Southeast Asia

Organized Panel Session

Rethinking Power in the Southeast Asian Present

In this panel we explore how power, broadly defined, is currently understood by academics and local players, highlighting often unnoticed similarities and contrasts between mainland and island Southeast Asia. Our rethinking begins with the seminal works on power by Lucien Hanks (1962) and Ben Anderson (1972). Since then much has changed throughout the region, as well as in the approaches scholars use and the topics they analyze. Nonetheless, institutional structures consistently separate mainland from island Southeast Asian scholarship, making it rare that we hear the resonances between them.   

We do not pursue a sustained critique or hagiography of these brilliant early works. Rather, our papers explore, and sometimes muddle, the edges of what stands strong in their analyses. We also draw on our recent ethnography to highlight what was absent but seems critically needed today as we examine power playing out at different scales. Our papers crosscut island and mainland Southeast Asia, as well as our early and recent ethnographic research findings. We emphasize themes of civil pluralism, gender diversity, religious hybridity, and global connections. Drawing data from popular culture writings, journalistic reporting, legal debates,ritual arts, museums, and ethnographic observations of daily life, we probe how Southeast Asians recognize the signs and dynamics of power and protection when they see them. Throughout, we consider how situated individuals and groups understand the parameters of power, and assess power’s permeability and limits in the early twenty-first century.

Organizer(s)

• NT

  Nicola Tannenbaum

  Lehigh University
• LA

  Lorraine Aragon

  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Chair(s)

• HJ

  Hjorleifur Jonsson

  Arizona State University

Paper Presenter(s)

• NT

  Nicola Tannenbaum

  Lehigh University
• KA

  Kathleen Adams

  Loyola University, Chicago
• LA

  Lorraine Aragon

  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• HJ

  Hjorleifur Jonsson

  Arizona State University

Discussant(s)

• RO

  Richard O'Connor

  University of the South

Papers:

• 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

  Reconsidering Power-Protection in the Changing Socio-Political and Religious Environments of Southeast Asia
• 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

  Rethinking Power and Authority in Upland Indonesia: Trafficked Toraja Ancestral Objects in an Era of Heritage-Consciousness
• 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

  Is Power Fungible in Southeast Asia? Do Different Power Models Intersect or Scale?
• 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM

  Fantasies of Thai Masculinity and Pluralism