| Unsettling Absences: Urbanism in Rural Malaysia Contributor(s): Thompson, Eric C. (Author) |
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ISBN: 9971693364 ISBN-13: 9789971693367 Publisher: NUS Press OUR PRICE: $28.50 Product Type: Paperback Published: January 2006 Annotation: Kuala Lumpur epitomizes modernity, but rural Malays who more there are often marginalized in squatter settlements on its periphery. The kampung (village) symbolizes home and the locus of Malay identity, but schoolbooks and television have projected urbanism that marks rural life as backward and marginal in a forward-looking nation. This book challenges city-bound urban studies by locating urbanism in a wider world that extends outside of the city and shows the conflicted realities of rural dwellers in an overwhelmingly urban world. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - General - Social Science | Sociology - General |
| Dewey: 307.609 |
| Physical Information: 0.5" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (1.10 lbs) 288 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In Unsettling Absences, Eric Thompson argues that urbanism is a cultural force unbound from the city and is a pervasive presence in the Malaysian countryside. Transported to rural communities, urbanism has motivated migration, transformed the social lives of rural inhabitants, and created a deep ambivalence about personal identity. This has left rural Malays feeling out of place in both the city and the village. Kuala Lumpur epitomises modernity, but rural Malays who move there are often marginalised in squatter settlements on its periphery. The kampung symbolises home and the locus of Malay identity, but schoolbooks and television have projected urbanism that marks rural life as backwards and marginal in a forward-looking nation into the kampung. The book challenges city-bound urban studies by locating urbanism in a wider world that extends outside of the city, and shows the conflicted realities of rural dwellers in an overwhelmingly urban world. As others have challenged the meaning of modernity, Thompson challenges the meaning of urban while still recognising the powerful effects of an ideology of urbanism. Unsettling Absences is a call to take seriously place-based identities and cultural geographies in a world where the urban/rural divide is dissolving in practice but in cultural terms remains as powerful as ever. |
Contributor Bio(s): Thompson, Eric C.: - Eric C. Thompson is associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. |
