Sumit K Mandal
National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, Faculty Member
- I am a historian interested in the transregional architecture of Asian societies. My research has focused primarily o... moreI am a historian interested in the transregional architecture of Asian societies. My research has focused primarily on Muslim societies in the Malay world - in relation to the Indian Ocean - as well as contemporary Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Before joining the National University of Singapore in 2024, I worked at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and held fellowships at New York University and Kyoto University. I completed my doctoral degree in history at Columbia University in 1994.
I am currently doing research on keramat or Muslim shrines in the Malay world. I have been examining these sites of popular veneration as the built archives of a little known past that is enmeshed in individual acts of intellectual and political leadership, inter-cultural interaction, transregional connections, piety, and miracles. My research has taken me to sites in Java, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula as well as the Cape Peninsula (South Africa).edit
Sumit Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was... more
Sumit Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated gures dee ned by economic and political function. The racialisation constrained but did not eliminate the fluid character of Arabness. Creole Arabs responded to the constraints by initiating transregional links with the Ottoman Empire and establishing modern social organisations, schools, and a press. Contentions emerged between organisations respectively based on Prophetic descent and egalitarianism, advancing empowering but conn icting representations of a modern Arab and Islamic identity. Mandal unsettles finite understandings of race and identity by demonstrating not only the incremental development of a modern identity, but the contested state of its birth.
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Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia is one of the first substantial comparative studies of contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, homes to the world's largest Muslim population. Following the collapse of New Order rule in... more
Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia is one of the first substantial comparative studies of contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, homes to the world's largest Muslim population. Following the collapse of New Order rule in Indonesia in 1998, this book provides an in-depth examination of anti-authoritarian forces in contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, assessing their problems and prospects. The authors discuss the roles played by women, public intellectuals, arts workers, industrial workers as well as environmental and Islamic activists. They explore how different forms of authoritarianism in the two countries affect the prospects of democratization, and examine the impact and legacy of the diverse social and political protests in Indonesia and Malaysia in the late 1990s.
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Habib Syech bin Abdul Qodir Assegaf, a well-known Arab Indonesian singing preacher, transposed to Malaysia a model of performing selawat (praise songs) in Islamic mass concerts that captured public spaces in Indonesia. By ‘capture’, this... more
Habib Syech bin Abdul Qodir Assegaf, a well-known Arab Indonesian singing preacher, transposed to Malaysia a model of performing selawat (praise songs) in Islamic mass concerts that captured public spaces in Indonesia. By ‘capture’, this article suggests both the sanctification of a physical space and the promotion of a heightened Islamic religiosity within that space. In 2014, Habib Syech performed in a mass concert held in Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia. This article explores this concert as a form of religious mediation that was facilitated by the transposition to Malaysia of the highly visible public role of descendants of the Prophet in Indonesia as well as Malaysia’s political leadership and state agencies. The concert had two historic outcomes. First, it heightened the status of descendants of the Prophet in Malaysia before a massive audience gathered at the location and others watching the live broadcast in distant places. Second, it captured Putrajaya through a mix of selawat, enchantment, charismatic performance, and prayer.
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This article examines an emerging historical narrative that invokes an exclusivist Malay-Islamic identity in Malaysia through a sacred geography centred on Aceh in Indonesia. The examination is located against the growing sacralisation of... more
This article examines an emerging historical narrative that invokes an exclusivist Malay-Islamic identity in Malaysia through a sacred geography centred on Aceh in Indonesia. The examination is located against the growing sacralisation of space across the world and its often contentious if not violent political outcomes. It considers the role of scholarship on sacred geographies in the face of output on the same subject by an informal expert – a person working outside of established institutional frameworks. The article focuses on the writings of Radzi Sapiee, a Malaysian informal expert who advances an exclusivist Malay-Islamic identity based on field observations, scholarly works, and inner wisdom. His partially completed book series constitutes an autobiographical return to Aceh and articulates a transnational geography of meaning that consolidates the exclusivist identity within the already racialised politics of Malaysia by further grounding it in space and time.
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Since the seventeenth century, the Hadrami diaspora has forged connections between southern Arabia and the Malay world, the largely Muslim archipelago within Southeast Asia, and constituted a transcultural network made up of people of... more
Since the seventeenth century, the Hadrami diaspora has forged connections between southern Arabia and the Malay world, the largely Muslim archipelago within Southeast Asia, and constituted a transcultural network made up of people of enormously diverse cultural origin. Members of the diaspora placed importance on their descent from the Prophet Muhammad and thereby offered a model of human interaction beyond racial or national vocabularies. The diaspora’s creole histories – narratives of interconnection and intermixing – have been neglected in favour of racialised narratives that arose with colonialism and are sustained by independent nation-states of the region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Hadramis, as Arabs, have also been identified with the flow of an orthodox Islam from west to east. Rather than a one-way conduit of conservatism, this chapter takes the position that Hadrami connections with the Malay world have resulted in a transcultural Islamic bridging space that allows for a variety of multiscalar circulations of people, politics and ideas. Hadrami connections, even if largely in the past and superseded by racialised narratives, continue to point to an alternative vocabulary of belonging and identity in the world.
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This article explores historically grounded expressions of umma by examining the gravitation of Muslims from Peninsular Malaysia towards the province of Aceh in Indonesia. Umma is typically understood to mean “Islamic community” in a... more
This article explores historically grounded expressions of umma by examining the gravitation of Muslims from Peninsular Malaysia towards the province of Aceh in Indonesia. Umma is typically understood to mean “Islamic community” in a universal or transcendent sense. However, the term has been used by Muslims in the Malay world, and elsewhere, to capture varying conceptualisations of community, on the local, national, and global scale. This article examines a case in which Islam-oriented travel expands the spatial orientation and scope of umma in a particular manner. The aim is to understand better the formation of transnational imaginaries by considering how connections across national boundaries work. Despite the longstanding historical interaction between Peninsular Malaysia and Aceh, the two have been cast apart by the establishment of modern states in the nineteenth century and, in more recent times, by war in Aceh. The gravitation of Muslim Malaysians to Aceh is thus a novel phenomenon and raises a number of questions. What kinds of cultural, political and material resources have been mobilised to enable the transnational connection? What are the implications of the expanded spatial dimension of the umma in this case?
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This essay explores the cultural geography of the Malay world writ large by examining the trajectories of texts beyond the conventional national and regional boundaries of Southeast Asian studies. Although the Malay world could be studied... more
This essay explores the cultural geography of the Malay world writ large by examining the trajectories of texts beyond the conventional national and regional boundaries of Southeast Asian studies. Although the Malay world could be studied in relation to a number of transregional orientations, this essay highlights its interconnectedness with the Indian Ocean. This orientation offers a broad enough frame to examine the trans regional scale without losing sight of the local. The essay focuses on a collaborative effort at examining textual trajectories. It proposes a rethinking of the normative vocabulary of the nationstate by exploring the subterranean histories of the present. The essay proposes the term " Malay world " as a helpful vehicle for exploring the transregional connections that are not captured by the language of territory and boundedness. The cultural geography of the Malay world that emerges in this essay is multifarious as its interconnectedness with the Indian Ocean has taken complex and diverse forms. The trajectories of the texts examined have traced a world that has been enmeshed in the transregional traffic of people, goods, and ideas. The pervasiveness of the thinking and practice of the nationstate, has undermined, but not eliminated the multifarious cul tural geography of the Malay world.
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The urban landscapes of Malaysia have witnessed a marked increase in the number of non-citizens with the influx of foreign workers to satisfy the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. This paper examines how notions of belonging might have... more
The urban landscapes of Malaysia have witnessed a marked increase in the number of non-citizens with the influx of foreign workers to satisfy the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. This paper examines how notions of belonging might have changed through the subsequent interaction between citizens and non-citizens in the Klang Valley, the political and economic centre of the country. It focuses specifically on Arab migrants who find themselves in a region – the Malay world – with which they have had historical connections. Arabs, primarily from the Hadramaut in Yemen, have long formed creole communities in the region. Recent Arab migrants have arrived at a time of two noteworthy developments. First, there is a rediscovery of Arabness underway among creoles. Second, Malaysia’s ethnically diverse citizenry has seen renewed and heightened challenges, based on historical arguments, to its sense of belonging. By focusing on novel migrants with historical connections, this paper relates the question of belonging to history and asks a number of questions. How are Arabs shaping the social landscape? How do the historical connections between Arabs and the Malay world matter? What are the implications of the new Arab presence for Malaysian society as a whole?
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This special issue explores the cultural geography of the Malay world in global context through a focus on texts. The articles are the outcome of a workshop held at the Free University, Berlin on 24–26 November 2011 under the auspices of... more
This special issue explores the cultural geography of the Malay world in global context through a focus on texts. The articles are the outcome of a workshop held at the Free University, Berlin on 24–26 November 2011 under the auspices of the Future Philology research programme. The articles are the result of a common effort at reading the language, content, creation, and circulation of texts. The contributors have examined texts in Malay and other languages, including mixtures thereof that emerge from Indian Ocean interactions. While the Malay world may be viewed in relation to various transregional orientations, the focus here is on the interconnectedness with the Indian Ocean. This orientation establishes a parameter within within which global conjunctions are studied at a scale that is sufficiently large to allow for wide ranging explorations without sacrificing attention to the local.
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ABSTRACT This article places the Hikayat Mareskalek in the context of the Indian Ocean and thereby locates the didactic text within a more expansive cultural geography than is customary, namely the Malay world centred largely on... more
ABSTRACT This article places the Hikayat Mareskalek in the context of the Indian Ocean and thereby locates the didactic text within a more expansive cultural geography than is customary, namely the Malay world centred largely on contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia. Abdullah al-Misri, the author of the text, was a creole Arab whose biography connects the Malay archipelago to the Indian Ocean. This transregional connection is conveyed in the text through wide-ranging narratives and acts of translation. The Malay world thus charted shows not only a vastly greater spatial reach but a cultural expansiveness. In the oceanic context, the Hikayat Mareskalek demonstrates a transregional sphere of interaction that makes multiple languages and translation, and the transmission of ideas across great distances, the norm. It brings together the global and the local in important ways to invoke a cosmopolitan Malay world at variance with the racialised histories proffered by contemporary nation-states.
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ABSTRACT This article explores cultural geographies at the conjunction of transregional and local histories by examining creole Hadrami biographies in the Malay world. It focuses on Abdullah al-Misri and Abdullah Munsyi and a few... more
ABSTRACT This article explores cultural geographies at the conjunction of transregional and local histories by examining creole Hadrami biographies in the Malay world. It focuses on Abdullah al-Misri and Abdullah Munsyi and a few biographical fragments from their writings. Efforts to create national canons have led to the anachronistic application of national and ethnic categories to these nineteenth-century writers. Through biographical fragments, this article demonstrates the connected histories of creole Hadramis in the Malay world, and presents cultural geographies that bring to the fore the multi-scalar and shared histories of the citizens of contemporary nation-states. It makes a historically grounded argument for a cosmopolitan Malay world.
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ABSTRACT Keramat is the Malay word for the graves of notable figures which are popular sites of prayer and dot the social and physical landscapes of much of Muslim Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a whole. The term refers to... more
ABSTRACT Keramat is the Malay word for the graves of notable figures which are popular sites of prayer and dot the social and physical landscapes of much of Muslim Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a whole. The term refers to both people as well as their burial sites. Historically, keramat drew people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. While the venerated dead also came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, histories, and faiths, they were usually Muslim and frequently Hadrami (from the Hadramaut region in Yemen). In this paper, I view keramat as a significant site of social and cultural diversity. The study of keramat, and the transoceanic movement of the people and faith to which it is linked, may shed further light on the cultural interaction that has historically characterized the region. At the same time, the permissibility of the veneration of graves constitutes a terrain that has long been contested by Muslim scholars. As a result, the fate of this popular practice may offer insights into the complex process of Islamization in the region which began around 700 years ago. I explore two questions in particular. First, in what ways do keramat embody cultural diversity? Secondly, where do keramat stand in relation to state- and organization-driven Islam?
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The National Cultural Policy (NCP) was, in the 1970s and 1980s, a site of contestation over vital questions such as the culture and identity of the country. Although initiated by the government as one of the measures to encourage national... more
The National Cultural Policy (NCP) was, in the 1970s and 1980s, a site of contestation over vital questions such as the culture and identity of the country. Although initiated by the government as one of the measures to encourage national unity following the racialised political crisis of 1969, the NCP became the basis of an exclusionary cultural politics. The chapter attempts to identify the sources of this politics and the factors that mitigated it in the period 1970-2005. Locating the NCP in the cultural politics of the four decades in question is helpful in understanding the extent to which social groups have been able to influence or exert pressure on the government with regard to cultural policy in the era of globalisation. In the first part of the chapter, I locate the NCP in relation to other key cultural initiatives before turning in the second to the fourth parts to three moments roughly a decade apart from the 1980s to the 2000s. I try to understand the place and meaning of the NCP over time by considering the voices of Malay cultural leaders in each of these moments. I do not propose a comprehensive study of these voices as much as a consideration of some illustrative views which help to mark the shifts in exclusionary cultural politics before and after the intensification of globalising processes.
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Pramoedya Anata Toer’s historical critique of the Indonesian nation, his 1960 publication Hoa Kiau di Indonesia or ‘The Chinese in Indonesia’ has gone largely unnoticed by scholars. The book was a response to the ruthless pogroms against... more
Pramoedya Anata Toer’s historical critique of the Indonesian nation, his 1960 publication Hoa Kiau di Indonesia or ‘The Chinese in Indonesia’ has gone largely unnoticed by scholars. The book was a response to the ruthless pogroms against Chinese Indonesians launched by the army in the years 1959-1960, the culmination of the growth of anti-Chinese politics since 1956. Scholars have typically read this work as an outright defence of the Chinese and, at best, it is described as a worthy journalistic effort that represented the view of an intellectual elite. At worst, it has been seen as an indication of the author’s political alignment with the Communist Part of Indonesia which consistently defended the rights of Chinese Indonesians. In this essay, my reading of Hoa Kiau suggests that Pramoedya created a language and historical argument that went well beyond a simple defence of the Chinese in Indonesia. He dwelt precisely on the nation’s ambivalence about her ‘own’ and was unwilling to bow to the chauvinistic nationalism of the time that rested on the estrangement of the Chinese.
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This chapter examines an instance of collaboration between theatre professionals in the hope of learning something about the dynamics of creating a transnational community constituted by people from countries belonging to the Association... more
This chapter examines an instance of collaboration between theatre professionals in the hope of learning something about the dynamics of creating a transnational community constituted by people from countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The collaboration under study aimed to foster a style of creating theatre from the bottom-up amongst Asian theatre professionals by involving them in periods of intense collaborative work over the long term rather than the typical pattern of staging work based on a predetermined script after a short period of rehearsal. The chapter proposes that collaboration between social groups rather than state-dominated bodies is a salient indication of a step towards community in ASEAN. It poses two questions. Firstly, what are the prospects of forging a community in ASEAN given the observations made of the theatre collaboration and what are the forces shaping these prospects? Secondly, what is the impact of globalization on community-making in this regard?
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Perspectives based on race or essentialized notions of ethnicity have had remarkable resilience in the study of Malaysia despite their rather dubious use. Undoubtedly, a racialized polity has arisen as a result of the preferential... more
Perspectives based on race or essentialized notions of ethnicity have had remarkable resilience in the study of Malaysia despite their rather dubious use. Undoubtedly, a racialized polity has arisen as a result of the preferential treatment given to those classified under the nativistic politico-legal category Bumiputera (indigene). Boundaries are nevertheless more permeable than often admitted by politicians. By turning to the case of Indian Malaysians, I explore how the dominance of racialized perspectives in public discourse in Malaysia renders inconsequential if not invisible the rich and complex interaction between different ethnic groups. I show how dominant representations of Indian Malaysians obscure the significant and distinctive efforts of popular musicians. The state, opposition politicians, and nongovernment organizations tend to represent Indians as a singularly disempowered minority. This concurrence of views affirms the racialized political and social order and diminishes the potential alternatives, if not the challenges, posed by transethnic, hybrid, and other forms of cultural politics. The complexity of Indianness and, indeed, Malaysian society resists racialized perspectives. This becomes especially clear when we turn to the cultural politics of popular music in Peninsular Malaysia. Young musicians produce work in the genres of rock, hip-hop, reggae, and so forth in Tamil–the most commonly spoken language of Indian origin-as well as in other Malaysian languages. An admixture of rebellion and commercial drive colors their efforts as they capitalize on the enabling aspects of globalization while trying to curb its damaging consequences. As a result of their exposure to–if not familiarity with–different cultures and languages, and through contact, exchange and partnership with musicians of other ethnic backgrounds, Indian Malaysians have forged a distinct musical identity.
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In this paper, I revisit an illustrative moment in Indonesian history when, in instructive ways, Chineseness defied easy categorisation and standardisation. This historical exploration renders visible the diversity and complexity of... more
In this paper, I revisit an illustrative moment in Indonesian history when, in instructive ways, Chineseness defied easy categorisation and standardisation. This historical exploration renders visible the diversity and complexity of social and cultural identities which persists even till the present time, though racialisation of both state and society was intensified under the New Order.
Activist arts workers have been visible in the oppositional movements in Indonesia and Malaysia since the late 1990s. They may be characterized in two ways. First, arts workers are diverse and cut across social boundaries, including among... more
Activist arts workers have been visible in the oppositional movements in Indonesia and Malaysia since the late 1990s. They may be characterized in two ways. First, arts workers are diverse and cut across social boundaries, including among them women, men, workers, and farmers. Second, they are occupied with cultural production. In what other ways may arts workers be set apart from other social actors? And what is different about their aesthetic engagements from other cultural products? This chapter seeks answers to these questions in order to know what may be different about creativity in protest.
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In this chapter, I make a distinction between transethnic solidarities and the language of inter-ethnic harmony, at whose heart lies an unquestioned acceptance of ‘race’ and racialisation. Transethnic solidarities constitute an area of... more
In this chapter, I make a distinction between transethnic solidarities and the language of inter-ethnic harmony, at whose heart lies an unquestioned acceptance of ‘race’ and racialisation. Transethnic solidarities constitute an area of scholarship that has significant ramifications for Malaysian studies as well as approaches to cultural diversity, ethnic politics, and other topics of global relevance. By 'transethnic solidarities' I refer to a variety of efforts whereby Malaysians actively participate in society without respect to ethnic background and by rejecting primordial notions of ethnicity. Included in these solidarities are the social and cultural activities of arts groups, religious communities, civic and business groups, and so forth. Transethnic solidarities are one of the most obvious and yet least studied aspects of Malaysian society. Undoubtedly, race has played a crucial role in the making of Malaysia’s party politics and society, though not without displaying significant ambiguities and inconsistencies. Elucidating the instability of the concept and social phenomenon requires a departure from the dominant party political framework of academic and journalistic analyses to the realm of cultural politics. Race is not as totalising as it would appear, given the evidence of transethnic solidarities offered in this chapter.
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This essay turns to the forging of the earliest collective identity by Arabs in Java – a social development that was in keeping with the zeitgeist of the era. By the 1900s, the Dutch colonial state had firmly established its authority... more
This essay turns to the forging of the earliest collective identity by Arabs in Java – a social development that was in keeping with the zeitgeist of the era. By the 1900s, the Dutch colonial state had firmly established its authority over the numerous groups in its territories divided along ethnic lines. Keeping apace with this development, the colonized groups began to assert their desire for modern education and social institutions in order to strengthen themselves in the face of the strong Dutch state. Given the divisions along ethnic lines within the colonial administrative structure, the groups asserted themselves by galvanizing their individual ethnic identities. Each established social and political movements based on ethnicity to advance its cause. The essay argues that the collective identity of Arabs was founded upon their leadership as important businessmen and religious scholars in the wider Muslim social world of Java. Arabs did not forge an identity by manifesto. Their collective identity emerged as they took the lead in establishing unprecedented educational and press institutions for Arabs as well as other Muslims. Hence, this essay articulates the formation of Arab identity by locating the institutions and public practices of this community within its wider social context, the ethnically heterogeneous world of Muslims in Java.
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The increased prominence of the English language in Malaysia seems to confirm the view that flows of culture are one-way in the constellation of processes that constitute contemporary globalization. This article argues otherwise by... more
The increased prominence of the English language in Malaysia seems to confirm the view that flows of culture are one-way in the constellation of processes that constitute contemporary globalization. This article argues otherwise by examining local perspectives and engagements with the English language. In the late 1960s Lloyd Fernando argued for the retention rather than the rejection of the study of the colonial language and its literature. For this scholar of English, only familiarity with the language's cultural breadth could eliminate the persistent fallacy of its superiority. Given Fernando's perspective on English, the article discusses three writers who treat the language as a venue for renewed explorations of Malaysia's history, society and cultural identity, problematizing the language' s colonial origins in the process. As a consequence, their work engages imperializing tendencies within globalization by demanding of its proponents a more complex and pluralistic view of the economy, politics and culture.
In the study of Malaysia, the cultural boundaries of political community have been viewed along the lines of the plural society model advanced by Furnivall in the 1940s. With some variations, independent Malaysia would appear to reflect... more
In the study of Malaysia, the cultural boundaries of political community have been viewed along the lines of the plural society model advanced by Furnivall in the 1940s. With some variations, independent Malaysia would appear to reflect quite nicely the colonial-era model of an ethnically divided polity. The ruling coalition of ethnic political parties has survived for more than forty years, thanks in part to a measure of pliancy and compromise among its elites. In international politics, Malaysia’s ruling elites take pride in the power-sharing between ethnic parties as their very own formula for economic development and managing conflict in a multiethnic society. Following the economic liberalization measures of the late 1980s, the country’s political economy has been rapidly and fundamentally transformed. The political posture of the ruling coalition has shifted in tandem. In a move unprecedented for the political leadership in the postcolonial era, Mahathir Mohamad has recently promoted the notion of a transethnic national identity. Two key terms were advanced as a result: Smart Partnership and Bangsa Malaysia (the “Malaysian Nation”). The former came to refer to the coalition politics credited with the stability that allowed for the different ethnic groups to share in the financial rewards of economic globalization. Bangsa Malaysia followed suit and instilled hopes for a political community devoid of ethnic distinctions. However, it soon became clear that the novel idea was to be realized only in the distant future when the country would be fully industrialized: in the year 2020. On the whole, the promotion of a transethnic national identity has been given little political and institutional substantiation, while the prevailing ethnic policies and party politics persist. Nevertheless, the discourses of political community were recast in Malaysia in the 1990s. Given the new conceptions of political culture that have followed in the footsteps of rapid economic transformation, how have social groups in Malaysia responded? Is the plural society model being displaced by new forms of more inclusive pluralism? This essay engages these questions by focusing on the arts community, a group largely neglected in the social science scholarship on Malaysia.
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This chapter explores how Java’s Arab elites strengthened their cultural position in relation to native Muslims and articulated a particular vision of Arab ethnicity and culture by claiming Istanbul as their political and religious... more
This chapter explores how Java’s Arab elites strengthened their cultural position in relation to native Muslims and articulated a particular vision of Arab ethnicity and culture by claiming Istanbul as their political and religious centre. Where there was a notable presence of Arabs in leadership roles, as in Batavia (Jakarta today), Surabaya, and Singapore in the 1900s, the chapter illuminates the historical conditions that led to their rise to these positions. Intrinsic to the making of “Arabness” in this regard was the inculcation among Arab elites of a paternalism towards native Muslims. The orientation toward Istanbul was only the precursor to complex developments in which the pattern of Arab self-identification as leaders of native Muslims was repeated. Whether Arab elites called for the constitution of Arab culture in the model of modernist Islam or the traditionalist defence of the authority of sayyid (descendants of the Prophet), they directed Arabs, mostly born in Java and raised by Arab-Javanese or Javanese women, away from the established tendency towards hybrid daily life, political ideas, and religious beliefs.
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positions: east asia cultures critique Copyright © 2005 by Duke University Press. All rights reserved. positions: east asia cultures critique 13.1 (2005) 115-120, ...
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This book rethinks the politics of cultural diversity by examining how the idea of multilingualism became incompatible with the nation-state. It contributes to theoretical debates on both the global and regional scale. The nuanced and... more
This book rethinks the politics of cultural diversity by examining how the idea of multilingualism became incompatible with the nation-state. It contributes to theoretical debates on both the global and regional scale. The nuanced and fine-grained analysis of the creation of a monolingual state in a multilingual society, colonial Malaya (later Malaysia), makes it worthy of scholars interested in similar questions in other parts of the world.
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Rustom Bharucha's Another Asia explores the convergence of different notions of Asia embodied by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and the Japanese curator Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913). Today, writers and arts practitioners... more
Rustom Bharucha's Another Asia explores the convergence of different notions of Asia embodied by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and the Japanese curator Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913). Today, writers and arts practitioners meet in a variety of fora, not only within Asia but throughout the world, charting paths that criss cross the globe. The trajectories marked by Tagore and Okakura in the early twentieth century stand out in comparison. Such encounters were rare then, what more within Asia. One can easily envision the dramatic potential, as Bharucha does, of the relationship that developed between the pair.
This publication is historic because seven of the nine contributors are senior scholars who have not only witnessed in their lifetimes formative developments in the subject matter, nation building, but helped to shape the scholarship on... more
This publication is historic because seven of the nine contributors are senior scholars who have not only witnessed in their lifetimes formative developments in the subject matter, nation building, but helped to shape the scholarship on it. It is thus a valuable addition to the publisher’s series on the history of nation-building. The chapters by senior scholars include those by the editor himself, Wang Gungwu, who wrote the introductory and closing chapters; by Craig J. Reynolds and Anthony Reid, who wrote on Thailand and Indonesia respectively; by Cheah Boon Kheng, Anthony Milner and Lee Kam Hing, who wrote a chapter each on Malaysia; and by Tony Stockwell, who wrote on both Malaysia and Singapore. Caroline S. Hau and Albert Lau, the two younger scholars, contributed chapters on the Philippines and Singapore respectively.
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Michael Hitchcock's work is an articulation of the social and cultural identity of the Bimanese through an examination of material culture. It is a useful contribution to Indonesian and Southeast Asian studies on at least two counts.... more
Michael Hitchcock's work is an articulation of the social and cultural identity
of the Bimanese through an examination of material culture. It is a useful contribution
to Indonesian and Southeast Asian studies on at least two counts. First, the study of
the substance and aesthetics of material culture is the kind of scholarship yet to be
fully explored for the archipelago. Second, the choice of Sumbawa as the field of study
further develops attention to areas in Indonesia that have been frequently neglected as
a result of the strong Java focus of scholarly work.
of the Bimanese through an examination of material culture. It is a useful contribution
to Indonesian and Southeast Asian studies on at least two counts. First, the study of
the substance and aesthetics of material culture is the kind of scholarship yet to be
fully explored for the archipelago. Second, the choice of Sumbawa as the field of study
further develops attention to areas in Indonesia that have been frequently neglected as
a result of the strong Java focus of scholarly work.
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A link is provided to a video of the presentations made at the Singapore launch of Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World. The event was co-organised by Middle East Institute (MEI), National University of... more
A link is provided to a video of the presentations made at the Singapore launch of Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World. The event was co-organised by Middle East Institute (MEI), National University of Singapore and the Arab Association of Singapore (Al-Wehdah Al-Arabiyah bi Singhafura). Sumit Mandal, Nurfadzilah Yahya, and Engseng Ho spoke before the floor was opened for discussion. Only the presentations by the speakers were recorded. Sumit Mandal gratefully acknowledges the efforts of the staff of the MEI who recorded and uploaded the video.