My name is Kankan Xie (or 谢侃侃 in Chinese), Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, China. I am interested in various historical and contemporary issues of the broadly defined "Nusantara" (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore) and beyond. My research projects deal with topics such as leftwing movements, Dutch colonialism, nationalism & decolonization, ethnicity & identity politics, governance & rural development, China & Southeast Asia in the Cold War. I earned my Ph.D. in Southeast Asian Studies, with a Designated Emphasis (minor) in Dutch Studies, at the University of California, Berkeley. Supervisors: Eric Tagliacozzo, Jeroen Dewulf, Jeffrey Hadler, and Peter Zinoman
摘要:
《餐风饮露》是英籍华裔作家韩素音20世纪50年代在英属马来亚定居期间创作的小说。彼时,马来亚正处于所谓的“紧急状态”。英国殖民政府对马来亚共产党领导的马来亚民族解放军展开了全面的清缴行动... more 摘要: 《餐风饮露》是英籍华裔作家韩素音20世纪50年代在英属马来亚定居期间创作的小说。彼时,马来亚正处于所谓的“紧急状态”。英国殖民政府对马来亚共产党领导的马来亚民族解放军展开了全面的清缴行动,双方以丛林游击战的形式进行着艰苦的拉锯。《餐风饮露》不仅直接反映了“紧急状态”下马来亚社会令人窒息的政治氛围,更是一扇了解马来西亚国族构建,在多元社会中实现民族和谐的重要窗口。本文从该小说的代表人物及其相互关系切入,探讨马来亚社会在二战后、建国前所经历的一段特殊历史时期。通过结合韩素音的亲身经历和小说创作的时代背景,本文旨在对冷战初期马来亚的政治、社会环境进行剖析,并讨论“紧急状态”对马来西亚独立和民族国家构建所产生的长期影响。
Abstract: Eurasian writer Han Suyin published her novel And the Rain My Drink during her stay in Malaya in the 1950s when the British colony was in a state of "Emergency". The colonial authorities launched a radical purge against the Malayan National Liberation Army led by the Communist Party of Malaya, resulting in the two sides engaging in strenuous guerrilla warfare in the colony's tropical jungles. Besides portraying a suffocating political environment in the Malayan society during the Emergency, And the Rain My Drink illustrates the tremendous difficulties in forming a new Malayan nation in a multi-racial and multi-religious society. This article investigates a particular period of Malayan history through the lenses of the novels' main characters, their complex relationships, and Han Suyin's personal experience. This paper also seeks to analyze the socio-political environment of British colony in the early days of the Cold War, which sheds light on the Malayan Emergency's long-term impact on the country's troubled struggles for independence and the arduous nation-building process in the postcolonial era.
近二十年来,中国的东南亚研究经历了重大变化。随着中国政治、经济实力的增强,人们认识世界的需求也越来越强烈,客观上推动了区域国别研究的迅速发展。尽管中国东南亚研究的出现远早于“区域研究”,但后者近... more 近二十年来,中国的东南亚研究经历了重大变化。随着中国政治、经济实力的增强,人们认识世界的需求也越来越强烈,客观上推动了区域国别研究的迅速发展。尽管中国东南亚研究的出现远早于“区域研究”,但后者近年来的蓬勃发展已经对前者产生了深刻的影响,集中体现为大量学者投身于东南亚相关的政策类研究。“政策研究转向”反映了中国东南亚研究范式的转变,也与中国高教事业的发展和社会大趋势的变化相呼应。当前,中国东南亚研究领域出现了一定的失衡,表现为语言项目的快速增长、短期政策研究的绝对主导以及基础研究、特别是人文学科的进一步边缘化。基于各自独特的学科基础、语言项目覆盖、研究人员学术方向和地方政府政策偏好,中国各大学采用了截然不同的新路径来开展东南亚研究。通过与国外相关领域近半个世纪的发展进行对比,本次报告试对这些路径的成效进行探讨。
Experiments with Marxism-Leninism in Cold War Southeast Asia, 2022
This paper explores the PARI, formed by Tan Malaka, and its clandestine activities outside the Du... more This paper explores the PARI, formed by Tan Malaka, and its clandestine activities outside the Dutch East Indies in the aftermath of the 1926–27 uprisings. Kankan argues that although PARI members played a limited role in shaking the foundations of Dutch colonial rule, their operations outside the colony exerted an important and lasting influence on Indonesian politics. Importantly, as Kankan shows, PARI broke from the Comintern and espoused a nationalistic approach to anticolonial struggle that did not abandon wholesale its ideological commitments. Although communist movements largely went dormant inside the Dutch East Indies because of the colonial government’s full-scale suppression, PARI activists adapted accordingly, and even managed to influence the country’s nationalist movement through noncommunist networks. Once communism regained its prominence during Indonesia’s national revolution of the post–World War II period, however, ideological debates between different leftist groups, which dated back to the PKI’s split after 1926, remained central to the power struggles over the legitimacy and leadership of the new communist movement. Kankan’s chapter sheds long overdue light on the importance of PARI as the closest reincarnation of the PKI during the interwar years, irrespective of the fact that it never succeeded in establishing a significant presence in Indonesian nationalist politics.
荷兰殖民帝国的日常运作和印尼各种反殖民势力的活动都大大超越了“荷属东印度”这一地理范畴,而印度洋则是两者进行政治角力的重要场域。本文从海洋视角切入,对二十世纪上半叶的印尼反殖民运动进行反思。本文... more 荷兰殖民帝国的日常运作和印尼各种反殖民势力的活动都大大超越了“荷属东印度”这一地理范畴,而印度洋则是两者进行政治角力的重要场域。本文从海洋视角切入,对二十世纪上半叶的印尼反殖民运动进行反思。本文旨在跳出把陆地空间作为基本框架的传统叙事模式,思考反殖民运动中的去地域化因素。本文指出,高速发展的全球航运网络促进了人员、思想、商品的跨洋流动,对各地民族主义的产生及反殖民运动的发展产生了巨大的推动作用,但对这种影响的探讨却长期淹没于把殖民地或民族国家陆地疆域作为分析单位、且带有强烈的目的论倾向的历史书写之中。对跨洋网络等去地域化因素加以研究,有助于突破殖民地与民族国家的“束身衣”,重新审视二十世纪民族主义在殖民世界兴起与发展的历史进程。
Empire Competition: Southeast Asia as a Site of Imperial Contestation, 2021
The Dutch East Indies government adopted the so-called Ethical Policy in the early 20th century, ... more The Dutch East Indies government adopted the so-called Ethical Policy in the early 20th century, resulting in complex repercussions for Chinese minorities. Education was among the most contended battleground between Dutch authorities and the Chinese community and within the Chinese community itself. While the establishment of the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan schools galvanized the rise of Chinese nationalistic sentiment, the colonial government also founded a Dutch-language school system specifically tailored for the Chinese to counterweight the potential ideological threat. By exploring the competitions and intricacies between the two systems, this paper seeks to problematize the existing literature that predominantly focuses on only one side of the story. The paper argues that the emergence of the two systems was neither a natural result of the Dutch Ethical Policy nor merely driven by the Indies Chinese’s desperate demand for education. Instead, it vividly reflects various tensions within the heterogeneous Chinese community and its entangled relationships with the transforming colonial state and the ancestral homeland.
The Russian Revolution in Asia: From Baku to Batavia, 2021
This chapter assesses the 1926-1927 Uprising in Indonesia across several interconnected geographi... more This chapter assesses the 1926-1927 Uprising in Indonesia across several interconnected geographic and institutional scales: In the Comintern, where exiled leaders of the Partai Komunis Indonesia conferred with Comintern representatives about the situation at home; in the highest levels of the Politburo, where disagreements over revolutionary tactics in China exacerbated the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky; and in Indonesia itself, where colonial repression inspired the abortive uprising. In so doing, this chapter shows how the Uprising demonstrated the limits of internationalism. As PKI leaders were unable to maintain effective contact with the movement in Indonesia, gaps in information undermined decision-making and led to conflict over the applicability of Russian models to the Indonesian context. Debates over Moscow’s China policy diverted attention from other territories and drew PKI members into the Stalin-Trotsky feud. Comintern support for the Uprising, therefore, did not materialize, further undermining the communist movement in Indonesia.
本尼迪克特·安德森著作等身,其代表作《想象的共同体》更是过去数十年间全球人文与社科领域最重要的学术成果之一。此外,安德森的作品涉及文学、政治学、社会学、历史学,以及区域与国别研究等领域,其本人是... more 本尼迪克特·安德森著作等身,其代表作《想象的共同体》更是过去数十年间全球人文与社科领域最重要的学术成果之一。此外,安德森的作品涉及文学、政治学、社会学、历史学,以及区域与国别研究等领域,其本人是一个无法被单一学科标签定义的学者。本文以其回忆录《椰壳碗外的人生》为线索,探讨安德森在其学术生涯中试图跳出的六大"椰壳碗",即身份束缚、西方中心主义、书本迷信、狭隘地方主义、学科边界、学术象牙塔,并结合对西方东南亚研究的反思指出打破上述壁垒的必要性。
China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuous... more China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuously deteriorating situation stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in the diaspora communities worldwide. The Japanese invasion of China, accompanied by the emergence of the National Salvation Movement (NSM) in Southeast Asia, provided the overseas Chinese with a rare opportunity to re-examine their ‘Chineseness’, as well as their relationships with the colonial states and the increasingly self-aware indigenous populations. This research problematises traditional approaches that tend to regard the NSM as primarily driven by Chinese patriotism. Juxtaposing Malaya and Java at the same historical moment, the article argues that the emergence of the NSM was more than just a natural result of the rising Chinese nationalism. Local politics and the shifting political orientations of overseas Chinese communities also profoundly shaped how the NSM played out in different colonial states.
1937年中国与日本的军事冲突升级为全面战争。随着中国国内战局的发展,海外华人的民族主义情绪空前高涨,抗日救亡运动在东南亚各地迅速兴起。在此背景下,许多华人重新审视自己的“中国性”与“华人性”,... more 1937年中国与日本的军事冲突升级为全面战争。随着中国国内战局的发展,海外华人的民族主义情绪空前高涨,抗日救亡运动在东南亚各地迅速兴起。在此背景下,许多华人重新审视自己的“中国性”与“华人性”,思考自身与当地殖民政府及当地社群间的关系。传统观点认为,东南亚的抗日救亡运动主要受海外华人的爱国情怀驱动,其成效取决于华人领袖及社团对整个移民群体的动员能力。本研究将英属马来亚和荷属东印度的抗日救亡运动进行对比,指出这种观点存在一定的片面性。本文认为,虽然海外华人的爱国情绪引发了抗日救亡运动,但东南亚各殖民地不同的社会政治环境却影响了救亡运动的效果,华人群体内部的分歧也对救亡运动的发展产生了重要的形塑作用。
Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS) in China has experienced significant changes in the past twenty ye... more Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS) in China has experienced significant changes in the past twenty years. China's rising political and economic power has stimulated growing demands for better understanding of the wider world, resulting in the rapid development of area studies in recent years. Although SEAS in China predated the relatively recent notion of 'area studies' by at least half a century, the boom in area studies has profoundly transformed the field, most notably by attracting a large number of scholars to conduct policy-relevant research. Not only does the 'policy turn' reflect shifts of research paradigms in the field of SEAS, but it is also consistent with some larger trends prevailing in China's higher education sector and rapidly changing society in general. This article shows that SEAS in China has grown even more imbalanced, as indicated by the rapid growth of language programmes, absolute domination of short-term policy research, and further marginalisation of humanistic subjects. To respond, Chinese universities have adopted new approaches to SEAS depending on their distinct disciplinary foundations, language coverage, faculty interests, and local governments' policy preferences.
Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial, and Racial Questions, 2020
People often see the origins of communist movements in Southeast Asia and the region’s overseas C... more People often see the origins of communist movements in Southeast Asia and the region’s overseas Chinese community as closely intertwined. This perception is evident in the cases of densely Chinesepopulated areas such as Malaya and Siam (Thailand), as well as places like Vietnam and Cambodia, where China’s influence has been historically strong in both political and cultural domains. Admittedly, it is very convenient to connect many Chinese-involved communist activities in Southeast Asia to the emergence of the communist party in China, but the simplistic argument – that Southeast Asia imports communism from China – is severely problematic....
提起印尼政治,学者们谈的都是雅加达的腥风血雨,大城市的世事变迁。即便一些不安于谈论政治中心的学者,讨论的也是宗教冲突、族群政治,再不然就是讲巴布亚、亚齐等地的分离运动。感喟于先辈及同僚们对印尼有... more 提起印尼政治,学者们谈的都是雅加达的腥风血雨,大城市的世事变迁。即便一些不安于谈论政治中心的学者,讨论的也是宗教冲突、族群政治,再不然就是讲巴布亚、亚齐等地的分离运动。感喟于先辈及同僚们对印尼有如此多维的研究和认识,同时总觉得缺了些什么。究竟什么是印尼“外岛政治”的常态?在笔者看来,苏拉威西是研究印尼“外岛政治”的理想实验室:离中心不远不近,民族宗教构成足够多元,对中央政府大多言听计从......总结起来,苏拉威西的政治没有鲜明特点,基本上不对中央政治产生重要影响。纵然,印尼政治的藏经阁在爪哇,但经文在各地的念法却形形色色。几次访谈后,笔者发现印尼人自己对本国的行政区划和地方政府架构也不是特别清楚,对近年发生的一些变化更是知其然而不知其所以然。本文仅做纯技术性的现象描述,不进行任何学术思辨与创新。
BERITA: The Newsletter of the Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Studies Group, 2019
Scholars commonly regard the Comintern as having played a critical role in the emergence of the c... more Scholars commonly regard the Comintern as having played a critical role in the emergence of the communist movement in late-colonial Malaya. When discussing the Comintern’s early influence, existing scholarships often use the arrest of Joseph Ducroux — alias Serge Lefranc, a French agent of the Comintern — in Singapore in June 1931 to illustrate the Comintern-China-Malaya connection. Additionally, historians have attached special meanings to the Ducroux Case, primarily because of the more significant repercussions it caused internationally. Laurent Metzger has conducted detailed research on Ducroux’s arrest in and eventual exile from Singapore between 1931 and 1932. While such an account is useful in demonstrating the incident’s international significance, little is known as to what immediate impression it created in the cosmopolitan port city. Moreover, it is also unclear how Singapore’s general public perceived communism when communist organizations had yet firmly established themselves in the British colony. This article seeks to make sense of such issues by investigating how the Singapore press reported on the Ducroux Case.
Many historians consider the 1926/27 PKI Uprisings as important precursors of Indonesia’s nationa... more Many historians consider the 1926/27 PKI Uprisings as important precursors of Indonesia’s nationalist movement, which ultimately led to the country’s independence. When it comes to the actual course of events, however, existing narratives tend to describe the abortive revolts as ill-prepared, poorly organised and easily suppressed – and consequently, of limited impact in shaking the foundation of the Dutch colonial regime. It is also commonly understood that in the aftermath of the rebellions, dutch authorities dealt a crushing blow to the pki and its associated organisations by carrying out large-scale arrests, imprisonments, executions, and banishments. Beyond these facts, however, very little attention has been paid to the deeper meanings that the revolt revealed. as the following sections will demonstrate, the movement created enormous anxiety in the NEI which forced the Dutch colonial government to act with a strong hand. moreover, with frequent exchanges of information and personnel across the Malacca Straits, the NEI uprisings also generated considerable uneasiness in British Malaya.
Het racisme van Gordon is een combinatie van arrogantie, onwetendheid en de wil het publiek te ve... more Het racisme van Gordon is een combinatie van arrogantie, onwetendheid en de wil het publiek te vermaken, betoogt Kankan Xie, historicus en promovendus aan de Universiteit van Californië in Berkeley.
Journal of Indonesian Social Sciences and Humanities (JISSH), 2016
China’s engagement with Indonesia from 1955 to 1959 was neither ideologically oriented nor realpo... more China’s engagement with Indonesia from 1955 to 1959 was neither ideologically oriented nor realpolitik, but somewhere in between. It happened not only because of the changing domestic political situations or completely subject to the shifting international environment, but was also closely associated with intrinsic social and historical issues that transcended geographical, ideological and ethnic boundaries within and across the two nation-states. To some extent, this effective engagement was not a result of Indonesia’s leaning towards the left, but a reason for it—not in the sense of direct political intervention, but through the pursuit of common identity and interest, which significantly shaped the making of Indonesia’s Guided Democracy.
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2023
More than three decades after the release of his seminal work An Age in Motion:
Popular Radicali... more More than three decades after the release of his seminal work An Age in Motion:
Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926, Takashi Shiraishi finally published the
long-awaited sequel, The Phantom World of Digul. Initially conceived with the
self-explanatory title An Age of Normalcy, the monograph draws a sharp contrast
with its prequel by investigating the interplay of the colonial regime’s
political policing and the concurrent nationalist movement in the final years
of the Dutch East Indies. While scholars commonly see the late 1920s and
1930s as a period of “peace and order” under the relatively stable rule of the
Dutch Beambtenstaat—an “apolitical, administrative polity par excellence,”
Shiraishi demonstrates that the colonial authority achieved such “normalcy” by
“reducing the problem of nationalism to the question of police” (p. 16). Boven
Digul, a remote penal colony established to intern recalcitrant communists and
radical nationalists, stood out as a jarring antithesis to such “normalcy.” The
mass internment camp served as both a metaphor and ground for the colonial
regime’s policing and surveillance practices, epitomizing Dutch repressive
colonial strategies that aimed to confine Indonesians’ political life within an
extremely narrow space.
In 1623, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) beheaded twenty-one men on charges of conspiracy and ... more In 1623, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) beheaded twenty-one men on charges of conspiracy and treason in a public execution. Ten of the condemned were employees of the English East India Company (EIC) who had been trading in the Moluccas, better known as the Spice Islands, alongside their Dutch counterparts since the beginning of the century. The incident was hardly the most outrageous mass violence in the region’s tumultuous past. Nevertheless, the EIC dubbed the episode the “Amboyna Massacre,” which gained remarkable significance in various historical writings and unexpected longevity in the British culture in the following centuries. Alison Games’s monograph Inventing the English Massacre is the latest scholarly inquiry into the ambiguous conspiracy and the episode’s long afterlife, spanning British imperial history.
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2020
Kris Alexanderson’s Subversive Sea is the newest addition to the growing scholarship on the twent... more Kris Alexanderson’s Subversive Sea is the newest addition to the growing scholarship on the twentieth-century Dutch empire. Adopting a fresh approach, this groundbreaking work examines the transoceanic aspects of Indonesian anticolonialism by examining the shipping networks stretching beyond the geographic boundaries of the metropole and colony. Based on her solid archival work, careful reading of existing literature, and well-structured analysis, Alexanderson demonstrates how the “oceans’ permeable boundaries created a simultaneous liberating and threatening maritime spatiality” and that “the maritime world is not a liminal space but an active political arena” (p. 27). Specifically, she points out Dutch shipping companies “connected disparate bodies of water into intertwined transoceanic networks” and played a “unique role in navigating interwar power struggles between imperial hegemony and anticolonialism” (p. 25). By “repositioning colonial Indonesia to a sub-imperial center,” Subversive Sea reveals that the interconnected maritime networks were not only critical in defining colonial structure within the colonial state but also reflected “fundamental differences between terrestrial and oceanic characteristics particular to the interwar Dutch empire” (p. 2).
摘要:
《餐风饮露》是英籍华裔作家韩素音20世纪50年代在英属马来亚定居期间创作的小说。彼时,马来亚正处于所谓的“紧急状态”。英国殖民政府对马来亚共产党领导的马来亚民族解放军展开了全面的清缴行动... more 摘要: 《餐风饮露》是英籍华裔作家韩素音20世纪50年代在英属马来亚定居期间创作的小说。彼时,马来亚正处于所谓的“紧急状态”。英国殖民政府对马来亚共产党领导的马来亚民族解放军展开了全面的清缴行动,双方以丛林游击战的形式进行着艰苦的拉锯。《餐风饮露》不仅直接反映了“紧急状态”下马来亚社会令人窒息的政治氛围,更是一扇了解马来西亚国族构建,在多元社会中实现民族和谐的重要窗口。本文从该小说的代表人物及其相互关系切入,探讨马来亚社会在二战后、建国前所经历的一段特殊历史时期。通过结合韩素音的亲身经历和小说创作的时代背景,本文旨在对冷战初期马来亚的政治、社会环境进行剖析,并讨论“紧急状态”对马来西亚独立和民族国家构建所产生的长期影响。
Abstract: Eurasian writer Han Suyin published her novel And the Rain My Drink during her stay in Malaya in the 1950s when the British colony was in a state of "Emergency". The colonial authorities launched a radical purge against the Malayan National Liberation Army led by the Communist Party of Malaya, resulting in the two sides engaging in strenuous guerrilla warfare in the colony's tropical jungles. Besides portraying a suffocating political environment in the Malayan society during the Emergency, And the Rain My Drink illustrates the tremendous difficulties in forming a new Malayan nation in a multi-racial and multi-religious society. This article investigates a particular period of Malayan history through the lenses of the novels' main characters, their complex relationships, and Han Suyin's personal experience. This paper also seeks to analyze the socio-political environment of British colony in the early days of the Cold War, which sheds light on the Malayan Emergency's long-term impact on the country's troubled struggles for independence and the arduous nation-building process in the postcolonial era.
近二十年来,中国的东南亚研究经历了重大变化。随着中国政治、经济实力的增强,人们认识世界的需求也越来越强烈,客观上推动了区域国别研究的迅速发展。尽管中国东南亚研究的出现远早于“区域研究”,但后者近... more 近二十年来,中国的东南亚研究经历了重大变化。随着中国政治、经济实力的增强,人们认识世界的需求也越来越强烈,客观上推动了区域国别研究的迅速发展。尽管中国东南亚研究的出现远早于“区域研究”,但后者近年来的蓬勃发展已经对前者产生了深刻的影响,集中体现为大量学者投身于东南亚相关的政策类研究。“政策研究转向”反映了中国东南亚研究范式的转变,也与中国高教事业的发展和社会大趋势的变化相呼应。当前,中国东南亚研究领域出现了一定的失衡,表现为语言项目的快速增长、短期政策研究的绝对主导以及基础研究、特别是人文学科的进一步边缘化。基于各自独特的学科基础、语言项目覆盖、研究人员学术方向和地方政府政策偏好,中国各大学采用了截然不同的新路径来开展东南亚研究。通过与国外相关领域近半个世纪的发展进行对比,本次报告试对这些路径的成效进行探讨。
Experiments with Marxism-Leninism in Cold War Southeast Asia, 2022
This paper explores the PARI, formed by Tan Malaka, and its clandestine activities outside the Du... more This paper explores the PARI, formed by Tan Malaka, and its clandestine activities outside the Dutch East Indies in the aftermath of the 1926–27 uprisings. Kankan argues that although PARI members played a limited role in shaking the foundations of Dutch colonial rule, their operations outside the colony exerted an important and lasting influence on Indonesian politics. Importantly, as Kankan shows, PARI broke from the Comintern and espoused a nationalistic approach to anticolonial struggle that did not abandon wholesale its ideological commitments. Although communist movements largely went dormant inside the Dutch East Indies because of the colonial government’s full-scale suppression, PARI activists adapted accordingly, and even managed to influence the country’s nationalist movement through noncommunist networks. Once communism regained its prominence during Indonesia’s national revolution of the post–World War II period, however, ideological debates between different leftist groups, which dated back to the PKI’s split after 1926, remained central to the power struggles over the legitimacy and leadership of the new communist movement. Kankan’s chapter sheds long overdue light on the importance of PARI as the closest reincarnation of the PKI during the interwar years, irrespective of the fact that it never succeeded in establishing a significant presence in Indonesian nationalist politics.
荷兰殖民帝国的日常运作和印尼各种反殖民势力的活动都大大超越了“荷属东印度”这一地理范畴,而印度洋则是两者进行政治角力的重要场域。本文从海洋视角切入,对二十世纪上半叶的印尼反殖民运动进行反思。本文... more 荷兰殖民帝国的日常运作和印尼各种反殖民势力的活动都大大超越了“荷属东印度”这一地理范畴,而印度洋则是两者进行政治角力的重要场域。本文从海洋视角切入,对二十世纪上半叶的印尼反殖民运动进行反思。本文旨在跳出把陆地空间作为基本框架的传统叙事模式,思考反殖民运动中的去地域化因素。本文指出,高速发展的全球航运网络促进了人员、思想、商品的跨洋流动,对各地民族主义的产生及反殖民运动的发展产生了巨大的推动作用,但对这种影响的探讨却长期淹没于把殖民地或民族国家陆地疆域作为分析单位、且带有强烈的目的论倾向的历史书写之中。对跨洋网络等去地域化因素加以研究,有助于突破殖民地与民族国家的“束身衣”,重新审视二十世纪民族主义在殖民世界兴起与发展的历史进程。
Empire Competition: Southeast Asia as a Site of Imperial Contestation, 2021
The Dutch East Indies government adopted the so-called Ethical Policy in the early 20th century, ... more The Dutch East Indies government adopted the so-called Ethical Policy in the early 20th century, resulting in complex repercussions for Chinese minorities. Education was among the most contended battleground between Dutch authorities and the Chinese community and within the Chinese community itself. While the establishment of the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan schools galvanized the rise of Chinese nationalistic sentiment, the colonial government also founded a Dutch-language school system specifically tailored for the Chinese to counterweight the potential ideological threat. By exploring the competitions and intricacies between the two systems, this paper seeks to problematize the existing literature that predominantly focuses on only one side of the story. The paper argues that the emergence of the two systems was neither a natural result of the Dutch Ethical Policy nor merely driven by the Indies Chinese’s desperate demand for education. Instead, it vividly reflects various tensions within the heterogeneous Chinese community and its entangled relationships with the transforming colonial state and the ancestral homeland.
The Russian Revolution in Asia: From Baku to Batavia, 2021
This chapter assesses the 1926-1927 Uprising in Indonesia across several interconnected geographi... more This chapter assesses the 1926-1927 Uprising in Indonesia across several interconnected geographic and institutional scales: In the Comintern, where exiled leaders of the Partai Komunis Indonesia conferred with Comintern representatives about the situation at home; in the highest levels of the Politburo, where disagreements over revolutionary tactics in China exacerbated the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky; and in Indonesia itself, where colonial repression inspired the abortive uprising. In so doing, this chapter shows how the Uprising demonstrated the limits of internationalism. As PKI leaders were unable to maintain effective contact with the movement in Indonesia, gaps in information undermined decision-making and led to conflict over the applicability of Russian models to the Indonesian context. Debates over Moscow’s China policy diverted attention from other territories and drew PKI members into the Stalin-Trotsky feud. Comintern support for the Uprising, therefore, did not materialize, further undermining the communist movement in Indonesia.
本尼迪克特·安德森著作等身,其代表作《想象的共同体》更是过去数十年间全球人文与社科领域最重要的学术成果之一。此外,安德森的作品涉及文学、政治学、社会学、历史学,以及区域与国别研究等领域,其本人是... more 本尼迪克特·安德森著作等身,其代表作《想象的共同体》更是过去数十年间全球人文与社科领域最重要的学术成果之一。此外,安德森的作品涉及文学、政治学、社会学、历史学,以及区域与国别研究等领域,其本人是一个无法被单一学科标签定义的学者。本文以其回忆录《椰壳碗外的人生》为线索,探讨安德森在其学术生涯中试图跳出的六大"椰壳碗",即身份束缚、西方中心主义、书本迷信、狭隘地方主义、学科边界、学术象牙塔,并结合对西方东南亚研究的反思指出打破上述壁垒的必要性。
China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuous... more China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuously deteriorating situation stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in the diaspora communities worldwide. The Japanese invasion of China, accompanied by the emergence of the National Salvation Movement (NSM) in Southeast Asia, provided the overseas Chinese with a rare opportunity to re-examine their ‘Chineseness’, as well as their relationships with the colonial states and the increasingly self-aware indigenous populations. This research problematises traditional approaches that tend to regard the NSM as primarily driven by Chinese patriotism. Juxtaposing Malaya and Java at the same historical moment, the article argues that the emergence of the NSM was more than just a natural result of the rising Chinese nationalism. Local politics and the shifting political orientations of overseas Chinese communities also profoundly shaped how the NSM played out in different colonial states.
1937年中国与日本的军事冲突升级为全面战争。随着中国国内战局的发展,海外华人的民族主义情绪空前高涨,抗日救亡运动在东南亚各地迅速兴起。在此背景下,许多华人重新审视自己的“中国性”与“华人性”,... more 1937年中国与日本的军事冲突升级为全面战争。随着中国国内战局的发展,海外华人的民族主义情绪空前高涨,抗日救亡运动在东南亚各地迅速兴起。在此背景下,许多华人重新审视自己的“中国性”与“华人性”,思考自身与当地殖民政府及当地社群间的关系。传统观点认为,东南亚的抗日救亡运动主要受海外华人的爱国情怀驱动,其成效取决于华人领袖及社团对整个移民群体的动员能力。本研究将英属马来亚和荷属东印度的抗日救亡运动进行对比,指出这种观点存在一定的片面性。本文认为,虽然海外华人的爱国情绪引发了抗日救亡运动,但东南亚各殖民地不同的社会政治环境却影响了救亡运动的效果,华人群体内部的分歧也对救亡运动的发展产生了重要的形塑作用。
Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS) in China has experienced significant changes in the past twenty ye... more Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS) in China has experienced significant changes in the past twenty years. China's rising political and economic power has stimulated growing demands for better understanding of the wider world, resulting in the rapid development of area studies in recent years. Although SEAS in China predated the relatively recent notion of 'area studies' by at least half a century, the boom in area studies has profoundly transformed the field, most notably by attracting a large number of scholars to conduct policy-relevant research. Not only does the 'policy turn' reflect shifts of research paradigms in the field of SEAS, but it is also consistent with some larger trends prevailing in China's higher education sector and rapidly changing society in general. This article shows that SEAS in China has grown even more imbalanced, as indicated by the rapid growth of language programmes, absolute domination of short-term policy research, and further marginalisation of humanistic subjects. To respond, Chinese universities have adopted new approaches to SEAS depending on their distinct disciplinary foundations, language coverage, faculty interests, and local governments' policy preferences.
Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial, and Racial Questions, 2020
People often see the origins of communist movements in Southeast Asia and the region’s overseas C... more People often see the origins of communist movements in Southeast Asia and the region’s overseas Chinese community as closely intertwined. This perception is evident in the cases of densely Chinesepopulated areas such as Malaya and Siam (Thailand), as well as places like Vietnam and Cambodia, where China’s influence has been historically strong in both political and cultural domains. Admittedly, it is very convenient to connect many Chinese-involved communist activities in Southeast Asia to the emergence of the communist party in China, but the simplistic argument – that Southeast Asia imports communism from China – is severely problematic....
提起印尼政治,学者们谈的都是雅加达的腥风血雨,大城市的世事变迁。即便一些不安于谈论政治中心的学者,讨论的也是宗教冲突、族群政治,再不然就是讲巴布亚、亚齐等地的分离运动。感喟于先辈及同僚们对印尼有... more 提起印尼政治,学者们谈的都是雅加达的腥风血雨,大城市的世事变迁。即便一些不安于谈论政治中心的学者,讨论的也是宗教冲突、族群政治,再不然就是讲巴布亚、亚齐等地的分离运动。感喟于先辈及同僚们对印尼有如此多维的研究和认识,同时总觉得缺了些什么。究竟什么是印尼“外岛政治”的常态?在笔者看来,苏拉威西是研究印尼“外岛政治”的理想实验室:离中心不远不近,民族宗教构成足够多元,对中央政府大多言听计从......总结起来,苏拉威西的政治没有鲜明特点,基本上不对中央政治产生重要影响。纵然,印尼政治的藏经阁在爪哇,但经文在各地的念法却形形色色。几次访谈后,笔者发现印尼人自己对本国的行政区划和地方政府架构也不是特别清楚,对近年发生的一些变化更是知其然而不知其所以然。本文仅做纯技术性的现象描述,不进行任何学术思辨与创新。
BERITA: The Newsletter of the Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Studies Group, 2019
Scholars commonly regard the Comintern as having played a critical role in the emergence of the c... more Scholars commonly regard the Comintern as having played a critical role in the emergence of the communist movement in late-colonial Malaya. When discussing the Comintern’s early influence, existing scholarships often use the arrest of Joseph Ducroux — alias Serge Lefranc, a French agent of the Comintern — in Singapore in June 1931 to illustrate the Comintern-China-Malaya connection. Additionally, historians have attached special meanings to the Ducroux Case, primarily because of the more significant repercussions it caused internationally. Laurent Metzger has conducted detailed research on Ducroux’s arrest in and eventual exile from Singapore between 1931 and 1932. While such an account is useful in demonstrating the incident’s international significance, little is known as to what immediate impression it created in the cosmopolitan port city. Moreover, it is also unclear how Singapore’s general public perceived communism when communist organizations had yet firmly established themselves in the British colony. This article seeks to make sense of such issues by investigating how the Singapore press reported on the Ducroux Case.
Many historians consider the 1926/27 PKI Uprisings as important precursors of Indonesia’s nationa... more Many historians consider the 1926/27 PKI Uprisings as important precursors of Indonesia’s nationalist movement, which ultimately led to the country’s independence. When it comes to the actual course of events, however, existing narratives tend to describe the abortive revolts as ill-prepared, poorly organised and easily suppressed – and consequently, of limited impact in shaking the foundation of the Dutch colonial regime. It is also commonly understood that in the aftermath of the rebellions, dutch authorities dealt a crushing blow to the pki and its associated organisations by carrying out large-scale arrests, imprisonments, executions, and banishments. Beyond these facts, however, very little attention has been paid to the deeper meanings that the revolt revealed. as the following sections will demonstrate, the movement created enormous anxiety in the NEI which forced the Dutch colonial government to act with a strong hand. moreover, with frequent exchanges of information and personnel across the Malacca Straits, the NEI uprisings also generated considerable uneasiness in British Malaya.
Het racisme van Gordon is een combinatie van arrogantie, onwetendheid en de wil het publiek te ve... more Het racisme van Gordon is een combinatie van arrogantie, onwetendheid en de wil het publiek te vermaken, betoogt Kankan Xie, historicus en promovendus aan de Universiteit van Californië in Berkeley.
Journal of Indonesian Social Sciences and Humanities (JISSH), 2016
China’s engagement with Indonesia from 1955 to 1959 was neither ideologically oriented nor realpo... more China’s engagement with Indonesia from 1955 to 1959 was neither ideologically oriented nor realpolitik, but somewhere in between. It happened not only because of the changing domestic political situations or completely subject to the shifting international environment, but was also closely associated with intrinsic social and historical issues that transcended geographical, ideological and ethnic boundaries within and across the two nation-states. To some extent, this effective engagement was not a result of Indonesia’s leaning towards the left, but a reason for it—not in the sense of direct political intervention, but through the pursuit of common identity and interest, which significantly shaped the making of Indonesia’s Guided Democracy.
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2023
More than three decades after the release of his seminal work An Age in Motion:
Popular Radicali... more More than three decades after the release of his seminal work An Age in Motion:
Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926, Takashi Shiraishi finally published the
long-awaited sequel, The Phantom World of Digul. Initially conceived with the
self-explanatory title An Age of Normalcy, the monograph draws a sharp contrast
with its prequel by investigating the interplay of the colonial regime’s
political policing and the concurrent nationalist movement in the final years
of the Dutch East Indies. While scholars commonly see the late 1920s and
1930s as a period of “peace and order” under the relatively stable rule of the
Dutch Beambtenstaat—an “apolitical, administrative polity par excellence,”
Shiraishi demonstrates that the colonial authority achieved such “normalcy” by
“reducing the problem of nationalism to the question of police” (p. 16). Boven
Digul, a remote penal colony established to intern recalcitrant communists and
radical nationalists, stood out as a jarring antithesis to such “normalcy.” The
mass internment camp served as both a metaphor and ground for the colonial
regime’s policing and surveillance practices, epitomizing Dutch repressive
colonial strategies that aimed to confine Indonesians’ political life within an
extremely narrow space.
In 1623, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) beheaded twenty-one men on charges of conspiracy and ... more In 1623, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) beheaded twenty-one men on charges of conspiracy and treason in a public execution. Ten of the condemned were employees of the English East India Company (EIC) who had been trading in the Moluccas, better known as the Spice Islands, alongside their Dutch counterparts since the beginning of the century. The incident was hardly the most outrageous mass violence in the region’s tumultuous past. Nevertheless, the EIC dubbed the episode the “Amboyna Massacre,” which gained remarkable significance in various historical writings and unexpected longevity in the British culture in the following centuries. Alison Games’s monograph Inventing the English Massacre is the latest scholarly inquiry into the ambiguous conspiracy and the episode’s long afterlife, spanning British imperial history.
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2020
Kris Alexanderson’s Subversive Sea is the newest addition to the growing scholarship on the twent... more Kris Alexanderson’s Subversive Sea is the newest addition to the growing scholarship on the twentieth-century Dutch empire. Adopting a fresh approach, this groundbreaking work examines the transoceanic aspects of Indonesian anticolonialism by examining the shipping networks stretching beyond the geographic boundaries of the metropole and colony. Based on her solid archival work, careful reading of existing literature, and well-structured analysis, Alexanderson demonstrates how the “oceans’ permeable boundaries created a simultaneous liberating and threatening maritime spatiality” and that “the maritime world is not a liminal space but an active political arena” (p. 27). Specifically, she points out Dutch shipping companies “connected disparate bodies of water into intertwined transoceanic networks” and played a “unique role in navigating interwar power struggles between imperial hegemony and anticolonialism” (p. 25). By “repositioning colonial Indonesia to a sub-imperial center,” Subversive Sea reveals that the interconnected maritime networks were not only critical in defining colonial structure within the colonial state but also reflected “fundamental differences between terrestrial and oceanic characteristics particular to the interwar Dutch empire” (p. 2).
The past few years have seen a growing number of scholarly works on British operations in Southea... more The past few years have seen a growing number of scholarly works on British operations in Southeast Asia and their relationships with local resistance in World War II. Particularly intriguing is the mysterious last-minute deal struck between the British in Malaya and the Chinese-dominated Malayan Communist Party, or MCP, before the Japanese takeover...
Geoffrey Robinson’s The Killing Season is one of the most-awaited books by the Southeast Asian st... more Geoffrey Robinson’s The Killing Season is one of the most-awaited books by the Southeast Asian studies community in 2018. The 456-page monograph explores in great detail the anti-communist massacres of Indonesia in 1965-66 and the long-term repercussions in the following decades. As one of the worst human atrocities in the 20th century, the mass killing led to the death of some half a million real and alleged communist members and sympathizers. After more than 50 years, however, reflections on this tragic event are far from sufficient. Although academic work in recent years spurred growing discussions within small circles, the mass violence has not received adequate attention from the international audience. Worse still, a troubling silence permeates Indonesia even today, as many of those who committed the atrocities have stayed in power. While victims struggled to find viable ways to pursue justice, numerous murderers managed to get away with impunity.
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2018
Britain’s loss of its Southeast Asian colonies during World War Two (WWII), especially the fall o... more Britain’s loss of its Southeast Asian colonies during World War Two (WWII), especially the fall of Malaya and Singapore, is a relatively well-studied topic. While existing scholarship has covered the military failure in great detail, researchers have not paid equal attention to the disorganization of the colonial administration, which played a no less important role in the years leading up to the defeat. Based on his meticulous research in British archives, Ronald McCrum has filled the gap by scrutinizing the ‘irresponsible and incompetent’ behaviors of the civilian authorities. He argues that by pursuing different priorities, the colonial government failed to take necessary measures to counter the growing threat of the Japanese. Besides the fact that the British civilian administration was in disarray within itself, their poor relationship with the military also greatly hindered joint efforts to augment the defense against the imminent invasion, which ultimately led to astonishing casualties when the war broke out.
The Foundation for Law and International Affairs Review (FLIA Review) , 2022
A panel discussion on "Empire and Regional Order", in which I discussed two related issues: 1. ho... more A panel discussion on "Empire and Regional Order", in which I discussed two related issues: 1. how to do research on the history of regional politics? 2. how to make sense of the unwritten by following what Ann Laura Stoler called “archival grains”.
千百年来,季风气候深刻地影响着南亚和东南亚人民的生产生活,也令沿海居民积累了跨海远航的丰富经验,建立起一张张连接甚至超越不同地理空间的巨大网络。
2020年夏天,一场疫情之中的线上对谈促成了“... more 千百年来,季风气候深刻地影响着南亚和东南亚人民的生产生活,也令沿海居民积累了跨海远航的丰富经验,建立起一张张连接甚至超越不同地理空间的巨大网络。
For thousands of years, the monsoon climate has profoundly influenced the production and livelihoods of the people in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and has also enabled coastal residents to accumulate rich experience in transoceanic voyages, establishing a vast network that connects and even transcends different geographical spaces.
In the summer of 2020, an online dialogue amidst a pandemic led to the birth of the "Monsoon Laboratory." As a highly open and inclusive virtual academic platform, the "Monsoon Laboratory" has organized, planned, and promoted a series of academic activities related to South and Southeast Asian studies over the past few years, including courses, lectures, book clubs, and workshops. Although the "Monsoon Laboratory" cannot be considered a formal "academic institution," it is a genuine academic community with an experimental and exploratory nature.
Recently, the book "Monsoon Asia: Cross-Indian Ocean Cultural Networks from a Global Perspective," edited by the "Monsoon Laboratory" team, was published by Peking University Press. The book attempts to break free from the observation perspectives and narrative modes centered on China or the West. By employing the concept of "Monsoon Asia" and approaching it from the three threads of "Interconnection," "Center-Periphery," and "Cosmopolitanism," the book includes 11 cutting-edge studies from the international academic community. It discusses the cultural and intellectual flows in South Asia and Southeast Asia, helping readers construct a novel and three-dimensional understanding of these regions.
The book's preface can also be considered the belated founding manifesto of the "Monsoon Laboratory."
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《餐风饮露》是英籍华裔作家韩素音20世纪50年代在英属马来亚定居期间创作的小说。彼时,马来亚正处于所谓的“紧急状态”。英国殖民政府对马来亚共产党领导的马来亚民族解放军展开了全面的清缴行动,双方以丛林游击战的形式进行着艰苦的拉锯。《餐风饮露》不仅直接反映了“紧急状态”下马来亚社会令人窒息的政治氛围,更是一扇了解马来西亚国族构建,在多元社会中实现民族和谐的重要窗口。本文从该小说的代表人物及其相互关系切入,探讨马来亚社会在二战后、建国前所经历的一段特殊历史时期。通过结合韩素音的亲身经历和小说创作的时代背景,本文旨在对冷战初期马来亚的政治、社会环境进行剖析,并讨论“紧急状态”对马来西亚独立和民族国家构建所产生的长期影响。
Abstract:
Eurasian writer Han Suyin published her novel And the Rain My Drink during her stay in Malaya in the 1950s when the British colony was in a state of "Emergency". The colonial authorities launched a radical purge against the Malayan National Liberation Army led by the Communist Party of Malaya, resulting in the two sides engaging in strenuous guerrilla warfare in the colony's tropical jungles. Besides portraying a suffocating political environment in the Malayan society during the Emergency, And the Rain My Drink illustrates the tremendous difficulties in forming a new Malayan nation in a multi-racial and multi-religious society. This article investigates a particular period of Malayan history through the lenses of the novels' main characters, their complex relationships, and Han Suyin's personal experience. This paper also seeks to analyze the socio-political environment of British colony in the early days of the Cold War, which sheds light on the Malayan Emergency's long-term impact on the country's troubled struggles for independence and the arduous nation-building process in the postcolonial era.
Book Reviews by Kankan Xie
Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926, Takashi Shiraishi finally published the
long-awaited sequel, The Phantom World of Digul. Initially conceived with the
self-explanatory title An Age of Normalcy, the monograph draws a sharp contrast
with its prequel by investigating the interplay of the colonial regime’s
political policing and the concurrent nationalist movement in the final years
of the Dutch East Indies. While scholars commonly see the late 1920s and
1930s as a period of “peace and order” under the relatively stable rule of the
Dutch Beambtenstaat—an “apolitical, administrative polity par excellence,”
Shiraishi demonstrates that the colonial authority achieved such “normalcy” by
“reducing the problem of nationalism to the question of police” (p. 16). Boven
Digul, a remote penal colony established to intern recalcitrant communists and
radical nationalists, stood out as a jarring antithesis to such “normalcy.” The
mass internment camp served as both a metaphor and ground for the colonial
regime’s policing and surveillance practices, epitomizing Dutch repressive
colonial strategies that aimed to confine Indonesians’ political life within an
extremely narrow space.
《餐风饮露》是英籍华裔作家韩素音20世纪50年代在英属马来亚定居期间创作的小说。彼时,马来亚正处于所谓的“紧急状态”。英国殖民政府对马来亚共产党领导的马来亚民族解放军展开了全面的清缴行动,双方以丛林游击战的形式进行着艰苦的拉锯。《餐风饮露》不仅直接反映了“紧急状态”下马来亚社会令人窒息的政治氛围,更是一扇了解马来西亚国族构建,在多元社会中实现民族和谐的重要窗口。本文从该小说的代表人物及其相互关系切入,探讨马来亚社会在二战后、建国前所经历的一段特殊历史时期。通过结合韩素音的亲身经历和小说创作的时代背景,本文旨在对冷战初期马来亚的政治、社会环境进行剖析,并讨论“紧急状态”对马来西亚独立和民族国家构建所产生的长期影响。
Abstract:
Eurasian writer Han Suyin published her novel And the Rain My Drink during her stay in Malaya in the 1950s when the British colony was in a state of "Emergency". The colonial authorities launched a radical purge against the Malayan National Liberation Army led by the Communist Party of Malaya, resulting in the two sides engaging in strenuous guerrilla warfare in the colony's tropical jungles. Besides portraying a suffocating political environment in the Malayan society during the Emergency, And the Rain My Drink illustrates the tremendous difficulties in forming a new Malayan nation in a multi-racial and multi-religious society. This article investigates a particular period of Malayan history through the lenses of the novels' main characters, their complex relationships, and Han Suyin's personal experience. This paper also seeks to analyze the socio-political environment of British colony in the early days of the Cold War, which sheds light on the Malayan Emergency's long-term impact on the country's troubled struggles for independence and the arduous nation-building process in the postcolonial era.
Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926, Takashi Shiraishi finally published the
long-awaited sequel, The Phantom World of Digul. Initially conceived with the
self-explanatory title An Age of Normalcy, the monograph draws a sharp contrast
with its prequel by investigating the interplay of the colonial regime’s
political policing and the concurrent nationalist movement in the final years
of the Dutch East Indies. While scholars commonly see the late 1920s and
1930s as a period of “peace and order” under the relatively stable rule of the
Dutch Beambtenstaat—an “apolitical, administrative polity par excellence,”
Shiraishi demonstrates that the colonial authority achieved such “normalcy” by
“reducing the problem of nationalism to the question of police” (p. 16). Boven
Digul, a remote penal colony established to intern recalcitrant communists and
radical nationalists, stood out as a jarring antithesis to such “normalcy.” The
mass internment camp served as both a metaphor and ground for the colonial
regime’s policing and surveillance practices, epitomizing Dutch repressive
colonial strategies that aimed to confine Indonesians’ political life within an
extremely narrow space.
https://www.iias.asia/the-review/killing-season
2020年夏天,一场疫情之中的线上对谈促成了“季风实验室”的诞生。作为一个高度开放、包容的虚拟学术平台,“季风实验室”在过去几年中组织、策划、推广了一系列与南亚东南亚研究相关的学术活动,包括课程、讲座、读书会、工作坊等。虽然“季风实验室”算不得正儿八经的“学术机构”,却是一个真真正正具有实验和探索性质的学术共同体。
近日,由“季风实验室”团队编写的《季风亚洲:全球视野下的跨印度洋文化网络》由北京大学出版社推出。该书试图跳出以中国或以西方为中心的观察视角和叙事方式,借用“季风亚洲”这一概念,从“互联”“中心——边缘”“世界主义”三条线索切入,收录11个国际学术界的前沿研究,对南亚和东南亚地区的文化和思想流动展开讨论,帮助读者构筑套对南亚和东南亚地区新颖而立体的认知。
以下是该书序言,亦可算作“季风实验室”迟到多年的创立宣言。
For thousands of years, the monsoon climate has profoundly influenced the production and livelihoods of the people in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and has also enabled coastal residents to accumulate rich experience in transoceanic voyages, establishing a vast network that connects and even transcends different geographical spaces.
In the summer of 2020, an online dialogue amidst a pandemic led to the birth of the "Monsoon Laboratory." As a highly open and inclusive virtual academic platform, the "Monsoon Laboratory" has organized, planned, and promoted a series of academic activities related to South and Southeast Asian studies over the past few years, including courses, lectures, book clubs, and workshops. Although the "Monsoon Laboratory" cannot be considered a formal "academic institution," it is a genuine academic community with an experimental and exploratory nature.
Recently, the book "Monsoon Asia: Cross-Indian Ocean Cultural Networks from a Global Perspective," edited by the "Monsoon Laboratory" team, was published by Peking University Press. The book attempts to break free from the observation perspectives and narrative modes centered on China or the West. By employing the concept of "Monsoon Asia" and approaching it from the three threads of "Interconnection," "Center-Periphery," and "Cosmopolitanism," the book includes 11 cutting-edge studies from the international academic community. It discusses the cultural and intellectual flows in South Asia and Southeast Asia, helping readers construct a novel and three-dimensional understanding of these regions.
The book's preface can also be considered the belated founding manifesto of the "Monsoon Laboratory."