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notes from Stoler, Ann, "In the Company's Shadow: A History of Plantation Women & Labor Policy in N. Sum.", Oct., 1979

p1 Intro.
-an attempt by a Marxist anthropologist to link the issues of female & class exploitation
-within a single capitalist production mode, such as estate agr., changes in corporate strategies may critically alter social reality of both male & female workers
p2
-fact that plant. labor force on Sum. imported rather than indigenous meant that its social structures more malleable
Stoler identifies 4 historical phases of Sumatran plant. agr., each of which had a specific [[strikethrough]] s [[/strikethrough]] effect in women & domestic organization:
1. pre-Depression years characterized by a transient, nearly all male labor force; women as prostitutes & merchants of other domestic services
p.3
2. post-Dep. years to WWII where labor force composed of semi-permanent working families living in quasi villages on estate land; women valued as wives & reproducers of the labor reserve

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3. late 40's to early 60's an estate policy based on an adversary policy based ob ab adversary relationship with a unionized and strongly nationalist labor force; women as the object of union-sponsored reform
4. after reactionary change of govn. ((means G30S00, emergence of a new labor policy focused in large part on casual, female labor drawn from peripheral, "independent" villages; women as vehicle of renewed "cheap labor policy"

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p4 phase 1
because pop. densities of indigenous tribes on Sum. low & land sufficient for their livelihood, plantations forced to import labor from the beginning of plant. agr. in latter part of 19th c.
at first imported labor from China, later solely from Java, esp. impoverished villages of C. Java 
conversion  of jungle to plantation considered a man's job & both the white colonial staff & native kuli