"Penang Rejects Reclamation": Pre-capitalist worldviews and post-development ideals within a Malaysian environmental movement

Abstract

Malaysia's indigenous and rural communities have played a vital role in the growth of the country's environmental movement. Yet, the ways in which their cultures and ancestral attachments to territory come to underpin their activism has remained understudied. This article focuses on the current dispute between state authorities in Penang Island, keen on reclaiming land for industrial development, and "Penang Tolak Tambak", a movement composed of traditional fisherfolk and environmental activists who aim at preserving the coastal ecosystem. Employing Arturo Escobar's "ecology of difference" and Erik Olin Wright's "anti-capitalist strategies" as theoretical framework, this article uncovers multiple ways in which fisherfolk's identity became a salient part of their environmental struggle. Most importantly, the spiritual principle of fardhu kifayah, by which ecosystem preservation becomes a divinely-ordained responsibility towards one another, comes to directly clash with neoliberal-capitalist development as pursued by the state. While the study illustrates how Malaysian rural communities preserve pre-capitalist human-nature relations, it also shows how fisherfolk face serious material constraints in promoting their lifestyle, their mobilization being thus limited to strategies of resistance. The conclusion encourages further research on "ecologies of difference" and how these can not only be defended but also promoted as broader, systemic alternatives.