This paper draws on black and postcolonial feminist theory in problematizing the interplay of difference and power within the identity practices of Malaysian women. I examine strategic essentialism and cultural difference in ways of being Malay-Muslim, Chinese and Indian women. I highlight the ways in which ethnic and gender politics privileges…

This article uses the notion of resistance as an analytical tool, emphasizing its sociopolitical significance and multidimensionality, to understand the complex link between ways of being Malay, Chinese and Indian schoolgirls, schooling and the wider Malaysian society. The macro and micro dynamics of the Malaysian ethnoscape, namely the ethnic…

This paper examines the notion of schooling and draws on the experiences of Malaysian teenage schoolgirls in contemporary postcolonial Malaysia. Using a critical approach to understandings of schooling, the author unpacks the links between the macro, micro and the personal in examining these girls' negotiations with discourses of schooling. The…