Sport in Malaysia: National Imperatives and Western Seductions

Abstract

Professional sport has been radically altered by global capitalism, expanding from its once highly localized origins into an increasingly internationalized, mediatized, and commoditized cultural form. Like other commodities, sport has branched out from saturated domestic markets in the West. The rapid development of Asian economies has witnessed a wave of economic and cultural modernization, and the subsequent emergence of middle-class consumption has seen internationally recognizable commodity signs like the English Premier League (EPL) desired for their symbolic link to global cosmopolitanism. This paper addresses the Malaysian context, where the nation-building process has been problematized by the complex racial, cultural and religious make-up of its population. It analyses the obstructive tension between local sporting developmental agenda and the orchestrated intrusion of global (predominantly Western) sports commodities.