Peasant agriculture in colonial Malaya : its development in Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang, 1874-1941

Abstract

MORE than 25 years ago, R.W. Firth produced an important study of a peasant fishing community in Kelantan. This work broke new ground in the field of Malayan studies in several ways, perhaps the most important being its focussing of attention on a community which until then had been glossed over in simplistic terms in most books on Malaya Two years later, P .T. Bauer produced for the Colonial Office a report on his visit to peasant rubber smallholdings in Malaya in 1946. This study, although not specifically concerned with the social and economic conditions of peasant rubber producers, contained much valuable material which, together with Bauer's earlier work on the Malayan rubber industry, shed new light on the peasant industry and destroyed many of the myths held about it. The pioneering work of Firth and Bauer has since been supplemented by that of other scholars, reflecting the widespread recognition of the crucial importance of the peasantry in understanding Malayan society. Valuable as all these studies are, they have primarily been assessments of the contemporary peasant situation. They have therefore presented a synchronic view of this vital community with little or no attempt being made to explain the deeper roots of what is essentially a dynamic phenomenon covering a span of time, undergoing changes and explicable now not merely in terms of what we view today, but also of what it was yesterday.