Events

Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, and Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore.

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Maznah Mohamad, Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

For a whole generation of Malaysians, “the future” was going to be 2020. In line with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s Vision 2020 (Wawasan 2020), first announced in the early 1990s, 2020 was the year targeted for Malaysia to become a “fully developed” country. While attainment of that target was often reduced to simple GDP growth figures, Vision 2020 was also a touchstone for diverse and competing expectations of modernity. January 2020 is an appropriate time for critical scholarly reflection on three decades of Vision 2020. This is also an important moment for deliberation of Malaysian futures more widely, not least because the original proponent of Vision 2020 is once again prime minister — now as nonagenarian leader of the opposition coalition that defeated the Barisan Nasional in the general elections of 2018.

Co-organized by ARI’s Malaysia Study Group and the Malay Studies Department at NUS, this event brings together a range of scholars of Malaysia to reflect on the history, effects and afterlife of Vision 2020. Vision 2020 undoubtedly became – and remains – a very popular political catchphrase in Malaysia, but what was its genesis? What agenda was it intended to encapsulate and advance? How was it taken up in political and popular practice? What were the regulating effects of the national future it envisioned? And what, if any, purchase does it have today, not only in the political realm but also in terms of the aspirations and horizons of possibility of ordinary Malaysians? These are some of the questions that roundtable participants will be invited to reflect upon.

The roundtable will be chaired by Assoc Prof Maznah Mohamed (National University of Singapore) and comprise the following speakers:

Dr Hwok Aun Lee (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore)
Prof Monika Arnez (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Assoc Prof Sumit Mandal (University of Nottingham Malaysia)
Prof Tim Bunnell (National University of Singapore)

Each speaker will present a short set of reflections, leaving lots of time for wider discussion.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Lee Hwok Aun is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore. He was previously Senior Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies, University of Malaya. He has researched and published works on affirmative action, discrimination, inequality, social protection, labour and education, with a focus on Malaysia, as well as comparative study vis-à-vis South Africa and Southeast Asia. His recent articles have been published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Journal of Southeast Asian Economies, and in books published by ISEAS, Oxford University Press, Edward Elgar and Routledge. He has also served on the Technical Committee of Malaysia’s National Wage Consultative Council, and as a national consultant in the 2013 Malaysia Human Development Report.

Monika Arnez is a former visiting professor and interim holder of the Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies at the University of Passau, ERASMUS guest professor at the University of Copenhagen and guest Professor at Gajah Mada University. She currently works as Assistant Professor of Indonesian and Malay Studies at Hamburg University. She is recipient of two Innovation Fund for Teaching and Learning Awards (2015, 2019). She holds a PhD in Indonesian and Malay Studies from the University of Cologne (2002). As a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute in 2019 she directed the documentary film “Flow of Sand” for the Horizon 2020 Project “Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia” (CRISEA, Work Package Environment). This film shows the controversies and contestations over land reclamation in Malaysia against the backdrop of shifting geopolitical and political priorities.

Sumit Mandal is Associate Professor at the School of Politics, History and International Relations at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. He is a historian who is interested in the transregional architecture of Asian societies. His research has focused on Muslim societies in the Malay world, especially in relation to the Indian Ocean. His interests extend to the cultural politics of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. He is currently working on a book on the transracial cultural politics of Malaysia that is tentatively titled “Cosmopolitan Histories and Racialised Politics: Malaysia in Global Perspective.” His book Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

Tim Bunnell is Professor in the Department of Geography and Director of the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore. Tim’s research concerns issues of urban development in Southeast Asia, and that region’s global connections. His latest books are From World City to the World in One City: Liverpool through Malay Lives (Wiley, 2016), and Urban Asias: Essays on Futurity Past and Present (Jovis, 2018—co-edited with Daniel P.S. Goh). Tim’s doctoral work in the 1990s focused on the Multimedia Super Corridor, the high-tech urban centrepiece of Dr Mahathir’s quest for a “fully developed” Malaysia by the year 2020.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you complete the form below to RSVP.