Archipelagic memories at Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum

Abstract

Colonial pasts, geopolitical differences, and plural social constructions of Malaya/post-independence Malaysia contributed to and were reflected in hospital design. Sarawak in East Malaysia, on Borneo Island, saw developments that paralleled those in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. How did the multi-ethnic complexity of the patient demographic impact post-independence medical institutions? Situating this research in the region’s medical developments, this article explores hospital museums as repositories for institutional memories. Examples discussed include the urban Sarawak General Hospital in Kuching—a colonial, later government, institution in the East Malaysian capital, and the Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum in Sibu—a regional hospital built with Chinese philanthropic funds. The article argues that, when compared with the general hospital, which is part of an urban network of medical institutions linking West and East Malaysia, the museum best conveys Sarawak’s riverine, regional, and multivocal memories, reflective of its multi-ethnic reality. The article describes these as archipelagic memories.