Module Code and Title:        AAS302 Anthropology of South East Asia

Programme:                         BA in Anthropology

Credit:                                  12

Module Tutor:                     New Tutor #2

General objective: This module focuses on the South East Asia region and offers a comprehensive introduction to the anthropology of this region. The module introduces students to key elements, themes, and theories of South East Asian history, cultures, geography, religions, kinship systems, gender, development, politics, and economic change. The module emphasizes on understanding conceptual issues, ethnographic evidences, and theoretical debates that resonate across South East Asia.

Learning outcomes – On completion of this module, students will be able to:

1. Describe key events and patterns in South East Asia’s history, and trace the extent to which these influence contemporary social phenomena in the region.
2. Identify salient themes and topics in the Anthropology of South East Asia.
3. Critically evaluate a range of theories and ethnographic source material relating to the societies and cultures of South East Asia.
4. Grasp key debates in the Anthropology of South East Asia.
5. Discuss the key features of South East Asian social, political and cultural systems.
6. Identify similarities and differences in social and cultural systems within the region.
7. Apply anthropological concepts and theories to ethnographic materials from South East Asia.
8. Discuss the anthropology of South East Asia in the wider context of anthropological theory and knowledge.

Learning and Teaching Approach:

Assessment Approach:

A. Wikipedia Entry: Portion of final Marks: 10%

Students are required to identify a specific place, historical event, community, or object in South East Asia that interests them. They are then required to individually write an entry for an 'imagined' Wikipedia audience. This entry should detail (1) origins (2) historical significance (3) cultural features (4) economic attributes, and (5) wider political and societal significance in the context of South East Asia. The entry will be 500-750 words in length.

2%       Proposal (topic, structure, references)

5%       Quality of content (includes fulfilling all the expected criteria for content, use of relevant and adequate support for all claims made, quality & relevance of selected examples, ties analysis to relevant module concepts)

1%       Language

1%       Organization

1%       References

B. Research Essay: Portion of Final Marks: 15%

Students are required to individually write a critical essay about a contemporary issue/debate in South East discussed in the class lectures. Students are expected to adopt both a historical and contemporary point of view, and to critically discuss changes and continuities. In their discussion, students will be required to both engage key theoretical paradigms on the topic and substantiate their arguments with ethnographic examples. The essay is expected to be 750-1000 words in length.

3%       Proposal outlining the selected topic and proposed argument

8%       Quality of content and argument (includes well stated and original analysis, use of relevant and adequate support for all claims made, quality & relevance of selected ethnographic examples, ties analysis to relevant module concepts)

1%       Quality of selected references and sources

1%       Language

1%       Organization

1%       References

C. Book Review: Portion of final marks 10%

Students are required to select one ethnography from South East Asia. They are subsequently required to individually summarize the book by highlighting the theory and ethnography used, critically evaluate its merits and demerits, and discuss the book in view of wider key debates within the region. The book review is expected to be 750-1000 words in length.

5%       Summary of the book (accuracy and completeness)

3%       Quality of analysis and reflection (includes well stated and original analysis, thoughtfulness of reflection, uses relevant and adequate support for all claims made)

2%       Language, Organization, and Referencing

D. Group Presentation: Portion of Final Mark: 10%

Students will be divided into small groups. Each group will be given the task to elaborate and present on a topic discussed in class. Students are required to discuss its theoretical underpinnings, use ethnographic examples, and examine its relevance to the Bhutanese context. This presentation will be 10-15 minutes long.

6%       Content (including the use of sources / perspectives not discussed in class, how well does the presentation address specified criteria, quality of overall narrative, all claims relevant and supported)

1%       Organization and structure; Language use

1%       Delivery (volume, pace, efforts to engage audience)

1%       Time management and Quality of teamwork

1%       Individual contribution (process)

E. Class participation and preparedness: Portion of Final Mark: 5%

Students will be expected to participate substantially in class discussions, with contributions reflecting adequate preparation for topics under discussion. 5% of class participation and preparedness will be assessed before midterm, and the remaining 5% post midterm.

F. Midterm Examination: Portion of Final Mark: 10%

Students will take a written exam of 1.5 hr duration covering topics up to the mid-point of the semester.

Pre-requisites: AFD101 Introduction to Anthropology

Subject matter:

1. Unit I: Introduction to South East Asia
   • Locating South East Asia: countries, regional integration, and the place of southeast Asia in the world
   • Geography and human landscape (upland-lowland, rural-urban, mainland-maritime, and plural societies)
   • South East Asian languages and linguistic classifications.
2. Unit II: Historical Perspectives
   • Power and polity in pre-colonial South East Asia: Galactic polities (Tambiah) and oscillating political systems (Leach)
   • Zomia, nonstate spaces, and state resistance: key terms and examples
   • Moral economies and peasant revolutions in Burma and Vietnam (Scott)
   • European colonialism in Indochina: key trends and events
   • Ritual and state formation in Bali (Geerz): description and implications
3. Unit III: Kinship, Family, and Gender
   • Perspectives on kinship and the family in places across South East Asia
   • Gender and the sexes: queer identities in Thailand
   • The house and the hearth: residence, food, and kinship (Levi-Strauss and Carsten)
   • Reflections on South East Asian notions of personhood: key concerns and examples
   • Kingship, royalty, and nobility: Thailand
4. Unit IV: Religion and Cosmology
   • Entry and spread of Islamic, Chinese, Indian, and Western religious and cultural traditions
   • Buddhism in Thailand: key issues and trends
   • Cosmology, animism, and spirits in Indonesia
   • Religious blending: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Vietnam
   • Religion in social and political mobilization: Myanmar
   • History and perspectives of Catholicism in The Philippines
5. Unit V: Postcolonial Developments and Nationalism
   • Transition to market-economy: from peasants to proletariat
   • Nationalism and revolution (Anderson): key terms and concerns
   • Cambodian nationalism, the emergence of an independent Cambodia, and the Cambodian genocide
   • Remembering and forgetting in post-war Vietnam
   • Resistance: Weapons of the Weak in Malaysia (Scott)
6. Unit VI: Experiences of modernity and capitalism
   • Capitalism and its discontents: resistance of Malaysian factory workers (Ong)
   • ‘Asian values’ and the economy: the case of Singapore
   • The plight and struggles of indigenous peoples (Tania Murray Li)
   • Labour migration and mobility: Filipino women in international migration
   • Development and its limits (urbanization and industrialization)
   • Tourism and its impacts: Thailand

Reading List:

1. Essential Reading

• Leach, E. (1954). Political systems of highland Burma. London: Athlone.
• Scott, J.C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
• Scott, J.C. (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

1. Additional Reading

• Anderson, B. (1998). The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World. London: Verso.
• Carsten, J. (2000). Cultures of relatedness: New approaches to the study of kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Carsten, J. (1997). The Heat of the Hearth: The Process of Kinship in a Malay Fishing Community. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Ehrenreich, B and A.R. Hochschild (Eds.) (2000) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York: Owl Books.
• Faier, L. (2007) ‘Filipina Migrants in Rural Japan and Their Professions of Love”, American Ethnologist 34(1): 148-162.
• Geertz, C. (1980): Negara: The Theatre-State in Nineteenth Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Hinton, A.L. (2005). Why did they Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Kratoska, P., R. Raben and H. Schulte-Nordholt (2005) Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space. Leiden: KITLV Press.
• Ong, A. (1987). Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany: State University of New York.
• Peletz, M.G. (2009). Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia since Early Modern Times. New York: Routledge.
• Rigg, J. (1990). Southeast Asia: A region in transition. London: Unwin Hyman
• Rudnyckyi, D. (2009). “Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia.” Cultural Anthropology 24(1): 104-141.
• Scott, J.C. (1976). The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. Berkeley: Yale University Press.
• Schwenkel, C. (2009). The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Tambiah, S.J. 1970. Buddhism and Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tambia, S.J. (1977). “The Galactic Polity: The Structure of Traditional Kingdoms in Southeast Asia”, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 293(1): 69-97.

Date: March 15, 2018