Changes in a Malay Village, 1970-2000: Disappearance of Ecological Determinants

Abstract

The author conducted a series of studies in a Malay village in Kelantan, on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, in 1970/71, 1977, 1984, 1991, and 1992. The present paper is a report of the most recent research in the same village in 2000. Here, the author describes the changes that have taken place in the past thirty years, focusing on economic activities, population, and household composition.
The village was established around 1890 on the left bank of the Kelantan River. People engaged in paddy cultivation in the rain-fed fields and in small-scale rubber tapping in the early days, and later they turned successively to tobacco cultivation, migratory labor in Singapore, and paid work outside the village. With these changes in the means of subsistence, the population of the village seems to have reached its maximum. Household composition, which formerly adapted flexibly to the life-style of a frontier settlement, has now become more standardized, affected by a rise in the age at marriage, a decrease in divorce, and the introduction of urban ways of thinking.