Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-14-2025
Abstract
This essay, in the form of a literary survey,revisits the idea of “Malaysia” by examining how the interlinked practices of representation and separation have been fundamental to the reification of tropicalityin the region once known as the Malay Archipelago: contemporary maritime Southeast Asia. It suggests how the two contradictory facets of colonial-era tropicality as envisioned in British Malaya (i.e., a fecund wasteland and inescapable degradation) have become embedded in the logic of governance in postcolonial Malaysia and Singapore. The persistent effects of this discourse in the present are discussed in terms of the challenges facing mobilization over issues of climate change and ecology (particularly since these discussions are limited by the the borders of nation-states).In addressing both historical concerns and tropical futurity, this essay calls for a “decolonial ecology” to address present Anthropogenic challenges and to imagine other tropical futures through novel forms of representation.
Keywords
Malay Archipelago, Malaysia, Singapore, Tropicality, Postcolonialism, Climatechange, Decolonialecology, Tropical futurity
Divisions
Englisharts
Funders
None
Publication Title
eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the Tropics
Volume
24
Issue
1
Publisher
James CookUniversity,