Orang Asli Resource Politics: Manipulating Property Regimes Through Representivity

Abstract

"The Orang Asli are the indigenous minority peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. They numbered 132,873 in 1999 representing a mere 0.5 per cent of the national population. The term, which transliterates as original peoples or first peoples, is a collective term for the 19 ethnic subgroups officially classified for administrative purposes under Negrito, Senoi and Aboriginal Malay. Today, the Orang Asli are among the most marginalized of Malaysian citizens, both economically and politically. Their decline can be traced to their diminishing ability to exercise control over their traditional territories and the resources found therein a result, as I argue below, of determined efforts by the state to manipulate or redefine Orang Asli property regimes. The sad part is that, frequently, this is achieved in collaboration with self-serving indigenous representatives who are accorded that status not by the community but by the state."