Seminars/Symposia: FY2011
June, 2011
- Special Seminar
-
- Date：June 15, 2011 16:00-18:00
- Place：Room No.331, Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, Kyoto University
- Speaker： Shamsul A. B.
- Distinguished Professor of Social Anthropology, Director, Institute of
Ethnic Studies (KITA), National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia)
- Title：“From Conflict to Cohesion: The analytical challenge in Southeast Asian
Studies”
- Organizer：Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)"Planted Forests in Equatorial
Southeast Asia: Human-nature Interactions in High Biomass Society"
- Abstract：
- Southeast Asia as a form of knowledge, as being presented in the field
of Southeast Asian studies, popularized and expanded during the Cold War
has privileged what could be called as a ‘conflict approach’ in which the
workings of centrifugal forces as the ruling societal pattern informed
analyses regarding the region and its component countries. Underpinning
this conflict approach was the well-known ‘domino theory.’ Therefore, each
component country was perceived as a domino that would fall one after another
as communism expanded its influence in the region, namely, from Mainland
Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma) to the Maritime
part of the region (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines).
Social scientists, working independently or for the noncommunist countries
(USA, UK, France, Germany), held the viewpoint that the internal conflict
and struggle within the region made it fragile and vulnerable to communist
takeover. Saving the region from communist takeover became almost a ‘political
salvation’ for both the noncommunist bloc and the majority of their social
scientists. Although the Cold War was over in 1989, the conflict-based
analytical paradigm persists until today. The countries of the region continued
to be seen as fragile and vulnerable exposed to new transnational forces,
such as global fundamental Islamic activism, that would find roots locally
rather easily. Political analysts often playing the ‘prophet of doom’ role
frequently offer negative predictions about the future of these societies.
It was predicted once that the fall of Suharto would lead to the breaking
down of Indonesian unity as a nation-state. Malaysia was predicted to suffer
from serious bloody ethnic conflicts every time an economic crisis occurred
in Asia. But none of these has actually taken place. Why it didn’t happen
has also to be explained. Perhaps, as this presentation shall argue, that
it is useful to approach this issue sociologically from a ‘cohesion approach’
with the assumption that the plural societies in Southeast Asia are generally
in a state of ‘stable tension’ meaning they have been surviving in a situation
dominated by major societal contradictions but nonetheless, longitudinally,
remains generally cohesive. In other words, there is social cohesion within
these societies, but the journey has not been plain sailing. Empirical
evidence from Malaysia shall be presented as a case study.
-
- Shamsul A.B. is Distinguished Professor of Social Anthropology and, currently,
Founding Director, Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia (UKM), Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. He has researched, written and
lectured extensively, in the last 25 years, on the theme “politics, culture
and economic development,” with an empirical focus on Malaysia and Southeast
Asia. His award-winning monograph From British to Bumiputera Rule (1986,
reprinted 1990, 2nd edition 2004) is a study on the phenomenology of class
and ethnic relations in a Malaysian rural community. His academic activism
takes many forms: conferences and lecture tours in Asia, Europe, North
& South America & the Oceania; public policy formulation in Malaysian
higher education; museum re-conceptualization projects; and as a political
analyst on Malaysia current affairs in local and international media (Channel
News Asia, Al-Jazeera, National Geographic, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
and the BBC). Recently, he was awarded the prestigious ACADEMIC PRIZE 2008,
of the Fukuoka Prize, Japan.
-
▲Top of This Page
|
