Sunday, September 23, 2007 by g3 blog
What exactly is matrilineal? In a matrilineal society do woman hold the upper hand? What are the roles of minangkabau women in their society and family? These were some of the questions that flooded our minds when we got a hold of our task. The task requires us to focus our research on the power of women, their roles in the society and family and compatibility of their roles with values of Adat Perpatih. We define power as having control and influence over most matters. Role is “the way in which someone...in involved in an activity or situation, and how much influence they have on it” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1995, p. 1233). We are focusing our attention to villagers in Kampung Pelegong and Kampung Kering (society). Also, we are restricting the definition of family to people living under the same roof. With our prior readings, we have formed a hypothesis:
“The role of woman in the Negeri Sembilan is not compatible with values of Adat Perpatih as it has changed over time.”
Will our hypothesis stand? Or be knocked down? There was only one way to know - total immersion into the minangkabau culture. Armed with some knowledge and tons of curiosity, we travelled across the border to Kampung Pelegong to find out!
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Figure 1: Our base for research – Kampung Pelegong.
Kampung Pelegong is a beautiful village located approximately fifteen kilometres from the heart of Negeri Sembilan, Seremban. A unique aspect of Negeri Sembilan is its practice of Adat Perpatih, which originated from West Sumatra. This is a “unique custom that emphasizes on the matrilineal system where the woman is regarded as the head of the home” (Orient Travel & Tours Sdn. Bhd, 2004, para. 5). These characteristics make Kampung Pelegong a suitable location for data collection.
1.2. Collecting Data: Our approaches to doing research and their limitations
We undertook three main approaches to doing our research: naturalistic, archival and survey (interviews) approach.
Figure 2: Our group's three different approaches to research.
During our 7 days and 6 nights stay (3rd September 2007 to 9th September 2007) at Kampung Pelegong, we took the naturalistic approach. We observe the naturally occurring behaviour of the minangkabau women without any intervention. An advantage to this approach is we get a sample of their behaviour in their natural habitat. While the information gained is highly accurate, the lack of control over the factors in the environment, sometimes results in observations that are not relevant to our research. Furthermore, people may alter their reactions if they realise they are being observed. This will result in a behaviour that is not truly representative (Feldman, 2008, p. 38). Thus we also used the archival approach, which is the use of existing data to test our hypothesis. We made use of online databases (journals and articles), websites and notes (given to us on our first lesson). Archival research was done in the pre-trip session to equip us with substantial knowledge on Minangkabau culture. It was also done after the trip for us to cross-refer our findings (during the trip) with others sources. One main drawback to this approach is there are simply limited amount of existing data on minangkabau women. To make up for the limitations of the abovementioned approaches, we also conducted interviews. Participants were asked questions relevant to our research. Those chosen fulfilled one or both of our criteria: a person with minangkabau origin and/or with knowledge on Adat Perpatih. We experienced many obstacles during the process of interviews. Firstly, participants like to go out of point. At times, they got too engrossed in talking that they forgot the question asked. In addition, our weak command of the Malay language made communicating effectively with the people in Negeri Sembilan difficult. The biggest hurdle we had was to get a hold of people to interview, especially in Singapore. We interviewed, Mdm. Aliyana, Mdm. Mardiana, Mdm. Maryam from Singapore, Haji Datuk Kahar Bin Sikin, CIk Razimah, Encik Rashid and Mdm. Rosini Ariffin in Negeri Sembilan. Even with all these impediments, the entire process of collecting data was fun and enriching.
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