1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910828517403321

Autore

Baxstrom Richard

Titolo

Houses in motion : the experience of place and the problem of belief in urban Malaysia / / Richard Baxstrom

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Stanford, Calif., : Stanford University Press, c2008

ISBN

0-8047-7586-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (304 p.)

Collana

Cultural memory in the present

Disciplina

307.7609595

Soggetti

Sociology, Urban - Malaysia

Urban policy - Malaysia

Islam and politics - Malaysia

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-275) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Founding of Brickfields and the Prewar Development of Kuala Lumpur -- 2. The Malayan Emergency, Islamic Reform, and the Trajectory of Urban Governmentality in Kuala Lumpur -- 3. Law, Justice, Disappearance: The Experience of Place in a Time of Radical Transformation -- 4. Strangers, Counterfeiters, and Gangsters: Figures of Belonging and the Problem of Belief -- 5. Ambivalent Encounters in the City: Islam, Hinduism, and Urban Governmentality -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Houses in Motion: The Experience of Place and the Problem of Belief in Urban Malaysia is about the transformation of urban space and the reordering of the demographic character of Brickfields, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Kuala Lumpur. Baxstrom offers an ethnographic account of the complex attempts on the part of the state and the community to reconcile techno-rational conceptions of law, development, and city planning with local experiences of place, justice, relatedness, and possibilities for belief in an aggressively changing world. The book combines classic methods of anthropological research and an engagement with the work of theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and Henri Lefebvre, and moves beyond previous studies of Southeast Asian cities by linking larger conceptual issues of ethics, belief, and



experience to the concrete trajectories of everyday urban life in the region.