Ethnic politics and ambivalent imaginaries of the future at the Melaka Straits

Abstract

This article examines the ambivalent relationship between members of the Portuguese-Melakan Kristang minority and the state from the 1940s to the present day through the lens of ethnic politics. It reveals how ambivalent imaginaries of the future have shaped the politics of community members and what strategies they have used to assert their place. Moreover, it analyses how partly contradictory, partly converging imaginaries of the future of the Melaka coastline fuelled the failure of the Melaka Gateway land reclamation project. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork in Melaka in 2018 and 2019, it focuses on the Melaka Gateway, a large-scale land reclamation project located in the Melaka Straits where three man-made islands and one natural island with high-rise buildings, a cruise terminal and a deep sea port have been planned.