Cultural and economic change in the Singapore Malay community

The thesis analyses the ways in which the Malay cultural heritage and economic conditions in contemporary Singapore shape the form of Malay household and community life. The thesis focuses on the creative ways in which cultural ideas are adapted to meet new conditions and on the way that cultural ideas are adapted to meet new conditions and on the way the culturally informed practices, in turn, shape the conditions of daily life for individuals and contribute to social and economic processes at the national level. Part A examines the pattern of relationships within the Malay household. It compares the contemporary Singapore Mallay household with accounts of the household in Malaysia and Java to identify cultural continuities and to assess the impact that the conditions of urban wage work in Singapore have had on deeply embedded cultural idea. The Malay idea of the economic integrity of the individual is found to be enhanced by the ability of household members to earn individual wages. This is reflected in the absence of economic corporateness within the nuclear family, as husbands, wives and children pursue separate economic strategies and enter into material exchanges with each other on the voluntary basis of the gift. This arrangement of household relationships restricts the incentive and ability of Malays to accumulate material wealth through family business, or to pass wealth down from one generate to the next. Part 3 analyses the ways in which cultural practices at the level of daily life in the Malay household and community have shaped Malay participation in the social and economic development of Singapore since 1959. In particular, it examines the emergence of socio-economic classes, and the growth of an economic gap between the Malay and Chinese communities. Finally, Part C shows how the interpretation of the position of Singapore Malays presented in this thesis differs from that of the Singapore Malay elite, the national government, and several academic accounts which have tended to reify cultural traits and treat them in abstraction from economic conditions.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

1987

Author dc:creator

• Li, Tania

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Macfarlane, Alan

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/aba78871-a46e-49f4-b35e-063b3342db8e/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved/

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.119608

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/386361