A Question of Identity: Names, Societies, and Ethnic Groups in Interior Kalimantan and Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

Issues of ethnic identity and nomenclature loom large in the recent anthropological literature on Borneo. The difficulties of delineating and naming ethnic categories and groups can be aptly illustrated in two recent debates: one on the nature of traditional Maloh society in the Upper Kapuas region of West Kalimantan and the appropriateness of the ethnic label Maloh, and the other on the definition and characterization of Brunei society. The two cases demonstrate that some of our difficulties arise from the tendency to assume that ethnic categories and groups should be defined on the basis of both shared cultural features and a distinctive social system which persist through time. Instead, our understanding of the dynamics of identity formation and processes of social change can be enhanced by rethinking the concept of society or social system so that ethnic groupings are seen as constituent parts of wider sets of social, economic, political, and cultural relations. Despite the different historical experiences of the Upper Kapuas region and the Brunei sultanate, the parallels between the two cases are striking. They indicate the importance of examining the ways in which Malay political centres have served as nodal points in the articulation of both cultural identities and social models of egality and hierarchy in multi-ethnic situations.