One of the earliest studies done on Malay maternity was written by Judith Djamour (1965). She briefly outlined some of her observations of postpartum rituals practiced by Singaporean Malay women. Yet, instead of placing Malay women‟s perspectives at the helm of her research, Djamour privileged her own judgments of these women as indulgent, irresponsible, uneducated mothers (Laderman, 1983; Stivens 1998). She saw them simply as blind adherents of a monolithic, unchanging Malay culture when describing their experiences as new mothers.
Nevertheless, Djamour‟s (1965) work continues to be consulted in subsequent studies on Malay maternity. One such work is Roziah Omar‟s (1992) whose thesis provides a detailed account of the various cultural rituals that Malay women go through from pregnancy to the postpartum period. Nevertheless, her writing is functionalist in nature as she only describes the rituals without
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contextualizing her study within the socio-political landscape that Malay women are living in.
Carol Laderman (1983) observed Malay women‟s birthing practices in an attempt to counter Djamour‟s (1965) and Rosemary Firth‟s (1966) works on Malay women.8 According to her, the Malay cultural belief system is flexible and elastic. She claimed that Malay women are furnished with cultural signposts that educate them about maternal embodiment as they go through their pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum journey. She saw how the female kin and midwife are the custodians of these signposts as they took center-stage in managing a maternal woman‟s pregnancy and childbirth decisions. However, she recognized how Malay women adopted various strategies in their attempt to successfully handle the unfamiliarity of their maternity experiences. Yet, Laderman (1983) was not extensive in elucidating what these strategies were. This was because maternal women‟s perspectives were not the primary focus of her research. Much of her analysis was derived from her apprenticeship with a traditional midwife.
Manderson‟s (1981a) study on Malay and other Southeast Asian women then provide a clue on the impetus behind women‟s maternity strategies. She contends that women willingly undergo sometimes dangerous childbirth and postpartum rituals as they believed these bodily rites would aid in their
8 Rosemary Firth (1966) conducted her study on the domestic economy of Malay women in Kelantan.
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transformation “to full maturity as a mother” (Manderson, 1981a: 514). Together with Mathews, Manderson (1981: 9) highlights the integral nature of maternal bodily experiences in facilitating a woman‟s transition into adulthood calling these bodily processes of becoming a mother, „matrescence‟. Interestingly, from my readings of Siti Ruziya‟s (1987) work, I noticed how these bodily processes of becoming a mother begin earlier during childhood when Malay daughters are taught their future role as mothers through the assignment of various household activities such as cooking and caring for their younger siblings. Rudie (1994) and Carsten (1997) expand this observation when they informed their readers how they saw mothers and grandmothers playing the most significant role in assigning these duties (Rudie, 1994; Carsten, 1997). These studies then further support Laderman‟s (1983) deduction that Malay women‟s female community is the transmitters of the cultural knowledge. Additionally it also became evident from the literature that Malay women undergo a process of training from their youth onwards in their journey to become mothers.
Manderson (1998: 27) therefore suggests that Malay women have
“maternal careers”. Maternity and motherhood resembles a career in the Malay world that begins when the Malay woman is a child. Arthur et al. (1989: 8) defines the term career as “the evolving sequence of a person‟s work experiences over time” while Glaser and Strauss (1971) see it as the acquisition of a status through rituals. This then throws light upon why Laderman (1983) began her book with the conception period followed by pregnancy and childbirth and ended
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with the forty to forty-four day puerperium phase known as the confinement period as it mirrors the Malay world‟s notion of the status of mother as being acquired through various maternal experiences undergone over a period of time in a woman‟s maternal career. It is for this reason that many studies echo Manderson‟s (1981a) assertion about the importance of studying Southeast Asian women‟s pregnancy experiences in a holistic manner. She suggests taking into account the phases of pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium. Therefore, taking a leaf out of Manderson‟s book, I look at maternity as a career which consists of a
“continuum of pregnancy-parturition-puerperium” (Mathews and Manderson, 1981: 9).
Maila Stivens (1996; 1998; 2007) then expanded on the research on Malay maternal careers by investigating how other structural powers have come to influence them. Stivens (1996; 2007: 30) asserts that other than “advice givers” in the form of the female kin and media, the state, medical and religious authorities are also involved in structuring the social processes of maternity. She discusses how these stake holders have come to contest their claim over the maternal body.
This contestation has then resulted in complicating ideas about the management of Malay maternal bodies (Stivens, 1996; 1998; 2007). This then made me question whether such a finding resonates within the Singapore setting.
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However, what made me want to place Malay women‟s narratives as the focus of my inquiry on Singaporean Malay maternity was Stivens (1998) admission that there has been little concentration on Malay women‟s narratives in studies about their maternal bodies. Stivens pronouncement further echoes Manderson‟s (1998: 27) contention that there have been few studies done on the
“maternal careers” of Malay women. This ring true especially in the context of Singapore whereby there has not been any in-depth study of Singaporean Malay women‟s maternity narratives. It is this gap in research that drove me to conduct an exploration into the maternity experiences of Malay women through their narratives.