Local History Approach and Its Significance in the Malaysia Historiography

The historical transition from political aspect to social and economy aspect has brought development to various approaches in historical writings. One of them, is the local history approach. However, there are still doubts among the historians and underestimate the approach in history writings. This approach is considered as antiquarian, consists of loads unimportant facts, no chronology and abandoning the theory and method of history. In fact, historical studies using this approach is said to not have any importance to the national historiography. Hence, this research paper aims at denying all of those opinions and proves that local history approach is actually emphasizing on ideas and historical thinking. In short, local history approach is important in perfecting the national history narrative by focusing on the research on the aspects and locations that were previously considered insignificant to the national historiography. In fact, this approach can actually contribute to the new findings in national historiography. For example, the discovery of the study regarding the Malay migration to Kerian, Perak has proven the significant contribution of the Malay society in the economy during the British colonisation apart from denying the judgement of the British on the nature of the Malay of being lazy as a result of their backwardness in economy aspects during the colonisation. This study also successfully proves that the internal migration of the Malay plays a significant role in the development of Kerian as the main paddy cultivation district, not only in Perak but also in the Federated Malay States.