The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a tiny coral atoll in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territory, are home to around 450 Malays and 150 others. Cocos Malays largely identify as Malay and Muslim and have strong connections with the Malay world (Indonesia and Malaysia) as well as the wider Islamic world. They are also Australian citizens, part of its economy and culture, and have migrated in significant numbers to Western Australia and Sabah, Malaysia. This article focuses on two musical practices, zikir and nasyid, that have become particularly interesting in recent decades in terms of the ways they involve Cocos Malays in interactions with these wider systems, in which the distinctiveness of the particular Cocos version of Malay culture is variously emphasized, valued, overlooked, glossed over, or overcome. In this article I examine the significance of these two practices in the diasporic context of Katanning, Western Australia, where such performances of cultural identity are resignified and become involved in larger systems such as the transnational nasyid industry and multicultural agendas at local and state levels. I propose ‘distinctiveness’ as a valuable concept for understanding the way Cocos Malay culture functions as a minority culture because it recognizes the relationship both of difference from and connection with a wider group, holding these two things in tension. Attention to distinctiveness moves us beyond thinking about assimilation on the one hand or cultural preservation and sustainability on the other, to examining a situation in which both difference and belonging are important, and examining the dynamics that govern the value placed on a community’s distinguishing cultural practices.

科科斯（基林）群岛是澳大利亚印度洋领地的一个小珊瑚环礁，约有450个马来人和150个其他马来人居住。科科斯马来人在很大程度上被识别为马来人和穆斯林，并且与马来人世界（印度尼西亚和马来西亚）以及更广泛的伊斯兰世界有着密切的联系。他们也是澳大利亚公民，是澳大利亚经济和文化的一部分，并且已经大量移居到西澳大利亚州和马来西亚沙巴。本文重点介绍两种音乐实践，即zikir和nasyid，在最近几十年中，就涉及科科斯马来人与这些更广泛的系统互动的方式而言，这一点尤其引起人们的关注，在该系统中，各种科斯马来文化的独特性都得到了不同程度的强调，重视，忽视，掩盖或克服。 。在本文中，我考察了这两种做法在西澳大利亚卡塔宁的流散性背景下的重要性，在那里，这种文化认同的表现受到了重视，并涉入了更大的体系中，例如跨国公司的纳赛德地方和州一级的工业和多元文化议程。我提出“独特性”作为理解可可马来人文化作为少数族裔文化的方式的一个有价值的概念，因为它认识到与更广泛的群体之间的差异和联系，同时将这两件事置于紧张之中。对独特性的关注使我们超越了一方面思考同化或另一方面考虑文化保存和可持续性的问题，而去研究一种差异和归属感都很重要的情况，并研究了决定社区独特文化实践价值的动力。 。