A fictocritical narration of the complexity of nation-building in Malaysia

Abstract

Nation-building in Malaysia can be problematic due to its politicized racial divides. Malaysia as a nation is 60 this year, but issues of race and ethnicity are still prevalent factors that may thwart racial togetherness in modern Malaysia. Malaysia’s different races live in harmony but not necessarily in unity. This article centers upon the racial issues of Malaysia creatively and critically. It looks at the sociopolitical, cultural, and mythical nuances in the form of creative arts, where the genre of fictocriticism serves as a creative contextualization narrating the complexity of the idea of nation and racial identity. In other words, this study used a creative arts methodology approach where fictocriticism is put into practice to show the iterative processes of practice-led research and research-led practice following the ‘Iterative Cyclic Web’ model (Smith & Roger, 2009). Fictocriticism produces a dual narrative: one which employs a fictional voice and the other, a critical voice. The critical voice in the fictocriticism allows for commentaries on the issues of the positioning of ‘self’ and ‘other.’ In addition, an exegesis, in the forms of results and discussion, was provided after the fictocritical parts to explicate further and contextualize issues related to nation-building in Malaysia. It is hoped that this article may contribute to narrating the nation, its hopes and aspirations, in the context of creative arts.