Making spaces, making subjects: Land, enclosure and Islam in colonial Malaya

Date

2011

Authors

Malhi, Amrita

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract

Land control struggles were central to multiple projects of enclosure in colonial Malaya. Indeed, enclosures created Malaya, a discrete geo-body constructed by bounding the Malay polities of the Malay Peninsula. It also underpinned technocratic regimes for managing land, forest and property, including in Terengganu, the last peninsular state to be colonised. Enclosure, however, was directed not only at territorialising landscapes; it was also a biopolitical project for bounding subjects and subjectivities, producing both Malayans and racially-constructed Malay peasants. One response by Terengganu cultivators, a holy war, was grounded in an audacious globalism, through which they rejected the enclosures which bound them in ever-tightening webs of discipline and control.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: colonialism; forest; Islamism; land use; landscape; territoriality; territory; Malaysia; Terengganu; West Malaysia Colonialism; Enclosure; Forest; Islam; Land; Malaya; Subjectivity; Terengganu; Territory

Citation

Source

The Journal of Peasant Studies

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

License Rights

Restricted until

2037-12-31