ABSTRACT
The ethical dilemmas are acutely felt particularly because the anthropology of the contemporary Malays is a field in which outsider ethnographers have come in for a great deal of critical scrutiny. Academic publishers in the West increasingly seek the advice of “native” anthropologists and, perhaps in reaction to a generation of postcolonial critics of Western knowledge about Asia, are sensitive when they produce hostile reviews of manuscripts submitted for publication. The Malaysian example is important to the question of professional anthropological ethics precisely because the challenge to the outside ethnographer is deeply embedded in Malaysian culture and society-among “subalterns,” “the middle classes,” and elites alike. One may, of course, choose to react in different ways to the challenge to the doing of an anthropology of the Malays. Most Malaysian academics will have a range of such contacts, very often former students working in relevant departments and ministries.
