{"product_id":"imagining-malaya-bernard-z-keo-9780198917083","title":"Imagining Malaya: Peranakan Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Belonging at the End of Empire, 1945-1957","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe end of Britain's empire in Southeast Asia in the wake of World War II generated new opportunities for colonial subjects across the region to reimagine themselves as citizens of a dizzying array of potential new nations. While post-war optimism and a global push for decolonisation created an environment where myriad communities felt a palpable sense of possibility for bringing their aspirations of nationhood to life, many of these desires were unfulfilled. \u003cem\u003eImagining Malaya\u003c\/em\u003e is an exploration of one of those many imagined nations that never came to be. It narrates a series of seemingly disparate and contradictory political acts by the Peranakan Chinese -- a creolised community borne of intermarriage between the earliest Chinese migrants to the region and indigenous Malays -- in the post-World War II period to demonstrate that the community were, in fact, seeking to bring to life a cosmopolitan, inclusive, and multi-ethnic imagination of the Malay(si)an nation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEngaging in a critical re-examination of the intertwined processes of decolonization and nation-making, \u003cem\u003eImagining Malaya\u003c\/em\u003e provides an alternative reading of Malay(si)a's path to \u003cem\u003emerdeka\u003c\/em\u003e (independence) from the perspective of the Peranakan. It narrates how a once powerful community at the centre of Malay(si)an politics and society came undone by their attempts to present an alternative imagination of the nation which challenged the ethnocentrism that came to dominate the country's political life. Rewriting the Peranakan into the centre of Malaysia's national story rather than its periphery is a parable on the complexities and pitfalls of attempting to forge a representative nation-state from a multi-ethnic society during the transition between colony and nation. By bringing the Peranakan imaginary of the nation to life, Bernard Z. Keo makes a case for how studying nations that were unrealized can reveal just as much as investigating that that were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Bernard Z. Keo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0198917082\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198917083\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/06\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.26lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.40h x 6.45w x 0.85d","brand":"Bernard Z. Keo","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46807182803199,"sku":"9780198917083","price":110.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_48d32835-e116-4b24-a721-b7e7481c1c34.jpg?v=1745378767","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/imagining-malaya-bernard-z-keo-9780198917083","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}