“They hate pigs, Chinese farmers ... everything!” Beastly Racialization in Multiethnic Malaysia Harvey Neo Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore; harveyneo@nus.edu.sg Abstract: This paper details the construction of the pig and the pig industry in Malaysia. It argues that a pattern of “animal-linked racialization” continually polices the boundary between the dominant, elite Malay-Muslim hegemony and the comparatively less powerful Chinese pig farmers. Often subtle and implicit, such beastly racialization, drawing frequently from religious and nationalist tropes, renders visible the taboo subjects of race and racism in Malaysia. While a simplistic form of beastly racialization in relation to the pig industry is held by the political elites and non-Chinese community, one cannot say that such a racialization has produced or sustained distinct racisms. Nonetheless, it is through the process of beastly racialization that we unravel the seemingly random acts of coercive policies that, taken in their entirety, threaten to stymie the future viability of the industry and continue to accentuate the visible social-cultural disjuncture between the two biggest ethnic groups in Malaysia. Keywords: animal geographies, beastly racialization, livestock, Malaysia, multiethnicity, racism The fear and torture that my family have faced these 1 1 2 years, nobody will understand. All because we are pig farmers. This is a hopeless country that we are living in. You know all these diseases? It’s because pigs are dirty. The farmers cannot keep them clean and they become infected too! Introduction The contrasting global reactions to the influenza A (H1N1) outbreak in April 2009 offer an apt entry point to this paper. While most countries attempted to keep the virus at bay through early detection of people suspected of having the virus; Egypt proceeded to cull hundreds of thousands of pigs. It was an act that the World Health Organization (WHO) criticized as unnecessary and an over reaction. The virus is passed human-to-human and people do not get infected by consuming pork or being in close proximity to pigs. 1 Nonetheless, practically all of the press coverage was also quick to highlight the social-political implications of culling an animal that is abhorred by the Muslim majority in Egypt and reared by the Christian minority. Thus, the act of culling was seen as particularly loaded with political intent and not a mere misguided response to an alleged epidemic. That animals can be politicized in multifarious ways is well documented (Hinchliffe et al 2005; Hobson 2007; Michel 1998; Woods 1998, 2000). Less frequently studied is how such politicizations at times directly engender discourses of race that the hegemony Antipode Vol. 44 No. 3 2012 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 950–970 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00922.x C  2011 The Author Antipode C  2011 Antipode Foundation Ltd.