Negotiating orang asli identity in postcolonial Malaysia

Abstract

Being categorised as 'Orang Asli' has produced shared identification among geographically dispersed, disparate groups of people, of different languages, cultural systems and socio-economic practices. Tracing developments in several discursive fields a?? politics, administration/ government, the law, and civil society a?? I illustrate the influence of particular events, discourses and practices on the social construction of the Orang Asli, and how these in turn become reflected in their habitus. Being identified as a??Orang Aslia?? has deep material and psychological implications. The discourses, practices and perceptions through which this identity is reconstructed recreates and maintains differentiated access to resources and social realities. The social construction of Orang Asli is neither a wholly consistent monolithic process, nor does it remain fixed and uncontested. It is part of this project to uncover the dialectics behind this identity (re)negotiation, and to comment on how certain features of identity are continuously (re)inscribed, (re)worked, and resisted.