New Publication in the CAS Series
In the context of Southeast Asian development policy design, social science often becomes an
instrument of the State wielded to address specific issues related to the social, cultural,
economic, and political conditions that might either support or retard progress. As the State
seems to determine the agenda, social science becomes the science of the State. However, to
what extent and in what way does this characterization coincide with the perception of
Southeast Asian social scientists about their role and position vis-à-vis the State? This
was the central question during a two-day seminar held at the Centre for Asian Studies
Amsterdam (CASA) in November 1993.
The seminar was organized to mark the retirement of a leading Indonesian social
scientist, Professor Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro, from the Agricultural University at Bogor,
earlier in 1993. Tjondronegoro's career to a large extent reflects the development of social
science in Indonesia over the last forty years. Thus, his retirement offered an excellent
opportunity for the younger generation of social scientists to reflect on the role and impact of
social science in Southeast Asia in general, and in Indonesia in particular.
The structure of the book Social Science in Southeast Asia: from particularism to
universalism reflects the intention of the editors to offer a platform for the views of a
new generation of Southeast Asian social scientists. Their contributions focus on two major
topics: the conditions under which social scientific knowledge is constructed, distributed, and
applied in the different nation-states, and, secondly, the problems related to the indigeni-
zation of social science. The issue of indigenization is inseparable from the search for
identity, which has assumed even greater prominence in the last few years. In Southeast Asia
this phenomenon takes at least three different forms:
the issue of ethnicity, especially relating to the position of minorities in a national context;
religious revivalism, such as the efforts of Islamic movements to find alternative avenues for
transformation in the process of modernization; and environmental issues.
Against the background of the development of social science in Southeast Asia, in the various
contributions in this volume this search for identity is presented as a struggle from
particularism in the direction of universalism
If the book serves to stimulate a discussion on this important issue and to put it in international perspective, it will have amply succeeded in it purpose.
Nico Schulte Nordholt and Leontine Visser (eds.)
Social Science in Southeast Asia: from particularism to universalism
Comparative Asian Studies 17
VU University Press for Centre for Asian Studies Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 165 p., 1995.
ISBN: 90-5383-427-3
Nico Schulte Nordholt (University of Twente) is a political anthropologist specializing in economic and political developments in modern Indonesia. Leontine E. Visser (University of Amsterdam) is an anthropologist interested in rural transformation and natural resource management in the context of the development of eastern Indonesia.
The CAS series
The CAS series consists of studies which deal with social and economic problems in Asia
from a comparative perspective. They transcend the boundaries of the individual disciplines
represented in CASA and aim to increase understanding of the dynamic forces at work within
Asia during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Patterns of cultural and structural change
are analyzed in a framework which is comparative in both time and place. A recurrent
concern of the CAS series is the integration of intellectual rigour with compassion and social
concern.
The books require only a short production time, and are given a wide-scale distribution by
the VU University Press. Asian institutes with an exchange relationship with CASA receive
the CAS publications free of charge. A list of the more recent issues of the CAS series as
well as a brief announcement of the latest publication can be found on this page.