Based on research among the women of the Bidayuh people in Sarawak, all of them first generation migrant wage workers, this book explores the changes in women's lifestyles from traditional rural lifestyles to modern urban ones.

In many parts of South-East Asia, women's lifestyles are going through enormous changes as women move from traditional rural, agricultural lifestyles to modern, urban lifestyles, which often involve migration to cities, taking on paid work, and having a quite different relationship with their families. This book, based on intensive research among the women of the Bidayuh people in Sarawak, all of them first generation migrant wage workers, explores the extent to which women's lifestyles are changing, and the reasons which prompt women to make the changes. How far are such women driven by economic considerations, how far by dissatisfaction with traditional lifestyles, and how far by the appeal of a glamorous urban lifestyle? The author's research includes detailed interviews in the field, and much of this interview material is included in the book, thereby enabling the Bidayuh women to tell their own stories as they grapple with the rapid changes swirling around them.

Books on Southeast Asian nationalist movements make very little - if any - mention of women in their ranks. Biographical studies of politically active women in Southeast Asia are also rare. Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements makes a strong case for the significance of women's involvement in nationalist movements and for the diverse impact of those movements on the lives of individual women activists. Some of the 12 women whose political activities are discussed in this volume are well known, while others are not. Some of them participated in armed struggles, while others pursued peaceful ways of achieving national independence. The authors show women negotiating their own subjectivity and agency at the confluence of colonialism, patriarchal traditions, and modern ideals of national and personal emancipation. They also illustrate the constraints imposed on them by wider social and political structures, and show what it was like to live as a political activist in different times and places. Fully documented and drawing on wider scholarship, this book will be of interest to students of Southeast Asian history and politics as well as readers with a particular interest in women, nationalism and political activism.

Presents a collection of studies on the experiences of women as they encounter the forces of modernization altering the face of contemporary Borneo. Discusses the pressing issue of urbanization and rural-urban migration as experienced by women in Southeast Asia.