Regional Development in Rural Malaysia and the ‘Tribal Question’

Abstract

In the field of research and studies pertaining to Malaysian rural society, there has traditionally been a dominant emphasis, especially by local scholars, on the analysis of the indigenous Malay peasantry rather than on the equally indigenous ‘tribal’ minorities, i.e. the Orang Asli. This has also meant that the new theoretical directions and perspectives developed in the various interrelated fields (such as ‘the New Economic Anthropology’, ‘Peasant Studies’, and Political Economy, including the Neo-Marxist School of Development and Underdevelopment) have been applied with rigour only to those issues arising from ‘the peasant question’ in Malaysia. To date, no scholars have as yet seriously attempted to address ‘the agrarian question’ in the context of Malaysian society by also incorporating in their theoretical analysis the position of its ‘tribal’ minorities.