State Formation and The Early State in South and Southeast Asia Reconsidered
This conference aims to bridge the gulf that has emerged between research on South and Southeast Asia by bringing together, experts from both sides of the Bay of Bengal.
It is an amazing fact that the study of the early state (“early” referring here to a period between ca. 200 and 1500 C.E.) in South and Southeast Asia has taken widely different courses despite numerous similarities in both regions. Models designed to explain political configurations in South Asia have gone nearly unnoticed by scholars working on Southeast Asia and vice versa. The discussion of theories of the feudal or the segmentary state, for instance, were of tremendous importance for Indian history, but they hardly played any role in the Southeast Asian scene. Concepts based on economic approaches (the hydraulic state and despotism or trading states) have in turn been rather marginal for the South Asian realm, perhaps with the notable exception of Sri Lanka.
The purpose of this conference is twofold. It will first try to take stock of the present state of research on state formation of the early state in South and Southeast Asia, introducing paradigmatically short case studies, identifying various models and ideally testing their applicability in different contexts. Secondly, the panel intends to encourage reflections in the epistemology of this research by investigating the reasons why and how it came that research which is obviously related in its theoretical approach, could produce such unrelated results. Is the lack of relationship a sign of autonomous historiography prevailing in both areas, or can we detect certain cultural ascriptions that scholars carry in their ideological backpacks such as imaginations of a “republican”, “arthasastric” (and now “feudal” and “segmentary”) India vs. a “despotic”, “theatrical” or “indiginised” South East Asia?
As a result of this conference, we hope to bridge the gulf that has emerged between research on South and Southeast Asia by bringing together, perhaps for the first time, experts from both sides of the Bay of Bengal. Ideally, the conference may thus give a fresh impetus to future research in South and Southeast Asia through “trans-regional cross-fertilisation”.
Contact Person: Ms YAP Mui Joo, Rina , Prof KULKE Hermann
Email: [email protected], [email protected]
http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/events_categorydetails.asp?categoryid=6&eventi...
