ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the specific context of the racialised landscape of the nation of Malaysia, so that the race factor of architecture and urban space can be contextualised. Malaysia is a classic plural society, although its ethnic diversity is unique in that the major ethnic groups are numerically more balanced compared with other multiethnic countries. The race ideology, construction of ethnic differences and spatial division which intensify the politics of difference and ethnic exclusion are part of the British colonial legacy. Another contributor to separate the Malays from other ethnic groups was the Malay Reservations. The rubber boom of 1910 prompted an unhealthy competition for land, and the dispossession of Malay peasants and smallholders. The ambiguity around the inclusion and exclusion of the non-Malay and non-Muslim cultures constituted the key predicament of the construction of the modern Malaysian nation and built environment.
