International Program of Collaborative Research, CSEAS

Repositioning Peranakan: Negotiating Nationality and Ethnicity in the Malay World
Project Leader: YAMAMOTO, Hiroyuki, Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University
（Term：2009 - 2010）

• Outline of Joint Research
• Purpose of Joint Research
• Outline of Result

• Joint Seminars in 2009 - 2010 Fiscal Year

Outline of Joint Research

This project will hold its first meeting in July to discuss the peranakan concept in the cases of Chinese communities in Southeast Asian countries. The project will also hold a second meeting in November to discuss the peranakan concept in the cases of hybrids and foreigners in the Malay world. Finally the project will hold a third meeting in January 2011 to discuss the concept of peranakan with the findings of the above two meetings.

Purpose of Joint Research

This project takes peranakan, one of the people-grouping concepts in the Malay world, and attempts to develop the concept as a framework for people-grouping. Cosmopolitanism emerged in efforts to overcome the limitations of people-grouping with nationality and ethnicity which employs exclusive boundaries among people. But the cosmopolitanism which freed people from nativity assumes a self-reliance of people which not everyone is equipped to deal with. Peranakan shares a similarity with cosmopolitanism in that it does not emphasize the exclusive boundaries of people, yet it is different from cosmopolitanism because peranakan is based on a certain territory and hence has locality. It is expected that the concept of peranakan, which originated from Southeast Asia, will develop as a framework for people-grouping in the world.

Outline of Result

This project held its first meeting in June as a panel session at the 83rd Biannual conference of Japan Society for Southeast Asian Studies in June 2010 to discuss the peranakan concept in the cases of Chinese communities in Southeast Asian countries. The project also held a second meeting in February 2011 to discuss the peranakan concept in the cases of hybrid and foreigners in the Malay world. The project organized a panel session at the 6th International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS6) in March 2011 to discuss in the concept of peranakan with the findings of the above two meetings.

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