Gender Politics in the Asia Pacific Region: Agencies and Activisms (International Studies of Women Andplace)

Amidst the unevenness and unpredictability of change in the Asia-Pacific region, women's lives are being transformed. This volume takes up the challenge of exploring the ways in which women are active players, collaborators, participants, leaders and resistors in the politics of change in the region. The editors focus attention on the politics of gender as a mobilizing centre for identities, and the ways in which individualized identity politics may be linked to larger collective emancipatory projects based on shared interests, practical needs, or common threats. Collectively, the chapters illustrate the complexity of women's strategies, the diversity of sites for action, and the flexibility of their alliances as they carve out niches for themselves in what are still largely patriarchal worlds. This book will be of vital interest to scholars in a range of subjects, including gender studies, human geography, women's studies, Asian studies, sociology and anthropology. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 6 List of illustrations......Page 8 Notes on contributors......Page 9 Preface......Page 12 Introduction: women's agencies and activisms in the Asia-Pacific region......Page 14 Nine months: women's agency and the pregnant body in Singapore......Page 30 Body politics in Bangladesh......Page 54 The politics of resistance: working-class women in rural Taiwan......Page 74 Negotiating land and livelihood: agency and identities in Indonesia's transmigration programme......Page 92 Gendered surveillance and sexual violence in Filipina pre-migration experiences to Japan......Page 112 Resisting history: Indonesian labour activism in the 1990s and the 'Marsinah' case......Page 133 Contradictory identities and political choices: 'Women in Agriculture' in Australia......Page 150 The complexities of women's agency in Fiji......Page 169 'Asia' in everyday life: dealing with difference in contemporary Japan......Page 194 Sites of transnational activism: Filipino non-government organisations in Hong Kong......Page 218 Index......Page 236 The anticipated dawn of what has been termed the Pacific Century saw a spate of literature (for example, Das 1996; Robison and Goodman 1996; Sen and Stivens 1998) on the Asia-Pacific region focusing on the 'new affluence' and runaway success of East and Southeast Asian 'miracle' economies.