This book is about large-scale urban redevelopment projects that have been developing in Penang, Malaysia, over the past decade, and the participatory governance initiatives that have been organized to challenge them. It examines, in particular, the discourses that have been mobilized in support of the state government's development plans, as well as those used to contest them, and propose alternatives. Research for the book formally began at the National University of Singapore in 2016, when I began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Asia Research Institute. However, its seeds started germinating during my doctoral research in Penang on a separate research project on the controversies over the farming of edible birds’ nests in George Town and other Malaysian cities (2013– 14). While I was in Penang, I unwittingly developed research contacts that would become central to inspiring the research for this book. Although I was largely unaware of it at the time, the plans for the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) developed at this time, which soon took precedence over the ‘swiftlet farming’ controversy that I had been tracing for my PhD research.

Many of the key figures that have been involved in contesting the state government's plans for the PTMP and developing alternatives were also those involved in advocacy against the indiscriminate swiftlet farming in George Town. This included the former president of the Penang Forum, Khoo Salma, who was a key interlocutor in the development of the research presented here. Khoo subsequently introduced me to other members of the Penang Forum who had been involved in various social movements and advocacy work which helped enhance my understanding of a variety of issues in Penang that will be discussed in the subsequent chapters.

The research documented in this book also required expanding my familiarity with Penang, beyond the confines of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site which I had been focused on until then. I therefore spent many days in the early part of 2017 exploring the forested hillsides, coastlines and neighbourhoods that are discussed at length in this book. It also required learning about a range of topics and debates that were erstwhile beyond my scholarly expertise and interests, including transportation infrastructure; ‘natural’ hazards like flooding and landslides; and land reclamation.