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The paper provides tentative empirical evidence against Robert D. Putnam's claim that ethnic diversity is a threat to collective civic action, and finds support for Robert J. Sampson's proposition that established organisations foster collective civic action. The aim of this paper is twofold: to describe: (i) the ways in which volunteers and professionals make sense of and understand the multicultural neighbourhood; and (ii) how that impacts on collective civic action in the neighbourhood. The paper takes a small scale mixed-methods approach (9 semi structured interviews and a small scale quantitative survey (N=39)), comparing two neighbourhoods with similar characteristics in terms of ethnic diversity and socio-economic problems. The findings show that problems associated with ethnicity are not the most pressing ones for recent migrants. Instead they struggle with work, housing, a lack of supportive networks, unfamiliarity with the educational system, and language problems. The paper concludes that the multicultural discursive framework is a salutary one for those working and living in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods.

Until May 2018, Malaysia was home to the longest-serving elected government in the world, run by the Barisan Nasional (BN, National Front). The BN had been in continuous power since Malaysia’s inde...

This article engages with Engin Isin's theoretical contributions on citizenship by applying his concepts of ‘acts of citizenship’ and ‘activist citizenship’ to Global Bersih, a movement for electoral reform in Malaysia that has crossed national boundaries. Global Bersih, and a further case study of the Melbourne-based Malaysian community magazine Jom, demonstrate some of ways through which Malaysians have sought to exercise influence on Malaysia despite being overseas. Through a description of the activities of Global Bersih and Jom, and of key persons behind each endeavour, I demonstrate that Isin's concepts are useful in understanding transnational citizenship activities and their potential for empowerment, while also reflecting on the need for a distinction between ‘scripts’ and ‘habitus’ when considering the criterion of novelty that Isin places on an act to be an ‘act of citizenship’.

On the eve of the campaign period of Malaysia's general elections in 2008, the plans of the Women's Candidacy Initiative (WCI) to increase the number of independent women in Parliament were thrown into disarray when their candidate was forced to withdraw at short notice. Rather than abandon their participation in those elections, WCI went through a creative moment during which they developed an innovative voter-education campaign revolving around the fictional character of Mak Bedah (Aunty Bedah). This campaign sought to draw attention to the issues that WCI felt were important, such as women's poor representation in Parliament. Through a novel and playful campaign, WCI made public a number of candidates' views on issues important to WCI, and succeeded in attracting significant media attention. The creativity exhibited in the development and deployment of this campaign is analysed in this article in the light of literature pertaining to the public sphere. I argue that when considering such interventions i...

At the AWID International Forum, the Coalition of Sexual and Bodily Rights organized a panel on research undertaken on social change in Muslim Societies. Julian Lee describes how groups in Lebanon, Malaysia and Indonesia are acting to advance the rights of women and sexual minorities in view of the shifting context of the political landscape in Muslim countries. Development (2009) 52, 239–245. doi:10.1057/dev.2009.20

On 27 October 2007, five Malaysian civil society organizations collaborated to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Operasi Lalang. This police operation was sanctioned by the government in 1987 and saw 107 Malaysians, mainly opposition party members and activists, detained without trial for as long as two years. Operasi Lalang is regarded by many critics of the Malaysian government as the most egregious deployment of the repressive Internal Security Act, under which these detentions were made. This article examines the social and political impacts of the Internal Security Act and Operasi Lalang before describing the commemoration which was styled as a court hearing with the Internal Security Act as the accused. Evident at the commemoration was a comprehensive loss of faith in the infrastructures of the state that are supposed to carry out justice and protect the citizenry from abuses of power. Thus the commemoration-cum-trial declared guilt and took justice, rather than seeking it through infrastructures of the Malaysian state.

(2013). Book Review: Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow. South East Asia Research: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 179-181.

Floating on a Malayan Breeze: Travels in Malaysia and Singapore By SUDHIR THOMAS VADAKETH Singapore: NUS Press and Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012. Pp. 282. Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000398 In the first sentence of Floating on a Malayan Breeze: Travels in Malaysia and Singapore, the author informs us that 'This is a story about Malaysia and Singapore--or Malaya, if you will'. Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, who works as a senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Singapore, tells us that he uses '"Malaya" because I grew up thinking of the two countries as one'. While it is no doubt true that although the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965 has had social and political consequences, including the development of distinct national identities, it is also the case that so much shared history and culture cannot be put asunder by what is a very porous border, across which thousands of people cross every hour. While much is often made of those identities that are supposed to separate people, there are other stories to be told in which barriers are irrelevant and commonalities great. It is because of this that the project Floating on a Malayan Breeze sets for itself is of great value. As suggested by the cover and the blurb, the book's story revolves around a month-long cycling trip around Singapore and Malaysia (and some of southern Thailand as well) which the author undertook in 2004 with a close friend of his. This trip in turn evolved out of discussions with American classmates with whom Vadaketh was doing postgraduate study in 2003 in the United States. In response to accusations that the United States was inadequately informed about the countries about which it was making foreign policy, the author and his friend were challenged about their own knowledge of Singapore's neighbours. Vadaketh's response was the realisation that he did not in fact know as much as he felt he ought, and a desire to go beyond stereotypes and to experience Singapore and Malaysia from 'the ground'. While the reader might then expect the book to be a linear description of events, conversations and misadventures of this trip, such vignettes do not actually constitute the majority of the text. Rather, a selection of conversations and insights are presented within chapters that seek to address wider socio-political developments in Singapore and Malaysia, such as the recent faltering of the Barisan Nasional's and the People's Action Party's political dominance in recent years. These discussions are also informed by the experiences and interviews the author conducted in the subsequent years, including for example his excursion to Kelantan in the days before Malaysia's 2008 general elections. …