Yvonne Tan is a writer and researcher based in Kuala Lumpur interested in dynamics of challenging imperial inequalities, labour migration and political economy in Southeast Asia. Some of her notable contributions include histories of resistance against colonialism in Racial Difference and the Colonial Wars of 19th Century Southeast Asia edited by Farish Noor and Peter Carey (Amsterdam University Press, 2021) and Battlefields and Homefronts: An Anthology of Food and Warfare, 1500-Present (University of Arkansas Press, 2021).
Her practice involves taking apart taken for granted/residual aspects of everyday life and uncovering a historiography and the systems of power that shape such shared approaches on a national or regional scale. Thus, the themes of reexamining history and racial justice are deeply ingrained in my practice from exploring social movements through specific figures that challenges and deconstructs nationalist myth-history while also opening new radical possibilities of re-imagining our socio-cultural fabric. Thus, she delves into topics like “Reflections from the Amoi Gaze on the Malay Dilemma: Pre-workings of a Manifesto” (The Key Press, 2024), “Kiasuism: A Global Export” (Process Magazine, 2019) and “Nationalising the Kebaya in the Nusantara” (O for Other, 2020). She also experiments with myth and history at @sejarahmitoslaku and her mythology fiction has been featured in Kaleidoscope Japan: Online Exhibition (2022).
