Malay Male Migrants: Negotiating Contested Identities in Malaysia
Author(s)
Thompson, Eric C.
Abstract
Ethnic identity has dominated the political and social landscape of Malaysia throughout most of the 20th century. Recent changes, including government development policies, feminization of the industrial workforce, and rural to urban migration, have transformed the underlying political economy of the country. In relationship to these changes, official discourse has sought to engender a “New Malay” subjectivity, dissociating the Malay–peasant complex of the early 20th century and associating Malayness, instead, with urbanism and entrepreneurship. Malay male migrants figure centrally in this articulation of identity and political economy. Focusing on the articulation of multiple fields of identity, I argue that social and cultural forces are shaping and reshaping the lives of Malay men, although their effects are felt differentially by subjects who must negotiate intersecting fields of ethnicity, gender, migrancy, religion, and class.
