Engaged Social Anthropology and Indigenous Land Claims in Malaysia

Abstract

ABSTRACT The use of litigation has become an important strategy for customary land claims for the Orang Asli, the aboriginal people of Peninsular Malaysia. Increasing displacement from their customary territories, and having exhausted other official avenues, the Orang Asli are resorting to legal measures to protect their rights. Several landmark cases in the Malaysian courts favouring Orang Asli rights have given the Indigenous People hope in the legal system. However, lawsuits are risky, require an enormous amount of time and resources, and take a toll on the communities and others involved in the process. Relying on the court process risks reifying state power, reinscribing unequal power dynamics, and reinforcing essentialised notions of indigenous ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’. In this article, I draw upon my long-term research on Orang Asli activism and my experience serving as an expert witness in several Orang Asli customary land claims to discuss the limits and possibilities of social anthropological knowledge in the legal arena. Focusing on the Malaysian context, I reflect upon the challenges of speaking across different fields, translating social anthropological research into a form legible to the legal process, and the dilemma of being complicit in reifying hierarchies of knowledge. I consider how social anthropologists in their cultural expertise role might use the legal space to centre Indigenous knowledge, and challenge the more static understanding of indigenous culture and tradition.