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Interpreting and Practising Citizenship

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Race, Education, and Citizenship

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

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Abstract

This chapter describes mobile Malaysians’ understandings of citizenship and analyses how their understandings inform their citizenship practices, decisions, and strategies. It argues that the decolonial constitution of citizenship in Malaya/Malaysia sets the framework that structures how citizenship/nationality is understood, operationalised, and implemented in post-colonial Malaysia. This, in turn, informs and circumscribes how mobile Malaysians perceive, internalise, and conceptualise their Malaysian citizenship as a kind of ‘primordial’ identity vis-à-vis their other citizenship and permanent resident statuses in their migration destinations. This chapter argues that this paradoxical situation, where ‘Malaysia’ holds strong emotional significance for mobile Malaysians despite the racialised nature of their migration from Malaysia, can be understood if race, education, and citizenship are read as colonial legacies inherited and exacerbated by the post-colonial Malaysian state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    Sin Yee Koh

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Koh, S.Y. (2017). Interpreting and Practising Citizenship. In: Race, Education, and Citizenship. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50344-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50344-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-50343-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-50344-2

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