Maznah Mohamad – författare

Various forms of partnering – such as officially registered marriages, cohabiting relationships, and other kinds of relatively stable relationships - are crucial in the formation of families throughout the world. Although, today, forms of partnering in the region are not restricted to formal marriage, the norm remains for couples to marry – to establish a new family, and to accept the cultural requirement to have children. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of partnerships and marriage in the Southeast Asian region using quantitative data alongside qualitative approaches.Through the research of demographers, sociologists and anthropologists, it examines the way trends in the formation and dissolution of marriages are related to changes in the region’s economy and society; illuminating both the broad forces affecting marriage patterns and the way these forces work out at the individual and family level. Presenting the variety of contemporary marriage patterns in the region, with an emphasis on the ways in which marriage issues impinge on the welfare of those concerned, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Southeast Asia and the sociology of the family.

It is argued here that before the extensive formalization of sharia laws from the late nineteenth century onwards, Islam was prominently influenced by elements of enchantment and mysticism, mirrored in its textual portrayal of passionate and sexual relations.This book’s analysis is based on Malay manuscripts and texts about the body, sex, and sexuality. These include religious guidebooks on sexual techniques and etiquette, of which some are translated from the original Arabic or Persian, but almost all of which have been adapted for local Malay relevance. Also analyzed are collections of Malay erotic poetry from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and the only known female-authored early twentieth-century text on sex and women’s sexual pleasure.Over the centuries changing sexual norms and attitudes in the Malay world has disengaged sex and sexuality from being a crucial component of faith and spirituality—gradually receding into the discreet margins of contemporary discourse on gender relations.

It is argued here that before the extensive formalization of sharia laws from the late nineteenth century onwards, Islam was prominently influenced by elements of enchantment and mysticism, mirrored in its textual portrayal of passionate and sexual relations.This book’s analysis is based on Malay manuscripts and texts about the body, sex, and sexuality. These include religious guidebooks on sexual techniques and etiquette, of which some are translated from the original Arabic or Persian, but almost all of which have been adapted for local Malay relevance. Also analyzed are collections of Malay erotic poetry from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and the only known female-authored early twentieth-century text on sex and women’s sexual pleasure.Over the centuries changing sexual norms and attitudes in the Malay world has disengaged sex and sexuality from being a crucial component of faith and spirituality—gradually receding into the discreet margins of contemporary discourse on gender relations.

Various forms of partnering – such as officially registered marriages, cohabiting relationships, and other kinds of relatively stable relationships - are crucial in the formation of families throughout the world. Although, today, forms of partnering in the region are not restricted to formal marriage, the norm remains for couples to marry – to establish a new family, and to accept the cultural requirement to have children. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of partnerships and marriage in the Southeast Asian region using quantitative data alongside qualitative approaches.Through the research of demographers, sociologists and anthropologists, it examines the way trends in the formation and dissolution of marriages are related to changes in the region’s economy and society; illuminating both the broad forces affecting marriage patterns and the way these forces work out at the individual and family level. Presenting the variety of contemporary marriage patterns in the region, with an emphasis on the ways in which marriage issues impinge on the welfare of those concerned, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Southeast Asia and the sociology of the family.

This book revisits the issue of Domestic Violence (DV) in Asia by exploring the question of family ambiguity, and interrogating DV's relationship between concept, law and strategy. Comparative experiences in the Asian context enable an examination of the effectiveness of family regulations and laws in diverse national, cultural and religious settings. Key questions relate to the limits and relevance of the human rights discourse in resolving family conflicts; the extent to which power and control in intimate relationships can actually be regulated by a set of inanimate, homogeneous and uniform policies and legislations; and how the state relates to the family as an "ambiguous" unit given state rules of governance that perpetuate unequal gender relations. Many of the difficulties in understanding DV have sprung from the fact that the family unit is ambiguous. When the state intervenes (e.g. reproductive health) the family is treated as a public concern; yet with respect to individual human/multicultural rights, the family is considered a private domain. Complications and contradictions arise with regard to different legislative/religious practices across Asia: for example, the enforcement of Sharia; technocratic imperatives with regard to demographic goals of marriage and reproduction; and state interference of gender imbalances and inequality. The politics and culture around DV is thus a mirror of modern-day Family-State collusion, which sustains rather than curtails discrimination based on sexuality and gender. This book views gender inequality for instance in relation to heteronormativity as the fundamental basis of intimate violence, rather than violence as a generic and neutral phenomenon, requiring generic solutions. It offers news theoretical insights to the conceptualisation of the family, culture and law with respect to DV. And it provides reasoned new perspectives on the effectiveness/inadequacy of present policies, laws and enforcement strategies against domestic violence in Asia.

This book curates and examines colonial-era photographs from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries sourced from photo-archives of former British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, uncovering how femininities in the Malay world are represented through visual imagery and their role in shaping colonial social relations.Through seven thematic chapters ranging from colonial exhibitions to women’s work, fashion, postcard representation and girls’ schooling, the book demonstrates how photographs contain dialogic potential to question colonial power structures. Using visual ethnography and decolonial analysis, it reveals how the intersections of camera, chimera and colonisation subtly divided people along lines of race, class and gender. Although many subjects remain nameless, their images reveal layered narratives of colonial social formations and evolving national histories.This book is perfect for those studying visual ethnography, decolonial methodologies and the intersection of photography and colonialism in the Malay world, as well as scholars, postgraduate students and researchers in postcolonial studies, Southeast Asian studies, visual culture, gender studies and colonial history.

This book traces the expansion of Islamisation within a modern and plural state such as Malaysia. Weber’s legal rational bureaucracy or Hegel’s ethical bureaucracy predominantly characterises a modern feature of governmentality.

This book traces the expansion of Islamisation within a modern and plural state such as Malaysia. Weber’s legal rational bureaucracy or Hegel’s ethical bureaucracy predominantly characterises a modern feature of governmentality.

What new framings emerge when we revisit the vibrant world of Malay-Indonesian manuscripts, looking beyond the boundaries imposed by colonial and nationalist scholarship? This volume revitalises manuscript studies by using texts in entirely fresh ways, situating them as dynamic instruments of knowledge and meaning-making and cultural transformation. Through contextual readings, it uncovers multiple historical and cultural narratives within and between manuscripts, challenging established understandings of power, identity, and authorship. Chapters explore themes ranging from the origins of kingdoms and intellectual traditions to the reinvention of contemporary lives through politicised readings of older texts. Social actors in the manuscript world engaged in a remarkable array of practices: they wrote, illustrated, copied, exchanged, and performed texts; they travelled with manuscripts, wielding them to assert authority, resist domination, or celebrate the sacrality of the written word.By foregrounding the diversity and versatility of Malay-Indonesian textual traditions, this book recentres manuscripts as vital agents in shaping Southeast Asian histories, decentres fixed notions of a singular "Malay" worldview, and reveals the fluidity of cultural memory across time and place. This study will prove indispensable to scholars and students of Southeast Asian studies, decolonial studies, and anyone interested in the broader dynamics of knowledge production and cultural reinvention in the region.