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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the identity ambassador role of the Kadazans in Sabah, Malaysian-Borneo, to realign the State's position on the topic of hybrid identities and promote ethnic stasis in the diverse and complex Sabahan landscape.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I address the shifting categories of identity and ethnic belonging in the Sabahan landscape using the Kadazan as a case study. The Kadazans of Sabah, Malaysian, are atypical to Muslim Natives (Bumiputera) given their indigenous, Christian and inter-ethnic identities. Feeling vastly superior in their cultural hybridity, the Kadazans are used to navigating the terrains of their ambiguous identities to actively (re)construct and project them anew. They seek to inform the State therefore in how to reimagine the ethnic landscape outside of the perceived rigidity and bias in the Malay-Muslim frame.

However, the expert position of the Kadazan only serves to highlight their own beleaguered position of fighting the State from the margins. Politically weakened and struggling to share resources with other locals and migrants, Kadazans was once at the centre of Sabahan society. By championing ethnic recognition for hybrid identities and rejecting Malay homogeneity, Kadazans refresh their image and gain support to create a corridor of power from which they can influence the current identity discourse in Sabah. In all these, the 'Sabahan' identity appears from the background to become the logical solution in which all can utilise to obtain equilibrium within their identity complexes.

This paper is based on the author's thesis called 'The Kadazan paradox', where she explores why the Kadazans no longer truly belong as 'Kadazan'. Her thesis considers the relationship between ethnohistory, local identities and Native categories and focus on how 'place' and 'identities' (Tapp 2010) reify a certain sense of belonging.