Dangerous Business: the Social Limits of an Entrepreneurial Identity

Abstract

Aisha and Rahim — the married co-owners of Marchland, a new manufacturing company — a photographic crew, and I drove through the streets of an upper-class community in Kuala Lumpur, stopping at a house with enormous white pillars and an elegant garden. Today they would photograph a series of magazine advertisements for Marchland at this house, which belonged to Aisha’s wealthy friend. Aisha said it was a perfect location for the advertisements because the house was elegant and modern — exactly what the advertisements were planned to show about Marchland. Like many of the newly renovated Malay houses in Kuala Lumpur, it boasted a patio surrounded by columns. French doors, a waterfall fountain in the garden, and a stained-glass window in the entrance.