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Counter-global Cases for Place: Contesting Displacement in Globalising Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area

Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570. geotgb{at}nus.edu.sg.

Alice M. Nah

Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 11 Arts Link 3-10, Singapore 117570. alicenah{at}yahoo.com.

The globalisation of greater Kuala Lumpur over the past two decades is manifested in extensive landscape transformation. This paper considers two groups affected by this 'global' landscaping: urban settlers without registered land title (conventionally termed setinggan or 'squatters'); and West Malaysia's minority indigenous Orang Asli. These groups have frequently been displaced as demand for land has risen and as emergent moral and aesthetic evaluations about suitably 'global' land use have rendered them 'out of place'. Yet the paper considers ways in which their land rights have been asserted within and beyond the courts by articulating and demonstrating in-place identities. Significantly, such socio-legal 'cases for place' have been forged through geographically extensive networks of resources and repertoires. Rather than 'local' resistance to global transformation, therefore, the cases here exemplify emergent 'counter-global' spatialities of power.

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