Canadian Association of Asian Studies (CASA) SOUTHEAST ASIA: A VIEW FROM THE PERIPHERY Sinicized, indianized, and colonized, Southeast Asia as a region and the nation states of Southeast Asia appear to have been constructed from outside, defined by those who have an interest in dividing up Asia for their own ends. What does it mean to be externally defined? For indigenous scholarship? For the study of Southeast Asia in Canada? Southeast Asia is literally at the margins of South and East Asia. Southeast Asia bracketed within Asia, and Southeast Asian studies bracketed within Asian Studies in Canada are literally and figuratively on the periphery. Today I would like to examine this periphery and consider how the area has been defined and shaped by others, and consider the consequences for the study of Southeast Asia in Canada. But after whining a little, I would also like to consider the power of the periphery, and the advantages of scholarship at the periphery. By Penny van Esterik Consider for a moment how Southeast Asia is first presented to our students: -as the crossroads of civilization, something one passes over on the way to or from other places. -as waves of migrations from Nanchao sweeping through the mainland, into the islands of Southeast Asia and the far flung islands of the Pacific -as states carved not from essential cultural characteristics or local boundaries, but from the historical moment whereby colonial forces from Britain, the Netherlands, and France, wearied of fighting indigenous forces and each other, permitted Siam to remain uncolonized. -as societies unable to reach a state level of organization and develop the accoutrements of civilization until 'Indianized' (Southeast Asia was referred to as Greater India, Netherlands East Indies. What was probably the first course of study on Southeast Asia at Leiden in 1877 was entitled Manners and Customs of the Natives of the Netherlands East Indies) -even in prehistory, archaeologists concluded (prematurely) that nothing significant developed in Southeast Asia. It was exciting to be part of the effort -- if even for a brief period of time -- that tried to turn this relation on its head, and postulate Southeast Asia as the site of the earliest rice domestication, the earliest bronze, the earliest painted pottery. (O course, this reflects the futile and childish "me first-ism" of Asian archaeology!) -in many religion courses the Theravada Buddhism of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia is equated to the lesser wheel, Hinayana Buddhism in contrast to the Mahayana, the great wheel of the rest of Buddhist Asia Southeast Asia is a post-colonial construction. The term came into use in World War II to define Lord Mountbatten's theatre of operations in Burma and Malaysia. Its boundaries were further solidified by American foreign policy in the sixties. Even before that time, Euro-American scholarly traditions struggled to define the area and justify it as a focus of study. Some rather self-conscious efforts include discussions of the region as a single ethnological field of study (the Leiden school). American scholarship has stressed the mainland-island divide, or the upland-lowland divide which served to distinguish lowland majorities from upland minority peoples. But whatever way you cut it, Southeast Asia is geographically, politically, and culturally diverse, with few unifying characteristics. Potential criteria that could have been used to cross cut this diversity refer to the conditions of everyday life (habitus); these include: -complexity of technical production and patterning of cloth including the use of 'fermenting' processes for natural dyes, and the centrality of textiles in social and economic life. -complexity and commonality of elements of cuisine involving fermenting fish sauces and meats -use of medicinal flavours as flavour principles in cuisine -gender complementarity and gender ambiguity in performative culture and continuing into everyday life -the popularity of masking and shadow plays (again, with a continuity into everyday life) -synaesthetic sensitivities over intellectual pursuits (fewer centres of 'learning' compared to China and India but many ways of knowing) -water-oriented cultures with navigation skills -high tolerance for homosexual and bisexual activity -low population density compared to China and India (with the exception of North Vietnam and Central Java) SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES And how do these struggles for definition and identity play out in their reflections in academia, in "the study of" Southeast Asia? Where are the 'great traditions' of Southeast Asian studies? In Leiden where colonial administrators were trained? In the U.S. where the Department of Defence set up area studies and language training programmes in the sixties? While Canada has had neither of these historical "advantages", Southeast Asian Studies in the Netherlands and the United States, even with the great influx of institutional support from governments, experience the same problems as Canada faces: insufficient language training, over-emphasis on marketable expertise, tensions between area studies and disciplinary loyalties and difficulties integrating into Asian Studies Programmes. Southeast Asian studies in Canada, as elsewhere, have been difficult to institutionalize. With the exception of the University of British Columbia, the lack of Southeast Asian centres is masked by the new-speak Asia-Pacific and Pacific Rim centres. There are no 'great traditions' of Southeast Asian studies in Canada, nor is there a single dominating discipline shaping the 'study of' Southeast Asia. Not history, not literature -- the classics of Asian studies -- where historical and textual studies of great literary traditions have flourished. If any one discipline dominates Southeast Asian Studies in Canada, it is probably anthropology -- the discipline whose boundaries are most porous -- the discipline most able to cope with the kind of diversity that is characteristic of Southeast Asia. Political Science probably comes in a close second. And what concerns dominate these disciplines? -in depth studies of local traditions requiring language skills and sufficient historical and political context to make ethnography speak to global issues -challenges to feminist theorizing by both western and indigenous feminists about women and gender -examination of 'development' as defined by external agencies and state bureaucracies -local processes of change (with particular attention for resistance to development) -cultural pluralism -colonial and post colonial studies of the nation state. Our lack of an "Orientalist Tradition" comparable to that existing in South and East Asian Studies may be politically correct, but it leaves us with no archives, no tradition of philology, no translation series to bring the classical scholarly traditions of Southeast Asia to the attention of non-specialists. OTHER DISCIPLINES AND INTERESTS. Southeast Asia and Southeast Asian studies is filled with instant experts, in development and business, who know the area intimately enough to exploit the many grant opportunities our Government provides and who, without language skills or historical grounding, can assist in and partake of the economic transformation of Southeast Asia, now redefined as the Pacific rim (note, we are still on the edge -- from outer to periphery to rim!). Thus, we find much new work on Southeast Asia located in business schools, administrative and management studies, environmental sciences (as rapid industrialization wreaks havoc in Southeast Asia), and education faculties, the entrepreneurial strength of Southeast Asian Studies in Canada. Other new interests emerge more directly from the political economy of Indochina. These scholars found Southeast Asia not as a distant area on a map, but as refugee children from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia who entered their classrooms and were admitted to Canadian hospitals, and as new versions of Buddhist practice which emerged in Lethbridge, Victoria, and Kitchener. But the war in Indochina produced little scholarship on Vietnam and less on Laos and Cambodia, although refugees from those countries produced a demand for courses with more Southeast Asian content. CCSEAS AND CASA And what of the Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies (CCSEAS) in the Canadian Asian Studies Association (CASA)? Our loyal and enthusiastic members often have more loyalty to their disciplines than to area studies, more commitment to their local counterparts than to CASA. While commitment to the region has increased in Canada, membership has declined. But the core of scholars has remained loyal. We have within CCSEAS substantial scholarly achievements by individuals, but no collective wisdom about how to take these labours of a lifetime and build them into permanent institutions. CCSEAS was born in Guelph in October 1971, during a meeting of Ontario University professors actively involved in teaching and research on Southeast Asia. It was first identified as the Ontario Council for Southeast Asian Studies, and was organized to ensure close co-operation among universities. That first year, twenty-four professors at eight universities in Ontario were identified as having expertise in Southeast Asia. Later, the CSEAS of Ontario was recognized as a regional council of the Canadian Society for Asian Studies, (now the Canadian Asian Studies Association), and expanded their mandate to cover all of Canada (CCSEAS). The Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies has grown from a small group of colleagues in the early 1970s to a network of several hundred scholars. In twenty years CCSEAS has expanded across the country to draw members from Victoria to St. John's. FUTURE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES IN CANADA. In my selfish, partisan mode, I want to see CCSEAS match the South and East Asian Councils in numbers of professionals, graduate students, and grants. I want every Asian Studies Programme in Canada to have a strong component of Southeast Asian Studies. But, as my daughter would say, get real, Mom! To accomplish these goals, we need more public outreach to reach new constituencies, since Southeast Asia as a geopolitical entity is not understood by the general public whose knowledge of SEA is probably best understood through food, textiles and tourism. Second, we need more regional comparison both within the Southeast Asia and across Asian regions. Third, we need more language study for its own sake rather than for immediate use. The eight national languages of Southeast Asia are rarely taught in Canada, let alone the hundreds of regional languages needed by specialists. I have a hard enough time convincing my students to study Tagalog or Thai, let alone Sanskrit or Old Javanese. The few linguists of Southeast Asian languages in Canada are also marginal within their own programmes. Thus, they have little power to expand their programmes. We are told that Asian Studies can remain viable to the extent that it serves public policy needs. For SEA this is a dangerous oversimplification; with ten countries, Canadian relations with any single country are unlikely to reach the same immediacy as our relations with Japan, China, or India. Should that shape funding priorities? What we must do is find a way to link those studying Southeast Asia together in a loose but useful network, and encourage Asian Studies programmes to find ways to include the one person in a theatre department studying Southeast Asian shadow plays, the graduate students studying Vietnamese history, the MBA facultymember working on Indonesian entrepreneurial activities. Perhaps we need to forge more links with American schools. York University might find ways to link with the Southeast Asian resources at Cornell, rather than dream of obtaining funds for setting up programmes as comprehensive in Canada. So the view from the periphery is positive and powerful - underfunded and overambitious, but fertile and fun. While Mount Meru of traditional Hindu-Buddhist cosmology may lie elsewhere, the still point in the sacred exemplary centre is not always the most challenging place to be. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies (CCSEAS) Calgary, June 1994