Working separately but eating together: personhood, property, and power inconjugal relations

In this article I apply the conceptual repertoire developed by feminist sch olars in Africa to examine concepts of personhood, property, and the conjug al contract in Southeast Asia. I suggest that, as theory travels, it offers fresh insight in the new context in which it is deployed and is itself enr iched. Studies of urban Singapore and upland Sulawesi illustrate the ways i n which cultural ideas are reworked as women and men reposition themselves and attempt to secure their economic futures in the context of changing mat erial conditions and shifting fields of power.