Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures

Get access

Economics: Paid Domestic Labor: Southeast Asia
(2,959 words)

“Keeping servants [as] a way of life” (Hansen 2000, 283) has had a long tradition in much of Southeast Asia. In as much as employing servants was an ostentatious symbol of conspicuous consumption and “a marker of the ‘middle-class aristocratic’ lifestyle” during colonial days (Stoler 1996, 91), it remains an important signifier of middle…

Cite this page
Huang, Shirlena, Yeoh, Brenda S. A. and Rahman, Noorashikin Abdul, “Economics: Paid Domestic Labor: Southeast Asia”, in: Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, General Editor Suad Joseph. Consulted online on 23 September 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1872-5309_ewic_EWICCOM_0240d>
First published online: 2009



▲   Back to top   ▲