Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the geographies of exclusion that have resulted from a master-planned capital city project, which exemplifies Oren Yiftachel's framework of the 'dark side of planning', developed to theorize the role of planning in the marginalization of Palestinians by the Israeli state.

Paper long abstract:

In 1999, Putrajaya replaced Kuala Lumpur as the administrative capital of Malaysia. The ex nihilo master-planned city was designed strategically to project an ‘authentic’ Muslim identity and recover a sense of pre-colonial Malay dominance. Secular government buildings feature arches and domes inspired by the ‘great’ Islamic civilizations, while bridges, sidewalks, and fountains are decorated with recognizably Islamic ornamentation. Putrajaya has several mega-mosques located in highly visible places in the city that were built with state support, as well as two dozen mosques and suraus. In contrast, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, who constitute over 40% of Malaysia’s population, have neither formal religious amenities such as places of worship nor symbolic representation in civic architecture. In the context of rising Islamism and widespread affirmative action policies designed to address enduring inequalities experienced by Malays, this paper investigates how and why Putrajaya was conceived as an ‘Islamic city’ in the 1990s, and to what effect. It critically examines the various mechanisms used to ‘Islamicize’ the capital and tracks the over 20-year struggle of Putrajaya’s small Hindu community to establish a national temple in the city.