-제목: Claiming National Membership in Multiethnic Malaysia: The Role of Dominant Ethnicity

-저자 : In-Jin Yoon(부소장), Chich Thiang Koo

-출판정보 : 아세아연구 제58권 2호 (2015.6)

-논문초록

In multiethnic Malaysia, policies promoting social integration seem to have evoked conflict and mistrust among ethnic groups. Our study suggests that such policy failures rooted in their insensitivity towards the different meaning national membership possesses for Malays and non-Malays. Because Malays are the dominant ethnic group, they often do not distinguish between nation and ethnicity and hence tend to include Malay cultural features as part of national membership. Non-Malays strategically endorse a national membership that embodies only non-ascriptive criteria. To examine the relationships among ethnic and national identifications, and relative social distance, we conducted a sample survey of 581 college students from three Malaysian universities with different ethnic backgrounds. Our results show that a strong identification with ethnicity creates a distance from members of other ethnic groups. On the contrary, while a strong national identification makes Malays somewhat remote from Chinese and Indians, it brings Chinese closer to Malays and Indians.