Institutions, cultural politics and the destabilizing Malaysian pig industry Harvey Neo Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore article info Article history: Received 13 July 2007 Received in revised form 15 September 2008 Keywords: Livestock Institutions Malaysia Politics Race Restructuring abstract Rising demand for meat has led to changing modes of production in the livestock industry and prompted varied institutional and regulatory changes. For the most part, the latter are enabling measures not fun- damentally aimed at restraining the overall growth of the industry. In other words, specific institutional changes are meant to reduce uncertainty by providing a structure to everyday life although at a broader spatial scale, an institutional approach suggests that (a region’s) social infrastructure can help or hinder economic growth. In tracing recent developments in the Malaysian pig industry, this paper highlights an institutional regime that is stable on the surface but is in actuality prone to destabilization. Specifically, the role of cultural politics in shaping, sustaining and destabilizing institutional behavior and regimes will be examined, using the case study of the Malaccan pig industry. In explicating how institutional regimes and development are stabilized and destabilized, the paper argues that cultural politics might be an intractable stumbling block to the future growth and development of the industry. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Rising demand for meat has led to changing modes of produc- tion in the livestock industry. This in turn has prompted varied institutional changes from both the regulatory authorities and farmers. For the most part, these are enabling measures not funda- mentally aimed at restraining the overall growth of the industry, even if some of these measures might eventually prove to be inef- fectual. In other words, specific institutional changes are meant to ‘reduce uncertainty by providing a structure to everyday life’ (North, 1990, p. 3). Nonetheless, at a broader spatial scale, institu- tional approaches suggest that (a region’s) ‘social infrastructure can help or hinder economic growth’ (Cumbers et al., 2003, p. 326). In tracing recent developments in the Malaysian pig industry, this paper highlights an institutional regime that is stable on the surface but is in actuality prone to destabilization. Specifically, by laying out the gamut of regulatory and institutional actors con- nected to the pig industry, the role of cultural politics in shaping, sustaining and destabilizing institutional behavior and regimes will be examined. The question is thus not whether broader social norms and cultural politics provide stability or instability. Rather, it is about when, how and why are institutional regimes stabilized and destabilized. The specific case study is the pig industry in the southern state of Malacca and it was chosen deliberately to valorize the cultural politics involved in the industry. Compared with the four other states in Peninsular Malaysia (Perak, Penang, Johor and Selangor) that still have substantive pig farms, Malacca has the smallest pro- portion of Chinese population (at 26.8%, its Chinese population is approximately the national average). Indeed, as the ‘hearth of Is- lam in Malaysia’, it has been noted that ‘the material and discursive attention accorded to Malay-Muslim ‘‘national” histories have served to marginalize Malacca’s non-Malay and extra-national her- itage’ (Bunnell, 2003, p. 89). In this imaginary, it is likely that an economic activity that is abhorred in Islam might face considerable socio-political pressures from the myriad of state agencies that are involved in the overseeing of the pig industry. Significantly, the pig industry in Malacca is also where the most tumultuous events have occurred in the past five years, compared to other states. This paper is divided into four sections. Following this introduc- tion, I will highlight institutional approaches in economic geogra- phy and the livestock industry; focusing on the role of cultural norms and politics in these approaches. I will then discuss the methodological issues in choosing the Malaccan pig industry as a case study before proceeding to highlight the cultural and ethnic politics apparent in Malaysia and its pig industry specifically. In the third section, I will go into greater detail about the Malaccan pig industry to further illustrate its contradictions and complexity in terms of governance. The conclusion will reflect on the role cul- ture and politics play in institutionally limiting the development (and circumventing the debate over the development) of the pig industry. 2. Institutions, regulation and the livestock industry Since the late 1990s, institutional economic geography has seen a prodigious amount of work that is both theoretically rooted 0016-7185/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.11.001 E-mail address: harveyneo@nus.edu.sg Geoforum 40 (2009) 260–268 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geoforum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum