Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the contribution and challenges of the non-Muslim minority group and its urban spaces in a majority Muslim country which is lacking in the current academic discourse. It concerns the relation between architecture, urban space and cultural identity. It has two major lines of inquiry. First, it asks how the factor of race has taken shape in buildings and urban forms in colonial and postcolonial Kuala Lumpur (KL) from the 1880s to 1980s; and how, in turn, these buildings and built forms helped to further shape race, identity and power relations. It traces the technologies of power embedded in the ever-changing form of racial strategies and colonialism. Second, it traces the negotiation and contestation on the part of the Chinese community and the social struggle of this minority group in the 1990s. It examines how the Chinese used their marginal urban spaces.