The School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London

Overview

Department of Anthropology and Sociology

(PhD Student)

 

Contact Details

Name:

Ms Pei-chien Wu

Email address:

pcwu@soas.ac.uk

Study

Thesis title:

Chinese Muslim in Malaysia: the shaping of identity and ethnic boundaries

Year of Study:

1

Internal Supervisors

• Kostas Retsikas

My work intends to see identity shaping process from an emic point of view. Theories unearthed so far have long focused on the external explanation, i.e. the etic standpoint, of ethnicity, be it inventionalist, instrumentalist or transactionalist approaches. However, the indigenous knowledge and construction of ethnicity in reality often play autonomous role in the shaping of their identity. It is not to say that the external explanations should be completely discarded, but instead, the focus should be shifted from external forces to the interaction between external and internal power struggle. Through the discourse maintained by indigenous and external forces, e.g. nation-state, colonial ideology, international relations, the identity of a group of people thus takes shape.