Everyday Life in Times of Crisis: Ordinary Chinese in Colonial Malaya and Postcolonial Malaysia 1930–1969, Progress Review Huhe Han

Progress Review Huhe Han.

This doctoral thesis will examine the everyday lives of ordinary Chinese individuals in colonial Malaya and postcolonial Malaysia between 1930 and 1969, a period marked by recurring crises—the Great Depression (1930s), Japanese occupation (1937/41–1945), the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), a and the communal tensions surrounding Malayan independence (1957), the formation of Malaysia and beyond (1963–1969). Moving beyond top-down narratives that have long framed Chinese communities through the lens of a "Chinese problem"—as security threats, unassimilable outsiders, or political dilemmas—this study will shift focus to ground-level experiences and agency. And this study views the above decades as a prolonged “regime of crisis” and asks: how did ordinary Chinese navigate successive crises in colonial Malaya and post-colonial Malaysia, 1930–1969? Methodologically, this study puts national archives from Malaysia, Singapore and the UK into dialogue with Chinese vernacular sources such as qiaopi (remittance letters), multilingual newspapers and oral histories. By foregrounding the interplay between state power and everyday practice, this study intends to challenge monolithic conceptions of "Chineseness" and offer a more nuanced understanding of how protracted crises shaped vulnerability, resilience, and community formation in modern Malaysia.

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