[Tlc] Conference on "Historical Fragments in Southeast Asia", 23-24 June 2010

[Michael Montesano]

 *

CALL FOR PAPERS

Conference on Historical Fragments in Southeast Asia:

At the Interfaces of Oral History, Memory and Heritage
*

Organised by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Singapore Heritage
Society

23-24 June 2010

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, together with the Singapore
Heritage Society, is revisiting oral history in Southeast Asia two decades
since it co-organised the first conference.
*Historical Fragments in Southeast Asia *will bring together the latest oral
history and ethnographic research on the region and explore its links with
two exciting fields which investigate the same content in different ways,
namely, memory and heritage studies. *

Historical Fragments in Southeast Asia
*serves as an important platform to explore the interfaces between oral
history, memory and heritage and formulate new ways of approaching Southeast
Asia’s fragmented pasts. Traditional oral history work in the region, which
seeks to retrieve what Paul Thompson called ‘the voices of the past’ to
complete or contest historical narratives, has largely been concerned with
questions of objectivity and reliability. Memory studies, by contrast, has
attempted to analyse the deeper politics and subjective meanings of the
fragments that people remember or forget. Both oral testimonies and memories
are also closely connected with the emerging and topical field of heritage
in its intangible, cultural and everyday forms. *

Important note
*: Proposals should make an attempt at this preliminary stage to consider
oral history’s convergences with memory and/or heritage and not merely
situate the discussion within the originating discipline or methodology.
Proposals should be centered around oral history or ethnographic work. We
welcome submissions from, among others, historians, anthropologists,
sociologists, geographers, architects, public officials, activists, and
social workers, as well as approaches from academic and advocacy
perspectives.

The conference organisers are pleased to be able to offer partial financial
support to participants, although they are also encouraged to seek funding
from their home institutions. Selected papers from the conference will
further explore the interfaces between the three fields and will be
published in what we hope to be a path-breaking edited volume.
*

Submission of Proposal
*

Those interested in presenting a paper at the conference are invited to
submit a proposal which includes a working title, 500-word abstract, CV, and
an indication of your funding requirements by *14 December 2009 *to Dr Loh
Kah Seng *kahseng at iseas.edu.sg*.
*

Suggested Themes

Crisis of Memory.
*What and how Southeast Asians remember or forget are often narrowly
channeled into narratives of loss or nostalgia. What are the influences of
major historical and contemporary forces on oral history such as
colonialism, developmentalism, urbanism, architectural modernism,
cosmopolitanism, and globalisation? What will these developments mean for
the forms of heritage that Southeast Asians can adopt? What is the impact of
Internet technologies in rendering oral histories and individual memories
public? *

Politics of Memory.
*Oral history remains a deeply contested field in an era of Southeast Asian
nationalism. What are the influences of the official mass media and the
prerogatives of nation-building and social engineering on memory? What are
the silences or social rumours of the past? What is the role and impact of
the political biography and the official myth in the region? Does oral
history affirm or contest dominant narratives? Does it accentuate historical
agency and empower the informants? *

‘Difficult’ Heritage and Identity.
*The nation-state remains the primary organising actor in Southeast Asia.
Yet, there are important forms of memory, heritage and identity which exist
outside or even in direct opposition to the national paradigm, along the
divides of locality, gender, ethnicity, class, age, among others. How can
communities and oral historians attempt to recover these interstitial,
everyday or local forms of heritage and memories that exist ‘between the
cracks’ or ‘out of sight’ of the dominant paradigm? How should we negotiate
between national, transnational, community, and local identities? *

Trauma and Reconstruction.
*Since World War Two and the subsequent decolonisation which has transformed
Southeast Asia, political conflict, economic crisis, natural disasters,
epidemics, and social upheaval have been marked features of everyday life in
the region. How have memory and heritage been affected by these developments
and does oral history help redress the personal and social traumas
experienced in the process? *

Contact Details
*

Dr Loh Kah Seng
*

kahseng at iseas.edu.sg
*

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

-- 
Loh Kah Seng
Visiting Research Fellow, ISEAS
Adjunct Assistant-Professor, NTU
http://lkshistory.wordpress.com/
New book, Making and Unmaking the Asylum
http://unmakingtheasylum.wordpress.com/
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