Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity in Southeast Asia

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maitrii Aung-Thwin
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Post Colonial

Conceptions of Community in Colonial Southeast Asia

1998 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 337-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Stockwell
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Asian Values ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Common Experience ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
Shared Commitment

It is a commonplace that European rule contributed both to the consolidation of the nation-states of Southeast Asia and to the aggravation of disputes within them. Since their independence, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have all faced the upheavals of secessionism or irredentism or communalism. Governments have responded to threats of fragmentation by appeals to national ideologies like Sukarno's pancasila (five principles) or Ne Win's ‘Burmese way to socialism’. In attempting to realise unity in diversity, they have paraded a common experience of the struggle for independence from colonial rule as well as a shared commitment to post-colonial modernisation. They have also ruthlessly repressed internal opposition or blamed their problems upon the foreign forces of neocolonialism, world communism, western materialism, and other threats to Asian values. Yet, because its effects were uneven and inconsistent while the reactions to it were varied and frequently equivocal, the part played by colonialism in shaping the affiliations and identities of Southeast Asian peoples was by no means clear-cut.

scholarly journals Contesting colonial (hi)stories: (Post)colonial imaginings of Southeast Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-371
Author(s):  
Alexander Supartono ◽  
Alexandra Moschovi
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Picture Plane ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Digital Material ◽  
Colonial Archive ◽  
Digital Manipulation ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

This article seeks to explore the impact of digital technologies upon the material, conceptual and ideological premises of the colonial archive in the digital era. This analysis is pursued though a discussion of creative work produced during an international, multidisciplinary artist workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, that used digital material from colonial photographic archives in the Netherlands to critically investigate the ways national, transnational and personal (hi)stories in the former colonies in Southeast Asia have been informed and shaped by their colonial past. The analysis focuses on how the artists’ use of digital media contests and reconfigures the use, truth value and power of the colonial archive as an entity and institution. Case studies include: Thai photographer Dow Wasiksiri, who questions the archive's mnemonic function by substituting early twentieth-century handcrafted association techniques with digital manipulation; Malaysian artist Yee I-Lann, who compresses onto the same picture plane different historical moments and colonial narratives; and Indonesian photographer Agan Harahap, who recomposes archival photographs into unlikely juxtapositions disseminated through social media. By repurposing colonial archival material and circulating their work online such a re-imag(in)ing of Southeast Asia not only challenges the notions of originality, authenticity, ownership and control associated with such archives, but also reclaims colonial-era (hi)stories, making them part of a democratic, expanding, postcolonial archive.

Anthropology in Southeast Asia: National Traditions and Transnational Practices

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 664-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Current State ◽  
Academic Networks ◽  
The People ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Critical Translation

Abstract Over several generations, since the mid-20th century, anthropology has become an established academic discipline throughout much of Southeast Asia. Academic anthropology in Southeast Asia is emerging as a scholarly practice driven increasingly by local initiatives and dynamics, though still maintaining ties to global academic networks. The purpose of this article is to contribute to an assessment and understanding of the national traditions and transnational practices of anthropology in Southeast Asia through a comparative perspective. I focus on four national traditions — those of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. While providing a comprehensive account of these diverse traditions and practices is not possible in the space of a single article, I attend to four significant issues relevant to the current state of anthropology across the region. First, I compare the emergent national traditions of the four countries, focusing on the transnational conditions shaping their development, particularly in the late colonial and early post-colonial period (i.e., the mid-20th century). Second, I compare the structuring of anthropological selves and others across these traditions, which shapes the ways in which anthropologists see their work and the people they write about. Third, I discuss ways in which localised anthropological practice can and should contribute to theory building by way of grounded theory and critical translation projects. And finally, I conclude by examining emergent transnational linkages and practices, which suggest current directions that anthropology is taking in the region. While only a partial of narrative anthropology in Southeast Asia, this article is a provocation to think beyond both the older dynamics of the-West-versus-the-rest and the newer constraints of methodological nationalism in anthropologists’ on-going efforts to build a vital and valuable discipline.

scholarly journals How does the legacy of colonialism in Southeast Asia manifest itself in contemporary regional attitudes and practices towards looting and collection?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Min Tse Chong
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Source Region ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Property Market ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Incomplete Model ◽  
Unesco Convention ◽  
Global North

<p>Cultural property trafficking continues to be and is growing as an issue despite increased legislation, international agreements and public interest, particularly since the seminal 1970 UNESCO Convention. For criminology, the challenge is to take into account the distinct and complex characteristics of cultural property trade and trafficking in order to aid in controlling, regulating and preventing crime in a way that resonates with those it seeks to target. However, the mainstream approach to this issue relies uncritically upon a dominant and simplistic narrative of transnational cultural property movement from Global South sources to Global North markets, which renders significant regional and processes invisible and creates an incomplete model of reality. By incorporating a postcolonial framework and interviewing market actors in the cultural property world, this thesis aims to fill a gap in the discipline by examining how colonial narratives, frameworks and structures still inform modern attitudes to cultural property trade and trafficking, which has emerged from the same history. As a rich source region with a healthy cultural property market, Southeast Asia is the chosen case study; however, though the conclusions drawn originate in this specific context, the methodology used is applicable beyond this scope. The findings indicate that though cultural property collection is accompanied by a shadow of illicitness, market actors are able to justify their activities by not only relying on familiar colonial tropes and narratives of custodianship and education, but also pragmatically referring to the moralities and identities of a post-colonial age. Additionally, the social structures fundamental to the cultural property world are also, to some extent, the product of a certain history, and identity formation and projection through cultural capital are key concepts in understanding the impetus for collection. Ultimately, actors’ understandings of an authentic object as one that is of a particular style and, critically, of a particular age and condition, is synonymous with colonially influenced attitudes, and is inherently linked to the damage that anti-trafficking legislation seeks to mitigate.</p>

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