Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia

Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Kwok Kian-Woon
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9971695065
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia applies a new theoretical literature on social memory to remembered events in Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia. Highlighting connections between theorizing based on European examples and unresolved memory issues in East and Southeast Asia, the authors show how comparative study of the interpenetration of politics and lived bodily experience, of communal and personal memories, and of dominant and suppressed narratives, can yield insights into the human potential to become either perpetrators, victims or bystanders. The memories found within different groups in any society are open to negotiation, suppression, contestation, or revision in the ever-evolving politics of the present. The searching and close-grained analyses of contemporary issues found in the volume vividly illustrate the essentially plural and multivocal nature of social memories, and demonstrate the intricate connection between transnational, national and sub-national politics. Readers seeking a more nuanced and complex understanding of the past and of its continued relevance to the present and future, will find here much food for thought.

Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia

Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Kwok Kian-Woon
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9971695065
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contestations of Memory in Southeast Asia applies a new theoretical literature on social memory to remembered events in Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia. Highlighting connections between theorizing based on European examples and unresolved memory issues in East and Southeast Asia, the authors show how comparative study of the interpenetration of politics and lived bodily experience, of communal and personal memories, and of dominant and suppressed narratives, can yield insights into the human potential to become either perpetrators, victims or bystanders. The memories found within different groups in any society are open to negotiation, suppression, contestation, or revision in the ever-evolving politics of the present. The searching and close-grained analyses of contemporary issues found in the volume vividly illustrate the essentially plural and multivocal nature of social memories, and demonstrate the intricate connection between transnational, national and sub-national politics. Readers seeking a more nuanced and complex understanding of the past and of its continued relevance to the present and future, will find here much food for thought.

Perilous Memories

Perilous Memories PDF Author: Takashi Fujitani
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822381052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
Perilous Memories makes a groundbreaking and critical intervention into debates about war memory in the Asia-Pacific region. Arguing that much is lost or erased when the Asia-Pacific War(s) are reduced to the 1941–1945 war between Japan and the United States, this collection challenges mainstream memories of the Second World War in favor of what were actually multiple, widespread conflicts. The contributors recuperate marginalized or silenced memories of wars throughout the region—not only in Japan and the United States but also in China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea. Firmly based on the insight that memory is always mediated and that the past is not a stable object, the volume demonstrates that we can intervene positively yet critically in the recovery and reinterpretation of events and experiences that have been pushed to the peripheries of the past. The contributors—an international list of anthropologists, cultural critics, historians, literary scholars, and activists—show how both dominant and subjugated memories have emerged out of entanglements with such forces as nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, racism, and sexism. They consider both how the past is remembered and also what the consequences may be of privileging one set of memories over others. Specific objects of study range from photographs, animation, songs, and films to military occupations and attacks, minorities in wartime, “comfort women,” commemorative events, and postwar activism in pursuing redress and reparations. Perilous Memories is a model for war memory intervention and will be of interest to historians and other scholars and activists engaged with collective memory, colonial studies, U.S. and Asian history, and cultural studies. Contributors. Chen Yingzhen, Chungmoo Choi, Vicente M. Diaz, Arif Dirlik, T. Fujitani, Ishihara Masaie, Lamont Lindstrom, George Lipsitz, Marita Sturken, Toyonaga Keisaburo, Utsumi Aiko, Morio Watanabe, Geoffrey M. White, Diana Wong, Daqing Yang, Lisa Yoneyama

The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism

The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism PDF Author: Yifat Gutman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000646297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 575

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Book Description
This Handbook is the first systematic effort to map the fast-growing phenomenon of memory activism and to delineate a new field of research that lies at the intersection of memory and social movement studies. From Charlottesville to Cape Town, from Santiago to Sydney, we have recently witnessed protesters demanding that symbols of racist or colonial pasts be dismantled and that we talk about histories that have long been silenced. But such events are only the most visible instances of grassroots efforts to influence the meaning of the past in the present. Made up of more than 80 chapters that encapsulate the rich diversity of scholarship and practice of memory activism by assembling different disciplinary traditions, methodological approaches, and empirical evidence from across the globe, this Handbook establishes important questions and their theoretical implications arising from the social, political, and economic reality of memory activism. Memory activism is multifaceted, takes place in a variety of settings, and has diverse outcomes – but it is always crucial to understanding the constitution and transformation of our societies, past and present. This volume will serve as a guide and establish new analytic frameworks for scholars, students, policymakers, journalists, and activists alike.

War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore

War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore PDF Author: Karl Hack
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9971695995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
Singapore fell to Japan on 15 February 1942. Within days, the Japanese had massacred thousands of Chinese civilians, and taken prisoner more than 100,000 British, Australian and Indian soldiers. A resistance movement formed in Malaya's jungle-covered mountains, but the vast majority could do little other than resign themselves to life under Japanese rule. The Occupation would last three and a half years, until the return of the British in September 1945. How is this period remembered? And how have individuals, communities, and states shaped and reshaped memories in the postwar era? The book response to these questions, presenting answers that use the words of Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, British and Australians who personally experienced the war years. The authors guide readers through many forms of memory: from the soaring pillars of Singapore's Civilian War Memorial, to traditional Chinese cemeteries in Malaysia; and from families left bereft by Japanese massacres, to the young women who flocked to the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army, dreaming of a march on Delhi. This volume provides a forum for previously marginalized and self-censored voices, using the stories they relate to reflect on the nature of conflict and memory. They also offer a deeper understanding of the searing transit from wartime occupation to post-war decolonization and the moulding of postcolonial states and identities.

Southeast Asia’s Cold War

Southeast Asia’s Cold War PDF Author: Ang Cheng Guan
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824873467
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The historiography of the Cold War has long been dominated by American motivations and concerns, with Southeast Asian perspectives largely confined to the Indochina wars and Indonesia under Sukarno. Southeast Asia’s Cold War corrects this situation by examining the international politics of the region from within rather than without. It provides an up-to-date, coherent narrative of the Cold War as it played out in Southeast Asia against a backdrop of superpower rivalry. When viewed through a Southeast Asian lens, the Cold War can be traced back to the interwar years and antagonisms between indigenous communists and their opponents, the colonial governments and their later successors. Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines join Vietnam and Indonesia as key regional players with their own agendas, as evidenced by the formation of SEATO and the Bandung conference. The threat of global Communism orchestrated from Moscow, which had such a powerful hold in the West, passed largely unnoticed in Southeast Asia, where ideology took a back seat to regime preservation. China and its evolving attitude toward the region proved far more compelling: the emergence of the communist government there in 1949 helped further the development of communist networks in the Southeast Asian region. Except in Vietnam, the Soviet Union’s role was peripheral: managing relationships with the United States and China was what preoccupied Southeast Asia’s leaders. The impact of the Sino-Soviet split is visible in the decade-long Cambodian conflict and the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. This succinct volume not only demonstrates the complexity of the region, but for the first time provides a narrative that places decolonization and nation-building alongside the usual geopolitical conflicts. It focuses on local actors and marshals a wide range of literature in support of its argument. Most importantly, it tells us how and why the Cold War in Southeast Asia evolved the way it did and offers a deeper understanding of the Southeast Asia we know today.

Women and Politics in Southeast Asia

Women and Politics in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Theresa W Devasahayam
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1782845224
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This book aims to contribute to the discourse on women and politics in Southeast Asia. The chapters, covering Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Singapore, analyse the asymmetrical power relationships between the sexes and how power differentials between men and women play out in the realm of politics are a reflection of the power contestations women face with men in other spheres of everyday life. Each chapter seeks to ask a different question in terms of where women viz. men stand in the political landscape of their countries, in an effort to answer the question of Where are the women in the gender trope in Asian politics. While the chapters are primarily empirical as they delve into the challenges, contradictions and conflicts Southeast Asian women encounter, the main assertion is that womens struggles in the realm of politics are a result of having to operate within power structures created principally by men, thereby producing barriers for women to enter politics, on the one hand, and to increase their numbers and widen their sphere of influence, on the other. Recognizing that Asian politics is dominated by men, the question of how women have negotiated a value system that is inherently male-centred and male-controlled is also discussed. The implicit narrative demonstrated in this book is that the political arena should not be considered in isolation from other arenas but instead is essentially a mirror of other arenas whether the home, workplace, nation, and/or global spaces each marked by power contestations between men and women and having a spill-over effect on the other, as well as shaping womens experiences in the political realm.

Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies

Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies PDF Author: Anna Lisa Tota
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113447749X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
The Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies offers students and researchers original contributions that comprise the debates, intersections and future courses of the field. It is divided in six themed sections: 1)Theories and Perspectives, 2) Cultural artefacts, Symbols and Social practices, 3) Public, Transnational, and Transitional Memories 4) Technologies of Memory, 5) Terror, Violence and Disasters, 6) and Body and Ecosystems. A strong emphasis is placed on the interdisciplinary breadth of Memory Studies with contributions from leading international scholars in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, biology, film studies, media studies, archive studies, literature and history. The Handbook addresses the core concerns and foundations of the field while indicating new directions in Memory Studies.

Paths and Rivers

Paths and Rivers PDF Author: Rosana Waterson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004253858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
Fieldwork extending over a thirty-year period provided materials for this book. Paths and Rivers offers an unusually deep and broad picture of the Sa’dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition over the course of the past century. The Toraja inhabit the mountainous highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are well known for their dramatic architecture, their unusual cliff burials, and their flamboyant ceremonial life, which places extraordinary economic demands on individuals and families. The analysis is informed, firstly, by a comparative perspective which sets Toraja social structure in the context of the Austronesian world. Secondly, the author delves deeply into Toraja social memory to show how people think about the past. She examines the usefulness of history and myth in the present as a source of identity, a template for action, or a resource by means of which to claim precedence. The book gives a clear picture of the structure and ethos of the indigenous Toraja religion, the Aluk To Dolo or "Way of the Ancestors", with its complex cycle of rituals. The book concludes with an analysis of the ceremonial economy, which draws upon both domestic subsistence production and the global market economy. Paths and Rivers draws together a fascinating picture of one society’s journey into modernity.

The Asia-Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility

The Asia-Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility PDF Author: Catherine Gomes
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783085940
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
The growing mobility of people within and into the Asia Pacific region has created environments of increasing diversity as nations become hosts to both permanent and temporary multicultural societies. How do we begin to gauge the impact of mobility and multiculturalism on individuals and groups in this diverse region today? The authors of The Asia Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility turn to social media as a tool of inquiry to map how mobile subjects and minorities articulate their sense of community and identity. The authors see social media as a platform that allows users to document and express their individual and collective identities, sometimes in restrictive communication environments, while providing a sense of belonging and agency. They present original empirical work that attempts to help readers understand how mobile subjects who circulate in the Asia Pacific create a sense of community for themselves and articulate their ethnic, ideological and national identities.

Handbook of Autobiography / Autofiction

Handbook of Autobiography / Autofiction PDF Author: Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110381486
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 2857

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Book Description
Autobiographical writings have been a major cultural genre from antiquity to the present time. General questions of the literary as, e.g., the relation between literature and reality, truth and fiction, the dependency of author, narrator, and figure, or issues of individual and cultural styles etc., can be studied preeminently in the autobiographical genre. Yet, the tradition of life-writing has, in the course of literary history, developed manifold types and forms. Especially in the globalized age, where the media and other technological / cultural factors contribute to a rapid transformation of lifestyles, autobiographical writing has maintained, even enhanced, its popularity and importance. By conceiving autobiography in a wide sense that includes memoirs, diaries, self-portraits and autofiction as well as media transformations of the genre, this three-volume handbook offers a comprehensive survey of theoretical approaches, systematic aspects, and historical developments in an international and interdisciplinary perspective. While autobiography is usually considered to be a European tradition, special emphasis is placed on the modes of self-representation in non-Western cultures and on inter- and transcultural perspectives of the genre. The individual contributions are closely interconnected by a system of cross-references. The handbook addresses scholars of cultural and literary studies, students as well as non-academic readers.