Paper short abstract:

A practise-led enquiry of Penan youth's engagement with deforestation in Malaysia. Foreshadowed by the state and corporate exploitation of commodified resources, this (re)search explicitly explores socio-ecological frameworks of methodological practises, pivoting embodied sensorial knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

In 1991, a prominent voice in Malaysian environmental politics called on the 'North' to recognise its consumption responsibilities on the tropical forest products, employing the notion of Eco-Imperialism. Furthermore, the tiers of government shifted the discursive contours of the debate from a political to a technologic and bureaucratic rhetoric, with a contemporary result of over 90% of the primary forest of Sarawak being logged. In examining Enrique Dussell's (2006) notions of the 'South', the complexities of the global interplay of investment of the (commodified) forests of Sarawak foreshadow the interplay of state and corporate exploitation of resources, with tangible effects on the inhabiting communities. This practise-led (re)search exploring Karl Marx's 'Alienation of Nature' and Nicholas Mirzoeff's (2014) notions of 'Visualisation of the Anthropocene', examines the field site of Penan villages in the post-logged forests of Sarawak, Malaysia. The historical analysis of the global debate and representation is the catalyst for the enquiry's employment of Countervisuality as the methodological framework. The dissemination of knowledge within the Anthropocene poses questions to the textual dominance, and in acknowledging 'visualising' as material power, explores the potentials of embodied sensorial knowledge for its material quality. Sight. Sound. Watching. Listening. Exploring the interplay of governance on the first generation of Penan individuals born after the primary forest was logged, this enquiry reflexively questions Anthropocentric enquiries and in returning to the site of the 'modern environmental movement', questions the de-materialised commodification of knowledge, as an example of alienation. A response.