Sumit K Mandal
Biographic Data
| ID | 642017 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sumit K Mandal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sumit K |
| FAMILY NAME | Mandal |
| SIGNATURE | MANDAL S K |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Malaysia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3041-7486 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Charting a Malay-Islamic past: An emerging transnational geography of meaning and the consolidation of an exclusivist identity in Malaysia
This article examines an emerging historical narrative that invokes an exclusivist Malay-Islamic identity in Malaysia through a sacred geography centred on Aceh in Indonesia. The examination is located against the growing sacralisation of space across the world and its often contentious if not violent political outcomes. It considers the role of scholarship on sacred geographies in the face of output on the same subject by an informal expert – a …
An Arab Indonesian Singing Preacher, an Islamic Mass Concert, and the Historic Capture of a Public Space in Malaysia
Habib Syech bin Abdul Qodir Assegaf, a well-known Arab Indonesian singing preacher, transposed to Malaysia a model of performing selawat (praise songs) in Islamic mass concerts that captured public spaces in Indonesia. By ‘capture’, this article suggests both the sanctification of a physical space and the promotion of a heightened Islamic religiosity within that space. In 2014, Habib Syech performed in a mass concert held in Putrajaya, the admini…
Pathways of the Umma: The Flow of Faith Tourists from Peninsular Malaysia to Aceh in Indonesia
Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World
Sumit K. Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated figures defined by econ…
Taming Babel: Language in the Making of Malaysia, by Rachel Leow
Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World
Sumit K. Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated figures defined by econ…
Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility
A focus on the sites of Asian interaction enables this volume to shed new light on the growing field of diaspora studies. Research on Asia's many diasporas has enriched the older literature on migration to illuminate the links of kinship, affect, trade, and information that connect locations across Asia, and beyond. But where many recent works on particular diasporas have tended to look inwards - at how distinctive diasporic cultures maintained a…
Arabs in the urban social landscapes of Malaysia: Historical Connections and Belonging
The urban landscapes of Malaysia have witnessed a marked increase in the number of non-citizens with the influx of foreign workers to satisfy the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. This paper examines how notions of belonging might have changed through the subsequent interaction between citizens and non-citizens in the Klang Valley, the political and economic centre of the country. It focuses specifically on Arab migrants who find themselves i…
The Indian Ocean in a Malay Text: The Hikayat Mareskalek in transregional perspective
This article places the Hikayat Mareskalek in the context of the Indian Ocean and thereby locates the didactic text within a more expansive cultural geography than is customary, namely the Malay world centred largely on contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia. Abdullah al-Misri, the author of the text, was a creole Arab whose biography connects the Malay archipelago to the Indian Ocean. This transregional connection is conveyed in the text through wi…
Creole Hadramis in the Malay world in the 1800s: Fragments of biographies and connected histories
This article explores cultural geographies at the conjunction of transregional and local histories by examining creole Hadrami biographies in the Malay world. It focuses on Abdullah al-Misri and Abdullah Munsyi and a few biographical fragments from their writings. Efforts to create national canons have led to the anachronistic application of national and ethnic categories to these nineteenth-century writers. Through biographical fragments, this a…
Popular Sites of Prayer, Transoceanic Migration, and Cultural Diversity: Exploring the significance ofkeramatin Southeast Asia
Keramatis the Malay word for the graves of notable figures which are popular sites of prayer and dot the social and physical landscapes of much of Muslim Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a whole. The term refers to both people as well as their burial sites. Historically,keramatdrew people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. While the venerated dead also came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, histories, and faiths, they…
The Significance of the Rediscovery of Arabs in the Malay World
This article explores how Arabness has been rediscovered in the Malay world—in this instance Indonesia and Malaysia and, to some extent, Singapore—from the early 1990s to the present. Arabs, mostly of Hadhrami descent, are an intimate part of local culture, given the shared faith of Islam, and yet remain a measure apart because of historical and cultural differences. They constitute significant communities in the region whose histories have been …
For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay)
Research Article| February 01 2005 For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay) Sumit K. Mandal Sumit K. Mandal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google positions (2005) 13 (1): 115–120. https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-13-1-115 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Sumit K. Mandal; For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in…
Transethnic solidarities in a racialised context
Race” is a social construction of considerable but not totalising force in contemporary Malaysia. Transethnic cultural politics have been part of the social landscape though they have been rendered marginal or seemingly invisible. This article asks if indeed they are so incidental and if so why. Racialisation has not eliminated but obscured and concealed transethnic cultural and social solidarities, so much so that there are hardly the words to d…
Reconsidering cultural globalization: The English language in Malaysia
The increased prominence of the English language in Malaysia seems to confirm the view that flows of culture are one-way in the constellation of processes that constitute contemporary globalization. This article argues otherwise by examining local perspectives and engagements with the English language. In the late 1960s Lloyd Fernando argued for the retention rather than the rejection of the study of the colonial language and its literature. For …
Islam and Identity in Eastern Indonesia
Natural Leaders of Native Muslims: Arab Ethnicity and Politics in Java Under Dutch Rule
Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s
This volume covers the long neglected history of Hadhramaut (southern Arabia) during the modern colonial era, together with the history of Hadhrami "colonies" in the Malay world, southern India, the Red Sea, and East Africa. After an introduction placing Hadhramis in the context of other diasporas, there are sections on local and international politics, social stratification and integration, religious and social reform, and economic dynamics. The…
House (Rumah)
My Kampung (Kampungku)
Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s
This volume covers the long neglected history of Hadhramaut (southern Arabia) during the modern colonial era, together with the history of Hadhrami "colonies" in the Malay world, southern India, the Red Sea, and East Africa. After an introduction placing Hadhramis in the context of other diasporas, there are sections on local and international politics, social stratification and integration, religious and social reform, and economic dynamics. The…
Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World
Sumit K. Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated figures defined by econ…
Transethnic solidarities in a racialised context
Race” is a social construction of considerable but not totalising force in contemporary Malaysia. Transethnic cultural politics have been part of the social landscape though they have been rendered marginal or seemingly invisible. This article asks if indeed they are so incidental and if so why. Racialisation has not eliminated but obscured and concealed transethnic cultural and social solidarities, so much so that there are hardly the words to d…
Popular Sites of Prayer, Transoceanic Migration, and Cultural Diversity: Exploring the significance ofkeramatin Southeast Asia
Keramatis the Malay word for the graves of notable figures which are popular sites of prayer and dot the social and physical landscapes of much of Muslim Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a whole. The term refers to both people as well as their burial sites. Historically,keramatdrew people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. While the venerated dead also came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, histories, and faiths, they…
Islam and Identity in Eastern Indonesia
The Significance of the Rediscovery of Arabs in the Malay World
This article explores how Arabness has been rediscovered in the Malay world—in this instance Indonesia and Malaysia and, to some extent, Singapore—from the early 1990s to the present. Arabs, mostly of Hadhrami descent, are an intimate part of local culture, given the shared faith of Islam, and yet remain a measure apart because of historical and cultural differences. They constitute significant communities in the region whose histories have been …
Pathways of the Umma: The Flow of Faith Tourists from Peninsular Malaysia to Aceh in Indonesia
Arabs in the urban social landscapes of Malaysia: Historical Connections and Belonging
The urban landscapes of Malaysia have witnessed a marked increase in the number of non-citizens with the influx of foreign workers to satisfy the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. This paper examines how notions of belonging might have changed through the subsequent interaction between citizens and non-citizens in the Klang Valley, the political and economic centre of the country. It focuses specifically on Arab migrants who find themselves i…
For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay)
Research Article| February 01 2005 For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay) Sumit K. Mandal Sumit K. Mandal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google positions (2005) 13 (1): 115–120. https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-13-1-115 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Sumit K. Mandal; For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in…
My Kampung (Kampungku)
House (Rumah)
My Kampung (Kampungku)
Natural Leaders of Native Muslims: Arab Ethnicity and Politics in Java Under Dutch Rule
Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s
This volume covers the long neglected history of Hadhramaut (southern Arabia) during the modern colonial era, together with the history of Hadhrami "colonies" in the Malay world, southern India, the Red Sea, and East Africa. After an introduction placing Hadhramis in the context of other diasporas, there are sections on local and international politics, social stratification and integration, religious and social reform, and economic dynamics. The…
Islam and Identity in Eastern Indonesia
Reconsidering cultural globalization: The English language in Malaysia
The increased prominence of the English language in Malaysia seems to confirm the view that flows of culture are one-way in the constellation of processes that constitute contemporary globalization. This article argues otherwise by examining local perspectives and engagements with the English language. In the late 1960s Lloyd Fernando argued for the retention rather than the rejection of the study of the colonial language and its literature. For …
Transethnic solidarities in a racialised context
Race” is a social construction of considerable but not totalising force in contemporary Malaysia. Transethnic cultural politics have been part of the social landscape though they have been rendered marginal or seemingly invisible. This article asks if indeed they are so incidental and if so why. Racialisation has not eliminated but obscured and concealed transethnic cultural and social solidarities, so much so that there are hardly the words to d…
For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay)
Research Article| February 01 2005 For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay) Sumit K. Mandal Sumit K. Mandal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google positions (2005) 13 (1): 115–120. https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-13-1-115 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Sumit K. Mandal; For the Record: An Antiwar Protest in…
The Significance of the Rediscovery of Arabs in the Malay World
This article explores how Arabness has been rediscovered in the Malay world—in this instance Indonesia and Malaysia and, to some extent, Singapore—from the early 1990s to the present. Arabs, mostly of Hadhrami descent, are an intimate part of local culture, given the shared faith of Islam, and yet remain a measure apart because of historical and cultural differences. They constitute significant communities in the region whose histories have been …
Creole Hadramis in the Malay world in the 1800s: Fragments of biographies and connected histories
This article explores cultural geographies at the conjunction of transregional and local histories by examining creole Hadrami biographies in the Malay world. It focuses on Abdullah al-Misri and Abdullah Munsyi and a few biographical fragments from their writings. Efforts to create national canons have led to the anachronistic application of national and ethnic categories to these nineteenth-century writers. Through biographical fragments, this a…
Popular Sites of Prayer, Transoceanic Migration, and Cultural Diversity: Exploring the significance ofkeramatin Southeast Asia
Keramatis the Malay word for the graves of notable figures which are popular sites of prayer and dot the social and physical landscapes of much of Muslim Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a whole. The term refers to both people as well as their burial sites. Historically,keramatdrew people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. While the venerated dead also came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, histories, and faiths, they…
The Indian Ocean in a Malay Text: The Hikayat Mareskalek in transregional perspective
This article places the Hikayat Mareskalek in the context of the Indian Ocean and thereby locates the didactic text within a more expansive cultural geography than is customary, namely the Malay world centred largely on contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia. Abdullah al-Misri, the author of the text, was a creole Arab whose biography connects the Malay archipelago to the Indian Ocean. This transregional connection is conveyed in the text through wi…
Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility
A focus on the sites of Asian interaction enables this volume to shed new light on the growing field of diaspora studies. Research on Asia's many diasporas has enriched the older literature on migration to illuminate the links of kinship, affect, trade, and information that connect locations across Asia, and beyond. But where many recent works on particular diasporas have tended to look inwards - at how distinctive diasporic cultures maintained a…
Arabs in the urban social landscapes of Malaysia: Historical Connections and Belonging
The urban landscapes of Malaysia have witnessed a marked increase in the number of non-citizens with the influx of foreign workers to satisfy the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. This paper examines how notions of belonging might have changed through the subsequent interaction between citizens and non-citizens in the Klang Valley, the political and economic centre of the country. It focuses specifically on Arab migrants who find themselves i…
Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World
Sumit K. Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated figures defined by econ…
Taming Babel: Language in the Making of Malaysia, by Rachel Leow
Pathways of the Umma: The Flow of Faith Tourists from Peninsular Malaysia to Aceh in Indonesia
Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World
Sumit K. Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated figures defined by econ…
An Arab Indonesian Singing Preacher, an Islamic Mass Concert, and the Historic Capture of a Public Space in Malaysia
Habib Syech bin Abdul Qodir Assegaf, a well-known Arab Indonesian singing preacher, transposed to Malaysia a model of performing selawat (praise songs) in Islamic mass concerts that captured public spaces in Indonesia. By ‘capture’, this article suggests both the sanctification of a physical space and the promotion of a heightened Islamic religiosity within that space. In 2014, Habib Syech performed in a mass concert held in Putrajaya, the admini…
Charting a Malay-Islamic past: An emerging transnational geography of meaning and the consolidation of an exclusivist identity in Malaysia
This article examines an emerging historical narrative that invokes an exclusivist Malay-Islamic identity in Malaysia through a sacred geography centred on Aceh in Indonesia. The examination is located against the growing sacralisation of space across the world and its often contentious if not violent political outcomes. It considers the role of scholarship on sacred geographies in the face of output on the same subject by an informal expert – a …
Asian Studies and History (17 works) · History (14 works) · Political science (11 works) · Linguistics (10 works) · Malay (10 works) · History (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Politics (8 works)