Research in Sarawak is often fuelled by anxieties that oral traditions,cultural mores, customs and practices of remote rural communities will soon be lost by ever-engulfing modernization forces. Thus, most research focuses on rural ethnic communities, documenting rich indigenous cultures and customs and discussing the state's colourful history. However, if I were asked to pick only one aspect of social transformation in Sarawak which I believe to be the most significant, it would be the rapid rate of urbanization. In other words, it is argued that the hotbed of change is in the ever-expanding towns and urban centres as they pull more and more women and men from the hinterland of Sarawak. Very little is known of the experiences of Sarawak people in the wake of such unprecedented economic and social transformation and even less is studied of women's lives as they walk the tight-rope of change. In order to fill the knowledge gap, the few women who have conducted studies in this area held earnest discussions as to how to put together a small volume. We felt that a book of this nature will make an important contribution to studies of Sarawak in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century as so little work in Sarawak focuses on women.

All the contributors to this book are scholars who have lived in Sarawak for many years and therefore have an intimate knowledge of local conditions. This book is multi-disciplinary, and different methodological perspectives are brought to bear on the same subject matter, that is, women's experiences of rural–urban migration and urbanization. It is also empirically driven with material grounded in ethnography, field observation, case studies, surveys and in-depth interviews. Any shortcomings of such pluralism are compensated by the richness of the data and the tight focus of the book which makes women visible in the process of social transformation. What are the gendered experiences of different groups of women — women in the urban labour market, women who are sole parents, elderly women, women with mental illness? In other words, this book puts women's experiences centre stage and in the spotlight and gives development in Sarawak a gendered face.