Matrilineal practices among muslims: An ethnographic study of the Minangkabau of West Sumatra

Abstract

Matrilineal practices constitute an important aspect of the social organization among the Minangkabau Muslims of West Sumatra. Challenges were posed to the co-existence of customary practices and religious elements by specific regional and historic factors such as Dutch colonialism, the introduction of the money economy, Islamic reformism, legislative interventions, and other socio-economic transformations in colonial and post-colonial West Sumatra. These factors attempted to refashion kinship along new familial relations and was marked by the entry of Minangkabau women into the public sphere, engaging with the transformation in multifarious ways. What one could observe in their contemporary form of social organization is the mutual existence of change and continuity of practices. These practices need to be understood as historically specific negotiations among customs, religion and the state, and are ethnographically explored in the paper.