This book seeks to break new ground, both empirically and
conceptually, in examining discourses of identity formation and the
agency of critical social practices in Malaysia. Taking an
inclusive cultural studies perspective, it questions the
ideological narrative of 'race' and 'ethnicity' that dominates
explanations of conflicts and cleavages in the Malaysian context.
The contributions are organised in three broad themes. 'Identities
in Contestation: Borders, Complexities and Hybridities' takes a
range of empirical studies-literary translation, religion, gender,
ethnicity, indigeneity and sexual orientation-to break down
preconceived notions of fixed identities. This then opens up an
examination of 'Identities and Movements: Agency and Alternative
Discourses', in which contributors deal with counter-hegemonic
social movements-of anti-racism, young people, environmentalism and
independent publishing-that explicitly seek to open up greater
critical, democratic space within the Malaysian polity. The third
section, 'Identities and Narratives: Culture and the Media', then
provides a close textual reading of some exemplars of new cultural
and media practices found in oral testimonies, popular music, film,
radio programming and storytelling who have consciously created
bodies of work that question the dominant national narrative. This
book is a valuable interdisciplinary work for advanced students and
researchers interested in representations of identity and
nationhood in Malaysia, and for those with wider interests in the
fields of critical cultural studies and discourse analysis. "Here
is a fresh, startling book to aid the task of unbinding the
straitjackets of 'Malay', 'Chinese' and 'Indian', with which
colonialism bound Malaysia's plural inheritance, and on which the
postcolonial state continues to rely. In it, a panoply of unlikely
identities-Bajau liminality, Kelabit philosophy, Islamic feminism,
refugee hybridity and more-finds expression and offers hope for
liberation". Rachel Leow, University of Cambridge "This book shakes
the foundations of race thinking in Malaysian studies by expanding
the range of cases, perspectives and outcomes of identity. It
offers students of Malaysia an examination of identity and agency
that is expansive, critical and engaging, and its interdisciplinary
depth brings Malaysian studies into conversation with scholarship
across the world". Sumit Mandal, University of Nottingham Malaysia
"This is a much-needed work that helps us to take apart the
colonial inherited categories of race which informed the notion of
the plural society, the idea of plurality without multiculturalism.
It complicates the picture of identity by bringing in religion,
gender, indigeneity and sexual orientation, and helps us to imagine
what a truly multiculturalist Malaysia might look like". Syed Farid
Alatas, National University of Singapore
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