A traffic in Songket: Translocal Malay identities in Sambas

Abstract

This paper uses the example of songket to explore translocal Malay cultural processes in Sambas, West Kalimantan. I argue these intra-Malay cultural exchanges reframe selected Sambas Malay cultural forms as Malay 'cultural heritage', making it difficult to view cultural practices in purely localised terms. Consequently, many cultural forms lose their localised normative values and become aspects of a wider cultural heritage to be preserved, performed and consumed. The paper begins with a discussion of the historical, political and social grounds that forge a sense of translocalism amongst many Sambas Malays. Building on this, the more specific interest in participating in intra-regional Malay cultural exchanges is explained with reference to commodification, internationalisation and institutionalisation.Until recently, the intra-regional or translocal dimensions of contemporary Malay identity processes seem to have been relatively overlooked in discussions of Malay ethnicity. With the exception of studies linking Malay identity to a global resurgence in Islam, most studies of contemporary Malay identity tend to be framed by the boundaries of a single post-colonial state (most commonly Malaysia and Indonesia). The value of investigating Malay-ness within the horizon of a particular nation-state is, of course, not in question. Such studies have documented how the rather loosely and inconsistently applied definition melayubased on language (Malay or Jawi), religion (Islam) and / or a political system (kerajaan)was transformed into a racial and ethnic category as a result of colonial classificatory systems and post-colonial nation-state processes.

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