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KalenderMalaysia out of the Box (Conference Panel)
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Titel
Malaysia out of the Box (Conference Panel)Termin
16. - 18.03.10Ort
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, MalaysiaDownloads (PDF)
Nation, ethnic and transethnic layers, and intercultural interaction (Panel des Teilprojekts B3 auf der 7th International Malaysian Studies Conference - MSC7)
Das Teilprojekt B3 des SFB640 nimmt an der diesjährigen Malaysian Scholars Conference (MSC7) teil. B3 organisiert dort ein eigenes Panel. Für das Teilprojekt und die HU nehmen daran Vincent Houben sowie Sumit Mandal vom SFB 640, sowie F. Holst vom Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften teil.
Link zum Programm der gesamten Konferenz: http://pssm-pssm.blogspot.com/
As academics, we are pressured to demonstrate novelty: new perspectives, theories, and of course, research. Proposals for funding, conferences, and so forth, almost always claim a novel orientation to an old research trajectory, if not a completely new approach altogether. In this panel, we try to look at the old, not necessarily to go against the current. Rather, we are interested to learn how scholarly perspectives have been formed in the study of Malaysia, and how well they work for us today. We shall not try to accomplish our goal through a theoretical discussion alone, but by taking on specific research areas, namely the nation, ethnic and transethnic layers, and intercultural interaction respectively. Our intention is to promote discussion as much as share some of our research.
An argument could be made that research on Malaysia has been considerably focused on the following topics: party politics, race or ethnicity (especially ‘race relations’), multiculturalism, the politics of Islam (especially its bureaucratisation), and authoritarianism. The overall focus has frequently been nation-bound. The premise of the panel is that the research foci listed above do not only constitute particular tendencies, but may have come to constrain our thinking. We ask if these foci, in conjunction with a nation-centred focus, have cultivated insularity in Malaysian studies. The considerable attention paid to the governing interethnic coalition of parties, for instance, favours ethnicised perspectives on the country as the world of formal ethnic politicking is taken to represent Malaysian society as a whole. With the dominance of particular tropes sotospeak in research on Malaysia, other areas tend to be overshadowed, or regarded as forms of ‘soft’ analysis undeserving of serious attention. These other, and significant areas, include the following: cosmopolitan histories, transregional linkages, transnational comparison, gender, popular culture, and varieties of nongovernmental social and political activism.
We ask if the above premise is valid, namely that thinking on Malaysia has come to be constrained. If so, we are challenged to expand on the causes of this state of affairs, and what may be done to think about the country out of the box. This is particularly important given the political and social challenges faced by many Malaysians at the present time. March 2008 was a watershed in Malaysia’s history because an opposition party political alliance practically ended the decades long rule of the longstanding interethnic ruling coalition. More than a year later there is an unprecedented level of political uncertainty and loss of faith in the system on the part of people across the political spectrum. Although many agree that the country is undergoing a crisis, some believe that the political leadership and society can sustain it, while others feel that the country could descend into damaging conflict along ethnic or religious lines.
The present climate in Malaysia bears on the panel in so much as it challenges participants to consider, within the scope of academic thinking and production, how may the country best be represented. How, if at all, have academic representations contributed to the framing of Malaysian problems in particular ways? Have the traditions of scholarship developed within the country, and in various centres around the world, been adequate to the task of the serious challenges facing Malaysian society today?
