'The only race fitted for the work': Overseas Chinese, racial capitalism, and the making of British colonial Malaya, c. 1867-1909

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Throughout the nineteenth century, British colonial officials in Malaya confronted the problem of having to develop a remote territory that was resource-rich but political factious and capital- and labor-deficient. To achieve their political and economic objectives, British administrators embarked on a developmentalist agenda based on the toleration, if not outright promotion, of large-scale Chinese immigration. Chinese were depicted in contemporary public and private intellectual discourse as a race uniquely suited to labor in the modern capitalist economy, but, having been simultaneously identified as a potential source of social unrest, one that required careful management. Although scholars have argued that Western conceptions of race were in large part the product of British colonial rule, this thesis applies the conceptual framework of racial capitalism to the specific context of empire to show that racialized epistemologies, centered on the overseas Chinese, were also foundational to the expansion of British influence over the Malay Peninsula beginning in 1870s. British Malaya and its overseas Chinese communities thus constituted an important historical site where the intersection of race, capitalism, and imperialism was demonstrated.

Author	Loh, Samuel
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Stanford Global Studies, Center for East Asian Studies
Thesis advisor	Press, Steven

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/rp904vz7971
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/rp904vz7971

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Preferred citation: Loh, S. (2023). 'The only race fitted for the work': Overseas Chinese, racial capitalism, and the making of British colonial Malaya, c. 1867-1909. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/rp904vz7971. https://doi.org/10.25740/rp904vz7971.

Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection

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