The Anti-Petroleum Complex Movement in Pengerang, Malaysia (2011-2015)

The aim of the study is to understand the anti-petroleum complex movement in Pengerang, Malaysia from 2011-2015. I am interested in how and why people of different ethnic and class backgrounds differentially experienced and responded to the petro-development and environmental change. The thesis is divided into three parts. First, in the “Planning” chapter, I show how the development economic theory of “middle-income trap” traveled to Malaysia and informed the long term national development plans of Malaysia. I argue that the “New Economic Model/Economic Transformation Programme” proposed by the Malaysian government systematically excluded rural farmers and fishermen, deprived them of their land and sea, and legitimated the process by conforming to environmental risk assessment and land expropriation procedures. Second, in the “Resistance” chapter, I show how the constitutionally defined “non-indigenous” rural Malaysian Chinese took advantage of the political conjuncture before a general election and turned some local anti-petroleum complex grievances in a ruling coalition’s stronghold into a toppling national movement, and how the momentum of the movement dissipated due to the structural constraints the actors failed to overcome. Third, in the “Consequence” chapter, I examine the spatial dimension of the state and capital’s deployment of power after the struggle, and how the new natural and social spaces affected people and their life choices. This study adds to the Malaysian social movement studies by suggesting that we should take the dialectic relationship between ethnicity, class, and environment in social movements more seriously and attend to the particular set of chances and limitations it poses, and that we should not underestimate rural population’s potential as active sociopolitical actors.