Tham, Wai Liang (2025) ‘Malaysia’ resurveyed: From representation and separation to alternative tropical futurities. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the Tropics, 24 (1). ISSN 1448-2940, DOI https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.24.1.2025.
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Abstract
This essay, in the form of a literary survey,revisits the idea of “Malaysia” by examining how the interlinked practices of representation and separation have been fundamental to the reification of tropicalityin the region once known as the Malay Archipelago: contemporary maritime Southeast Asia. It suggests how the two contradictory facets of colonial-era tropicality as envisioned in British Malaya (i.e., a fecund wasteland and inescapable degradation) have become embedded in the logic of governance in postcolonial Malaysia and Singapore. The persistent effects of this discourse in the present are discussed in terms of the challenges facing mobilization over issues of climate change and ecology (particularly since these discussions are limited by the the borders of nation-states).In addressing both historical concerns and tropical futurity, this essay calls for a “decolonial ecology” to address present Anthropogenic challenges and to imagine other tropical futures through novel forms of representation.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Funders: | None |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Malay Archipelago; Malaysia; Singapore; Tropicality; Postcolonialism; Climatechange; Decolonialecology; Tropical futurity |
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DS Asia H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences > Department of English |
| Depositing User: | Mrs. Siti Mawarni Salim |
| Date Deposited: | 14 May 2025 06:53 |
| Last Modified: | 14 May 2025 06:53 |
| URI: | http://eprints.um.edu.my/id/eprint/48069 |
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