[extract …] Much has been written about ‘the construction and reconstruction of cultural identity’ in developing Asian countries and ethnicity ‘as a set of social relationships and processes by which cultural differences are communicated’ (Goh, 1998: 168; Hitchcock, 1999: 21). One important element in this process of construction is the promotion of cultural and ethnic tourism (Wood, 1997: 2; Hitchcock, 1998). However, this process of ‘culturalisation’ must be seen in the broader context of national planning for economic development and in the arena of international political, economic, and cultural forces (Kahn and Loh, 1992: 1–3). The interaction between local, national, and global processes inevitably generates contestations in which different groups (classes, ethnic groups, local communities, political parties, élite fractions) attempt to construct particular identities and present their images of the past, present and future in order to promote their own political-economic and cultural agendas. Goh, in her examination of urban transformations in Penang, also proposes that the city ‘is not only an important locale where contests are played out, but also more importantly, the locus where emerging identity discourses and various cultural visions of modernity are actively reconstituting urban space’ (2002: 185).

With reference to Malaysia, the processes of containing and bridging divergent ethnic differences in the interest of nation-building began eventually to break down after the initial euphoria of independence and led to the post-election race riots of May 1969. Kahn and Loh have referred appositely to the subsequent ‘proliferation of discourses and/or cultural practices’, as a ‘fragmented vision’, and specifically one which comprises ‘fundamentally different visions of Malaysian society in the future’ (1992: 3, 4). There are obviously differences based on ethnicity, but an increasingly important reason for this fragmentation is the emergence and expansion of a differentiated middle class (comprising among others a public and private sector white-collar salariat, skilled workers, managers, professionals, and intellectuals) and its members’ formulation of different perspectives on society (Milne and Mauzy, 1999: 63). It is, for example, among the educated middle class, especially those educated overseas in Western institutions, that conservation movements and social interest non-government organizations (NGOs), have been especially prominent, providing an alternative challenge to the policies of the governing élite.