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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
A History of an Identity, an Identity of a History: The Idea and Practice of ‘Malayness’ in Malaysia Reconsidered
Contributor:
A. B., Shamsul
Published:
Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2001
Published in:
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32 (2001) 3, Seite 355-366
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1017/s0022463401000194
ISSN:
0022-4634;
1474-0680
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
This article is a critique of ethnicity theories based on essentialism – the idea that ethnic traits are innate (essences) both in the individual and the ‘ethnie’ as a social group – which have been adopted, wittingly or unwittingly, by historians in mainstream Malaysian historiography in their effort to explain the formation of ‘Malay-Malayness’ as a social identity. It proposes instead that Malay ethnicity is not innate but rather learned or constructed, and Malay-Malayness has been created as a result of intersecting historical, cultural and social factors at a particular moment in a culture's life and history. Indeed, Malay-Malayness has been constructed by a colonial historiography and subsequently adopted uncritically by most historians in postcolonial Malaysia, both Malays and non-Malays.