ABSTRACT
What is modernity? What is development? How are tribal communities affected by modernization, the process that initiates and establishes modernity? These are the questions I intend to address in this chapter. I will first outline some of the theories that have inspired and guided development plans and projects in Malaysia, particularly for its tribal minorities like the Menraq. I will then provide an overview of Malaysia’s development policies and programmes and its economic transformation from a producer of primary products to a semi-industrialized nation. This overview will give a broad national context to the analysis of Menraq encounter with modernity to be presented in the following chapters; it will also help to elucidate relevant concepts such as modernity, development, and the ‘Green Revolution’ to be met with in my analysis.
