2017/07/14 by Caryn Lim · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Asian Studies and History
paper · doi:10.4324/9781315270579-8
openalex publication_date 2017/07/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
While ethnicities such as ‘Malay’, ‘Indian’ and ‘Chinese’ are commonly taken for granted in official discourse as constitutive of the Malaysian social milieu, a growing number of Malaysians today also identify as being ‘mixed’ or ‘mixed race’. This article examines the ways in which ‘mixed’ Malaysians negotiate their ethnic identities, through Louis Althusser and Stuart Hall’s notion of interpellation and Judith Butler’s performativity. Based on qualitative analysis of eight semi-structured interviews with self-identified ‘mixed’ Malaysians, mixed Malaysians were found to employ multiple strategies including embodying multiple ethnic identities and shifting regularly between them, attempting to mark one’s self as clearly one ‘race’ over others, or transcending ‘race’ altogether.