Ethnic Boundaries and Class Consciousness within Malaysian Employment Sector

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate the importance of ethnicity in
the Malaysian employment sector and its intersection with social class. This
emphasis is important due to the changes in Malaysia’s post-independence
economic structures and the ‘unchangeable’ nature of ethnic concentration
in the country’s new employment sectors. The study is based on fifty-five indepth
interviews conducted among the Malay and Chinese Malaysian ethnic
groups residing in Penang, Malaysia and Glasgow, United Kingdom. Data
were analysed using thematic analysis and discussions were based on the
post-colonialism theory and constructivism. The results suggested that there
was a dialectical relationship between ethnicity and class awareness in the
respondents’ understanding of the present-day Malaysian ethnic segregations
of labour. Top-down ethnic bureaucratisation and everyday cultural boundaries
emphasise the significance of ethnicity and inter-ethnic group relations in the
Malaysian employment sector. On the other hand, social capital was found to
address individual and intra-ethnic class relations in this sector.