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New Books in Southeast Asian Studies

By: New Books Network
  • Summary

  • Interviews with Scholars of Southeast Asia about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
    New Books Network
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Episodes
  • Emily Conroy-Krutz, "Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations" (Cornell UP, 2024)
    Mar 24 2024
    Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024) illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power. Were missionaries serving the interests of American diplomacy? Or were they creating unnecessary problems? As Dr. Emily Conroy-Krutz demonstrates, they were doing both. Across the century, missionaries forced the government to articulate new conceptions of the rights of US citizens abroad and of the role of the US as an engine of humanitarianism and religious freedom. By the time the US entered the first world war, missionary diplomacy had for nearly a century created the conditions for some Americans to embrace a vision of their country as an internationally engaged world power. Missionary Diplomacy exposes the longstanding influence of evangelical missions on the shape of American foreign relations. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    50 mins
  • Financial Access and Socio-Economic Development in Indonesia
    Mar 19 2024
    Globally, 1.4 billion people are considered to be “financially excluded,” meaning they cannot safely access appropriate and affordable financial services. Muslim communities have particularly high levels of financial exclusion – for example, Muslim-majority countries have 24% lower participation rates in active borrowing from banks, and 29% lower rates of bank account ownership compared to other countries. In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim majority country, the vast majority of financial enterprises are classified as small to medium enterprises and lack access to capital in the same way as larger corporations. President Joko Widodo has actively sought to promote Islamic finance-based development initiatives, through both grassroots support of Islamic microfinance as well as top-down policy support. Dr Tanvir Uddin is founder & CEO of Wholesum, an impact-focused investment platform that enables investors to support socio-economic development through a global portfolio of small and medium-sized enterprise and microfinance financing. He joins SSEAC Stories to discuss financial access and socio-economic development in Indonesia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    30 mins
  • Charlotte Setijadi, "Memories of Unbelonging: Ethnic Chinese Identity Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)
    Mar 15 2024
    The ethnic Chinese have had a long and problematic history in Indonesia, commonly stereotyped as a market-dominant minority with dubious political loyalty toward Indonesia. For over three decades under Suharto’s New Order regime, a cultural assimilation policy banned Chinese languages, cultural expression, schools, media, and organizations. This policy was only abolished in 1998 following the riots and anti-Chinese attacks that preceded the fall of the New Order. In the post-Suharto era, Chinese Indonesians were finally free to assert their Chineseness again. But how does an ethnic group recover from the trauma of assimilation and regain a lost cultural identity? Memories of Unbelonging: Ethnic Chinese Identity Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia (U Hawaii Press, 2023) is an ethnographic study of how collective memories of state-sponsored ethnic discrimination have shaped Chinese identity politics in Indonesia. Combining case studies, in-depth primary data, and incisive analysis of Indonesia’s contemporary political landscape, anthropologist Charlotte Setijadi argues that trauma narratives are at the core of modern Chinese identity politics. Examining spaces and domains such as residential enclaves, educational institutions, the creative arts, and politics, this book paints a vivid picture of how different generations of Chinese Indonesians make sense of their historical trauma, ethnic identity, and belonging in a post-assimilation environment. Far from being passive victims of history, the ethnic Chinese are actively challenging old stereotypes and boundaries of acceptable Chineseness in the country. This emphasis on group and individual agency marks a strong departure from structural analyses of Chinese Indonesians that mostly highlight their disempowerment as an oppressed minority. Furthermore, placing the analysis within the broader context of China’s rise in the twenty-first century demonstrates how the combination of persisting local anti-Chinese sentiments and renewed pride over China’s growing global dominance have prompted many Chinese Indonesians to re-evaluate their sense of ethnic and national belonging. By focusing on the nexus between collective memory, local identity politics, and the rise of China as an external factor, Memories of Unbelonging offers new perspectives of understanding about Chinese Indonesians, post-Suharto Indonesian society, and the relationship between China and ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    49 mins

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