I'm going to university soon (still haven't chosen what major or what university) and I'm thinking of becoming a historian - but only if I could specialise in East Malaysian history. Is this possible? Since there are no written texts in the perspective of a native East Malaysian (my mum said we used to communicate only verbally) should I consider becoming an archeologist so I could study objects instead of reading materials that were written by non-natives in a biased perspective? I know this is kind of a naive and dumb question but I tried Google and it didn't really help me that much.
A reply to /u/forgetmedont
I think you should clarify in your mind what you think a historian is. Do you aspire to study history or do you aspire to professionally work as a historian? If you want to study history do you want to do so in the manner of a student or in the manner of a researcher? If you want to study in the manner of a student do you want a degree in history or not?
Tongue in cheek aside, several threads in recent past may be worth a look.
Specifically commenting on the history of Eastern Malaysia, and disclosing that most of SE Asia history is not my within my comfort zone, I agree that there seems to be a dearth of material on that subject. But if you want to pursue history professionally, you have to figure out how you can make a living from it. And for that, you will need to find organizations that actively study that subject or similar subjects. These can be university departments, or non-profit organizations, etc. So I would first find some scholarly material that relate to the specific subject you are interested in. Have you had a chance to do this yet?
You'd need to know what subjects the University that you're thinking of attending cover. If you wish to study History at University you need to be certain of 3 things.
I've just completed my undergrad, and am now looking at an M.Litt (a researched Masters, essentially a mini-PhD). I'm looking at Irish Culinary History as my area of specialisation. This isn't as difficult as yours - there are some written sources for me to work with - but there are some parallels. Bear in mind that while I've a good idea how universities work in the British Isles, I've less than no idea how they work where you are - but I'd guess that it isn't massively different.
So first, there will be absolutely nothing out there enabling you to do just East Malaysian History from day one in university. You'll need to start by doing a much more generic history degree - the degree of genericism, as it were, depending on where you can go to study. For myself, because I had to work full-time at the same time, I had to start at what is nearly the ultimate in generic degrees - a "BA in Humanities", which I could do as a distance learning degree. Careful selection of modules enabled me to do 50% History, 42% English Literature, and 8% Sociology. Within those, whenever I had the option to research something related to culinary or domestic history, I did just that, and I was able to bend some of the literature essays toward the topic as well (I am now probably the leading expert in late 19th century Mexican food in Ireland, at least partially because I know what a tomatillo is; I hasten to add that I still know almost nothing about the topic).
This generic history study is good and useful, though. It teaches you how history and historiography work, shows you how to do research, and generally gives you the tools of the trade - including access to academic journals. You may be able to start specialising with an undergrad thesis (mine was entitled "Changes and Stability in Food Production and Consumption on the Leslie Estates, 1902-1944"), and you can also make contact with relevant scholars in fields that are, if not the one you're intending to work in, close by. These may not be in history, per se, but in archaeology, sociology, linguistics and maybe even genetics. When you're working in what's essentially a new area (and it's terrifyingly easy to unearth a new area in history; there are vast swathes of past human presence we know very little about), cross-disciplinary work is essential.
Once you have the undergrad, then you can look into Masters degrees. If you can find a pure research one, where there's someone in the institution who has an interest something like yours, that's excellent - you can start in to working on your chosen area immediately. If not, there will be taught Masters which are not all that far away. A quick poke at Google shows me research or mostly research courses in Universiti Utara Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, and University of Malaya, all of which look at least a bit relevant to my far-side-of-the-world eye.
With regard to going into archaeology instead of history as such, that's a perfectly sensible approach, but one about which I know almost nothing at the actual college level. I can say that since archaeology is a smaller field, you'll probably have to plough through quite a lot of completely irrelevant material to get to your chosen area - many of the archaeologists I know in Ireland had to study Classical Archaeology to get there.
Hopefully that's of some help!
Well since someone asked, might as well chip in with my own stupid question:
How does one become an archaeologist?
Technically a historian is merely a person who has done the necessary scholarship and writing to be published on any given historical subject. One does not need to attend school to do so, though it is highly recommended. If you wish to get a job as an academic historian, then that means going all the way to at least your MA, if not PhD with a specific concentration in mind - but there's a bunch of other kinds of historians than just academic ones (we academics have a tendency to ignore the outside world), such as public historians like museum curators or corporate historians. Most of those jobs require some sort of degree in history, though it depends on what and where.
In terms of Malaysian history, there is plenty out there. Maritime history in particular has become interested in the East Indies. A book I finished reading a few weeks ago on the subject (mostly focused on the area around Jakarta, but modernday Malaysia is part of the discussion) is Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States along a Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865-1915 by Eric Tagliacozzo. You'll find in his bibliography many other histories of the region.