Malaysian Indigenous Youth in the City

The number of indigenous peoples living in urban areas is increasing. Unfortunately, poverty and marginalization, poor housing and labour conditions, characterize the lives of many indigenous peoples living in cities. On the other hand, cities also offer new opportunities and urban life can boost creativity and entrepreneurship.

In the city indigenous youth may feel a divide between the world of their indigenous families and communities, and that represented by the urban environment. They may however also find new ways of expressing and recreating their indigenous identity, thereby widening the concept.

As part of an international project for indigenous youth to let us have a peek into their lives as they see it, eight Orang Asli and Kadazandusun youths were given compact digital cameras and a little instruction to document their lives, and the urban world they now find themselves in.

The result is a collection of images that tell powerful stories of life in rapid transition and of how indigenous identities are being shaped and re-shaped.