The politics of heritage instrumentalisation: A comparative study of two Indigenous cultural villages in Malaysia

This chapter offers a critique of the “culture for development” discourse through a comparative study of two Indigenous cultural villages in Peninsular Malaysia. Based on six months of ethnographic field research at the Mah Meri Cultural Village and Orang Seletar Cultural Centre, I examine the cultural politics surrounding the use of heritage at these cultural villages and consider the consequences of this mobilisation. Drawing on the politics of heritage instrumentalisation as a conceptual framework, my research demonstrates how these Indigenous cultural villages often come to be controlled by certain central brokerage figures, resulting in conflicting motivations over the mobilisation of the cultural heritage and tensions over their representation, reproducing structural inequalities that reinforce the dependency of Indigenous communities on these brokers, rather than build capacity for self-determination and empowerment. By critically examining the relationship between Indigenous culture and development through the establishment of Indigenous cultural villages, my research opens up the complexities of adopting the “culture for development” as a developmental strategy, such that the opportunities for self-representation and self-determination can become entwined with the politics of brokerage and the contradictory dualism of culture, which can, in turn, facilitate or compromise their intended outcomes.