Prof Wazir Jahan Karim { B.Soc.Sc.,Singapore,M.Phil,PhD,London }

Wazir Jahan is an economic anthropologist and former Director of the Women's Development Research Centre [KANITA] at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Wazir Karim obtained her Master's in Economic Anthropology and Doctorate in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, University of London. She has conducted extensive research on indigenous minorities in Peninsular Malaysia and women in politics, culture and religion, more specifically Adat and Islam and issues of social and economic transformation. She has authored and edited several books on minorities on Islam and women including Ma'Betise' Concepts of Living Things [Athlone Press:London:1981], Emotions of Culture: A Malay Perspective [Oxford University Press; Singapore 1991] Women and Culture: between Malay Adat and Islam {Westview Press: Boulder 1992}, ‘Male and ‘Female' in Developing Southeast Asia [ Berg Publishers: Oxford:1995] and Gendered Fields: Women, Men and Ethnography [with D.Bell and P.Caplan] [Routledge: London 1994] Cultural Minorities of Peninsular Malaysia [AKASS Toyota Foundation 2002] was co-edited with Mohd Razha Rashid. Her contributions to chapters in books and referred articles in journals number more than seventy Among her public lectures are Patriarchy Fatigue and Asian Matriarchs at the Institute of Anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 1991, the Wertheim Lecture Series at the University of Amsterdam in 1996 entitled Gender and Empowerment and two Keynotes, Feminism in Malaysia and Equal in the Eyes of God at the University of Adelaide. In 2003 she presented a public lecture in the Andrew Lecture Series entitled Islam and America: A Wartime Story at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she held the Andrew's Chair for Asian Studies.

For her outstanding achievements in these critical fields of Social Sciences, she has been awarded several fellowships and visiting professorships. Among the awards she has received for academic excellence include the Ford Foundation Fellowship [1974-1975]; Commonwealth Fellowship {1975-1977; the Fulbright Fellowship {1984} British Academy Fellowship {1990}; University of Oslo Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Anthropology [1991]; the Anthropology Senior Professorship at a Tokyo University of Foreign Studies [1995-1996] and a Visiting Professorship at the Department of Malay Studies and Centre for Women Studies, University of Wellington [1998 ]. She was also Visiting Professor at the Department of Anthropology in University of Kent at Canterbury in 2001. During these occasions, she taught graduate courses and assisted in the supervision of graduate students in Asian Studies. She established many contacts with Social Science organisations associated with universities and developed extensive links between Universiti Sains Malaysia [USM] and international centres of research. She also sits on a number of advisory research and promotion committees of faculties in national and international institutions of higher learning and among the Editorials Boards she serves are Anthropological Forum and Anthropology of Medicine. In 2003, Wazir Karim was invited to be a member of the Council of the TODA Institute for Peace and Public Policy.

Wazir Karim has a number of firsts in her lists of contributions to Social Sciences in Malaysia. In 1974, she was the first Malaysian woman anthropologist to conduct ethnographic research on an Orang Asli community, the Ma'Betise' [Mah Meri] Carey Island whom she lived with for two years to successfully implement participant observation techniques in anthropological research. In 1977, she was awarded the Raymond Firth Award from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences for the best ethnographic research, thesis and essay, which she shared with Prof Olivia Harris and was consequently invited to publish her thesis with LSE, entitled ‘Ma Bertise' Concepts of Living Things� LSE, Monograph No 54. Since than she has extended her research to issues of poverty, economic development and policy.

In the areas of Women and Gender Studies, Wazir pioneered Women and Gender Studies inUSM, Malaysia. She established the first academic research programme on women and children in Malaysia, called Kanita [Wanita dan Kanak Kanak dalam Pembangunan/Women and Children in Development ] This project was concerned for the enhancement of the social and economic status of rural women in underserved areas, in particular the Northern region of the Peninsular in Kedah and Penang.

As a consequence of this pioneering field of social research, innovative methodologies were developed and continues to be successfully used by undergraduates and graduates in national universities. These are life-long learning initiatives through study services { SISWA BAKTI} where students develop translocal classrooms in poor communities and villages to educate the disadvantaged young and elderly women to be empowered and develop leadership skills, enabling them to seek more effective sustainable strategies to overcome poverty; Participatory Action Research where researcher and the researched engage in a dialogue experience of empowerment to learn from each others skills and experiences and mutually benefit from the research experience acquired and Village Classrooms where rural women learn to develop self-confidence to champion issues and agendas which would otherwise have been marginalised. More than 50 reports and papers were generated from the KANITA experience which has become an icon in the successful implementation of Gender Studies in public universities in Malaysia. As a result, USM created the first Women and Human Resource Studies Unit in Malaysians 1991. In 1999, Wazir was awarded the Rotary Gold Medal for original and outstanding achievements in the Social Sciences. She was the pioneer Director of the Women's Development Research Centre the first ever research and advocacy centre on women's development to be set up in a university in Malaysia. The centre reflects a 23 year struggle for the women's movement to be recognised in the academe in Malaysia.

Since than, other universities have taken up Gender Studies through offering minor packages in Gender Studies [UM] or through continuing education programmes [UPM]. Universiti Sains Malaysia was the first university in Malaysia to introduce gender and feminist perspectives in courses in gender and research projects, dissertations, and theses. Wazir's three books on women and gender, ‘Women and Culture' ‘Male' and ‘Female' and Sexuality and Domination puts USM in the front of international achievements in Gender Studies. She was the first Asian anthropologist to put forward the idea of indigenous feminism that Southeast Asian perspectives of women and gender have to be discussed differently from Western feminist discourses since they are founded in socio-cultural and ideological systems which have traditionally given women more mobility and power than the West in similar centuries. Her two main ideas on indigenous feminism – bilateralism and cultural splitting have been cited and quoted in many subsequent works on gender, including post-graduate research. Her theory on the multiplicity of women, cited in her Wertheim Lecture, Gender and Empowerment has also provoked numerous debates in the academe. In 1992 Wazir co-founded the Southeast Asian Association of Gender Studies [SAMA] and became founder President for two years before transferring the Presidency to University of Malaya to enhance national and regional networking further. SAMA is also the first professional Association of Gender Studies in Malaysia. Wazir Karim was also special project consultant to The Ministry for Women and Family Development and Editor of the HAWA-USM publications series founded by the Penang Women and Family Development Council. She has conducted more than eight research projects for the Penang Women and Family Development Council of the Ministry of Women and Family Development.

In 1994 Wazir initiated the formation of the Academy of Social Sciences {AKASS} which was instituted in October 1996. She became one of the founder trustees and the founder Director of the Academy with Syed Hussein Alatas as founder Chairman and Tun Daim Zainuddin as founder Patron. The main objectives of the Academy were the promotion of national and social unity amidst social and cultural diversity and the advancement of new scholarship and innovations in the Social Sciences.

In the area of Islam and culture, Wazir Jahan has made several contributions. Her appointment to the Andrews Chair in 2003 at the School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies { SHAPS } University of Hawaii at Manoa was to bring about a new focus to contemporary Islamic issues in Asia, in particular Southeast Asia. She delivered the Andrew's lecture on the relationship between Islam and American foreign policy and her lecture drew critical acclaim. She was invited to present five guest lectures at undergraduate and graduate courses in the University of Hawaii and presented papers at international seminars and workshops on Islam, co-hosted by the East-West Centre.

Wazir is also President of the Penang Chapter of the Pan Pacific Southeast Asian Association Of Women {PPSEAWA}, Adviser for Muslim Affairs, for the Penang Heritage Trust. She is also a member of the Penang State Museum Board.

Currently, Wazir is Chief Executive Officer of the newly named Academy of Socio-Economic Research Analysis [ASERA]