From Transport Development to Land Reclamation: Contested Spatio-Temporalities along Penang’s Littoral, Malaysia

“One island is enough” was written on a banner shaped like Penang Island, Malaysia, during a demonstration against the plan to create three artificial islands. The Penang South Reclamation (PSR) project, adopted by the local administration and developers, aims to finance the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP). This ambitious plan includes several components, such as monorail and light rapid transit lines. While land reclamation is not new in Penang, this mega-development project has faced unprecedented opposition from a wide range of actors. In dialogue with fishers and activists supporting the Penang Tolak Tambak (Penang Rejects Reclamation) campaign, and through the analysis of government documents, non-governmental reports, news articles, and social media, this paper traces how state, corporate, and civil society actors have shifted their focus from the PTMP to the PSR project. Thus far, scholarly literature on island environmental movements has focused on the right to the island and the right to nature, while claims related to the land-sea interfaces, which so clearly delineate island spatialities, have been somewhat neglected. By exploring the contested spatio-temporalities of this land reclamation project off the south coast of Penang, this paper expands the dialogue of the right to the island to include the right to the sea.