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Losing Ground

Development, Natural Resources, and the Dispossession of Malaysia’s Orang Asli

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A History of Natural Resources in Asia

Abstract

The Federation of Malaysia comprises the 11 states of Peninsular Malaysia (hereafter called “the Peninsula”) and the two Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak. The Peninsula is the most populous and developed part of Malaysia; in 2000, close to 80 percent of the country’s total population of about 23 million lived there. Although export-oriented manufacturing has propelled Malaysia “from being merely a high-growth economy to becoming one of the world’s most outstanding economic performers” (Brookfield 1994, v), the exploitation of natural resources—lands, forests, minerals—has fuelled much of the country’s economic success.

At the level of the nation-state, such as in Malaysia, the single-minded pursuit of an “integrationist” model of development leaves little room for indigenous minorities to evolve and actualise their own dreams and notions of “development” from below. —Zawawi Ibrahim (1995, 2)

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Authors
  1. S. Robert Aiken
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Hull, UK

    Greg Bankoff (Professor of modern history) (Professor of modern history)

  2. Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Peter Boomgaard (senior researcher, Professor of economic and environmental history of Southeast Asia) (senior researcher, Professor of economic and environmental history of Southeast Asia)

Copyright information

© 2007 Greg Bankoff and Peter Boomgaard

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Aiken, S.R. (2007). Losing Ground. In: Bankoff, G., Boomgaard, P. (eds) A History of Natural Resources in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230607538_9

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