Race, Education, and Citizenship

Transnational skilled migrants are often thought of as privileged migrants with flexible citizenship. This book challenges this assumption by examining the diverse migration trajectories, experiences and dilemmas faced by tertiary-educated mobile Malaysian migrants through a postcolonial lens. It argues that mobile Malaysians’ culture of migration can be understood as an outcome and consequence of British colonial legacies – of race, education, and citizenship – inherited and exacerbated by the post-colonial Malaysian state. Drawing from archival research and interviews with respondents in Singapore, United Kingdom, and Malaysia, this book examines how mobile Malaysians make sense of their migration lives, and contextualizes their stories to the broader socio-political structures in colonial Malaya and post-colonial Malaysia. Showing how legacies of colonialism initiate, facilitate, and propagate migration in a multi-ethnic, post-colonial migrant-sending country beyond the end of colonial rule, this text is a key read for scholars of migration, citizenship, ethnicity, nationalism and postcolonialism.

Sin Yee Koh is Assistant Professor of Geography at the Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei. Her research, positioned at the intersection of migration studies and urban studies, is informed by three areas of interest: (1) postcolonial geography; (2) migration/mobilities and citizenship; and (3) urbanization, inequality and social change.

“Koh’s book provides a wealth of theoretical, empirical and contextual information that would be of value and appeal to a wide readership within and beyond migration, citizenship, postcolonial and Malaysian studies. Beyond its academic and policy contributions, Koh’s book will be of special interest to mobile Malaysians and other postcolonial migrants as it opens up a space for nostalgia, reflexivity and affirmation along various stages of the migration trajectory.” (I Lin Sin, Transitions: Journal of Transient Migration, October, 2018)

“This book challenges existing literature on skilled migration and flexible citizenship by showing how such migration may be racialised and by highlighting the need to conceptualise migration and citizenship practices historically. … I strongly recommend this book for scholars interested in post-colonial studies, migration, citizenship and race, as well as anyone looking for a more nuanced insight into the formation of contemporary Malaysia.” (Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani, LSE Review of Books, blogs.lse.ac.uk, July, 2018)

“This is a commendably bold and critical book—critical of both British colonial policies and contemporary policies pursued by the Malaysian state. … ” (Johanna L. Waters, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, May, 2018)
“This is a scholarly and beautifully crafted account of contemporary Malaysian cultures of migration and the ways in which they are shaped by British colonial legacies of race, education and citizenship. It is a welcome addition to postcolonial and migration studies, not least because of its theoretical and methodological innovation.” (Caroline Knowles, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London, UK)

“Drawing on a postcolonial approach, Mobile Malaysians interrogates the connection between Malaysia’s race-based affirmative action policies and the development of a culture of “education-induced” migration among Chinese Malaysians. Koh effectively argues that the real impact of colonial legacies on contemporary migration works through taken-for-granted understandings of race, education and citizenship in Malaysia. This is a line of questioning that would be of interest to scholars of migration, postcolonialism, citizenship and ethnonational identities.” (Brenda Yeoh, Professor, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore)

“This volume provides a rich analysis of how race, citizenship and education have become entangled in colonial and postcolonial politics. It offers important and original contributions to research on international student migration and will become a hallmark study in the field.” (Parvati Raghuram, Professor of Geography and Migration, The Open University, UK)