Imperialism and 'medieval' natives: The Malay image in Anglo-American travelogues and colonialism in Malaya and the Philippines

Abstract

The location of Orientalist racial difference and Ornamental class familiarity in imperial discourse can be combined to understand the nuances of colonial representations. Revisiting the Malay image, I argue that the medievalist convention of portraying the native as situated in intermediate evolution between savagery and Western civilization was crucial for imperialism. The Malay image shifted from the representation of orientals exhibiting incommensurable difference in early European travelogues to civilizable medievals in early nineteenth-century British writings. British authors also vacillated between representing Malays as model and degenerate medievals with different racial and class symbolic valences. The vacillating representation influenced colonial state building in the late nineteenth century. I show this by looking at the travel writings of British and American colonial statesmen who supported contrastive colonial policies. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications.