Social scientists have long recognized many apparent contradictions in the Minangkabau. The world s largest matrilineal people, they are also strongly Islamic and, as a society, remarkably modern and outward looking.
Focusing on Minangkabau proper, and treating several adjacent areas as well, this collection examines the resilience and adaptability of the Minangkabau in the face of outside political and economic pressures and of distortions in social science and legal theory. Individual studies address issues of kinship and other forms of social organization, ideology, and political and...

This book analyes the arrangements of relationships through which food, shelter and care are provided on the island of Ambon, famous spice island in eastern Indonesia. It also shows how relations of support tie Ambonese migrants in the Netherlands to their home villages, and how normative conceptions of need and care among kinsmen and villagers change over time.

Using an interdisciplinary approach and case studies, these papers assess the economic impact of standardized property rights on the land and natural resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

How are time-honored tenets of faith, different ritual sensibilities, and newly emerging eschatological imaginaries articulated with other normative registers and moral susceptibilities in disputes? This book examines such questions through cases in Europe, the United States, Israel, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.