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“Anthropologizing Human Insecurities”: Narrating the Subjugated Discourse of Indigenes on the Deterritorialized Landscapes of the Malaysian Nation-State

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Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia

Part of the book series: Asia in Transition ((AT,volume 5))

Abstract

Following the latest emphasis in the discourse on mainstreaming “human security” in Southeast Asia which articulates a “people-centric” concern, this chapter is an attempt to “anthropologize human insecurities” by way of examining the “emic” database of subjectivities among Orang Asli and Penan indigenes experiencing deterritorialization on the margins of the Malaysian nation state. In attempting to explain further their “lived experiences” of human insecurity, it is equally important to link the micro-based perspective with the broader structural, development and nation-state political processes which generate deterritorialization onto the landscape of the indigenes in the context of a specific historical trajectory.

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Acknowledgments

The first phase of the fieldwork conducted in Pahang Tenggara was funded by IDRC, Canada as part of the “Regional Development and Indigenous Minorities” Project coordinated by Professor Lim Teck Ghee, Institute of Higher Studies, University of Malaya. The second phase of research in Pahang and the subsequent fieldwork in the Orang Asli communities in Selangor were supported by IRPA Grant, as part of the “Marginalised Communities” Project coordinated by Professor Hood Salleh of Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia . The author also acknowledges the invaluable support of POASM and the Orang Asli people for giving him their time, especially Majid Suhut, Long Jidin, Batin Bogi, Batin “Glamour,” Ramli, Dewi, Arief Embing, Yusoff and Ilam. For research on the Penan, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to Ezra Uda, Penghulu James, Anderia Jimmy Mageri, Cikgu Balawan and the Penan communities of Long Lamai and Long Beruang for showing me the way of the Penan. I am also grateful for the funding by Toyota Foundation in supporting the “Penan storytelling research project” which was published as a book in 2012, titled: Masyarakat Penan dan Impian pembangunan: Satu Himpunan Naratif Keterpinggiran dan Jantidir (eds. Zawawi Ibrahim & NoorShah M.S., SIRD: Petaling Jaya).

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  1. Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    Zawawi Ibrahim

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  1. School of Government, Development and, International Affairs, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

    Paul J. Carnegie

  2. Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Institute of Asian Studies Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    Victor T. King

  3. Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Institute of Asian Studies Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    Zawawi Ibrahim

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Zawawi Ibrahim (2016). “Anthropologizing Human Insecurities”: Narrating the Subjugated Discourse of Indigenes on the Deterritorialized Landscapes of the Malaysian Nation-State. In: Carnegie, P., King, V., Zawawi Ibrahim (eds) Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia. Asia in Transition, vol 5. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2245-6_3

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