KITA Discourse Series 5/2023: Aspiring Outside the City: Socialisation, (Academic) Migration and Middle-Class Projects in Postcolonial Malaysia

ASPIRING OUTSIDE THE CITY: SOCIALISATION, (ACADEMIC) MIGRATION AND MIDDLE-CLASS PROJECTS IN POSTCOLONIAL MALAYSIA
By
Dr. Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar
School of Social, Political and Global Studies,
Keele University, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

Malaysia is one of the most rapidly urbanising nations in Southeast Asia, with the rate of urbanisation signalling the extent of national development. Through the window of Malay young people’s aspirations, this presentation is part of an ongoing project that ethnographically traces what it means to “encounter” education policy in rural sites of Malaysia—geographic regions categorised by the postcolonial developmentalist state as luar bandar (literally “outside of the city” in Malay). In this light, I pay attention to desires associated with place-based social bonds, cultural and subjective formations as well pressures of (academic) migration among the young people. To make sense of their aspirations from one site of the luar bandar, I bring together scholarship in anthropology of education and development as well as postcolonial studies. I suggest that such aspirations manifest a material critique of exclusion and inequality. In turn, the findings point to complex socialisations into what Johan Fischer (2017) calls ‘middle-class projects’ emanating from urban Malaysia, to be felt within one site at the blurring edge of modernity.

PRESENTER’S PROFILE

Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar ialah pensyarah pendidikan di School of Social, Political and Global Studies, Keele University, UK. Beliau menerima Ijazah Doktor Falsafah dalam bidang pendidikan di University of Oxford, sebagai felo pengajar kedoktoran dan Sarjana Clarendon. Kajian Dr. Aizuddin dalam bidang pendidikan perbandingan dan antarabangsa berkait hubungan pendidikan dan pembangunan, pendidikan luar bandar, polisi, pengajian pasca kolonial and politik pembentukan ilmu.

TENTATIVE PROGRAMME

Date: 2 August 2023 (Wednesday)
Time: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. (GMT +8)
Venue: KITA Meeting Room
Platform: Zoom & KITA Facebook page (links below)

10.00 a.m.: Introduction by Moderator
10.10 a.m.: Seminar by Dr. Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar
11.10 a.m.: Q & A Session
12.00 p.m.: Closing

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