The Ethnography of failure: Middle-class Malays producing capitalism in an ‘Asian miracle’ economy

Abstract

Since NEP, the ethno-political measure of Malay progress has emphasised Malay capital ownership, leading social scientists who study the Malay middle class to focus almost exclusively on what this article calls the ‘two poles of consumption and dependency’. This ethnography suggests that certain middle-class Malays use a different calculus to mark out their place in contemporary Malay life. It argues that these Malays portray themselves not only in terms of material and entrepreneurial success, but through their frequent experiences of failure. To them, failure becomes, paradoxically, a virtue that can establish their moral and Islamic distance from the Malays they characterise as the ‘indolent’ poor and the ‘politicking’ rich.