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[justinm at ucr.edu]

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justin

Conference CFP

'Continuity and Change: (Re)conceptualising Power in Southeast Asia'

March 26th-28th 2009

Hosted by CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and 
Humanities), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Keynote Speakers: 
Prof. James Scott (Political Science, Yale) 
Prof. Shelly Errington (Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz)

The study of power in contemporary Southeast Asia has never been more 
timely. Over the last half-century, the region has undergone innumerable 
far-reaching changes. It has witnessed the rise of postcolonial 
nation-states, rapid industrialization, economic growth and democratization 
but also genocide, political upheaval and widespread repression. Power lies 
at the core of these important developments, whether in the form of brute 
military force or as a more capillary 'disciplinary' influence on religious 
and political subjectivities. New religious, economic and political 
movements-all drawing deeply on local traditions while proposing new forms 
of personhood, civil and political society-cut across national, cultural, 
ideological and sectarian boundaries.

Yet for all that power can be detected in Southeast Asia, there seems to be 
little specifically Southeast Asian about it contemporary scholarly 
analyses? This is both puzzling and ironic given the central role that 
earlier ethnographic studies of Southeast Asia once played in identifying 
distinctively regional modalities of power, prompting us to reconsider how 
'power' could be most profitably studied in Southeast Asian contexts.

'Continuity and Change' will be a major interdisciplinary and international 
conference on Southeast Asia. Its key aim is to reopen the debate on the 
issue of 'power'-both in real life and academic scholarship-as it is 
manifest across the region. Conference themes and questions will include:

ó Are there, or were there ever, distinctly 'Southeast Asian' notions of 
power that could still exist as alternatives-or complements-to Western folk 
and political models? ó Are scholars' analytic imaginaries of power in 
relation to nationhood and governance congruent with the imaginaries of 
Southeast Asians witnessing or involved in such projects and processes? ó 
What are the shapes that 'power' takes? ó How have recent theoretical 
developments within various disciplines reshaped our understanding of the 
nature and location of power? ó How useful is the concept of 'Southeast 
Asia' as a geographical, political and analytical entity in dealing with 
these issues?


We invite papers from scholars working in arts, humanities and social 
sciences whose research illuminates novel, exciting and challenging 
dimensions of power in Southeast Asian contexts across space and time.

Abstracts, 250 words in length, should be submitted to 
sea.continuity.change at googlemail.com

Submission of Proposal: 1st October 2008
Announcement of accepted proposals: 1st November 2008
Circulation of Paper Abstracts and Panels: 1st March 2009

For further details see our website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/542 
or email us at sea.continuity.change at googlemail.com

Organizing Committee:
Liana Chua 
Joanna Cook 
Nick Long
Lee Wilson


University of Cambridge 

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu