TY - BOOK ID - 138183192 TI - Revisiting colonialism and colonial labour : the South Asian working class in British Malaya AU - Raja, Sivachandralingam Sundara AU - Raymond, Shivalinggam PY - 2024 SN - 1003304311 1003304311 1000918203 9781003304319 9781000918205 PB - Abingdon, England : Routledge, DB - UniCat KW - Foreign workers, South Asian KW - Imperialism KW - Labor KW - History. KW - Social aspects. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:138183192 AB - "This book argues that the prevailing view of colonialism - that it was a negative and destructive phenomenon - needs to be rethought. It focuses on the experiences of the South Indian working class, large numbers of which came to Malaya in the early years of the twentieth century, emigrating from socially, economically, and environmentally inhospitable south India. It examines the opportunities which colonialism presented for these people, highlighting also the British approach to colonialism in Malaya, an approach which emphasised conservativism and tradition, and which protected the interests of the Malay aristocrat classes and, by extension, the Malay masses in order to compensate for European economic dominance and the influx of a non-Malay labour force. Overall, the book demonstrates that the South Indians, a class whose identity, social existence, and prospects were inextricably linked to imperial processes, benefitted from colonialism, and should be viewed as an active transnational entity within a constructive system, rather than as passive victims of repressive, destructive forces"-- ER -