An Inconvenient Birth

This article reconstructs the history of the nationalist movement among the Dusunic peoples also known as Kadazandusun in the Malaysian state of Sabah, and its demise following the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. It analyses how the ‘Kadazan nationalists’ elaborated a modern, objectified culture based on cultural traits, symbols and traditions of rural peoples and used print media and local radio to spread it. When the Dusunic peoples were integrated as a minority in Malaysia, the nation builders acquired control of all the main media and excluded their languages and culture. The article then analyses the dynamics of the struggle between the ethnic group and the central government as reflected in cultural production, language development and loss, and in ethnic naming. While these issues reveal competition between various native elites they have nevertheless allowed the growth of a sense of belonging to a Dusunic ethnic group, however named

Demise · Ethnic group · Ethnic nationalism · Ethnology · Linguistics · Media studies · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy

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