Arts of Elusivity and Uncertainty: Batek Strategies of Negative Capability in a Changing World

Batek Maia villagers at Batu Jalang, Malaysia have had enough. State promises to provide economic opportunities and development remain unfulfilled and the villagers remain intensely mistrustful of the State and local Malays. Using a case-study of the villagers attempts to return to Kawasan Pagai —the land of the creator beings—this paper explores Batek social and linguistic tactics of elusivity. In Malaysia, the colonial and post-colonial State has systematically attempted to render land, resources, and people more legible—by fixing boundaries and identities. However, in many instances this has inadvertently amplified Indigenous peoples’ capacities for negative capability. Like many other Southeast Asian Indigenous peoples, Bateks are renowned for their anarchic lifeways and have historically been highly successful in evading and outmanoeuvring the rigidifying forces of state control.

Drawing on Mathew Carey’s (2017) suggestion that mistrust can work as a dynamic and productive social force, alongside Gibson’s & Sillander’s (2011), Scott’s (2009) and Benjamin’s (2002) ideas of anarchic sociality, I explore how Batek strategies of elusivity, which include social plasticity, name avoidance and economic flexibility, can operate as productive “lines of flight.” Drawing on long-term ethnographic research among Batek communities living under diverse conditions—ranging from areas with substantial forest cover and relative autonomy to those marked by severe environmental degradation and intense state control—I examine the varying effectiveness of these tactics in countering state-driven schemes of inscription, capture, and closure.