Ethnic domination and subaltern resistance: Rituals and games of calculative transparency and secrecy in Malaysia’s whispering fish market

Abstract

Drawing on theories of secrecy and rituals, this ethnographic study examines how ethnic domination and resistance are organized through accounting and information control in West Malaysia's fishing trade. We analyze the shift from the traditional bertaukey system, which linked Malay fishermen to Chinese merchants (taukeys) via paternalistic credit, to a "whispering market." We demonstrate how Chinese taukeys used the traditional Tu'a Ledger to stage a ritual of transparency, rendering exploitative arrangements legitimate through ritual features of formality (which provides numbers an aura of objectivity), stereotypy (which uses standardized categories to limit questioning), condensation (which compresses complex relations into simple figures), and redundancy (which reaffirms authority through repeated entries). In response, Malay resistance constructed the "whispering market" as a platform for ritualized secrecy, strategically withholding and circulating information to create bargaining leverage. Taukeys counter this with 'counter-secrecy', employing ethnic cartels and gossip to neutralize uncertainty. The paper contributes to critical accounting by theorizing secrecy as a performative technology of power rather than a mere suspension of information. By distinguishing between transparency as a conjunctive ritual (creating apparent order) and secrecy as a disjunctive game (leveraging strategic uncertainty), we offer a framework for how accounting modulates the boundary between control and resistance. Ultimately, we illustrate why subaltern resistance can be both enabling and attritional.