This book explores the true multiculturalism of The Land of the Hornbills and allows the establishment of a link between social change and ethnic identity.
THE book edited by Prof Zawawi Ibrahim is a very ambitious one. In the chapters of the book, Sarawak is studied as being in the margins of the Malaysian nation-state where social identities, like ethnic identity, are not fixed. They are not homogenous and do not necessarily bring about social harmony, as is conventionally believed.
By contrast, the articles of the book interpret these identities as fluid and therefore they should be studied as such, and not as the more “compartmentalised’’ character of Peninsula Malaysia’s ethnic plurality.
Essentially, in the wider sense, the book is about “multiculturalism’’, but not in the sense of political rhetoric.
The collection brings together 15 articles by leading social scientists on Sarawakian society and culture. These set out to contest common knowledge on Sarawak and the grand narratives of social development and change. By engaging in theoretical as well as concrete research, Sarawak is studied through the works of anthropologists and scholars from other disciplines (political science, law and social work) based in the United States, Britain, Japan, Korea and Malaysia.
Continue reading (incl. pic) at: Book Review: Uncovering the real Sarawak
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