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The Anthropology of the Malay Peasantry: Reflecting on Colonial and Indigenous Scholarship

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Abstract

There has been a continuous anthropological interest in the Malay peasantry for the past 70 years, which has resulted in a rich theoretical and empirical literature on the topic. This chapter offers a critical genealogical account of knowledge production spanning some four generations of anthropologists. The first two generations were dominated by Western anthropologists notably Raymond Firth and Michael Swift—working in the context of late colonialism. The latter two generations were represented by indigenous scholars who consciously grappled with the intellectual legacies of the past while, at the same time, opening up new research vistas. Using a close reading of some of the key anthropological texts produced on the Malay peasantry, as well as an analysis of the institutionalisation of professional anthropology in Malaysia, the chapter discusses the tensions of inter-generational continuities and ruptures. While acknowledging the enormous debt that many indigenous scholars clearly owed to their Western mentors it is argued that there emerged a qualitative break with the past during the late 1970s and 1980s. This saw indigenous anthropologists grappling with post-peasantry studies and opening up new fields of inquiry to do with larger issues of agrarian change, capitalist modernity, ideational formation and contemporary politics.

The author wishes to thank University of Malaya as this chapter is based on his Inaugural professorial address: ‘The Malay peasantry: Reflecting on Colonial Indigenous Scholarship. presented to the University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur Dewan Kuliah A Faculty of Arts Social Sciences University of Malaya 6th October 2009. The author also wishes to acknowledge Professor Shaharil Talib as an integral part of the Malaysian Monash postgraduate circle of anthropologists who were supervised by Professor M.G Swift,constituting of H.M Dahlan Abdullah Taib Shamsul A.B (Wan) Zawawi Ibrahim Halim Salleh Wan Hashim Norazit Selat.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Two qualifiers are in order at this juncture of the chapter. In the first instance, the term ‘indigenous’ used in the text does not refer to a ‘racial’ or ‘ethnic’ identity as such; rather it is used as an ideological category, in contrast to that of ‘colonial’. The fact that the ‘indigenous’ anthropologists referred to in the text happened to be Malay is purely a matter of historical coincidence, and should not be read as an attempt to ‘ethnicise’ social categories. Secondly, it is important to acknowledge that whilst historically, the author considers the ‘Firth-Swift-indigenous anthropologists’ axis as a dominant geneology in the knowledge production of the Malay peasantry, this by no means disqualifies the legitimacy of other ‘geneologies’ or modes of ‘representation’ of the same empirical subject, involving other western and/or ‘indigenous’ scholars.

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Ibrahim, Z. (2021). The Anthropology of the Malay Peasantry: Reflecting on Colonial and Indigenous Scholarship. In: Rasiah, R., Hashim, A., Sidhu, J.S. (eds) Contesting Malaysia’s Integration into the World Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0650-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0650-2_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-0649-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-0650-2

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