French Translocalities and Alternative Colonial Genealogies of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Malaya

Abstract

Much has been discussed on the presence of the British in Malaya and their role as a catalyst for the creation of a multi-ethnic nation. However, there is another set of narratives by a European community that is often left out of this conversation on colonial networks, the French. These have often been at the periphery of discussions, predominantly because they were produced in French, with translations few and far between. In this paper, we attempt to bring various documentation produced by the French community into the circle of postcolonial conversations on early life in Malaya, with the aim of highlighting other European perspectives on the region that existed alongside predominant British narratives. These are drawn particularly from an exploration of selected texts written by French individuals who visited or settled in Malaya in the nineteenth century. We focus on three main groups among the French community, namely seafarers, Catholic missionaries (who were simultaneously either lexicographers or translators), and geological explorers. Of particular significance are the translocal linguistic, cultural, and religious mobilities that were generated as these French individuals made their way through and engaged with a territory that was primarily under the jurisdiction of the British colonial administration and the alternative genealogies of knowledge that were produced.