Special Feature: Southeast Asian Studies: Crisis or Opportunity?

Southeast Asian Studies from the Perspectiveof the International Institute for AsianStudies (IIAS), Leiden
Philippe PeycamDirector, International Institute of Asian Studies

I

am an historian by training working on Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, and later on Cambodia. In this latter country
I was involved in developing a capacity building institution,
the Center for Khmer Studies, both an international and a
Cambodian organization. Today, I am working as director ofthe International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), an institutewith a global reach but rooted in the Dutch/European academic context. In addition, I retained a position as a Visiting
Scholar at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) inSingapore. There are therefore many dimensions and angles
through which I should discuss the issue of Southeast Asianstudies.

Philippe Peycam, Director of IIAS
8Concerning the challenges and opportunities for Southeast
Asian Studies (SEAS), I feel that we are currently at a majorcrossroads with major transformations taking place in theknowledge production process, both in terms of what wemean by Southeast Asian studies, and how we actually do it
institutionally. These changes are affecting the way SEAS has
been previously conceived. I see these changes both in termsof a process of decentering and re-centering of the field whichbecomes more “global,” with a multiplicity of actors both within
and outside Southeast Asia, and simultaneously, the possibilityof opening new intellectual and methodological boundaries
beyond the traditional “area studies” model with its old reference to nation-states as we have been used to. As we know,
the field has been dominated by a Western academic modelthrough Cold War “area studies,” and before it, the colonial“orientalist” tradition. The institutional model of production andtransmission of knowledge has also been characterized by thedominance of the West. If we take in the bigger picture today,
we see that we are living in a time where there are new spaces
and flows to approach human reality, that of the societies
which constitute “Southeast Asia.”
Of course, we could discuss the validity of “Southeast Asia”
as a term and concept, as it is still very problematic. As I workat IIAS, when I attempt to look at the region in the larger, global /“Asian” - perspective, I see that a great deal of attention in theWest is oriented primarily towards China and India. When people
often think about Asian studies, they mean China and Chinesestudies. That trend in itself reveals a current Western agenda
and anxiety with regard to the rise of China. This has led to anincreased marginalization of Southeast Asia as a subject of study
and a source of meaning. As Mario Lopez and Shimizu Hiromu
have pointed out, as managers of academic institutions, we see
SEAS in Western and Japanese institutions suffering because offunding cuts and a depletion of language training resources.
This process is only partially compensated by the development
of SEAS Centers in newly “rich” North-East Asian countries like
China and Korea, and in the “rich countries” of Southeast Asia
such as Singapore, which are building their own capacities,
usually following the same institutional “Western” model.
The fact that Southeast Asia, as a field of study, has been
fragmented in national and linguistic subtopics, at university
and national levels, has led to more financial cuts. In the neo-Special Featureliberal age of commercialization of higher education, cuts arebound to occur with small subjects because they are unlikely
to attract a large demand from students. Of course, SEA languages such as Khmer or Burmese are exposed to these influences. In overall terms, this trend may not be deemed to be too
serious at an institutional level, yet it contributes to killing thediversity of knowledge production of a large and diverse areasuch as Asia (another complex notion in itself ). These aresometimes huge cuts, as the one experienced recently in theUS with the depletion of Title six funding. These are very sadsituations in the sense that they not only kill communities ofstudents and teachers, but they impoverish the overall knowledge foundation of any given institution.
Yet, these trends may be mitigated by increased interinstitutional collaboration, the definition of new thematic research and teaching subjects, and an increased connectivity
with other centers of knowledge: beyond the West and Japan,
outside and within Southeast Asia. This new situation may help
us to not only decenter, but actually re-center the process ofknowledge production of Southeast Asia. Such trends, I believe
are not bad for students and new scholars on the region. I see
an opportunity to frame new topics of study that can betterinterlace local and global experiences while offering scholars
and students a chance to go beyond their traditional “national”
academic system/approach, encouraging them to travel andwork in Southeast Asia with people of the region, as well as
elsewhere in the world – not necessarily in Western institutions.
For one thing, I believe that we – Western and Japaneseinstitutions – need to learn to work more in partnership withSoutheast Asian and Asian institutions. To me, the epitome oftraditional areas studies is the fact that, not only an Americanor European, but also an Indonesian or a Korean would need, if
they want to learn about Indonesia, to travel to Cornell University –and it is not my intention to offend anyone when I makethese comments — in the middle of a mountainous region of
the New York State, where, until now you had one the best
center of Southeast Asian studies. This is likewise with Burmese
studies at Northern Illinois University, the School of Africanand Asian Studies (SOAS) in London, or for Cambodian studies,in Paris. We have to ask ourselves why don’t we have centerscloser to Indonesia, Burma or Cambodia with more interactions
with local individuals and institutions, or else, why these centers of excellence are always in the West but not in Africa, Latin
America, China or even Korea. This situation is of course a resultof history, but it must change.
I therefore see a chance for the field to grow, though a process of knowledge production reclaimed by the people andinstitutions in the region – especially if they succeed in moving
beyond narrow national foci. This knowledge of Southeast Asia
can also be developed in other parts of Asia, and well beyond,in an increasing multipolar world. Present at this panel is Professor Webby Kalikiti, Secretary of the African Association for
Asian Studies (A-ASIA) and himself a “Southeast asianist.”
Southeast Asia is no longer just the domain of Western andJapanese scholars or even that of rich North-East Asian countries. It can now become the focus of academic enquiry fromscholars and students from hitherto unconnected regions ofNo.68 Autumn 2013

the world like Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and soforth. This new range of international academic “actors” has notbeen traditionally involved in the intellectual dialogues thatpertain to the region. The same can be said about the multitude of new Southeast Asian institutes, local institutions, andyounger scholars, often from unprivileged countries in the region, or countries where the higher education system is weak,
who, thanks to the new fluidity of education and scholarshipongoing within the region, are now more likely to participate in
the knowledge production process.
Drawing from my own experiences in Cambodia where I was
involved in the training and promotion of young local scholars
following the tragic recent history there, I saw many of these
individuals who, despite the bad shape of the Cambodian university system, managed to find their way, in the country andabroad, and acquire a very high level of competency and acapacity to reach high levels of international scholarship.
Their numbers are fast increasing. This same process is true for
Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia and so forth.
While working in Cambodia, I often witnessed how these upand coming young Southeast Asian scholars encounteredmultiple difficulties when they tried to access some establishedinstitutions overseas. Within the region, some mental barriers
are perpetuating: they are usually not interested in studying in
the Philippines, despite the high level of some of this country’s
institutions or; when they wanted to study in Thailand or
Singapore where they were restricted by high costs (Thailand);or the almost unattainable requirements put in front of them(Singapore). NUS, for instance, is a very good institution inSoutheast Asia. If you want a fellowship as a Southeast Asian
national, you have to have an almost Shakespearean commandof the English language (Michael Fenner from ARI interjects“it’s higher than that demanded from most U.S. institutions!”).
This is in Southeast Asia. There must be ways to improve thedecentering of knowledge production within the region whichmust start with easier access to institutions, more information,and the stronger will of the region’s governments to fostereducation. In any case, this process of growing interaction
between different intellectual traditions in Southeast Asia
should be encouraged. This is also true at the global level.
Another point I should like to underline is that to movebeyond­the old Western dominated knowledge production
process, we also need to move beyond old categories inheritedfrom this model, such as the nation-states, or the old colonial /neo-colonial geographic constructions. We also need to think
about the institutional configuration of higher education itself
and the need to review the kind of over-specialization thattoday exists in “functionalist” Western academia. Among thesubjects that should be enhanced for Southeast Asian studies,
I think in particular of questions of trans-national/regional/pre
or post-national interests, including the existence of networks.
I can also think of subjects like material culture, local indigenous knowledge and so forth. These can contribute to change
rigidly framed disciplines that are continuing to fragment SEAS.
And as for changing the way we as scholars “specialize” in theuniversity architecture of today, I believe it is not only important
to move beyond disciplinary boundaries, but sometimes, to go
9beyond professional or specialization “sectors”: this means thatanthropologists should not only learn to work with historians,
but also with “practitioners” of the city (urban planners, architects), with artists and members of the craft communities, etc.
In other words, go beyond their ethnographic research.
To stress what I see is a need for a more de-centered, interdisciplinary and multi-sector field of Southeast Asian studies, I
should end thoughts by briefly describing what we are trying
to do at IIAS – even if our range goes beyond Southeast Asia.
IIAS is based in Leiden, Holland and we now see ourselves as aglobal facilitator. We are aware of our Dutch/European background, but we want to incorporate a truly multi-centered andmulti-vocal approach to what and whom we study. We run
more activities outside Europe, notably in Asia, than we do inHolland or Europe, and we are very active in Southeast Asia.
All our activities are collaborative and we work on an equal
partnership basis, whether being major universities, small institutes, municipalities, NGOs or other social community groups.
Concretely, to only discuss Southeast Asia, we have forged astrong array of connections, in Singapore, Indonesia and inThailand. We aim to develop links in other countries and withother actors in the region.
We have identified three thematic clusters – the practiceand politics of culture and cultural heritage, Asian cities and the“urban factor”; connectivity in Asia and beyond, with what wecall “the global projection of Asia.” Under these three crossdisciplinary/sector themes, IIAS engages with global/Southeast
Asian scholars and partners. These themes enable us to interact
with people from different backgrounds, disciplines and evensectors of activity. We have, for instance, organized a numberof events involving different strands of activities: a roundtableon Indonesian coastal cities in Palembang (2011), a strategic
workshop with Nusa Tengara weavers, local governments andscholars of Eastern Indonesia (2012), a training program on
heritage management for city officials and members of the civilsociety of Yangon, Myanmar (2013), a planned summer schoolon craft and power in Chiang Mai (2014). Moreover, we makesure than in many of our activities dealing with anything related
to Asia – under the three clusters –, scholars and experts fromSoutheast Asia are involved. For instance, for our recent roundtable on old Taipei, in November 2012, we invited participantsfrom Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. They positively, interacted with their counterparts from North, East andSouth Asia.
At ICAS held in Macau 2013, IIAS sponsored ten panels, manyof which include participants from Southeast Asia, or covered
aspects of Southeast Asia. One engaged city practitioners withscholars on cities. Another one brought together artists andsocial scientists. One involved textile craftsmen with politicalscientists and anthropologists. One more involves the development of partnerships between Asian/Southeast Asian institutions and their African counterparts. IIAS works not just withuniversities, but also civil societies and local government partners. It adapts to the institutional landscape in a pragmatic way
to ensure that we reach out to new partners within the region
who can contribute to widening the knowledge base on
Southeast Asia. We are eager to forge new alliances both within
10and outside the region serving an ever multi-centered andinclusive field of exchange of knowledge.
I believe in a process of affirmative action to help shape acritical mass of Southeast Asian scholars, especially from lesseconomically developed countries, capable of interacting with
their international counterparts, about Southeast Asia, and also
about other subjects (when will we have Vietnamese scholars
interacting with colleagues on Thai, Indonesian, French orAmerican studies?).
We have had similar discussions with our colleagues fromthe Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore.
This institute, I believe, could play a major role in connecting
scholars from the region; likewise with the SEASREP program
based in Manila which links up scholars and institutions within
the region. To sustain an inclusive Southeast Asian studies
momentum in the region, institutions need to go beyond petty
national and administrative policies. A more interactive, transnational model can truly act as catalyst of change, with theactive participation of young scholars from countries not always
equipped to be part of this process.
We seek to contribute to Southeast Asia and beyond, byencouraging scholars from the different regions of the world
to interact with their Southeast Asian colleagues. The January
2015 conference in Accra, Ghana, will see the first pan-African
conference on Asian studies. IIAS will hopefully partner withother institutes to encourage more comparisons and exchanges between SEA and Africa and to commit to furthering­
fruitful and productive collaborations.

International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, Holland.