Malaysian Cerita Hantu: Intersections of Race, Religiosity, Class, Gender, and Sexuality

Malay(sian) cerita hantu (ghost stories) are not merely innocuous renderings meant to entertain or instill fear-they are places where socio-cultural worldviews are constituted. We use ethnographic observations to explore how cerita hantu are also reflections of interconnected cultural perspectives around race, class, religiosity, sexuality, and gender. Such intercultural workings are maintained and perpetuated in complex cultural processes, which we call "hauntings," that negotiate group identification, solidarity and separation, social hierarchies, and that situate normative order.