Coastal History by Geoffrey K Pakiam
Paper presented at 'Global Commodity Frontiers in Comparative Historical Context' Workshop, 9-10 ... more Paper presented at 'Global Commodity Frontiers in Comparative Historical Context' Workshop, 9-10 December 2016.
Agricultural History by Geoffrey K Pakiam
Agricultural History, 2021
If the long-term economic fundamentals behind tropical agricultural production generally favor sm... more If the long-term economic fundamentals behind tropical agricultural production generally favor small-scale family-run farms, why have oil palms in Southeast Asia been dominated by large-scale farming arrangements since their introduction? This article explores various reasons for the anomaly through evidence drawn largely from recently unearthed archival material in Johor, Peninsular Malaysia's southernmost state. Historians have usually stressed post–harvest coordination challenges stemming from a combination of quality requirements, processing cost economies, and crop-specific time sensitivity. On balance, evidence suggests that crop coordination challenges were the chief obstacle to Malayan smallholder involvement in oil palms before the 1950s. Unlike for estates, however, coordination problems for smallholders were more likely underwritten by the draw of competing crops, labor demands, and subsistence cultures. Given these challenges, local dealer participation was critical to fostering workable smallholder oil palm initiatives.
Australian Economic History Review, 2020
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aehr.12198
Johor: Abode of Development, 2020
Chapter 3 of Johor: Abode of Development?, edited by Francis E. Hutchinson and Serina Rahman, Sin... more Chapter 3 of Johor: Abode of Development?, edited by Francis E. Hutchinson and Serina Rahman, Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, 2020, pp. 73-106.
Johor: Abode of Development?, 2020
Chapter 2 of Johor: Abode of Development?, edited by Francis E. Hutchinson and Serina Rahman, Sin... more Chapter 2 of Johor: Abode of Development?, edited by Francis E. Hutchinson and Serina Rahman, Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, 2020, pp. 44-72.
ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute Economics Working Paper No. 2019 - 05.
Paper presented at the Agricultural History Society's 2019 Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., 6 Jun... more Paper presented at the Agricultural History Society's 2019 Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., 6 June 2019.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• Despite decades of industrialization, Johor remains an agricultural powerh... more EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• Despite decades of industrialization, Johor remains an agricultural powerhouse.
• The state is Peninsular Malaysia’s largest contributor to agricultural gross domestic product, and its official agricultural productivity is Malaysia’s third highest.
• Johor’s agricultural strengths lie primarily in product specialization, namely the farming of oil palms, various fruits and vegetables, poultry, pigs, cut flowers, and ornamental fish.
• Johor’s production clusters have taken decades, if not centuries, to build up their regional dominance. Urbanization, often blamed for diminishing agriculture’s importance, has actually helped drive Johor’s farm growth, even until the present day.
• Johor’s agricultural sector will persist for at least another decade, but may become even more specialized.
Ph.D. Thesis, Department of History, SOAS (University of London). Defended 2018., 2017
As part of efforts to mitigate the oil palm industry’s harmful impacts in Southeast Asia, scholar... more As part of efforts to mitigate the oil palm industry’s harmful impacts in Southeast Asia, scholars have begun showing more interest in smallholder farming arrangements. However, the reasons why most smallholders in Malaya have shunned the crop since its introduction have not been carefully investigated to date. Historians have typically claimed that oil palms exhibited processing cost economies that favoured large-scale farming arrangements. The history of Malaya, with particular reference to Johor, a major site of oil palm cultivation since the 1920s, suggests a different argument.
This thesis contends that Malayan smallholders spurned oil palms because of high opportunity costs, grounded in the counter-attractions of other tree crops. Hevea rubber was especially alluring, with its relatively high cash returns. Similarly important to smallholders, but barely acknowledged by historians, was the coconut palm. First, it flourished in soils where rubber floundered. Second, prior to the oil palm’s arrival, coconut palm products were already domestically popular. Consequently, Malayan processors and traders, key influences mediating demand and supply, had little incentive to encourage smallholders to channel labour into oil palms, when estates began adopting the tree. Third, labour requirements for oil palms were more exacting than those for other tree crop mainstays, including coconut palms. Fourth, government policies affecting the cultivation, processing and domestic consumption of oil palm products helped restrain small-scale involvement, whereas official support for smallholder coconut farming was more forthcoming. These opportunity costs ensured that small-scale oil palm cultivation remained muted, despite significant policy changes favouring smallholders during the 1950s and 1960s.
This thesis contributes to the economic history of Southeast Asia through a detailed examination of oil and coconut palm farming, two important pursuits neglected by historical scholarship. It stresses the significance of a set of overlooked economic actors, incorporating cultural considerations in the process. Lastly, it makes novel analytic links between pre-colonial, British, Japanese, and independence-era polities in Malaya.
For the panel entitled 'New research on the economic history of Southeast Asia', ASEASUK Conferen... more For the panel entitled 'New research on the economic history of Southeast Asia', ASEASUK Conference, SOAS, University of London, 16 Sept 2016.
Paper presented for the panel entitled 'Struggles for Control over Commodity Production: Southeas... more Paper presented for the panel entitled 'Struggles for Control over Commodity Production: Southeast Asian Plantations, Smallholders, Bosses, and Workers', European Social Science History Conference, 31 March 2016
Presentation at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 11 Nov 2014.
Poster presented at Oils and Fats International Congress 2014, 5-7 November, Kuala Lumpur Convent... more Poster presented at Oils and Fats International Congress 2014, 5-7 November, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Malaysia
Food History by Geoffrey K Pakiam
MUSE SG, 2023
What were the circumstances that shaped our eating habits and taste preferences in the 20th centu... more What were the circumstances that shaped our eating habits and taste preferences in the 20th century? We trace the rise in popularity of laksa, ice kachang and Milo in Singapore's food culture. Ice blocks for keeping fish fresh being loaded onto lorries, 1960s.
Long before COVID-19’s spread, Southeast Asia was already struck by the strange ailment known as ... more Long before COVID-19’s spread, Southeast Asia was already struck by the strange ailment known as food heritage fever. Accusations of cultural appropriation have been fuelled by concerns that globally connected urban centres like Singapore are more adept than their neighbours at commodifying food heritage for soft power and tourist dollars.
Less discussed but equally important is the relationship between consumer brands and Southeast Asia’s food heritage. It is now commonplace to see ‘home-cooked’ ‘Asian’ foods being marketed under established brand names overseas, whether in the form of pre-made spice mixes or restaurant chain offerings steeped in nostalgia. But what about Asian food cultures based on established Western mass consumer brands? How does Western mass manufactured food become Asian national heritage? We can explore these questions in the Southeast Asian context through the curious case of Milo Dinosaur – a concoction whose identity rests on a brand belonging to Nestlé, the world’s largest food company.
Culinary Biographies seeks to examine Singapore's intangible food heritage from a longue durée pe... more Culinary Biographies seeks to examine Singapore's intangible food heritage from a longue durée perspective. Spanning Singapore's documented 700-year history, this study will trace the pathways through which ingredients, techniques, and regional culinary philosophies converged in Singapore. The project will demonstrate how these conjunctures established crucial precedents for some of Singapore's most iconic food offerings, mapping out the everyday historical contexts in which the island's cuisines emerged and evolved. Through food, the study will encourage interest in Singapore's social history among residents of different generations. Our investigation seeks to construct the 'culinary biographies' of seven food items: fish-head curry, ice kachang, laksa, biryani, Milo dinosaur, sweet potato lemak, and betel quid. We combine a focus on cuisine with the novel concept that all food items have socially embedded 'lives' that change over time, revealing the long-term dynamics and historical underpinnings of Singapore's food heritage. Each biography will trace the diversity of locations where each offering and its predecessors were prepared, the knowledge and practices of their creators and consumers, and each food's underlying material realities. In doing so, our framework aims to consolidate understandings of how tangible and intangible notions of heritage can be mutually reinforcing.
Culinary Biographies is a two-year collaborative research project that examined Singapore’s intan... more Culinary Biographies is a two-year collaborative research project that examined Singapore’s intangible food heritage from a longue durée perspective. Between October 2018 and October 2020, Singapore’s documented 700-year history was surveyed, tracing the pathways through which ingredients, culinary techniques and regional culinary philosophies converged in Singapore. We found that many of these conjunctures established crucial precedents for some of Singapore’s most iconic food offerings.
Our study makes three key contributions to the dialogue surrounding Singapore’s food history and heritage
● Singapore’s food offerings are multi-layered historical artefacts that resist cultural ownership and monopolisation.
● Food history offers an accessible yet nuanced avenue for recovering a people’s history of Singapore.
● From a 700-year perspective, Singapore’s iconic edibles were most heavily influenced by creative and destructive forces during the twentieth century.
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Coastal History by Geoffrey K Pakiam
See https://commoditiesofempire.org.uk/publications/working-papers/working-paper-30/
Agricultural History by Geoffrey K Pakiam
• Despite decades of industrialization, Johor remains an agricultural powerhouse.
• The state is Peninsular Malaysia’s largest contributor to agricultural gross domestic product, and its official agricultural productivity is Malaysia’s third highest.
• Johor’s agricultural strengths lie primarily in product specialization, namely the farming of oil palms, various fruits and vegetables, poultry, pigs, cut flowers, and ornamental fish.
• Johor’s production clusters have taken decades, if not centuries, to build up their regional dominance. Urbanization, often blamed for diminishing agriculture’s importance, has actually helped drive Johor’s farm growth, even until the present day.
• Johor’s agricultural sector will persist for at least another decade, but may become even more specialized.
This thesis contends that Malayan smallholders spurned oil palms because of high opportunity costs, grounded in the counter-attractions of other tree crops. Hevea rubber was especially alluring, with its relatively high cash returns. Similarly important to smallholders, but barely acknowledged by historians, was the coconut palm. First, it flourished in soils where rubber floundered. Second, prior to the oil palm’s arrival, coconut palm products were already domestically popular. Consequently, Malayan processors and traders, key influences mediating demand and supply, had little incentive to encourage smallholders to channel labour into oil palms, when estates began adopting the tree. Third, labour requirements for oil palms were more exacting than those for other tree crop mainstays, including coconut palms. Fourth, government policies affecting the cultivation, processing and domestic consumption of oil palm products helped restrain small-scale involvement, whereas official support for smallholder coconut farming was more forthcoming. These opportunity costs ensured that small-scale oil palm cultivation remained muted, despite significant policy changes favouring smallholders during the 1950s and 1960s.
This thesis contributes to the economic history of Southeast Asia through a detailed examination of oil and coconut palm farming, two important pursuits neglected by historical scholarship. It stresses the significance of a set of overlooked economic actors, incorporating cultural considerations in the process. Lastly, it makes novel analytic links between pre-colonial, British, Japanese, and independence-era polities in Malaya.
Food History by Geoffrey K Pakiam
Less discussed but equally important is the relationship between consumer brands and Southeast Asia’s food heritage. It is now commonplace to see ‘home-cooked’ ‘Asian’ foods being marketed under established brand names overseas, whether in the form of pre-made spice mixes or restaurant chain offerings steeped in nostalgia. But what about Asian food cultures based on established Western mass consumer brands? How does Western mass manufactured food become Asian national heritage? We can explore these questions in the Southeast Asian context through the curious case of Milo Dinosaur – a concoction whose identity rests on a brand belonging to Nestlé, the world’s largest food company.
Our study makes three key contributions to the dialogue surrounding Singapore’s food history and heritage
● Singapore’s food offerings are multi-layered historical artefacts that resist cultural ownership and monopolisation.
● Food history offers an accessible yet nuanced avenue for recovering a people’s history of Singapore.
● From a 700-year perspective, Singapore’s iconic edibles were most heavily influenced by creative and destructive forces during the twentieth century.
See https://commoditiesofempire.org.uk/publications/working-papers/working-paper-30/
• Despite decades of industrialization, Johor remains an agricultural powerhouse.
• The state is Peninsular Malaysia’s largest contributor to agricultural gross domestic product, and its official agricultural productivity is Malaysia’s third highest.
• Johor’s agricultural strengths lie primarily in product specialization, namely the farming of oil palms, various fruits and vegetables, poultry, pigs, cut flowers, and ornamental fish.
• Johor’s production clusters have taken decades, if not centuries, to build up their regional dominance. Urbanization, often blamed for diminishing agriculture’s importance, has actually helped drive Johor’s farm growth, even until the present day.
• Johor’s agricultural sector will persist for at least another decade, but may become even more specialized.
This thesis contends that Malayan smallholders spurned oil palms because of high opportunity costs, grounded in the counter-attractions of other tree crops. Hevea rubber was especially alluring, with its relatively high cash returns. Similarly important to smallholders, but barely acknowledged by historians, was the coconut palm. First, it flourished in soils where rubber floundered. Second, prior to the oil palm’s arrival, coconut palm products were already domestically popular. Consequently, Malayan processors and traders, key influences mediating demand and supply, had little incentive to encourage smallholders to channel labour into oil palms, when estates began adopting the tree. Third, labour requirements for oil palms were more exacting than those for other tree crop mainstays, including coconut palms. Fourth, government policies affecting the cultivation, processing and domestic consumption of oil palm products helped restrain small-scale involvement, whereas official support for smallholder coconut farming was more forthcoming. These opportunity costs ensured that small-scale oil palm cultivation remained muted, despite significant policy changes favouring smallholders during the 1950s and 1960s.
This thesis contributes to the economic history of Southeast Asia through a detailed examination of oil and coconut palm farming, two important pursuits neglected by historical scholarship. It stresses the significance of a set of overlooked economic actors, incorporating cultural considerations in the process. Lastly, it makes novel analytic links between pre-colonial, British, Japanese, and independence-era polities in Malaya.
Less discussed but equally important is the relationship between consumer brands and Southeast Asia’s food heritage. It is now commonplace to see ‘home-cooked’ ‘Asian’ foods being marketed under established brand names overseas, whether in the form of pre-made spice mixes or restaurant chain offerings steeped in nostalgia. But what about Asian food cultures based on established Western mass consumer brands? How does Western mass manufactured food become Asian national heritage? We can explore these questions in the Southeast Asian context through the curious case of Milo Dinosaur – a concoction whose identity rests on a brand belonging to Nestlé, the world’s largest food company.
Our study makes three key contributions to the dialogue surrounding Singapore’s food history and heritage
● Singapore’s food offerings are multi-layered historical artefacts that resist cultural ownership and monopolisation.
● Food history offers an accessible yet nuanced avenue for recovering a people’s history of Singapore.
● From a 700-year perspective, Singapore’s iconic edibles were most heavily influenced by creative and destructive forces during the twentieth century.
View paper here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GB4C496YFH6QPRR2ZUSW/full?target=10.1080/13639811.2020.1735155
• As with built heritage, there are significant political, economic, and cultural sensitivities when elevating intangible cultural heritage through state channels within Southeast Asia. This is especially so in the case of food heritage.
• Food heritage promotion has usually been associated with preserving traditional 'homemade' items from cultural homogenization and globalization processes.
• There has been less attention paid to more recent forms of food heritage in Southeast Asia where multinational corporations influence the identity, ownership and commodification of food from the outset.
• The growing popularity across Southeast Asia of the Milo Dinosaur beverage highlights this recent form and its inherent sensitivities.
Today’s heritage food offerings are often portrayed as having charted a path from humble domestic beginnings to large outward-looking enterprises. In contrast, the Milo Dinosaur has its origins in the localisation of a multinational beverage brand, involving consumers and cooks from all walks of life.
The National Museum has made the transcript and video of the talk freely available online:
Full transcript: https://www.nationalmuseum.sg/-/media/nms2017/documents/historiasg-transcripts/historiasg-lecture-6-14-sep-2019--geoffrey-pakiam-final.pdf?la=en
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2bFSfDXIII
• Despite agriculture’s relative decline, the sector exerts a disproportionate influence on Malaysian politics due to malapportionment in the distribution of parliamentary seats.
• Agricultural policymaking in Malaysia is diffuse and overlapping. Three key ministries are involved, focusing on the improvement of livelihoods through structural transformations.
• Recent political instability has led to expectations of a new general election once the Covid-19 pandemic is under control. Agriculture is expected to feature prominently in future election manifestos.
• Prevailing tendencies towards Malay-centric politics make it hard for policymakers to overcome longstanding challenges facing Malaysia’s agricultural sector.
• Domestic resistance to the idea of the tax has been muted. Public acquiescence rests
on the fact that such a measure was overdue, as well as the perceived success of SSB taxes outside Malaysia in trimming sugar consumption.
• The tax is likely to reduce Malaysia’s sugar intake from pre-packaged SSBs in the near future.
• While the tax is a significant milestone for the Pakatan Harapan-led administration, its health-related impacts could be reinforced through refinements to its design and a more supportive policy ecosystem.
parliamentary session of 2019 presents a valuable opportunity for the Pakatan Harapan-led government to secure the political support of Felda settlers in the period
leading up to the 15th General Election.
· Although the economic difficulties facing Felda settlers are not new, Felda’s financial losses under the Najib Razak administration are historically unparalleled, and have left the agency and its settlers in a precarious situation.
· The White Paper can be seen as a test of the Mahathir administration’s resolve to return Felda to its original goal of providing comfortable livelihoods for select groups of (mostly Malay) villagers, as opposed to enabling the corporate enrichment of politically-favoured elites.
· Recent statements by new leadership in Felda, FGV Holdings, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs suggest that any attempts to improve Felda’s situation for settlers will avoid impinging on FGV Holdings’ own commercial rehabilitation as a publicly-listed agri-business giant.
See https://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/publication/2385
• Pakatan Harapan’s electoral victory raises questions about the direction, pacing, and coherence of Malaysia’s future economic policies, not least within the agricultural sector.
• Concerns regarding the likely neglect of agricultural production under a Mahathir-led administration are overstated, and overlook previous attempts to mitigate agriculture’s relative decline in economic significance.
• Broadly speaking, the new federal administration’s agricultural priorities are likely to revolve around enhancing regional development, improving agriculture’s working conditions, and reforming the paddy sector.
• Although the new administration appears keen to rejuvenate pre-existing agricultural schemes, farm work’s persistent lack of attractiveness for citizens, looming federal budget constraints, and moral hazards stemming from long-term administrative deconcentration may impede progress with agricultural reforms.
• Demographic differences between FELDA-occupied parliamentary constituencies make it difficult to conceive of FELDA settlers as a coherent, disproportionately large, pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) voting bloc.
• FELDA schemes are distributed in a highly uneven manner among affected constituencies.
• Many FELDA constituencies are also heterogeneous in voter ethnic composition. In 2013, one-third of FELDA wards had less than 60 per cent ethnic Malay voters.
• BN’s vote share has fallen significantly in nearly three-quarters of all FELDA-occupied constituencies since 2004, including rural seats harbouring above-average numbers of FELDA schemes.
• Going into the 14th Malaysian general election, FELDA constituency voting behaviour appears to be shaped mostly by each constituency’s ethnic mix of voters, the peculiarities of individual parliamentary candidates, and the likelihood of three-cornered fights between parties from Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan, and Gagasan Sejahtera.
Singapore. Long characterised as authoritarian in popular culture, the Singaporean
political context is actually far from straightforward. State-led industrial policy in favour
of high-tech economic activities has created some opportunities for social change. At
the same time, conflicts within society itself have limited any sudden moves towards a
more liberal politics. Many of these pre-existing conflicts have spilled over onto the
minimally-regulated realms of the Internet, which in turn has accentuated the multidimensional nature of social struggle in Singapore. These developments have
overshadowed the Internet's ability to unite previously marginalised individuals across
geographies. Such a situation is likely to pose little threat to the continuation of stateled
development in Singapore, even as the state continues to offer a wider variety of
channels through which social dissent can be articulated.