What I saw in Malaysia

Presentation

Jeanne Cuisinier talks on the radio about her work as an ethnologist and her experience in Malaya in the 1930s. On her return from her first "field" in Malaya, Jeanne Cuisinier, one of the pioneers of professional ethnology in France, shares her knowledge in a series of radio lectures aimed at the general public. Pedagogical and an excellent narrator, the ethnologist offers listeners an opportunity to discover her profession, to approach the diversity of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula, and to question the racial and colonial prejudices of the time. Behind the apparent lightness of her approach, she leaves us with a unique vision of 1930s Malaysia, real lessons in ethnography and the pleasure of the joyful empathy she practiced in the face of cultural otherness. These texts appear in French for the first time. They have just been published in Kuala Lumpur in English, Malay and Chinese.

Interview

Author

A member of the first generation of professional women ethnologists, Jeanne Cuisinier was born in 1890 and studied Malay at the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes (now Inalco) before leading her very first scientific mission, to Malaysia, in 1932. She devoted herself to the study of Southeast Asian civilizations (Malaysia, Indochinese peninsula, Indonesia) until her death in 1964.

164 pages
16 x 24 cm
Publication: 13/06/2023
ISBN: 9782858314263