Visual Interrogations of Femininities in the Malay World: Camera, Chimera and Colonisation (Transforming Asia)

This book curates and examines colonial-era photographs from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries sourced from photo-archives of former British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, uncovering how femininities in the Malay world are represented through visual imagery and their role in shaping colonial social relations.

Through seven thematic chapters ranging from colonial exhibitions to women’s work, fashion, postcard representation and girls’ schooling, the book demonstrates how photographs contain dialogic potential to question colonial power structures. Using visual ethnography and decolonial analysis, it reveals how the intersections of camera, chimera and colonisation subtly divided people along lines of race, class and gender. Although many subjects remain nameless, their images reveal layered narratives of colonial social formations and evolving national histories.

This book is perfect for those studying visual ethnography, decolonial methodologies and the intersection of photography and colonialism in the Malay world, as well as scholars, postgraduate students and researchers in postcolonial studies, Southeast Asian studies, visual culture, gender studies and colonial history.

Maznah Mohamad

is currently Honorary Fellow and formerly served as Associate Professor and Head with the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. She has taught, researched and published extensively on the themes of gender, Islam, politics, sexuality and Malay manuscript traditions.

Bahar Gürsel

is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Türkiye). Her areas of interest include social and cultural history of the United States and Europe, nineteenth-century children’s literature, ephemera studies, visual culture and the representation of the East in the West.

Suriani Suratman

is Senior Lecturer with the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her areas of research are ethnic identities, (re)productions of portrayals of Malays and Malay femininities, gender relations and inequalities in Malay families and households.