From World City to the World in One City: Liverpool through Malay Lives

From World City to the World in One City examines changing geographies of Liverpool through and across the lives of Malay seamen who arrived in the city during its final years as a major imperial port.

Bunnell demonstrates how Malay Liverpool was anchored in the specific locality of a clubhouse in the Liverpool 8 area of the city. The life histories and memories of the people who met at the Malay Club provide a novel window into the geohistorical transformation of Liverpool through its fluctuating commercial and social connections with Southeast Asia over more than half a century. Bunnell traces the maritime geographies of seafaring Malay men and Liverpool when the city was still a prominent imperial port. He then examines the post–maritime phase of both Liverpool and the lives of the Malay seafarers who settled there. Finally, the book considers recent and ongoing culture–led economic development in Liverpool, and its implications for Malay ex–seamen, their families and Malaysian citizens living in the city.

From World City to the World in One City draws upon interviews and participant observation in Liverpool, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as a range of archival, documentary, literary and popular cultural sources.

Tim Bunnell is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Malaysia, Modernity and the Multimedia Super Corridor: A Critical Geography of Intelligent Landscapes (2004) and co–editor of Cleavage, Connection and Conflict in Rural, Urban and Contemporary Asia (2013).