Rojak: An Ethnographic Exploration of Pluralism and Music Therapy in Post-British-Colonial Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this discursive exploration that is influenced by ethnography and autoethnography is to present how Western-based music therapy intersects with the pluralistic healthcare culture in Malaysia. We will first be situating music therapy as a Eurocentric-based healthcare practice. We will then introduce the history of Malaysia and healthcare culture through a pluralistic lens, drawing inspiration from a popular Malaysian street food—rojak, a form of salad. We use rojak as an analogy to honor Malaysia’s food culture while drawing similarities between the diverse flavors and textures between the distinct components of rojak, with the unique pluralism that exists throughout Malaysian culture and healthcare practices. Through this rojak pluralist lens, we will share several unique Malaysian vignettes to explore the different ways we consider Eurocentric music therapy as a potentially colonial practice, ranging from postcolonial theory perspective to a pragmatic, inclusive perspective. As Malaysia has maintained its pluralistic culture as a uniquely multiracial Asian country despite the lengthy history of colonization, we offer these Malaysian, post-British-colonial music therapy vignettes in this article.

Music, social cohesion, and intercultural understanding: A conceptual framework for intercultural music engagement

“…It also helps us avoid issues related to cultural appropriation, which-while widely understood as disrespectful and harmful to minority cultures-can still be found in contemporary education (Davis, 2005;Howard, 2020), therapy, community practice settings, and contemporary arts more generally, including use of dress/aesthetics, instruments, and repertoire (Young, 2010). One example is the tendency for White music therapists to appropriate Black and Indigenous cultural forms and artifacts (Leonard, 2020;Low et al, 2020;Norris, 2019Norris, , 2020. Another is ongoing practice in music education whereby teachers fail to explore source cultures in sufficient depth, ultimately demeaning or exploiting the music of other cultures (Howard, 2020).…”

Break it then build again: An arts based duoethnographic pilot reconstructing music therapy and dance/movement therapy histories

“…They have not, however, gone unchallenged. Since Cliff Joseph's 1974 critique, various creative arts therapists have made important contributions to countering the accepted narratives of their fields in the arenas of feminism (Curtis, 1990;Hadley, 2006;Hahna, 2013), decolonization (Grayson, A., Howard, L, & Puloka, R., 2019;Pavlicevic, 2001;Kenny, 2002;Low, Ser & Kalsi, 2020), and other critical perspectives (Sajnani, 2011;Hadley & Norris, 2016;Hadley & Thomas, 2018;Kawano, T. & Chang, M., 2019;Leonard, 2020). Some of these shifts have resulted in entire theoretical subsections of our fields being developed, such as community music therapy, which integrates more culture-centered and critical approaches (Ansdell, 2002;Stige, 2002).…”