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The Development and Status of Human Geography in Malaysia

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The Development and Status of Human Geography in Malaysia Japanese Journal of Human Geography 60―6（2008） Th e Development and Status of Human Geography in Malaysia LEE Boon Th ong I Introduction II The historical proclivity towards human geography III Trends in teaching interests in human geography in UM IV Research and publication in human geography in UM V The state of human geography in Malaysia VI Some concluding comments Keywords : Geography, Human Geography, curriculum, research, publications. I Introduction There are six universities in Malaysia offering courses in geography. However, when the subject of human geography, or for that matter, geography as a discipline, is broached, there are effec- tively only three tertiary institutions that offer the subject to undergraduate students. These three tertiary institutions are : firstly, the Department of Geography, University of Malaya（ UM）, located in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city ; secondly, the Geography Programme in Universiti Ke- bangsaan Malaysia（ UKM） or the National University of Malaysia, located in Bangi, just outside Kuala Lumpur ; and thirdly, the Geography Section in Universiti Sains Malaysia（ USM） in Penang in the north of the country.（ USM was formerly known as University of Pulau Pinang）. A fourth university that offers some courses in human geography is Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris（ UPSI）, a for- mer teachers’ training institute―turned university in 1997. However, given its orientation towards teacher training and education to fulfil the national aspiration to have graduate teachers in all schools, only basic human geography courses are conducted. Two other universities, Universiti Malaysia Sabah（ UMS）, which was set up in 1994 and Universiti Utara Malaysia（ UUM）, set up in 1984 offer a token course on population resource and geography of tourism respectively. The Geography Department in the University of Malaya located in Pantai Valley, Kuala Lumpur is the oldest geography department in the country. Started in 1959, the Department is also one of the earliest departments within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Ten years later, when Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia was established in 1970, a Department of Geography was also set up. However, its status as a Department was changed to become a Programme within the School of Social, Development and Environmental Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in 2001. This change came about because of the increasing emphasis towards a mul- tidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach in the humanities. It is considered that to achieve this objective, it is best to approach issues in the social sciences and humanities from an integra- tion of interrelated programmes and disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, development ― 2 ― The Development and Status of Human Geography in Malaysia（LEE） 483 policies, geography and other related fields which are central to the understanding of human so- ciety and its association or interaction with the physical surroundings. Consequently, although a fair range of human geography courses are offered in the Geography Programme in UKM, it is obvious that a full―fledged repertoire of courses from a human geography sub―disciplinary per- spective cannot be made fully available to students. Unlike the University of Malaya, geography in Universiti Sains Malaysia was set up not as a department but as a Section within the School of Humanities in 1970. This Geography Section in USM also endorses the concept of a multidis- ciplinary approach to the study of man and his environment. The human geography courses available in Penang include economic and development geography, urban geography, population geography, agricultural and rural geography, and regional planning. It also incorporates courses on the regional geography of ASEAN and the Asia Pacific. Comparing the three institutions, the Department of Geography in UM is the only full―fledged geography department in Malaysia that sanctions geography as a discipline in its own right. Before discussing the state of human geog- raphy in Malaysia, this paper, therefore, focuses on the development of human geography in the University of Malaya for that reason. In addition, a greater appreciation of the present state of human geography in Malaysia can only be made in the context of the early growth and develop- ment of human geography in this oldest tertiary institution, where the tradition of British geog- raphy was first planted. Not only that, it is from here that many geographers were spawned who then became the academic leaders and staff of other universities in the country. In short, the De- partment of Geography in University of Malaya is the benchmark for the eventual development of human geography in other universities in the country. II Th e historical proclivity towards human geography In attempting to outline the nature and development of human geography in UM, it is neces- sary to trace back to the early beginnings to see the composition of its staff and leadership so as to understand the significance of the role and position of human geography as compared to physical geography. Although geography in Malaya started as an academic subject at tertiary lev- els as early as 1928 in Singapore when Raffles College was founded, it was only in 1949, when the University of Malaya was established, then in Singapore, that geography was taught at the 1） undergraduate level. In fact, it was only 10 years later in 1959 before geography as a discipline took root in Malaysia when a sister campus of the University was established in Pantai Valley, in Kuala Lumpur. This was the beginning of the Department of Geography. Right from the start, geography as a discipline at the undergraduate level had the traditional bi- furcation into the human geography and physical geography. In the ensuing years, however, there was a tendency for human geography, to predominate not only in teaching but also in research. This may be due to two particular features that had prevailed in the early years of the Depart- ment. The first is the fact that in the initial ten years of the Department’s existence, geographers who were inclined towards human geography held the headship. Although the first Malaysian Professor of Geography and Head of Department, Robert Ho, taught courses in geomorphology in his early days, he eventually shifted his interests to issues of development, mixed farming and 2） land development schemes. Hamzah Sendut, who succeeded Robert Ho, as Head of the Depart- ment focussed his research and publications on aspects of urbanisation in Malaysia, urban plan- ning and urban geography. It is also interesting to observe that during the next 20 years until 1980, five out of the seven headships were human geographers. This scenario had the effect of ― 3 ― 484 人文地理第60巻 第 6 号（2008） clearly setting the trend for human geography to be “more in the picture” compared to physical geography. This proclivity tended to prevail in other universities that were set up later. The second point to note is that the composition of the academic staff in the early years and their interests not only set the nature of the teaching and research topics but also exerted an in- fluence on post―graduate students who would later become members of the academic staff either in the Department or other universities. In the first ten years, a substantial proportion of the staff were expatriates who were later replaced by Malaysians under the policy of Malaysianisa- tion. Expatriate staff composition, for instance, declined from about 69 per cent in the first five years to 44 per cent in the following 10 years. In a large way, this was precipitated by the change in the medium of instruction from English to the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, a switch that was fully implemented by as early as 1980. More interesting to the present discussion is that while there was a fair balance between human and physical geographers in the first 5 years, the intake of new staff members in the following 10 years saw a swing towards the recruitment of human geographers probably due to the human geography slant of the early mentorship. For in- stance, of the 29 new staff members appointed in this period, either to replace those who had left or as additional staff, two―thirds were human geographers or if they were non―geographers, they were in fields related to the humanities and social sciences such as town planning, sociology and social anthropology. This trend was to continue in the next 10 years up to 1990 when 8 out of 13 new staff members were human geographers or in human―related disciplines. Although the 1990s saw a greater balance between the human and physical geographers in its intake of new staff members, the historical trend over the last 45 years in the University of Malaya predisposed a proclivity towards human geography or related fields based on the research and teaching inter- ests of the staff members. Currently, seven out of the twelve actively teaching staff members（ ex- cluding those on study leave） are human geographers or related to the humanities. III Trends in teaching interests in human geography in UM In terms of specific areas of teaching in human geography in UM, several developments may be detected. The first is the changing trend in the teaching of regional geography. Most of the regional courses are taught essentially by human geographers and, therefore, have a strong hu- man emphasis. In the formative years of the Department and especially in the 1960s, partly at- tributed to the expatriate composition of the staff members, regional geography was accorded 3） high priority and as many as thirteen such courses were offered, covering all the major regions of the world ! Besides courses on Malaysia and Southeast Asia, other regions that were consid- ered as important for geography students to know included East Asia, Australia, West Africa, South Asia, Western Europe and North America.
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