Divide and Brand: Public Space, Politics, and Tourism

Chapter 5 turns to the transformation of historic spaces into ‘cultural shopping streets’, divided along the official macro-categories of Malays, Chinese, and Indians. After introducing the making of Little India and the Malay Bazar Ramadan, the chapter focuses on the Chinatown-like Jonker Walk as the first and most successful of these projects. This case study shows how these tourism packages resist a wide range of critics: from UNESCO-related actors and local heritage bureaus that condemn the commercialization of these historic streets, to the residents and heritage aficionados that identify them as symbols of multicultural coexistence. This chapter reveals competing views of Melaka’s multi-ethnic townscape: from the cosmopolitan character of the World Heritage inscription to a racialized and politicized demarcation of space.