: 43, 68-9, 70, 74, 75, 89 n. 31, 209 Desa Parit: 67-8, 70, 71, 89 n. 31 Desa Rotan: 65 n. 4, 67-8, 70, 77, 89 n. 31 Desa Senujuh: 57 n. 34 Desa Seri: 68, 70, 89 n. 31 Desa Sungai: 69-71, 70, 89, 124 development: aspiration for socioeconomic improvement: 12 community: 54, 131, 135, 156, 199 economic: 42, 44, 60, 168 government strategy: 56, 128 ideology of: 132 international: 48, 161, 199 of Malay society: 14, 15, 16

261

Index

New Order: 106 projects: 19, 31, 45, 49, 54 small business: 139-41 socioeconomic: 31, 32, 52, 107, 133 stagnant, in border zones: 25 see also Sambas Malay public sector women; WEP Dharma Wanita: 122, 122 n. 26, 184 Djuhardi Alwi: 50, 50 n. 23, 104 n. 7, 171, 171 n. 13 Djuhardi Alwi, Juliarti: 50 n. 23, 104, 104 n. 7, 171 n. 13 domestic work see labour migrants; domestic workers dukun (adat specialist): 86, 114, 118, 176 Dutch colonialism: beginnings of: 36 and border making: 27, 31, 36 and economic change: 41, 42 in Sambas: 36, 41, 43 Dutch East Indies Government: 36, 43-44 economic activities: cross-border: 28, 31, 66, 220 farming/productive: 106, 207 gender-segregated: 210 illegal: 47 Sambas Malay women: 65, 67, 69, 84, 95, 136, 145, 206, 207 trade see trade village-based: 28, 43, 145, 220 economy: and agriculture: 33, 59, 70, 71 Independence, impact of: 44 and labour migration: 47 pre-colonial: 35-6 regional autonomy: 52-3 remittance: 84 and the timber industry: 46-7 and trade: 42-3 under Dutch colonial rule: 42 village: 64 n. 1, 145 education: 123, 124 levels: 33, 54, 69 and socioeconomic mobility: 100 tertiary: 33 n. 3, 99, 101, 186, 200, 203, 208 and women: 33 n. 3, 54, 61, 69-70, 105 see also training Eilenberg, Michael: 22, 24, 31, 46, 55, 59, 60, 72 n. 9, 199 Elmhirst, Rebecca: 18, 34 entrepreneurs see women, entrepreneurs Errington, Shelly: 90, 210 ethnic cleansing: 39 n. 12, 48 ethnic conflict see conflict, ethnic ethnicity: composition of in Sambas: 34 Chinese see Chinese Dayak see Dayak

effects see mobility ethnic ascription: 89-90 hardening of: 38-9 Madurese see Madurese mixed: 39, 89, 221 farming see agriculture feminist scholarship: 15, 18-19, 145, 214 folklore: 113, 166, 173-4 food production: rice see rice women’s involvement in: 89, 93, 139, 206 see also agriculture Ford, Michele: 18, 19, 22, 47, 72, 72 n. 9 forestry: gender breakdown of workers: 66 Indonesian: 46 opportunities in: 47 see also timber industry gender: 199-216 and borders see borders, gendered; construction of: 107 and cosmopolitanism: 64, 97, 161, 221 discrimination: 105, 146 and the division of labour: 128, 152, 162 equality: 104-06, 128, 130, 132, 134, 146, 161 mainstreaming: 133, 134, 147, 148 and mobility: 26, 29, 197, 199-213 New Order ideology: 104, 106, 121, 122, 122 n. 26 norms: 20, 26, 104, 156, 160, 172, 197, 199 reconstitution of: 26, 199-215 relations: 29, 58, 96 n. 35, 106, 109, 133 roles: 29, 109, 162, 197 segregation see gender segregation violence: 136 n. 10, 204 n. 3 see also gender segregation; soft sequestration gender segregation: 29, 120, 134, 202, 209-14 and mobility: 202, 209-14 at weddings: 120, 211 and women’s empowerment: 212, 214 and zikir: 178, 179 gold: 36, 76 n. 15 governmentality: 100, 126, 130, 130 n. 2 trusteeship: 130 n. 2 ‘will to improve’: 100 Hadi, Edi Kusnan: 35, 38, 178, Hijjas, Mulaika: 15, 15 n. 5 Horstmann, Alexander: 230 households: cultural significance of: 85, 88, 187 matrilocal: 91 and mobility: 33 n. 3, 34, 65, 66, 72 and rurality: 94 socioeconomic importance of: 77, 84, 88, 145

262 Index sources of income for: 42, 43, 45, 68, 83 women’s contribution to: 14, 65, 66, 67, 80 n. 20, 89, 145, 152-3, 190-1, 203 identity see Malay identity Independence: 44 impact on Sambas Malay culture: 50 impact on town of Sambas: 44 and migration: 61 and trade and commercial activity: 44 Indonesian Forest Act: 45 infrastructure see also roads; trade routes; transportation Ishikawa, Noboru: 16, 22, 42, 43, 44, 55, 72 n. 9, 74, 77, 93 Islam: and activism: 130, 135, 156, 156 n. 27 association with Malayness: 37 and BKMT: 122-4 conversion to: 36, 37 and development of Malay societies: 15, 16 and gender: 96 n. 35, 209-10 norms and practices: 126 relationship to adat: 113 n. 20, 114, 116, 120, 124, 176 and Sambas Malay culture: 16, 123, 176, 178, 182 and Sambas sultanate: 37 and the WEP: 130, 133, 135, 156 women’s role in: 19, 121, 123, 212 see also zikir; Muslim Malays Islamic scholars and scholarship: 15, 16, 37, 174 Jamani, Rosardi: 35, 38, 178 Javanese husbands: 74, 83, 89, 91 Javanisation: 49, 49 n. 22 Kahn, Joel S.: 13 n. 2, 64, 64 nn. 1–2, 221, 228 Karim, Wazir Jahan: 87, 90, 96 n. 35, 206, 210, 210 n. 6, 214, 216 kinship: association with adat: 28, 64, 66, 85-90 bilaterality see bilaterality matrilocality see matrilocality siblings see siblingship and mobility: 88, 90-3, 203-210 and naming practices (bebase): 87, 132 labour: gender division of: 77 n. 7, 105-6, 122 n. 26, 152, 162, 212 livelihood: 26, 34, 77, 83, 94, 129, 152, 215 migration see labour migration: oil palm: 56-8, 60, 112, 150-4, 206 timber industry: 16, 42-6, 58, 61, 63, 70 see also labour migrants; labour migration; Sambas Malay public sector women; WEP; women

labour migrants: children accompanying: 83, 91, 92, 96, 206 domestic workers: 46, 71, 72, 75-6, 207, 209 exploitation of: 18, 72, 75, 83 factory workers: 17, 46, 71, 72, 73-5, 78-9, 93, 124, 207 gender differences: 17 n. 6, 46, 212 internal: 17-8, 46, 70 Javanese: 34, 56, 57, 74, 83, 91 Malaysians’ attitudes towards: 83, 83 n.25 numbers in West Kalimantan: 46, 47 transnational: 18, 42, 63, 75 weavers: 80-4, 193-4 see also labour; labour migration labour migration: agents: 28, 47, 59 n. 36, 72 Brunei and Sarawak, differences of: 63, 73 cross-border: 26, 46, 70 economic impacts of: 65 impact on gender roles: 207, 220 internal: 70 irregular: 63, 72, 73 and kinship: 91-3 links to farming: 34, 65, 93-5 West Kalimantan: 56-7 timber industry: 45-7 land: clearance: 68, tenure: 150 see also forestry; oil palm Laskar Pangsuma (Dayak militia): 39 lelong (‘used clothing’): 76, 76 nn. 14-15, 78, 79, 124 Li, Tania M.: 12, 23, 57, 64 n. 2, 96 n. 35, 100, 130, 131 n. 4, 222 Lindquist, Johan A.: 18, 22, 24, 26 n. 16, 72 n. 9 logging see forestry Long, Nicholas J.: 12, 20, 100 n. 3, 166 Madurese: 23 n. 14, 39-40, 51 n. 25 Mahrus, Erwin: 35, 36, 37, 38, 123 n. 28, 178 Malay culture see Sambas Malay culture Malay identity: 37, 196 association with mobility: 13-14, 21 n. 11, 227, 229 Malayness: 13 n. 2, 227, 228 Malay world: 35, 166, 168, 227 manufacturing: 17, 63, 207 marginality: and border zones: 12, 27, 28, 30, 222 perceptions of: 11, 12, 31 Sambas: 103, 107, 128, 129, 141 of Sambas Malay villages: 119 and Sambas Malay women: 28, 31, 112, 161 and socioeconomic disadvantage: 99, 217 see also borders of marginality; borderscope of marginality marriage: 81 n. 21 and gender: 211, 226

263

Index

intermarriage: 38, 74, 86, 91 and mobility: 28, 84 Muslim women: 121 see also weddings matrilocality: 66, 88, 90, 91-2, 96, 205, 207, 221 see also household; kinship microfinance: 123 credit union 136-8 lack of capital 108, 124, women’s access to banks 138, 190 Mietzner, Marcus: 49 n. 22, 52 n. 26, 53 n. 29, 101, 131 militarisation: 39 n. 11, 45 demilitarisation: 11, 55, 60, 133, Milner, Anthony C.: 13 n. 2, 30, 64 nn. 1-2, 113, 228 Ministry of Religion: 116, 117 n. 22 mobility: as gendered: 26, 199-200 impact on gender norms: 199-213 and kinship: 88, 90-3, 203-210 and women’s autonomy: 213-14 see also labour migration; temporality Morgan, Miranda: 67, 68, 94-5, 95 n. 34, 101 n. 4, 150-2 motherhood: 125, 215, 226 as a barrier to public office: 105 identification of women with: 120 and mobility: 205-7 norms: 96, 213 see also women, as mothers Muslim Malays: 14, 16, 127 Nagata, Judith: 13 n. 2, 87 n. 29, 88, 90, 96 n. 35, 177 n. 18, 203, 205 n. 4, 216 nahkoda (also nakoda – independent shipowner and trader): 16, 43-4, 61, 67 New Order: border under: 55, 61 bureaucratic culture/structures: 102-3 cultural policies: 50 168, 169, 178 gender ideology: 104, 106, 121-2, 209 hardship: 47 Malay identity: 167 religion: 116 n. 22, 122 socioeconomic policies: 100 Suharto: 45, 47, 55, 56, 116 n. 22, 170 n. 12 trade: 55 non-government organisations see WEP (women’s empowerment program); ASSPUK; Cita Tenun Northern Development Zone: 55, 59 oil palm: 56-8, 60 conflict: 57, 68, 94, 150, 153 corporatisation: 57, 60 planting: 54-5 investment/expansion: 54, 68, 206, 215 Sarawak: 70, 82 n. 24

work opportunities: 47 Ong, Aihwa: 74, 96, 206, 211, 214 oral history: 16 palm oil: 56, 74 see also oil palm Peletz, Michael G.: 87, 92, 96 n. 35, 106, 205, 210, 211, 214 Peluso, Nancy Lee: 38-9, 41, 42 pepper: 15, 33, 43, 58, 139 peripherality: 23, 30, 31, 45, 99, 119, 125, 127, 129, 169, 219, 225, 230 see also marginality PKK, Pemberdayaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (Family Empowerment and Welfare Movement): 148 Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (Family Welfare Guidance Program): 122, 122 n. 26, 134, 148 poverty: definition of: 149 in Sambas: 54 in West Kalimantan: 32 n. 1 see also socioeconomic disadvantage Rasyid, Burhanuddin: 40, 50 n. 23, 51, 51 n. 25, 171 n. 13, 178 regional autonomy: 48-50 arguments for: 48 n. 20, 52 n. 26 cultural politics of: 20, 131, 50-2 impact of: 19, 20, 32 legislation: 19, 48-9 pemekaran: 41 n. 16, 49 socioeconomic implications of: 52-3 Reid, Anthony: 13 n. 2, 14, 15, 35, 36, 37, 173, 227 religion: 34 n. 6, 81, 116 n. 22, 123, 156, 211 and adat: 124, 176 n. 18 and NGOs: 156 religious ceremony: 124 religious instruction: 103, 116, 116 n. 22, 123, 123 n. 30, 212 religious normativity: 122 and secularism: 131 n. 5 see also individual religions; zikir rice: household consumption: 67, 68, 69, 94, 96 importance in Sambas: 33 oil palm: 56, 57 production: 43, 114, 145, 206 sharing: 88 trade: 76 see also antar ajung Rinaldo, Rachel: 19, 131 n. 5, 133 n. 7, 134, 156, 156 n. 27, 160 roads: building/improvement: 1, 55, 58, 60, 78 disrepair: 44, 68-9 Robinson, Kathryn: 19, 101, 102, 121, 122, 133-4, 161, 208 rubber: Desa Sungai: 69

264 Index importance of: 33, 42-3 oil palm: 56-7, 58, 94 Sejangkung: 67-8 trade: 36 women’s investment in: 96 Rudnyckyj, Daromir: 18, 75, 156 n. 27 rurality: association with Sambas Malayness: 93-5, 162, 175 urban/rural divide: 64, 103, 113, 128, 156, 158 Sakai, Minako: 19, 138 n. 14, 166, 167, 167 n. 7, 168 Sambas Arts Council: 165, 186, 169, 170 Sambas Council of Malay Adat and Culture (Majelis Adat dan Budaya Melayu Sambas, or MABM Sambas): 50 n. 23, 52, 165 n. 2, 169, 170 Sambas Malay culture: connection with Brunei: 15 n. 4, 35, 173-5 elements of: 63, 66, 86, 96 and mobility: 29, 64, 166, 177, 196 openness to/incorporation of outsiders: 14, 35, 37, 38, 65, 86, 88, 91, 93, 221, 229 reform of: 113-119, 124, 176, 178 regency promotion of: 50-2, 106, 111, 118, 166-7, 171, 178, 182, 185, 188 symbolism: 51, 188 women’s role in shaping: 29, 106-7, 125, 165-6 see also adat; craft production, dancing; Sambas sultanate; songket; zikir Sambas Malay language: 166-7 Sambas Malayness see Sambas Malay culture; Sambas Malay identity Sambas Malay public sector women: gender politics: 104, 105, 106 informal influence: 120, 122, 124 Muslim identification: 120-123 Sambas Malay identification: 100, 101 objectives: 100-1, 122-3 New Order: 102-3, 104, 122 projects: tourism 116-9 ; handicraft 108-10; songket 111; view of the border: 108-9, 112, 119 view of the village: 103 ‘will to improve’: 100 Sambas Regency: DPRD (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah, regency-level parliament): 49, 105 ethnic composition of population: 34 levels of poverty: 32-3, 61 map of: 13 population of: 34 and regional autonomy: 32, 50

Sambas sultanate: Brunei: 35, 173 n. 14 cultural political significance: 35-7 history: 14 n. 4, 35 Pangeran Ratu Winata Kesuma: 37, 51 Raden Sulaiman: 35, 173 Sultan Muhammad Tsafiuddin II: 36, 37, 39 n. 13, 44 symbols of: 36-7 Sambas, town of: 35, 44, 50 Sarawak: border with Sambas: 23, 26, 43, 59, 73 labour migration to: 16, 43, 46, 63, 73-6, 108, oil palm industry: 70 trade with: 60, 76-9, 112 timber industry: 45, 70-1 sarrap malam: 201-2 Sekuduk: 16, 43, 67, 151 Serikin: 58, 59 n. 36, 65 n. 4, 67, 76-8 sexuality: 96 n. 35 shipping: 43-4 see also trade siblingship: 87-8, 92, 132 see also kinship Sillander, Kenneth: 21, 37 n. 10, 38, 127 Silvey, Rachel: 17, 18, 75 Singkawang: 34, 39, 44, 49, 50, 51, 117, 135, 144, 159, 167, 184, 190, 212 smuggling: 47, 76 n. 15, 79, 99, socioeconomic disadvantage: 11, 25, 28, 41, 99, 119, 125, 128, 162, 217, 219, 222 see also poverty ‘soft sequestration’: 29, 200, 201-3, 204, 207, 209, 211, 213, 214, 225 songket: 80, 101, 107, 187-8 Brunei: 80-3, 193-4 financial barriers: 108, 138, 190, 194 mobility of weavers: 108, 142, 144-5, 185 Palembang: 15, 121, 189 commercialisation of: 110 n. 15, 111, 189, 190, 191-2, 194 training: 111, 141, 143 spaces: domestic: 88 lived: 22 public: 188, 211 gendered nature of: 211 spirituality: 114, 116 n. 22, 174, 180, 210, 211 state centrism 22 n. 12 see also border zones structural inequality: 130 Suryakusuma, Julia: 96, 104 Temajok: 55, 59, 179 temporality: of borders: 25, 218, 219 of mobility: 12, 200, 219 territorial dimensions of: 99 territorial borderscope: 63-4, 71, 72, 83-4, 87 implications of: 90-5 and mobility: 84-5

265

Index

village women’s case studies of: 73-83 tertinggal (‘left behind’): 32, 32 n. 1, 61 Thompson, Eric C.: 63, 64, 85 n. 26, 96 n. 35, 103, 158, 208 timber see forestry; timber industry timber industry: 43, 45-8 and labour migration: 45-8, 72 Sambas: 43, 45, 70 West Kalimantan: 45-8 see also forestry; land, clearance trade: gold: 36, 76 n. 15 rubber: 33, 36, 42-3, 45, 56-7, 58, 67, 68, 69, 94, 95 n. 34, 96, 154 timber see timber industry copra: 42-3, 69 cross-border: 16, 26, 55, 58, 60, 76-9 maritime: 43, 61 illegal: 26, 42, 62, 72, 77 n. 15 in pre-colonial Sambas: 35-6 see also economic activities; economy; shipping; trade, routes traders: Chinese: 44, 76, 78, 79 female: 16,17, 60, 77-8, 79 male: 14, 16 Malay: 14, 16, 43, 77-8, 79 maritime: 35-6 in Sarawak: 43-4, 76, 77, 78, 79 see also lelong; songket tradition see adat; adat budaya training: 14, 69, 99, 100, 101, 103, 107, 108, 109, 113, 126, 127, 133, 135-6, 137, 138, 140, 142-3, 145, 147, 155, 161, 185, 196, 197, 199-200, 205, 212, 222, 223, 224 see also education translocal Malay borderscope: 25, 28, 29, 165-97 and cultural display/performance: 165 and mobility: 40, 224 and place: 166, 196 and women cultural producers/ entrepreneurs: 224 transportation: 39, 46, 76, 118, 160, 202-3, 204, 204 n. 2, 213 see also roads; shipping, trade Union of Malay Youth Communication Forums (Persatuan Forum Komunikasi Pemuda Melayu, PFKPM) see Young Malay Communication Forum urbanisation: 33, 96 n. 35, 103 n. 5, 145, 158 urban/rural divide: 29, 96, 103, 113, 128, 129 van Klinken, Gerry E.: 20, 41, 51, 166 van Schendel, Willem: 18, 21 n. 11, 22, 23, 24, 25, 218, 219, 225 veiling: 134 association with Islam: 157

decision to veil: 157, 160 jilbab (head scarf): 123, 126, 178, 203 practical benefits of: 134, 159, 203 religiosity: 157 villages: definition of: 65 n. 5 development funds: 49 management of: 147-8 women’s central importance in: 65 see also individual villages violence see conflict Wadley, Reed L.: 23 n. 15, 38, 45, 46, 60, 72 n. 9, 199, 230 Wakker, Erik: 55 n. 32, 59 Watson Andaya, Barbara: 14, 15 n. 5, weaving see songket weddings: 85-7, 178, 182, 187, 211 see also marriage WEP (Women’s Empowerment Program) background of staff: 132-3, 146, cosmopolitanism: 132, 134-5, 161 difference to public sector women: 129-30 impact: 144, 145, informal influence: 158-60 Muslim identification: 132-3, 156-7 objectives: 132, 134-5 projects: credit union 136-8; political advocacy 147-49, 150-4; small business development 139-40; support of songket weavers 141-3; Women’s Congress 146 Sambas Malay identification: 131, 132, 133, 134 ‘trusteeship’: 130 view of the village: 131, 132, 139 village women’s group: 136-7, 146 West Kalimantan: Dayak culture: 51 economic transformation/ development: 47 education levels: 33 and Independence: 44 logging: 45 Malay culture: 168, 169-70, 172 oil palm: 56, 58 population of: 47 poverty: 32 n. 1, 33 violence: 39 West Kalimantan Council of Malay Adat and Culture (Majelis Adat dan Budaya Melayu Kalimantan Barat, or MABM Kalbar): 165 nn. 1-2, 166 n. 4, 169, 170, 185 West Kalimantan Festival of Malay Art and Culture: 170-1, 185 West Kalimantan–Sarawak border: 23 n. 15, 24 and mobility: 12, 26

266 Index porosity of: 22 see also border posts; borders; border zones; territorial borderscope Winata Kesuma, Pangeran Ratu: 37, 51 women: activists see WEP cultural producers: 25, 165, 167 daughters: 69, 71, 74, 84, 88, 89, 92, 124, 135, 207, 208, 221 economic contribution of: 66, 67, 206, 209 entrepreneurs: 28, 29, 52, 165, 171, 215 invisibility of, in historical texts: 14-15 married: 91-2, 123, 204, 205 middle-class: 19, 104 n. 6, 160 mothers: 83, 88-9, 92, 94, 96, 104, 121, 123, 128, 205-7, 223 public sector: 54, 99-128, 129, 130, 135, 149, 159, 200, 215, 222, 224 single: 73, 158

students: 203 traders see traders unmarried: 74, 91, 94, 134, 202, 207, 208-9 weavers see labour migrants, weavers; songket working-class: 25, 28, 70 work see labour; labour migrants; labour migration; Sambas Malay public sector women; WEP; women Young Malay Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Pemuda Melayu): 41, 51 n. 25, 171 n. 13 zikir: 177-81 Zikir Maulud: 40 n. 15, 139, 172, 177-81, 196 Zikir Maulud Association: 40, 178, 179, 180, 196, 224

NEW MOBILITIES IN ASIA

Cross-border Mobility: Women, Work and Malay Identity in Indonesia offers a fresh perspective on the association between mobility and the ethnocultural category ‘Malay’. In so doing, it raises new research questions that are relevant to the study of Indonesian women’s socioeconomic mobility more generally. Based on fieldwork in Sambas, a region of Indonesia bordering Malaysia, this study documents the ethnocultural consequences of the highly mobile working lives of Sambas Malay women. Emphasising the significance of territorial borders in women’s working lives, this study highlights how women’s border location not only facilitates cross-border pathways of international labour migration and trade, but also generates feelings of peripherality that inform women’s imaginative construction of other, nonterritorial borders that need to be crossed. Shaped by social class, gender, and the economic and cultural possibilities of political decentralization, the study identifies three borderscopes that orient women’s work-related mobility and create diverse outcomes for the ethnocultural category ‘Sambas Malay’. Wendy Mee is Senior Lecturer and Sociology Program Convenor at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

ISBN: 978-94-6372-901-7

AUP. nl 9 789463 729017