The Malay-language term for the indigenous minority peoples of Peninsular Malaysia, “Orang Asli”, covers at least 19 culturally and linguistically distinct subgroups. This volume is a comprehensive survey of current understandings of Malaysia’s Orang Asli communities (including contributions from scholars within the Orang Asli community), looking at language, archaeology, history, religion and issues of education, health and social change, as well as questions of land rights and control of resources. Until about 1960 most Orang Asli lived in small camps and villages in the coastal and interior forests, or in isolated rural areas, and made their living by various combinations of hunting, gathering, fishing, agriculture, and trading forest products. By the end of the century, logging, economic development projects such as oil palm plantations, and resettlement programmes have displaced many Orang Asli communities and disrupted long-established social and cultural practices. The chapters in the present volume show Orang Asli responses to the challenges posed by a rapidly changing world. The authors also highlight the importance of Orang Asli studies for the anthropological understanding of small-scale indigenous societies in general.

"This book examines the role of women empowerment and well-being for inclusive economic growth"--

To date, most studies of Malaysia’s aboriginal people, the Orang Asli, have studied the community in either the rural or forest settings. This book, however, outlines the dynamics of Orang Asli migration to Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia’s most urbanised region – and explores the lived experiences of these individuals in the urban space. The book begins by charting the history of the Orang Asli under British colonial rule followed by the community’s experiences under the Malaysian government, in an attempt to provide a deeper understanding of the economic and social complexities facing the Orang Asli today. Based on extensive original research, the book goes on to discuss the interesting changes taking place among urban Orang Asli migrants with regards to gender dynamics, while exploring the unique ways in which these urban indigenous migrants maintain close links with their home communities in the rural spaces of Peninsular Malaysia. The book concludes by assessing how research on the urban Orang Asli fits into broader studies of urban and contemporary indigeneity in both Malaysia and abroad.

Vulnerability is a term that can be studied from different dimensions – the social, legal, economic and political. This book explores these dimensions and captures the vulnerabilities of particular groups in Malaysia – the transgenders, women, children, aboriginal and indigenous people, the rural fisherfolk, the stateless and the economically disempowered. Mirroring the spectrum of »vulnerable groups« defined by the United Nations Global Compact in the 2016 Sustainable Development Goals Report, this book highlights the unique features that portray vulnerabilities – including gender, age, indigeneity, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. The case studies of vulnerable groups in Malaysia – a multicultural, diverse plural Asian state – would be appreciated by both undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics, researchers and policy-makers, keen in Asian Studies and vulnerabilities.