Organizer and Chair: Leonard Y. Andaya, University of Hawai'i, Manoa
Discussant: Yoneo Ishii, Sophia University
In an article written more than three decades ago, an American scholar called for the writing of an "autonomous" history of Southeast Asia which truly reflected an indigenous framework (1). For many of the young scholars who heeded the call then, attempting an "autonomous" history meant shifting the focus of research from the activities of the Europeans to those of Southeast Asians. One of the methods employed was to re-examine colonial sources, not to write the history of the colonial power, but to reconstruct the history of indigenous groups in the region. In addition to the European archives, oral and written local Southeast Asian sources were consulted.
Among more recent scholars of Southeast Asia, the methodology has become much more sophisticated as they experiment with a rich offering of post-modernist and post-post-modernist ideas flowing from Europe. Along with these ideas has come an awareness of the danger of an outside authority interpreting and presenting his or her voice as that of the Southeast Asian. Cautious and oftentimes ingenious strategies have therefore been employed to juxtapose the outsider and the insider perspective in the study of Southeast Asia (2). While there is little doubt that vital and innovative research on Southeast Asia is being done by scholars from outside the region, many of the concerns, priorities, and methodologies are clearly those of outsiders. What is needed is the voice of the Southeast Asian scholars themselves so that there can be a true dialogue between them and outsiders writing on Southeast Asia.
The panel is intended to be a platform for Southeast Asian scholars to present their particular concerns, their research priorities, and their specific methodologies. Too often the research and methodological agenda are set by outsiders with the Southeast Asian either adopting or responding to it. The dominance of outside scholarship has provoked various reactions within Southeast Asia, including rejection of the outsider's language as the vehicle of dominance (3). This is one type of intellectual movement which often lies outside the purview of foreigners who lack a reading knowledge of Southeast Asian languages. However, there are others who write in their own national languages as well as in other national languages whose works express a desire for a particularly Southeast Asian approach and who focus on issues which are not dictated by the outside world. Members of the panel would be asked to discuss such trends along with their own particular research priorities.
The growth in Southeast Asian studies around the globe and the upsurge in indigenous Southeast Asian scholarship itself makes this panel a timely one. One scholar each from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, and the Philippines will be invited to participate. They will be asked to represent their own particular views but also, when appropriate, to refer to the works and concerns of the colleagues in their country.
1. John Smail, "On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia," Journal of Southeast Asian History 2, ii (July 1961), 72-102.
2. An excellent example of such a strategy can be seen in Anna Tsing's In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-Way Place (Princeton, 1993).
3. Examples of this reaction are seen with the group represented by Nidhi Aeusrivongse in Thailand and the pantayong pananaw movement among Filipino historians who reject the "reactive" history of Filipinos and advocate an exclusively Filipino viewpoint. Both Nidhi and the pantayong pananaw group write exclusively in the national language.
Post-May 1992 Debates Among Thai Public Intellectuals: Globalizers vs.
Communitarians
Kasian Tejapira, Thammasat University
In the aftermath of the May 1992 popular uprising and massacre, even though dismally little progress has been made with regard to institutional reform of the Thai state structure, there has been an upsurge of, as well as an intense public interest in intellectual debates on public issues in the Thai mass media. Serious public discussion has been taking place on the pages of the popular and business press among a substantial number of highly-educated, politically vocal, publicly influential scholars concerning alternative visions and programs of socio-economic and political reform of the country. With the contours of their ideas beginning gradually, spontaneously and half-self-consciously to cohere and take shape, these scholars, once united in opposing the return of military dictatorship during the May democratic movement, now express clearly different and even opposite opinions on reform, so much so that it is possible to divide them opinion-wise into two groups i.e., the globalizers who advocate reform of the Thai state, economy and society along the globalization trends versus the communitarians who are skeptical and critical of changes associated with globalization and instead call for a radical reversal of existing pattern of development so that rural and urban local communities may be politically empowered to sustain their traditional culture and control their natural resources autonomously.
This paper deals with the following issues:
Direction and Priorities of Research in Myanmar
Myo Myint, Mandalay University
Research directions and priorities in Burma among Burma scholars have finally acknowledged the existence of the outside world. They now speak in terms of a "global society" with "new values and perspectives" which challenge Burma to re-examine its national and local traditions. However, this may be what we do not want, for part of the purpose of this panel is to uncover and discover precisely what these "local" and "national" traditions are.
An international conference is to be held in Burma (called "The Conference on Traditions in Current Perspective"), organized by a committee of scholars from the Universities Historical Research Centre, to determine if traditional values are "viable" or "relevant" in contemporary society, but also to see if there are policies and programs to sustain some of these traditions. The topics target for discussion are the following: current views of tradition, the role of tradition in contemporary society, social and cultural traditions that are undergoing change, social and cultural traditions with values relevant to contemporary society, and current policies and programs related to the preservation of traditions.
The above priorities and foci sound as if current society is going through enough important changes that on the one hand, these changes are welcomed, and on the other, the Burmese do not want to give up their past entirely. Research direction in Burma might well, for the next few decades, address the old but still important issue of change and continuity.
Toward a National and Modern Historiography of Vietnam
Phan Huy Le, Vietnamese Studies Center
After Vietnam attained a complete liberation from the forces of imperialism, her historiography continued to feel the direct impact of Western methodology as well as of Western historiographical issues. But a new tendency slowly emerged that took Vietnamese historians back to their historical tradition so as to develop a national and, at the same time, a modern Vietnamese historiography. The national characteristic compels Vietnamese historians to amend errors and fallacies of earlier histories in order to establish accurate accounts of the national past, to solve historical problems raised by the needs of building up the nation, to create a methodology and an approach that respect the sources of Vietnamese history. The modern characteristic demands that we open up to international exchanges, so as to harmonize our research with that of other historians in the various countries within the region as well as in the world.
In recent years, Vietnamese historiography has tallied a few achievements; it has also shown quite a few limits. Vietnamese historians are working hard to overcome these limits with the aim, one day, of achieving a national and modern historiography