Of resilience and assimilation: contesting spatial dynamics of the Cocos Malays’ dwelling culture in Malaysia

• Main Authors: Hj Mohd Ariffin, Noor Aziah, Rashid, Md. Mizanur
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English; English; English; English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: NA Architecture; NA1 General
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/87043/1/SAUHA-Cocos.Sept.2020.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/87043/2/SAUHA-CONF_SEPT2020.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/87043/3/SAUHA.18Sep2020-1.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/87043/4/SAUHA.18Sep2020.2.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/87043/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

At the turn of the 19th century, a small group of Malay population settled in the small island of Cocos (Keeling) Island of Australia as slaves/labourers for the private coconut plantation of Alexander Hare and then, John Clunies-Ross. The Cocos Malays originated from the descendants of Malay settlers from the British colonies of British Malaya, Singapore, Brunei and the Riau Archipelago of Dutch East Indies. During the 1940s the island became overpopulated and faced a significant shortage of food supply and hence a large number of the population were transhipped initially to Singapore and then on to different parts of North Borneo. This paper focuses on the little-known facet of the architectural history of the material culture of emigrated Cocos Malays, who later settled in Kampung Balung Cocos in Sabah. It would offer a critical interpretation of the Cocos Malays Dwelling Culture in a broader sense and scrutinize how it was developed and transformed through the ages in comparison with the emigrated Cocos Malays, after almost seventy years of separation. The study takes on an anthropological-architectural approach to discern different historical layers that reflected their value and social system, resilience and assimilation and most importantly their imaginary parallel of a homely space in an apparently alienated land (not their place of origin). Moreover, by reading their architectures and settlement as text this paper would reveal the contesting dynamics of their material culture as well as of their everyday resilience to assimilate, which was never recorded in the mainstream discourse on Malay traditional dwelling culture.