The Production of Possession

 This article illustrates the juxtaposition of industrialization and religion. In the article author Aihwa Ong gives her ethnographic take on the cases of spirit possession occurring in internationally owned and operated factories in Malaysia. She explains how spirit possession was traditionally an affliction of married and middle age women and how this is now changing and young, unmarried women are the majority of victims of spirit possession and attack. In this post I will examine this change. The author gives the explanation of how women are more susceptible to spirit possession when they are in stages of life transition. This is when the women exemplify the biggest risk to their community and social norms. For example, when a woman gives birth for the first time or goes through a divorce. The women now being affected also represent a period of transition though a larger one than their own life cycles and events. The young, unmarried women whom are working in factories represent a transition of labor and the society built around it. No longer are these women in the home instead they are occupying new, untraditional roles as wage laborers. As such, these women still represent a risk to the established society and culture of which they are members. I am curious to know why this spirit possession occurs at times of risk to the community. I would have thought that the spirit possession would occur under the monotony of a subservient position that had been long lasting. If  my previous assumptions were right and the authors point of spirit possession being the way of breaking the public transcript would these activities not take place in people who have lived and anticipate a subservient monotonous life? Why is spirit possession in Malaysian society an event of transition?