Houses in Motion: The Experience of Place and the Problem of Belief in Urban Malaysia

by Richard Baxstrom

Houses in Motion: The Experience of Place and the Problem of Belief in Urban Malaysia is about the transformation of urban space and the reordering of the demographic character of Brickfields, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Kuala Lumpur. Baxstrom offers an ethnographic account of the complex attempts on the part of the state and the community to reconcile techno-rational conceptions of law, development, and city planning with local experiences of place, justice, relatedness, and possibilities for belief in an aggressively changing world. The book combines classic methods of anthropological research and an engagement with the work of theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and Henri Lefebvre, and moves beyond previous studies of Southeast Asian cities by linking larger conceptual issues of ethics, belief, and experience to the concrete trajectories of everyday urban life in the region.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2008

About the author

Richard Baxstrom is Professor of Anthropology and the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.

Reviews

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baxstrom provides a historical overview of urban planning developments in the neighborhood of Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, while providing theorizations of these developments in tandem. This begins with the British colonization of Malaysia, the influence of Chinese capital and immigration, and the use of labourers from South India. We then move through Japanese Occupation to the Emergency Period, 1948-1960, where military mobilization was deployed against Communist insurgents, resulting in a policy of forced displacement of over 500,000 landless Chinese peasants, the base of support for the Communists. Malay independence comes in 1957, and the Prime Ministership of Mahathir Mohamad from 1981-2003 is given particular focus, especially in relation to reformist Islamist movements, and on the connection between Islam and Malaysian governance. The dynamics of the specific neighborhood under consideration are described: Tamils are the ethnic demographic plurality, largely due to being brought in for work on the railroad in the prewar period, and this marks outsider understandings of it as a hotbed for organized crime, etc. Furthermore, there is an outsized percentage of blind or partially visually impaired in the neighborhood, due to resources being provided there. What develops as a pattern is the repeated forced displacement of peoples, often with little warning, due to the machinations of urban planning from authorities above, which lead to a loss of a definite sense of a future that Baxstrom links to a violation of Lefebvre's "right to the city," which he theorizes as including a right to some basic predictive orientation towards the future, the ability to invest in a belief of a future. The "disappearance" of buildings is related to the quick pace in which they are torn down or moved around at will, which disorients everyone, but especially the visually impaired. Also affected by the developmental plans are (largely Hindu) temples, which were largely forced to move, though some care was taken to ensure that this was done under the proper astrological constraints, so that the spiritual deities would move alongside the physical structure of the temple and come to inhabit the new location. Interviews are conducted with local residents on their feelings regarding upcoming development plans, with many voicing anxieties that they will be priced out of the neighborhood, and that as a result Brickfields might lose its distinctly Tamil character, as well as concerns over the survivability of small businesses. Local issues, including counterfeiting, prostitution, and gangsterism, are also discussed. Overall, Baxstrom relies on references to Deleuze to provide a theoretical framework, which I find a bit opaque as to how it fits well with his larger project. Otherwise, anthropology and postcolonial studies are also relied on, along with Lefebvre, which all make more intuitive sense, especially given his focus on culture, identity, geography, etc.