Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia

Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia

Beck Lorsch

In this excerpt of Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia, Aihwa Ong argues that everyday resistance and individualization are tools of women factory workers as they navigate the transition from kampung to city life and an ambivalence—among both factory workers and greater Malaysia—towards more western values and equal gender roles. Ong first sets up her piece by discussing how Malaysian media and public officials have pictured the workers as immoral and hedonistic as some shop, go out at night, and spend time (if only walking) with men they are not married or related to. Of course, while many disapprove, factory workers are not the only demographic doing these activities with them being even more popular with middle-class white-collar workers. The factory workers discussed, however, are too not of a homogenous opinion. Ong quotes one worker saying, “[T]here are those who like a sosial life [mixing freely with men] and those who do not, following our elders” (189). Furthermore, Ong portrays women factory workers as mixed on the evolution of gender roles. While one believed that,“[i]n Malay society, men ought to be at the top” (192), another thought that “in this era women and men are of the same status” (198). Ultimately, many women interviewed decided to embrace “youth culture” through their dress and makeup as a method of seeking independence and breaking away from their kampung to fit in with city life. In pushing against kampung norms, the workers commonly used their own incomes to not only assert themselves in their families but also control who they marry (in a break from tradition) by not needing to rely on a man’s income. Self-assertion continues in the factories themselves as women carry out everyday resistance—or what she originally describes as “indirect resistance” (202)—in the face of challenging conditions by slowing down; performing careless work and even damaging equipment; taking breaks to pray and address “female problems” (203); and most interestingly becoming hysterical and needing to go home after being possessed by spirits. Notably, Ong is clear that the “guise” of hysteria is not in resistance to “capitalism nor the state” (213), but rather to the gender hierarchy and the rigors of factory work their male bosses subject them to. 

I was interested by Ong’s insistence that she and the factory workers were not resisting capitalism. Patterns of abuse of the working class are nearly synonymous with capitalism and I would believe them to be at least in part motivated by the pursuit of profit especially in the context of export industrialization—mentioned in the reading—and globalization with factories advertising lower labor rates. After some thought, I believe that Ong made this choice because the workers did not explicitly take issue with capitalism and therefore Ong did not want to extrapolate at all or make any greater claims beyond what her interviewees said, a theory supported in the conclusion when she emphasizes that her goal was to only “produce a partial picture of changes within a segment of Malay society” (216, emphasis added). Looking at what we’ve read in the course as well, Ong’s “indirect resistance” is nearly identical to the concept of “everyday resistance” as described by James Scott. In fact, Ong eventually mentions “everyday forms of resistance” (213). Scott describes the concept as “foot dragging, dissimulations, desertion, false compliance … slander and sabotage … and so on” (Weapons of the Weak, xvi).” The factory workers mentioned slow down, destroy the factory’s machines and their own produced items, and try to take as many breaks as possible or go home (in extreme cases through spirit possession). In this manner, Ong’s piece further serves as an example of Scott’s thesis alive and well in the factory.

Quotes

  • “The academic community stepped in to define the problem of ‘immorality’ among Malay factory women as the outcome of ‘rural urban migration’’ and Westernized urban culture rather than industrial employment. This ‘sarung-to-jean movement,’ the vice chancellor of Universiti Malaya argued, resulted in problems of urban Hying which could be alleviated by providing counseling, recreational, and educational facilities.” (182)
  • “In Malay society, men ought to be at the top. Father has more authority (kuasa) than mother because he is male. This is as it should be. It is not surprising that at the workplace/factory all the persons in authority are men.” (192)
  • “In the following cases, spirit imageries reveal not only a mode of unconscious retaliation against male authority but fundamentally a sense of dislocation in human relations and a need for greater spiritual vigilance in domains reconstituted by capitalist relations of production.” (207)
  • “I eschewed explanations of cultural change determined by an overriding logic others have sought in ‘modernization’ or ‘the capitalist mode of production.’” (215)

Questions

  • Can a critique of widespread abuse in factories be separated from a critique of capitalism? Why is Ong so insistent that the factory workers are not resisting capitalism?

  • Is there any widespread doubt among Malaysians working in factories—both women and foremen—that hysteria is not in fact caused by spirits? In other words, how strongly held are beliefs about spirits?

Comments

Beck,

Your question as to why Ong insists that these spirit possessions are not instantiations of everyday forms of resistance against capitalism is an important one that gestures to the tension inherent in Ong’s argument. It seems that she is trying to capture how new subjectivities emerge in the face of male oppression and the dehumanisation of women’s bodies but is resisting (pun unintended) the urge to classify these idioms of protest as emblematic of only a class struggle. In short, at stake are the ways in which women try to reclaim their humanity (220). A Marxist would argue that class struggles are ultimately struggles over humanity, but I digress. 

What I did find rather countertuitive was her concept of resistance– that women who become possessed by spirits are enacting a form of agency. But is that really resistance when, as she admits, spirit possessions also reify gender inequality as men argue that weak women are the ones susceptible to the devil’s influence (207) and resort to notions of “female maladjustment” (210). I wonder whether her argument would’ve been more effective if she had pared her analysis of these spirit possessions down to articulations of women’s anguish over the inequities they suffer in the face of industrialisation.