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Cage of Freedom: Tamil Identity and the Ethnic Fetish in Malaysia

ANDREW C. WILLFORD is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University.

NUS Press (First Published, 2007)
360 pages including Bibliography and Index

RM48.00

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In Cage of Freedom: Tamil Identity and the Ethnic Fetish in Malaysia, Andrew Willford uses detailed ethnographic accounts of public and private rituals to examine a resurgence of Hindu religious practice among the Tamil community in Malaysia. Faced with a state-driven ethnic and religious nationalism, the Tamil community in Malaysia employs the idea of a greater India to blur ethnic boundaries and an ecumenical and transcendental Hinduism to counter the modernist Islam promoted by the state. The author argues that the logic of nationalism in Malaysia and a legacy of social divisions have caused the Indian community to remain weak and disunited. This intimate portrait of the anxieties and desires of a diasporic community offers powerful insight into ethnic relations and nationalism.

List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. Marginal Existence and Social Distance: “Worthless Dregs in a Prosperous Society”
3. The Ritual Expression of Tamil Identity in Malaysia: A Festival of Power and Penance
4. Fetish, Space, and Displacement in Kuala Lumpur: Tamils and the Ethnic Uncanny
5. Hindu Ecumenical Movements and “Middleness”: Familiarity and Ambivalence in Tamil Identity
6. Making Distinctions: “We Had Become the Laughingstock of Other Races”
7. Sacred Malaysia, Greater India

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Weight0.520 kg
Dimensions22.9 × 15.2 × 0.7 cm
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