| In this dissertation, I examine how different visions of ethnic community and nation have developed and been manipulated politically in one particular Malaysian city, Georgetown, Penang. My main argument, developed in chapter one, is that it is useful to think of ethnicity, like nationalism, as a species of ideology. This, I argue, helps us to understand what I term the Janus-face of ethnicity: the fact that ethnicity is at the same time both an "imagined" social construct and a deeply powerful, and seemingly deeply ingrained, social fact. Thinking of ethnicity in this way also helps us to tie ethnicity to politics---a theoretical connection, that is more often asserted, assumed, or elided than it is elucidated---and to nationalism, with which ethnicity shares a common vocabulary.;Chapters two and three discuss the ideologies of community and nation in their "thicker" sense: how more embedded notions of identity have arisen and shaped political discussion in Penang. Chapter two looks at the development of certain aspects of Penang's political culture that remain relevant today: a sense of Penang's distinct standing as Malaysia's "Chinese" polity, and the significance of intra-ethnic divisions such as clan, dialect, and native-place identities, as well as distinctions based on educational background. Chapter three focuses on class. It then looks at two other sets of practices and social institutions that condition politics locally: the use of language in politics, and the significance of clan and dialect associations, religious temples, and local street gangs.;Chapters four, five, and six look at how competing ideologies of community and nation have been presented publically in Penang. Chapter four discusses structural aspects of political party competition in Penang. Chapter five examines how the political parties that vie for Penang's Chinese vote have attempted to rally support. What themes have been raised, how has political debate been framed, and how has this changed from election to election? In chapter six I examine the concepts of communal and political identity that inform the parties' public stances. What visions of political membership---citizenship, broadly defined---are being offered, and how have these changed over time?... |
