StudieS of SoutheaSt aSian hiStory in Contemporary Japan the 1990s and 2000s (original) (raw)

Revisiting Japanese Studies in Southeast Asia

Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies, 2017

Asia. The paper presents a number of stumbling blocks of various institutions in Southeast Asia, such as language issues and funding. The study ends with possible suggestions as well as solutions towards success in this area.

Japanese Studies in Southeast Asia: Ploblematic Trends and Challenges Ahead

This is a preliminary report on the status and trends of Japanese studies in Southeast Asia during the recent decade. Japanese studies, as used in this brief report, is viewed as an area study. As such, it is taken for granted the idea that people of a definable geographical unit acting in their society and their environment offer an appropriate unit for scholarly allention. This concept and approach is not really new; it has been used by ancient philosophers as well. Although the objective is to examine Japanese studies in the context of Southeast Asia, the limitation of time and resources do not allow the writer to be comprehensive nor to go beyond available documentary study. This report relies heavily on Japan Studies in Southeast Asia (1987)' as-its starting point. The area focused is more on Thailand and some of its ASEAN neighbors; no data is available at the moment for Brunei Darussalam, a new ASEAN member, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Japanese studies could be seen in terms of teaching and research. In terms of research it is well covered territory. In terms of teaching in the region's higher institutions, Japanese language has been increasingly popular for the last 2 decades while social sciences of Japan are much lagging behind. In other words, while there is an impressive record of Japanese Studies, an interdisciplinary as against a disciplinary study of Japan is still in its formative stage. This report proposes to consider the developments of Japanese studies in Southeast Asia during the recent decade on country-by-country basis. Much detailed and systematic data gathering and analysis still remain to be done both on national and regional level, but through the specifications of these four countries, it is hoped that this can provide an overview of some basic trends in the emergence and maturation of Japanese studies as an area study in the region's academic and professional communities. In the final part, we propose to discuss the key features, problems and challenges lying ahead. Japanese Studies in Thailand According to Chulacheeb Chinawanno2 who estimates no less than one hundred research projects had been carried out on Japanese studies in the 1980's. Research foci range from economic relations between Thailand and Japan, ODA and transfer of technology to politics,

Continuing, Re-Emerging, and Emerging Trends in the Field of Southeast Asian History

TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, 2013

Trends' in the field of Southeast Asian history have a way of being unresolved satisfactorily before 'new' ones emerge to take their place. Part of the reason is that older scholarship is not only considered passé, but each new generation of Southeast Asianists wants to 'make its mark' on the field in original ways. Yet, when one scrutinizes some of these 'new' issues carefully, they often turn out not to be entirely so; rather, they appear to be different ways of approaching and/or expressing older ones, using different (and more current) operating vocabulary. 'Angle of vision' and 'perspective', popular in the 1960s, have become 'privileging of' or 'giving agency to' in current usage, while their methodological intent is exactly the same, bearing the same (or nearly the same) desirable consequences. Older, seminal scholarship is often only given lip-service without much in-depth consideration, so that some of the 'new' scholarship begins 'in the middle of the game', scarcely acknowledging (or knowing) what had transpired earlier. This unawareness regarding the 'lineage' of Southeast Asia scholarship fosters some reinvention and repetition of issues and problems without realizing it, in turn protracting their resolution. So as not to lose sight of this 'scholarly lineage' that not only allows a better assessment of what are genuinely new trends and what are not, but also to resolve unresolved issues and move on to really new things, this essay will analyse and discuss where the field of Southeast Asian history has been, where it is currently, and where it might be headed. Although focused on the discipline of history, it remains ensconced within the context of the larger field of Southeast Asian studies.

M. C. Ricklefs, Bruce Lockhardt, Albert Lau, Portia Reyes, Maitri Aung Thwin, A New History of Southeast Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)

Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 84, Part 2, September 2011, No. 301, pp. 122-126

Southeast Asian Studies in Asia: Recent Trends

Ajia Kenkyu, 2021

The fourth Kashiyama Seminar was held as an international symposium at the annual conference of Japan Association for Asian Studies (June 2019, Keio University) on the theme of 'Southeast Asian Studies in Asia: New Perspectives on Inter-Asia Relations'. Current work on Southeast Asian Studies in Asia covers a diverse range of issues. Political science work tends to focus on traditional topics such as democratization or domestic political integration, while research concerns in the field of economics generally involves cross-regional and globally comparative topics such as sub-regional development. Work on Islamic Studies and Ethnic Studies of Chinese in Southeast Asia have been rapidly emerging in the humanities and social sciences. Ethnic Chinese studies can be seen to coincide with Southeast Asia’s social change toward overcoming conventional social taboos. Contemporary Southeast Asian studies in Asia are diverse; those in China seems driven by Belt and Load Initiative’s momentum, while those of Taiwan seems largely related to their concern on national security issues or reconsider- ation of national identification. The purpose of the symposium was to view these diversified research trends in the academic community, and to discuss future directions for work in the field.

Japan and Southeast Asia Editorial

2017

This issue of Internationales Asienforum / International Quarterly for Asian Studies addresses genuine aspects of intra-regional relations between Japan and Southeast Asia. The topics presented here were delivered at the Annual Conference of the Association for Social Science Research on Japan in 2012. This conference was sponsored by the Japan Foundation and the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and held at the conference centre of the Catholic Diocese of Rothenburg-Stuttgart in Weingarten, Germany. The event brought together scholars from Japan and Southeast Asia for two and a half days to discuss a range of issues on the topic of "Japan and Southeast Asia: Varieties of an Intra-regional Relationship".