ASAA Publications: WOMEN IN ASIA (WIAS)

ROUTLEDGE/CURZON PUBLISHERS
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The Women's Caucus of the ASAA operates a publication series in conjunction with Routledge/Curzon that focuses on promoting scholarship on Women in Asia.

On this page:

	Call for manuscripts
	Editorial Board
	Forthcoming volumes
	Latest volumes
	Previous volumes
	How to Purchase

Call for manuscripts

We are currently seeking manuscripts for publication.

• Manuscripts should be in the region of 90,000 words.

• All manuscripts are subject to referreeing.

If you have a project that may be suitable for the series contact:

Editorial Board Members

Louise Edwards (Chair--Australian National University)
Andrea Whittaker (Melbourne University)
Vera Mackie (Curtin University)
Sue Blackburn (Monash University)
Anne McLaren (Melbourne University)
Mina Roces (ASAA Publications, UNSW)

Latest Volumes

[1] A. Germer, V. Mackie & U. Weohr (eds), Gender, Nation & State in Modern Japan

[2] Michele Ford and Lyn Parker (eds) Women and Work in Indonesia (2007)

[3] Sharyn Leanne Graham, Gender Diversity in Indonesia: Beyond Gender Boundaries.

[4] Elizabeth Hoban, Cambodian Women: Childbirth & Maternity in Rural Southeast Asia.

[5] Kathryn Robinson Gender, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia

[6] Kaye Broadbent and Michele Ford (eds) Women and Union Activism in Asia (2007)

[7] Laura Dales, Feminist movements in Contemporary Japan

[8] Jayne Werner, The Paradox of Equality: Gender, Household and State in a Vietnamese village

Previous volumes

Andrea Whittaker, Abortion, Sin and the State in Thailand

This book discusses abortion in Thailand. Although abortion is illegal between 200,000 and 300,000 abortions are performed each year. Based on extensive original fieldwork the book explores the real-life dilemmas facing women, situational ethics, popular representations of abortion in the media and the politics of the abortion debate in Thailand.

The book highlights women's subjective experiences and perceptions of abortion, and places these 'women's stories' in the context of broader conflicts over religion, nationalism, modernity and the global politics of reproductive health

July 04 234X156 208 pages 0-415-33652-X

Anne E. McLaren (ed), Chinese Women: Living and Working

This book provides an overview of the current position of women in the People's Republic of China--both at work and more widely--by examining the role of women in a wide range of different situations--including as entrepreneurs, teachers, and sex workers and in politics and as homemakers. The book presents significant new findings on new domains of employment for women in China's burgeoning market economy.

Feb 04 234X156 256 pages hbk 0-415-31217-5

Catherine Burns, Sexual Violence and the Law in Japan (2004)
This book provides a detailed examination of judicial decision-making in Japanese cases involving sexual violence. It describes a culture of 'eroticised violence' in Japan which sees the feminine body as culpable, and the legal system which encourages homogenity and conformity in decision-making. It shows how the legal restraints confronting women claiming sexual assaults are enormous. It includes an analysis of specific case studies and a discussion of recent moves to address the problem.
[November 2004: 234X156: 224 pages hdbk 0-415-33651-1 OR eBook 0-203-42943-5 ]

Elizabeth Martyn, The Women's Movement in Postcolonial Indonesia: Gender and Nation in a New Democracy (2004)
This book examines women's activism in the early years of independent Indonesia when new attitudes to gender, nationalism, citizenship and democratization were forming. It questions the meaning of democratization for women and their relationship to national sovereignity within the new Indonesian state. It discusses women's organisations and their activities, women's cultural and economic roles and the different cultural, regional and ethnic attitudes towards women.

[November 2004: 234X156: 272 pages 0-415-30838-0]

Lenore Manderson and Linda Bennett (eds), Violence against Women in Asia: Gender Inequality and Technologies of Violence

Violence against women is both a violation of women's human rights and a priority public health issue, and is endemic worldwide. While has been much written about it in industrialized societies, there has been relatively little attention to such violence in Asian societies. The collection of papers in this volume address the structural and interpersonal violences to which women are subject, under conditions of conflict and disruption, and where civil society is relatively ordered.

Authors explore sexual violence and coercion, domestic violence, and violence within the broader community and the state, avoiding sensationalised accounts of so-called "cultural" practices in favour of nuanced explorations of violences as experienced in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Bangladesh and India.

194 pages Feb 2003 hbk 0-7007-1741-2 and pbk 0-7007-1742-0

Linda Rae Bennett, Women, Islam and Modernity: Single Women, Sexuality and Reproductive Health in Contemporary Indonesia (2004)
In popular debates about reproductive and sexual rights, formal religions, especially Islam, are seen as barriers providing institutional and ideological resistance to women's realisation of reproductive and social autonomy. This book challenges this view of Islam. Based on original fieldwork in Eastern indonesia, the book explores the complex factors that affect how young Indonesian women form their sexual subjectivities.

[December 2004: 234X156: 208 pages 0-415-33652-X]

Kaye Broadbent, Women's Employment in Japan: The Experience of Part-time Workers

The low status accorded to part-time workers in Japan has resulted in huge inequalities in the workplace. This book, based on extensive original research, including case study investigations in Japanese workplaces, examines the problem in depth, and hows the extent of inequality. It shows how many part-time workers, most of whom are women, are concentrated in low paid, low skill, poorly unionised service sector jobs. Part-time workers in Japan work hours equivalent to, or greater than, full-time workers but receive lower financial and welfare benefits than their full-time colleagues. Overall, the book demonstrates that the way part-time work is constructed in Japan re-inforces and institutionalises the sexual division of labour.

168 pages Feb 2003 hbk 0-7007-1743-9

Louise Edwards and Mina Roces (eds), Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation

Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation surveys the transformation in the status of women over three decades from 1970 in a diverse range of nations from the Asian region: Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Burma. Within these 13 national case studies, the book presents new arguments about being women, being Asian and being modern in contemporary Asia.

Contributors to the volume include Maila Stivens, Jasmine Chan, Elise Tipton, Esta Ungar, Kathryn Robinson, Bhassorn Limanonda, Catherine Tang, W.T. Au, Y.P. Chung and H. Y. Ngo, Nora Chiang, Sasha Hampson, Janelle Mills, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase, Louise Edwards and Mina Roces.

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the change of women's status with regards to a range of key indicators including education, health, population, politics, law, employment, violence against women, and militarism. In addition the volume unravels the complexities for women presented by globalisation and modernisation and also the specific contributions of women to national development.

Each chapter explores how women across the Asian region are refiguring feminism within their diverse range of distinct cultures. Divergent narratives circulating about the modern Asian woman are explored in relation to powerful discourses of the imagined traditional Asian woman.

[Sep 2000 344pp ISBN 1-86508-318-6 paperback AU$35.00rrp]

Andrea Whittaker, Intimate Knowledge: Women and their health in North-East Thailand

Intimate Knowledge provides a vivid and original study of what it means to be a woman in a village in rural Thailand. As a study on health this book concentrates upon the intimacies of women's bodies while simultaneously exploring how experiences of health and illness are shaped by the wider context of the developing Thai state.

The book addresses the broad forces impacting on women's health, discussing gender relations in Thai society, migration and work, the effects of poverty and uneven development. Women's voices feature throughout the book, telling us of the intimacies of their lives and bringing to life the ramifications of broader social forces and policies in Thai society.

[Aug 2000 224pp ISBN 1-86508-216-3 paperback AU$35.00]

Maila Stivens, Matriliny & Modernity

This volume explores the links between gender, matrilineal customary law and development in the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the author shows that though tradition has survived colonialism and the spectacular unfolding of Malaysian modernity over the last century, the future of matrilineal customary law is under increasing threat.

[1995 240pp ISBN 186373-892 4 paperback AU$29.95]

Kalpana Ram, Mukkuvar Women: gender, hegemony and capitalist transformation in a South Indian fishing community

Mukkuvar Women covers questions of gender and migration, capitalist development, goddess worship, healing and the consciousness of minorities in a South Indian fishing community. These issues are discussed through a variety of critical approaches. In her analysis, Ram draws on Marxist, feminist and anthropological methodologies, while evaluating blind spots in each canon.

[1991 266pp ISBN 1-86373-014-1 paperback AU$27.95] [out of print]

Norma Sullivan, Masters & Managers: A study of gender relations in urban Java

Sullivan clarifies certain misconceptions about women's status and position in Javanese society, including the view that women's control of the household pursestrings gives them exceptionally high status, strengthened by their central role in the matrifocal pattern of the Javanese bilateral kinship system. Such myths, which have roots in older Javanese ideas and stereotypes about women, are recreated and transmitted through contemporary media.

[1995 206pp ISBN 1-86373-756-1 paperback AU$24.95] [out of print]

Anne-Marie Hildson, Madonnas & Martyrs

Drawing on the author's extensive interviews with Filipino women, Madonnas and Martrys examines the relationship between women and militarism in the Philippines. In particular, the author looks at women recruits in the armed forces, women anti-government guerrilla fighters, and women victims of military violence.

[1995 240pp ISBN 1-86373-890-8 paperback AU$29.95] [out of print]

Santi Rozario, Purity & Communal Boundaries: Women and Social Change in a Bangladeshi Village

This volume explores the rich complexities of a central Bangladeshi village, populated by Muslims, Hindus and Christians. Through a carefully constructed theoretical framework Santi Rozario demonstrates the ways in which class and communal domination reinforce gender inequality. The position of women is analysed in terms of linkages between religious values, sexuality, economics and politics.

[1992 200pp ISBN 1-86373-039-7 paperback AU$24.95] [out of print]

Julie Marcus, A World of Difference

In this challenging and provocative book, Julie Marcus examines the ways in which popular genres, like the novel and travel literature, shape the narrative structures of anthropology. Beginning with an analysis of the ways in which popular dreams of the orient lead the anthropologist toward the east, the author explores the possibility of producing more accurate descriptions of both the similarities and differences that can be located in Christian and Islamic approaches to women's bodies.

[1992 104pp ISBN 1-873219-5 paperback AU$24.95] [out of print]

How to purchase the volumes

Titles are available through your bookshop or

Allen & Unwin, PO Box 8500, St Leonards NSW 2065, Australia
Visit Allen & Unwin's Website for ordering information. Click here

RouteldgeCurzon, 11 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4P4EE, England
Visit RouteldgeCurzon's website for ordering information. Click here

Special Prices for ASAA members
ASAA Members may purchase the books in the Series direct from RoutledgeCurzon at a special price of around 35 to 40 Australian dollars at current prices. Contact Stephanie Rogers to purchase books at the ASAA members discounted rates. Stephanie.Rogers@tandf.co.uk



Published by the International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies, the Australian National University.