Writing and Researching Present-Day Malaysia: The Perils and the Pitfalls
Using the experience of gleaned from her two publications this year, professor Dipika Mukherjee will discuss what has changed for writers and academics in Malaysia over the last two decades, as well as what remains the same.
Speaker: Dipika Mukherjee (d.mukherjee@iias.nl)
Malaysia is sold in tourism brochures as "Truly Asia" and its multiethnic population and commingling cuisines present the country as a model moderate Islamic nation. Yet the population, due to the constitution and current politics, remains sharply divided into the Bumiputra (largely Malay, “Sons of the Soil”) and the non-bumiputra (largely the Chinese and Indian) populations. The diversity in Malaysia and the inequities inherent in government policies has proven divisive in civil society, as demonstrated by the recent Bersih March in July 2011 and the Hindraf agitation in 2007, where an unprecedented number of people marched on the streets of Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere in peaceful demonstrations. The reasons for the discontent include the growing disempowerment of the non-Malay citizenry based on racist government policies which frequently favour the majority population in power and becomes salient in day-to-day Malaysian life, including applying for government jobs, attending school, and buying property. The Internal Security Act and the Sedition Act has been invoked to suppress any questioning of the special rights of the Malays, and although there has been talk of repealing these laws, including those that effectively muffle the media, there is skepticism about how wide-ranging these changes are likely to be.
Professor Mukherjee is currently Professor at the Institute of Linguistics at Shanghai International Studies University in China. Her recent work in Malaysia examined the effect of the national language policy on different migrant groups in Malaysia and her co-edited book, National Language Planning & Language Shifts in Malaysian Minority Communities: Speaking in Many Tongues was published by the Amsterdam University Press in April 2011. Also in 2011, her debut novel (Thunder Demons, Gyaana Books), was published in the Indian subcontinent. Using the experience of gleaned from these two publications this year, she will discuss what has changed for writers and academics in Malaysia over the last two decades, as well as what remains the same.
Lunch is provided. Please register at a.e.l.van.der.horst@iias.nl
Every third Wednesday of the month one of the IIAS researchers will present his/her work-in-progress in an informal setting to their colleagues and other interested attendees, followed by a lunch provided by IIAS. These lunch lectures are organized to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and to exchange thoughts.