12 - The Way Forward: Social Science and Malaysia in the Twenty-first Century

Summary

Clive Kessler was one of the last doctoral students of the late Sir Raymond Firth, who had been one of the first anthropologists to study Kelantan. Firth offered his students insights into the major traditions of European anthropology through his teachers, Malinowski and Sir James Frazer, and through his association with Marcel Mauss. Sir Raymond's lifetime (1901–2002) spanned the entire twentieth century and he witnessed change in all its aspects. These included changes in the theoretical approaches to the study of anthropology, which Kessler has outlined in a tribute he wrote after Sir Raymond's death.

In his tribute, Clive Kessler explains how Sir Raymond's work presented questions which are fundamental to the social sciences, ranging beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines. According to Kessler, Firth's work posed clearly the fundamental questions about the status of homo economicus, within analytical frameworks, as a theoretical construct and, within the world of social experience and action, as a social construct; about the relation between the two, especially within those processes of socio-cultural as well as economic transformation known as modernization and development. The central question posed here is whether modernization, or what we more often refer to as “globalization”, is necessarily culturally homogenizing — something no anthropologist sensitive to the rich diversity of Firth's “human types” can regard with equanimity — or whether it is possible to achieve “modernity” and to find embodiment for economic and social rationality within a variety of cultural traditions and civilizational forms.

These questions are central not only to the chapters in this book but also to Malaysia's leaders and economic planners. Professor Shamsul's chapter emphasizes the crucial importance of knowledge, particularly of the social sciences, to many aspects of the modern nation-state. He also points out that if both the nation-state and social science are operating effectively, their relationship will be one of tension. While the state has to pursue functional, developmental goals, the social sciences have humanistic and “emancipatory as well as instrumental goals”(see Shamsul in this volume). In his view, to be most useful to the long-term interests of the nation-state, social scientists need to be able to draw from the elements of a vigorous civil society, which is not totally dependent on the state.