1 Cohn, Bernard S., Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Stoler, Ann Laura and Cooper, Frederick, ‘Between metropole and colony: Rethinking a research agenda’, in Tensions of empire: Colonial cultures in a bourgeois world, ed. Cooper, Frederick and Stoler, Ann Laura (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 1–56Google Scholar.

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5 This discussion is based on my reading of the works of Barth, Fredrik, ‘Introduction’, in Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of cultural difference, ed. Barth, Fredrik (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970), pp. 9–38Google Scholar; and Cohen, Anthony P., ‘Introduction: Discriminating relations – identity, boundary and authenticity’, in Signifying identities: Anthropological perspectives on boundaries and contested values, ed. Cohen, Anthony (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 1–14Google Scholar.

6 My use of the phrase ‘Malay-identified’ is deliberately ambiguous. Some intellectuals may not be thought of as Malay by their peers or even present-day scholars, depending on the definitions of what constitute someone as Malay, or what the concept of ‘Malay-ness’ stands for. The term ‘Malay-ness’ captures the shifting boundaries of what is supposedly a well-defined group. It refers to the criteria and characteristics of being Malay, howsoever those are determined, either by those who identify themselves as Malay and as belonging to this group or by those who are not of this group and pose an outsiders' identification. See Contesting Malayness: Malay identity across boundaries, ed. Timothy P. Barnard (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004).

7 Matheson, Virginia, ‘Concepts of Malay ethos in indigenous Malay writings’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 10, 2 (1979): 351–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Milner, Invention of politics in colonial Malaya, pp. 16–7. Patrick Sullivan, however, contends that though the text would have the reader believe that the raja constituted the focal point of a person's identity, this could be far from actual experience; see Sullivan, Patrick, ‘A critical appraisal of historians of Malaya: The theory of society implicit in their work’, in Southeast Asia: Essays in the political economy of structural change, ed. Higott, R. and Robison, R. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), p. 67Google Scholar.

9 Some of the usages of ‘Melayu’ and ‘bangsa’ in court texts do approximate the meanings in the press. For instance, Matheson notes that in Misa Melayu, ‘bangsa’ in some places in the text distinguished different groups of people from different parts of the archipelago, while in other places it strictly denoted status. The latter meaning, however, was more common in the court texts (Matheson, ‘Concepts of Malay ethos’, p. 366).

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13 Jawi Peranakan referred to those who had Indian and Malay ancestry and who were Muslims, mostly the product of Indian-Muslim and Malay marriages in the 18th and 19th centuries. Chinese Peranakan (sometimes also referred to as Baba or Straits Chinese) were those who retained their Chinese identity and who had taken on aspects of Malay culture such as language and dress. This absorption of Malay culture was due to intermarriage between Malays and Chinese or merely long-standing ties to Malaya; Hirschman, Charles, ‘The making of race in colonial Malaya: Political economy and racial ideology’, Sociological Forum, 1, 2 (1986): 338CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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15 Ahmat Adam, Sejarah dan bibliografi akhbar dan majalah Melayu, pp. 71–4.

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17 Ahmat Adam, Sejarah dan bibliografi akhbar dan majalah Melayu, pp. 61–3; Roff, Origins of Malay nationalism, pp. 48–9; Hassan, Nik Ahmad, The Malay vernacular press (University of Malaya: Department of History, 1958), p. 3Google Scholar.

18 Harper, T.N., The end of empire and the making of Malaya (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

19 Maier, Hendrik M.J., In the centre of authority: The Malay Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1988), pp. 38–9Google Scholar, 43.

20 There is a wealth of information available on the subject of the history of anthropology. See, for example, Staum, Martin S., Labeling people: French scholars on society, race, and empire 1815–1848 (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Stepan, Nancy Leys, Picturing tropical nature (London: Reaktion Books, 2001)Google Scholar; and Stocking, George W. Jr, Victorian anthropology (New York: Free Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

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22 Harper, End of empire and the making of Malaya, p. 18.

23 Wilkinson, R.J., Papers on Malay subjects, selected and introduced by Burns, P.L. (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 2Google Scholar.

24 Swettenham, British Malaya, pp. 133, 136, 147, 174; Alatas, Syed Hussein, The myth of the lazy native: A study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of colonial capitalism (London: Frank Cass, 1977), pp. 44Google Scholar, 70; Kratoska, Paul H., ‘Proconsuls, yeoman and rice farmers: Cultural categories in British Malaya’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1975), p. 56Google Scholar; Vlieland, C.A., British Malaya (the colony of the Straits Settlements and the Malay States under British protection, namely the federated states of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang and the states of Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Brunei): A report on the 1931 census and on certain problems of vital statistics (London: Crown Agent for the Colonies, 1932), pp. 48, 71, 77–8Google Scholar.

25 Hoofd, Ingrid Maria, ‘Feminist activism in the high-tech west: The complicities of transversal and networked politics in speed’, in Gender and citizenship in a multicultural context, ed. Oleksy, Elzbieta, Peto, Andrea and Waaldijk, Berteke (Berlin/Oxford: Peter Lang Verlag, 2008), pp. 19–35Google Scholar.

26 See chs. 6 and 7 in Milner's Invention of politics in colonial Malaya.

27 Hasan, Abdul-Hadi bin Haji, Sejarah alam Melayu: Penggal I (Singapore: MPH Publications Sdn. Bhd., 1967)Google Scholar; Hasan, Abdul-Hadi bin Haji, Sejarah alam Melayu: Penggal II (Singapore: MPH Publications Sdn. Bhd., 1968)Google Scholar; Anonymous, The Malays in Malaya, by one of them (Singapore: Printed at the Malaya Publishing House, Ltd., 1928)Google Scholar; Sejarah ringkas Tanah Melayu, dikutip dan diterjemah dari bahagian2 yang menasabah dalam buku ‘Malaya’ karangan Dr R.O. Winstedt (yang telah terbit pada tahun 1922) oleh Za'ba dalam tahun 1925–26 (Singapore: Pustaka Melayu, 1961).

28 Abdul-Hadi, Sejarah alam Melayu: Penggal I, iii; Ahmad, Abdullah Sanusi bin, Peranan pejabat karang mengarang dalam bidang2 pelajaran sekolah2 Melayu dan kesusasteraan di-kalangan orang ramai (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia, 1966), p. 99Google Scholar. Abdul-Hadi also taught Harun Aminurashid, who became a well-known author and proponent of Malay pride (Milner, Invention of politics in colonial Malaya, p. 273).

29 Wheeler, L. Richmond, The modern Malay (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1928)Google Scholar; Zainuddin, Abdul Majid, ‘A peculiar custom in Kuala Kangsar’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (hereafter JMBRAS), 3, 1 (1925): 85–6Google Scholar; Zainuddin, Abdul Majid, ‘A Malay's pilgrimage to Mecca’, JMBRAS, 4, 2 (1926): 269–87Google Scholar. For more information on Zainuddin, Abdul Majid's life, refer to his autobiography, The wandering thoughts of a dying man: The life and times of Haji Abdul Majid bin Zainuddin, ed. Roff, William R. (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

30 Abdullah Sanusi, Peranan pejabat karang mengarang, pp. 20–1; Hooker, Writing a new society, pp. 42, 101; Antologi esei Melayu dalam tahun2 1924–1941, ed. Zabedah Awang Ngah (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kementerian Pelajaran, 1964), p. 209.

31 Wahab Ali, Emergence of the novel, pp. 65–8, 104–5; Abdullah Sanusi, Peranan pejabat karang mengarang dalam bidang2 pelajaran sekolah2, pp. 20–1; Roff, Origins of Malay nationalism, pp. 51 fn. 66, 142, 155–7.

32 Roff, Origins of Malay nationalism, pp. 144–8; Hooker, Writing a new society, p. 76.

33 My translation of Za'ba's title is, ‘A short history of Malaya, selected and translated from relevant sections of “Malaya” written by Dr R.O. Winstedt (which was published in 1922)’.

34 Racial ideologies enabled the newspaper Utusan Melayu to extend its rhetoric as far as Ceylon (Milner, Invention of politics in colonial Malaya, p. 100).

35 Omar Mustaffa, ‘Angan-angan dengan Gurindam’, Utusan Melayu, 18 Jan. 1913, in Puisi-puisi kebangsaan 1913–1957, compiled by Abdul Latiff Abu Bakar (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1987), p. 3; Mir Hamzah, ‘Semenanjung…’, Warta Ahad, 25 June 1939, in the same volume, p. 118; Roff, Origins of Malay nationalism, p. 151.

36 Stocking, Victorian anthropology, pp. 57–8.

37 Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects; Wilkinson, R.J., Papers on Malay subjects, supplement: The aboriginal tribes (Kuala Lumpur: Printed by J.E. Wallace at the F.M.S. Government Press, 1926)Google Scholar.

38 Malaya, the Straits Settlements and the Federated and Unfederated Malay States, ed. Richard Winstedt (London: Constable, 1923).

39 Keith, Arthur Berriedale, The governments of the British empire (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1935)Google Scholar; Austin, O.P., Colonial administration 1800–1900: Methods of government and development adopted by the principal colonizing nations in their control of tropical and other colonies and dependencies (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1901)Google Scholar; Wright, Arnold and Reid, Thomas H., The Malay Peninsula: A record of the British progress in the Middle East (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912)Google Scholar; Harrison, Cuthbert Woodville, An illustrated guide to the Federated Malay States (1923), with an introduction by Kratoska, Paul (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Handbook to British Malaya 1929, compiled by R.L. German (London: Malayan Information Agency, 1929).

40 Sejarah ringkas Tanah Melayu, pp. 1, 9, 16–17, 28.

41 Ibid., p. 117.

42 Wilkinson, Papers on Malay subjects, supplement: The aboriginal tribes, pp. 1–3; Skeat, W.W. and Blagden, C.O., The pagan races of the Malay Peninsula (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. xii, 16, 19Google Scholar; Annandale, Nelson and Robinson, Herbert C., Fasciculi Malayenses: Anthropological and zoological results of an expedition to Perak and the Siamese Malay states, 1901–1902 (London: University Press of Liverpool, 1903), pp. 29–30Google Scholar; Allen, James de V., ‘Two imperialists: A study of Sir Frank Swettenham and Sir Hugh Clifford’, JMBRAS, 36 (1964): 46–7Google Scholar.

43 Abdul-Hadi, Sejarah alam Melayu: Penggal I, pp. 2–3; Za'ba, pp. 2–3.

44 Malays in Malaya, p. 1.

45 Ibid.; Sejarah ringkas Tanah Melayu, pp. 2–3.

46 Endicott, Kirk, ‘The effects of slave raiding on the aborigines of the Malay Peninsula’, in Slavery, bondage, and dependency in Southeast Asia, ed. Reid, Anthony with the assistance of Brewster, Jennifer (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), pp. 221–2Google Scholar.

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49 Annandale and Robinson, for instance, note that Malays characterise some indigenous tribes as ‘beasts’. Though they do not use such a term to describe these groups throughout their work, they take for granted that the latter are savage and uncivilised (Annandale and Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, p. 6).

50 Raffles, Memoir of the life and public services of Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles, p. 15.

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56 Emerson, Rupert, ‘Introduction’, in Institute of Pacific Relations Inquiry Series, Government and nationalism in Southeast Asia (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1942), pp. 3–91Google Scholar; Wheeler, The modern Malaya.

57 Quoted in Hooker, Writing a new society, p. 70.

58 The Malays in Malaya, preface, pp. 29, 44.

59 Ibid., pp. 29, 31, 35.

60 Ibid., pp. 34–8, 103–4.

61 Ibid., pp. 90–4.

62 ‘Teguran dan jawaban-nya’ in Al-Ikhwan, 16 Nov. 1926, in The real cry of Syed Shaykh al-Hady, with selections of his writings by his son Syed Alwi Al-Hady, ed. Alijah Gordon (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute, 1999), pp. 189–94.

63 See, for example, the tone of Wilson, Woodrow's speech given in 1918 on self-determination in The human rights reader: Major political writings, essays, speeches, and documents from the bible to the present, ed. Ishay, Micheline R. (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 299–304Google Scholar.

64 Roff, Origins of Malay nationalism, p. 150; Miller, Harry, The story of Malaysia (London: Faber and Faber, 1965), p. 167Google Scholar.