Spatializing the Boundaries of Freedom: An Environmental History of Sovereignty in Sarawak, Malaysia

• In Event: After Decolonization: Citizenship and Sovereignty in Postcolonial Malaysia and Singapore - Sponsored by the Malaysa-Singapore-Brunei Studies Group

Abstract

Sarawak’s two orangutan rehabilitation centers care for displaced orangutans confiscated by the state of Sarawak. By thinking about official boundaries of these sites and both the human and non-human actors contained within them, we can think of how an environmental history of Sarawak’s two wildlife centers offers an environmental history of sovereignty, where the boundaries of freedom are both demarcated and tested.

By looking at plants, animals, rivers, and other non-human actors, environmental historians tell histories of power and state formation (Purdue 1987, White 1995, Kaur 1998, Scott 1998, Sivaramakrishnan 1999, Lowe 2006) They also tell a story of sovereignty (Rutherford 2012). Specifically, the environmental history of Sarawak’s centers brings us back to Cold War relocation policies as well as colonial dispossession during the Brooke Era, when Sarawak was a private kingdom carved away from Brunei and ruled by a British subject. Both private industries and the colonial and postcolonial state have demarcated present boundaries of Sarawak’s wildlife centers. Within these boundaries, workers who are citizens of Sarawak have the job of caring for endemic wildlife, which are subjects protected by the state. Together, they test the limits of freedom. By thinking through the Malay (and Sarawakian Malay) concept of kebebasan or ‘freedom,’ Sarawakian caretakers exercise political critique when they discuss orangutans’ needs for being bebas or free and when they challenge official rules through their workplace actions. They show us that decolonization is an ongoing process and did not end in Sarawak with its incorporation into Malaysia.

Author

• Juno Salazar Parrenas, Ohio State University