Representation, Identity and Multiculturalism in Sarawak (review)

In Sarawak no one identifiable ethnic or religious group makes up more than a third of the population. I would even suggest that Sarawak is a true alchemy of multiculturalism by which paradoxical new identities and at times, irrational and interesting cultural realities are forged under the language of diversity. And all these are materializing under a meta-narrative that continues to politicize bangsa and religion, one that constitutes — to invoke Achille Mbembe (2001) insights on postcolonial societies — the violent cultural imaginary in Malaysia. Thus, for analytic purposes, what then compels the different ethnic and religious communities in Sarawak to construct their identities amidst their negotiations of living sanely within this violent cultural imaginary? How and in what ways are other communities conscripted by it? What power resides in the beholders of the state discourse given that it causes certain communities to identify themselves with the status quo? Equally important, how have their (multiple) identities changed and what possible analytic distinctions can we theorize to account for such transformation? I pose these questions in my attempt to review this book.

As one reads Representation, Identity and Multiculturalism in Sarawak, most of the chapters not only attempt to contextualize and conceptualize the three themes but the book is also a gift to Zawawi Ibrahim, although I am not entirely convinced that it is a product of a labour of love. The history and materials Representation, Identity and Multiculturalism in Sarawak track is remarkably ambitious, at least from the editor's vantage point, attempting as it does, to cast theories and post-modern critique on representation, identity politics, and a nuanced treatment of multiculturalism into one field of vision. As it turns out, the collection threatens to unravel into a set of topics bound by nothing more than the cover of the book. Even as some chapters appropriately deal with the themes suggested by the editor, others feel more like short reportages or encyclopedic entries. The length of each chapter ranges from four to thirty-three pages, which begs the question: why are they included in such an ambitious book. A reader might wonder who benefits academically from this collection of chapters. If there are problems in the overall volume, I found the editing to be sloppy: the chapters were rife with awkward sentences, missing citations and endnotes, and not to mention, in more than one chapter, the creation of an entirely new ethnic group in Sarawak, the Than, which I suspect is a typo error.

There is an "introduction" whereby the editor spells out the ambition of the book: to offer on both theoretical and in concrete sites, an attempt at "pluralising and decentering discourses on Sarawak society and culture." To exorcise the Orientalist legacy, this collection offers an alternative understanding of communities that "articulate fluidity, agency, alternative representations and reconstruction of identities from the margins of society and nation-state." Viola! Herein lie the analytical distinctions of multiculturalism, representation, and identity. This is acceptable but somehow I am not entirely persuaded that most of the chapters are about the voices and representations from the margins. In many ways, the issues invoked by Gayatri Spivak's (1988) "Can the Subaltern Speak?" could aptly be adapted to some of the chapters in this collection if one hopes to seriously interrogate whether the voices of the margins could speak for themselves and/or be represented? I ask this question because there is this common slippage and violence among those who seek to speak for the unrepresented but somehow inadvertently gloss over the heterogeneity of the subjects that they are supposed to represent.

The collection begins with the chapters by Robert Winzeler and Pamela Lindell, which focus on reconstructing a certain past. I do not think both authors would consider their chapters in this volume as an exercise in deconstruction, despite what the editor might want us to believe. Winzeler takes us into certain personalities and positionality of Borneo's last wildman, Tom Harrison — his struggles with...