Whither Sociology in Southeast Asia? Some Reflections on 40 Years of Sociological Research

1. Whither Sociology in Southeast Asia? Some Reflections on 40 Years of Sociological Research Victor T King

2. Texts in Sociology • Lack of regional comparative texts in sociology (Hans Dieter-Evers) • Had a book be written in the 1970s it would have been very different (economic, social, political differences) • Serious conflicts (ethnic, ideological) • Superpower engagement

3. And anthropology • What was the relationship between policy and practice, theory and implementation in development and engineered social change? • Understanding on the ground (local) but taking account of a globalising world

4. Conflicts

5. A region of instability and economic problems • Region of revolt • Dimensions of conflict • War and revolution • Prelude to tragedy • Search for survival • Modernization without development • The development of underdevelopment • Poverty and inequality

6. ASEAN: THE TURNAROUND Sustained economic growth in ASEAN after 1967 The Singapore model Increase in standards of living Broadening of economies Industrialization and urbanization But with continuing inequalities Economic dependency (and Asian crises) Corruption

7. Themes • Globalization • Middle class, new rich • Consumerism, domestic tourism, lifestyles • Civil society • A political region • Violence, paramilitaries, civilian militias, • Violence from the state and superpower involvement replaced by decentralized violence and local religious-ethnic conflict • Continuing inequalities

8. Political Economy • Things changed rapidly (1997-2006) • Turmoil, conflict, crisis, bankruptcy, disarray, siege, volatility, contestation • Continuing conflict over the complexion of economic and political regimes and the forces and interests which drive these

9. Where are the ideas? • Dutch historical-sociological school; non-Western sociology; Wim Wertheim and Otto van derMuijzenberg • Bieleveld and development; Hans Dieter Evers • Murdoch and political economy (Richard Robison, Kevin Hewison, Richard Higgott and Garry Rodan)

10. Production of Teaching Texts • Pluralism, • Dualism • Involution • Loosely -structured societies

11. A formative text • One of the first substantial texts in neo-Marxist inspired political economy • A n important element in development of the Murdoch school of political economy

12. Western versus non-Western: Syed Hussein Alatas and SyedFaridAlatas

13. Political economy • JomoKwameSundaram • named after Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya) and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) • A public intellectual • A Question of Class, Privatizing Malaysia, Tigers in Trouble, Reinventing Malaysia, Ugly Malaysians, Southeast Asia’s Misunderstood Miracle, Asia’s Paper Tigers • UN Assistant-General Secretary for Economic Development • UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)

14. Does a Sociology of Southeast Asia make sense? • Institutionalised • Other eminent scholars have adopted a regional perspective • ASEAN a significant factor • We have to locate global and wider processes in some definable unit of analysis to ground concepts in case material • Globalisation a problem and increasing links across the Western pacific Rim • Still considerable diversity across the region in social, economic and political terms

15. Themes and issues • Problem of defining sociology of Southeast Asia and the region • Reasons for the slow pace and patchiness of sociological research up to the 1990s • The hegemony of American scholarship • The critical reaction to these perspectives in neo-Marxist perspectives • What has happened since the impasse to the dominant paradigms: modernization and underdevelopment?

16. Substantive issues • Ethnicity and pluralism • Governance, corruption and patronage • Changing religious values and practices • Changing gender relations • Transformations in urban-rural relations • Globalization , cultural change and the politics of identity • Local and foreign knowledge • What constrains scholarship? • We need to be much more comparative; what is the point of ASEAN for research if we don’t examine issues, processes, topics region-wide • Our perspectives on Southeast Asia are still unbalanced; major debates have been generated in only a few countries: Singapore is dominant; then Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines. Beware the power of Singapore

17. A Sociological or Anthropological Style? • McVey’s regnant paradigm? • Interest among Singapore sociologists in the 1960s and 1970s • The Geertzian cultural perspective • A European tradition, more structuralist, more Marxist • Recent emerging interest in culture, identities, discourse and multiple narratives (Joel Kahn and multidisciplinary cultural narratives)

18. The Future and Conceptual Trends • The media and modern culture, gender, literature, the arts and performance, and urban and industrial lifestyles • Globalization and local responses • The politics of culture and identity (class, gender, and local-state relations) • Middle classes and their identities, consumption practices, lifestyles and roles in civil society • Political economy perspectives and the significant influence of personal relations in the political and bureaucratic fields • Numerous and widespread cases of conflict, struggle and violence, particularly ethnic and religious • Youth and the young middle class; sexual behaviour, occupations and careers, family life, consumerism, political and civic values and practices • Debates about the advantages and disadvantages of multi- and interdisciplinary approaches as against disciplinary ones • The regionalisation of research

19. My next book: Identities in Motion: the Sociology of Culture in Southeast Asia • 1 Introduction: the Sociology of Culture • 2 Identities, Nations and Ethnicities • 3 Globalization and Identities • 4 The Media and Identities • 5 Identity, Consumerism and the Middle Class • 6 Tourism Encounters and Identities • 7 Gender and Sexual Identities • 8 Migration, Diaspora and Identities