ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This paper explores the implication of multi-local living practice on rural household structure, focusing on rural Sarawak, Malaysia. Increasing number of rural dwellers, especially the younger and more educated members, are opting for multi-local living to pursue better standard of living. Multi-local living refers to a practice where members of a household are spatially separately, either temporarily or permanently, while at the same time, remain as member of their household. The nature of the subject suits the Sociology of Everyday Life approach that is used to frame this study. Findings are based on the interviews of 82 head of households from 20 villages in rural Sarawak. Data was collected using qualitative methods, mainly in-depth interviews and focus group discussions and a set of database containing profiles of the members of each sampled households were obtained. Findings indicated that multi-local living has been widely practiced by the Iban community in rural Sarawak for decades. This practice changes the traditional structure of Iban rural households (known as bilik-family) and three new forms of household structure had emerged. They are: a small bilik-family unit, a contemporary bilik-family unit, and a large extended contemporary bilik-family unit. It is also found that the bilik-family is getting larger but the number of members actually living in the village home is quite small. This situation arises because most of the household members are spread out geographically, and yet, despite the distance and their almost semi-permanent urban resident status, they remain as acknowledged members of their respective bilik-family.
Abdullah, R. G. (2017). Accessibility and development. A case study from rural Sarawak, Malaysia. International Journal of Business and Society, 18(S4), 791-799
Berma, M. (2001). Constraints to rural community involvement and ‘success’ in non-agricultural activities: some evidence from Sarawak, Malaysia. Humanomics, 17 (1), 99-115
Cramb, R. A. (2012). Beyond the longhouse: Iban shifting cultivators come to town. In J. Rigg & P. Vandergeest (Eds.) Revisiting rural places: Pathways to poverty and prosperity in Southeast Asia (pp.68-87). Singapore: NUS Press
Economic Planning Unit Sarawak. (2019), Sarawak facts and figures 2019. [online] Available https://jkm.sarawak.gov.my/upload/file_folder/SPU/Sarawak%20Facts%20&%20Figures%202019_compressed.pdf (June 28, 2020)
Fan, C. C., Sun, M., & Zheng, S. (2011). Migration and split households: A comparison of sole, couple, and family migrants in Beijing, China. Environment and Planning – Part A, 43(9), 2164
Freeman, D. (1970). Report on the Iban. London: The Athlone Press
Ngidang, D. (2012). From frontier region to genturung pendiau. Dual residency and the making of new Iban settlements in peri-urban Kapit. Borneo Research Bulletin, 43, 162-185
Padoch, C. (1982). Migration and its alternatives among the Iban of Sarawak. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff
Rigg, J., & Salamanca, A. (2011). Connecting lives, living, and location. Mobility and spatial signatures in Northeast Thailand, 1982-2009. Critical Asian Studies, 43 (3), 551-575
Sather, C. (2006). “All threads are white”: Iban egalitarianism reconsidered. In J.J. Fox & C. Sather (Eds.), Origins, ancestry and alliance: Explorations in Austronesian ethnography (pp. 73-112). Canberra: Australian National University Press
Schier, M., Schlinzig, T., & Montanari, G. (2015). The logic of multi-local living arrangements: Methodological challenges and the potential of qualitative approaches. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 106 (4), 425-438
Soda, R. (2005). Iban city dwellers and rural property. Sarawak Development Journal, 7 (1), 38-47
Sutlive, V. H. (1992), Chronicle of a vanishing world. Kuala Lumpur: Abdull Majeed & Co.
Weiske, C., Petzold, K., and Schad, H. (2015) Multi?Local Living – The Approaches of Rational Choice Theory, Sociology of Everyday Life and Actor?Network Theory. Journal of Economic and Social Geography, 106 (4), 392-377
Wood, G., Hilti, N., Kramer, C., & Schier, M. (2015). A residential perspective on multi-locality: Editorial. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 106 (4), 363-377
In-Text Citation: (Abdullah, 2021)
To Cite this Article: Abdullah, R. G. (2021). Multi-local Living and New Rural Household Structures. An Insight from Sarawak, Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(14), 154–163.
Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode