Staging indigenous cultural heritage in Malaysia : instrumentalisation, brokerage, representation
This thesis examines the politics of heritage-making in Malaysia, focusing on the development of indigenous cultural villages, which have become increasingly prevalent in both West and East Malaysia. Based on ethnographic field research at four case study cultural villages â the Mah Meri Cultural Village and Orang Seletar Cultural Centre in Peninsular Malaysia, and the Monsopiad Cultural Village and Linangkit Cultural Village in East Malaysia, it explores the political, economic, and social dynamics surrounding the process of heritage-making at these four indigenous cultural villages, and considers the outcomes of the instrumentalisation. Drawing on the politics of instrumentalisation as a conceptual framework and expanding it to incorporate other dynamics relating to brokerage, staging and representation, it demonstrates how these indigenous cultural villages are beset with issues of brokerage, tensions over the representation of cultural heritage, and conflicting motivations over the instrumentalisation of the cultural heritage, in which politics of brokerage and representation dominated, reproducing structural inequalities that reinforce the dependency of indigenous communities on external and internal
Cai, Yunci
Staging indigenous cultural heritage in Malaysia : instrumentalisation, brokerage, representation. This thesis examines the politics of heritage-making in Malaysia, focusing on the development of indigenous cultural villages, which have become increasingly prevalent in both West and East Malaysia. Based on ethnographic field research at four case study cultural villages â the Mah Meri Cultural Village and Orang Seletar Cultural Centre in Peninsular Malaysia, and the Monsopiad Cultural Village and Linangkit Cultural Village in East Malaysia, it explores the political, economic, and social dynamics surrounding the process of heritage-making at these four indigenous cultural villages, and considers the outcomes of the instrumentalisation. Drawing on the politics of instrumentalisation as a conceptual framework and expanding it to incorporate other dynamics relating to brokerage, staging and representation, it demonstrates how these indigenous cultural villages are beset with issues of brokerage, tensions over the representation of cultural heritage, and conflicting motivations over the instrumentalisation of the cultural heritage, in which politics of brokerage and representation dominated, reproducing structural inequalities that reinforce the dependency of indigenous communities on external and internal
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