And to conclude

Its sad that Dr. Sathian and the Class of HI 248.2/151 meets for the final time today. She is an excellent scholar I must say. The choice to bring her into the lecture series was a wise one.

I posited the question that I had yesterday. I asked her how the Chinese transformed themselves into bureaucrats in the centralisation project of Chulalangkorn. The response was this: Its not so much of placating the rajas of the existing system... one may liken it to the resident system in British Malaya where the Rajas and the Residents were exercising authority at the same time, though in different spheres of influence which may be cultural, religious, economic, et cetera.

Dr. Tolosa, my chair, made an appearance at the lecture. Im not so sure if he was into the whole thing though, but I am aware that post-national identities interest him, especially if one takes it from a discursive frame. This brings me to my next point. Dr. T gave us a reading for his lecture with POS 200(Fr. Jojo) where we shall discuss Discourse Analysis in IR. I find discourse analysis relevant in my study as it may help reveal some interesting details in the study of the Patani and the Moros.

Segue...
I was also asked by Dr. Sathian a few days back to give her a copy of my paper, to which i responded to yesterday. She said she left the copy with Dr. G, with the comments and all. She also left her contact details if I still had some questions regarding Patani (and I'm certain that a lot will come about). Well, I hope things turn out all right.

Dr. Sathian has left me wanting more and I'm hoping that the next lecturers will be as good as she is.

The Patani Geo-Economic Unit

Dr. Sathian furthered her discussion of geo-economic units of analysis by citing an example, this time, her area of expertise, The North Malaysia-Patani region. She cites the genealogy and the narratives along with it of a Chinese family based in Patani which has been there for ages. She proposes that these historical notations through the genealogical records may be used by historians and anthropologists in their discernment of history, apart from the traditional archival research which tend to discuss the royal courts, temples and the like.

She contests the earlier assumption that the trade route consisted of a network between Patani and its southern neighbors by proposing an alternate route from Patani to Kedah, Perlis and to Penang, finally. She does this through, shall we say, non-conventional historical research by employing socio-linguoistics and a bit of anthropology.

I failed to ask her a question regarding the existing political structures in Patani, vis-a-vis the rise of the Chinese as imperial "cohorts," if we may call them that, in the centralisation project of Chulalongkorn amid the threats of encroachment by the French and the British.

I shall tomorrow.

Geo-[insert preferred variable here] units of analyses

Dr. Mala Sathian, a visiting professor from the University Malaya specialises (as indicative of her master's and dissertation work) on the upland Thai communities and the Patanis of the southern borders of Thailand. Her presence is manna from heaven to me owing to the fact that I am currently undertaking a research paper wrestling with the construction of a nation-state and how it is used as a means for ethnic insurgency containment, specifically, the countries of Thailand (Patani) and the Philippines (Moro).

I posited a query regarding the usage of geo-[economic] entities as her unit of analysis that historically, these "units," though not entirely discrete entities, have been the nitty-gritty points of border consolidation during the advent of nation-states. They act as if the borders of the nation-state do not exist at all... Yes, as Ben Anderson quite eloquently put it, they're merely products of the human mind... [offhand, in a rather humorous-promiscuous manner, Dr. G referred to Ben Anderson's pre-imaginative days... "...before [Benedict] Anderson started imagining things..." yes, it was worth a few moments of laughter]

A postmodernising force that preceeded modernity? well, its not impossible if we, to use that rather over-rated term, "postmodernise" our punto de vista so as not to look at things from a linear and uni-directional history of knowledge. These forces, blur the [disciplinary] boundaries thus permiting a more fluid exchange of intellectual and cultural masturbatory progenies.

Today, has the blurring of the lines, the breaking down of essentialist barricades where we put up defence lines against la differance stepped up or has it slowed down? Has the process reversed itself in light of tighter border control as brought about by this paranoia of the state over terrorists? Dr. Mala responded by confirming that it is not only economic ties, however elastic they are, that serve as a "binding" force for geo-[insert preferred variable here] as kinship ties, among a grand gamut of factors, also play a crucial role. She adds that yes, there has been this trend in Thai policy to aggressively stamp out any threats to its cartographic accidents. Switching borders, Malaysia, she laments has no interest at all with Patani, with regard to the possibility of it being merged with the federation. What she favours is autonomy for the region of Patani... which is emblematic of the pragmatic outlook in the arena of domestic, ethnic insurgency containment.

Neo-paradigmatic historiography

A cultural mandala? Why not! Dr. Sathian introduced the idea that we should not be contained within the borders of a particular contemporary nation-state in the analysis or the study of specificities within Southeast Asia. She was alluding to the case of the Patanis of Thailand who share more of their history with the northern Malay states of Malaysia than with predominantly Buddhist Thailand. This is an interesting point as it opens up other potential areas of study. Another area which comes to mind would be the trade practices of Tausugs and the Malays of Sabah in North Borneo.

Dr. Mala [Sathian] also introduced the manners through which history was written in the contextualities of the specific nation-states. The peculiarity of Thailand though is one that interests me a lot. She elaborates the tension between the formation of the nation-narrative with the colonial aggresors which is evident in most post-colonial Southeast Asian states. Thailand was never colonized which brings the point to the fore. It is interesting to check (and indeed I shall check on it) whether the discourses in the arena of foreign relations articulates the geo-political positioning of the Kingdom of Siam as a buffer state between British Burma and French Indochina.

Peripheral Marginality

I am a type of person who would side with the underdog. This is not constant though as I evaluate the context and the prevailing tone of the marginality of the "underdog." As I see it, the story of the underdog in Southeast Asia is missing. This is not really a surprising thing as the stories that are taken into account are those of the powerful.

Most of the discussions in the seminar are centered around courts, kings, rajas, and the tales that surround them. The lines between fiction and fact are blurred - the orthodox historian's nightmare. This marginalises the readers who seek the narratives of the ordinary... of the people who experience their everydayness as one POS faculty has come to call it. This lack of chronicling, or the privileging of the extraordinary over the mundane is symptomatic in almost all pre-modern texts, in almost all civilisations. History of Western Civilisations, as I took it from William McNeil's textbook is more of a political history than a social history of the peoples of the west.

The Notion of a Secular Southeast Asia

Of course. Secularism is ontologically and epistemologically situated in the historicities of modernist Europe. I queried whether there was a notion or a concept treading the lines towards the direction of secularism. Considering that most of the classical states that formed during the pre-(western)colonial period, none actually treaded the same line. I posited the matter in light of my paper which looks at the deployment (or the choice not to deploy) national narratives in the containment of ethnic insurgencies. This is of course linked to security studies, a sub-field in political science, and a theoretical cousin of (realist) international relations.

In my paper, I will attempt to interrogate the nature of government action in the employment of national narratives in order to attain a "balance" in ethnic insurgencies. This is , shall we say, an ideational turn from the dominant discourses of security studies/international relations as I shall be looking into the subject matter from a somewhat social constructionist point of view which deviates from the standard norm... the employment of realism in the analysis of international affairs..

Secularism is thus significant in my paper in many ways, one of which is the option of the nation-state to assert the nature of state (disaggregated from the compound concept) which is grounded on secular thought. The concept of a nation-state, just like the concept of a nation, is ingrained in the rustics of the development of european epistemics.

More to come...

Naming and Metropoles

Naming based on the offspring? Yes, it is a Southeast Asian practice. My great-great grandfather was usually refered to as Amai Mingka explicitly indicating his fatherhood to his daughter named Mingka. In the annals studying this, as the NHI has put it, Malay practice, many personages belonging to the region employ this practice which is indicative of the power-relations between the parent and the offspring. This is reversed in most European societies where the Irish would adopt their parent's names... The Irish practice "O'Donnel," "O'Neil," or the Spaniards would simply insert "de" (de Jesus, de Guzman, de la Cerna), the Italians, (D'Maggio, D'Angelo), the French (du Baudelaire, du Chevoix) et cetera.

Dr. Gealogo's TA, Aaron asked a question regarding the fusion of the duality of city-center functionality (religious and economic). The future metropoles based from the cities of early Southeast Asian states. It is interesting to note here that the cities served as entrepots as Dr. Gealogo would prefer to term them.

Historiographic insights & localism v. regionalism

Interestingly, the discussions in the class tackled the thorny issue of internal academic politcs. Southeast Asian Studies has its fair share of epistemological and hermeneutical beacons advocating their positions and their respective dissenters. Tim Huxley discusses the early history of the multi-disciplinary field by elucidating its, shall we say, "progenitors" embodied by the non-southeastasianist scholars of the west studying, well, the problematized regional grouping of a southeast asia. As Dr. Gealogo pointed out, the conception of a southeast asia was actually done for the sake of military tactical heurism, that it would be convenient for the military (referring of course to America's fortress military) to disaggregate a "Southeast Asia" from a Pacific/Australian Command.

Regionalism and Localism, interestingly, has graduated from being geographical heuristic devices into a catch-phrase for a whole gamut of concepts and theories ranging from anthropology to sociology. The mere conception of space has its own metaphysics, its history. Both terminology/heurisms/concepts have been invoked in various scenarios. As Dr. Gealogo has noted, the nationalist movements of the past and of the present appeal to the ethnicities of localities or the localitites of ethnicities in order to advance their causes. From another view, regionalism was also espoused by 1930's Japan when it proposed a "Greater-East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" which masked its imperialistic tendencies.

Michel Foucault as Cartographer: Anti-Disciplinary Boundaries

I am sort of a testament to this morning's lecture, that borders (especially nowadays) can easily be subverted. I am a sociology major during my undergrad years. I then decided to penetrate the world of political science by entering Ateneo and I find myself taking up history units.

Its not really new to me, the concept of porous national borders. Going back to my Asian History class back in UST, I remember Prof. Dalangin (or was it Resos) who elucidated the maritime trades of Southeast Asia. A first look at the Southeast Asian region would make one think that the archipelagic and discontiguous character of the region would impede travel. Contrary to the context-bound contemporary thinker (who works with cars or trains as modes of transportation) the bodies of water indeed increased the viability of intra-regional travel. Our display cabinet can attest to that. It plays as a host to Ming dynasty chinawares that we inherited from our great-great grandparents who received tributes from Chinese traders in our home province.

Borders are imaginary that serve the purpose of containing humanity. Subvert them. Some may actually see borders as instrumentalities of the political ends of countries or even more particular, regimes.

It's good that I was able to read a bit on the historiography of Southeast Asia, considering that I have a not-so-good background on the matter. I managed to "sequester" the Halib & Huxley text from the library... I did so because all the other books were checked out, so I figured that I can do the same. In the introductory part, the editors made a quick survey of historiographic studies within the region. Of particular interest to me of course were the sections on sociology and anthropology. The author (Victor King) attempted a sketching of sociology in Southeast Asia through the eyes of the colonizers and slowly trying to elaborate on the "indigenizing" forces within their disciplines.