I am more than an ethnicity: Resilience and Experiences of Trauma among Indian University Students in Malaysia

Christian Franklin Svensson elaborates on the social and political position of the Indian ethnic minority in Malaysia. Based on a total of five months field research, he investigates why Indian students at a public university in peninsular Malaysia consciously attempt to transform their life situation
in order to gain personal realisation in the era of globalisation. Indian
students are a group who are particularly prone to trauma in their current
situation, as individuals lacking a sense of full citizenship. As strategies of
transformation based on education take on many different forms, he argues
that the students construct identifications from belonging to communities of
practice rather than from religion, ethnicity and nationality. Their resilience is made manifest in hybrid identities, as an individuated way of understanding
their cultural negotiation as Indian Malaysians.