Malaysia Design Archive & Visual Art Program, Cultural Centre, University of Malaya present “Researching Colonial History of the Malay World like a Millennial”
Introduction
Navigating the Malay Archipelago is no easy feat. This is after all a geography made up of a thousand islands. On the one hand, scholars often complain that we do not have enough historical sources to rely on, and sometimes suggest to the effect that the extent of our scholarship today (in comparison to say the study of 19th-century Western societies) are well-reasoned conjectures at best. On the other hand, anyone who has attempted to engage with the materials at hand will soon learn there is an overwhelming amount of background knowledge to absorb, more so since for a large part of the population, even if you’ve grown up in this part of the world, we are really learning the topic anew.
The starter pack section aims to provide you with an introductory exploratory field. Rather than offering another recommended reading list, which you are able to discover by searching for them on google, this section offers a selection of sources that you can begin to explore for yourself. It’s a taster board, offering a mixture of primary sources and secondary reading materials across a wide range of topics.
These topics were often studied in isolation from each other in the past. Nevertheless, the challenge of new scholars today is to begin recognizing connections or relationships amongst them. In Sumit Mandal’s Introduction chapter for his book Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World,[N1] he proposes ‘When the Malay world is understood as a longstanding site of interaction between wide-ranging polities and peoples, creoles might be viewed as its culturally fluid and mobile embodiment.’
The resource guide takes up this proposal as a challenge to think more deeply about how to signpost connections and interactions. Chances are that future new directions and approaches to studying the Malay World will find these points of connections as the start of their scholarship rather than where they would arrive at the end of their research.
— Simon Soon
Monsignor Bos with a group of Dayak girls who made their First Holy Communion at the Church of the Missionaries of the Holy Family in Laham
Laham | 1929 - 1939
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
