This project contributes to the development of a preliminary corpus of critical theory in Southeast Asia. Although deemed to be problematic in its provenance and conceptualizsation from the colonial geopolitics of the Cold War, Southeast Asia offers a provisional frame for studying the diverse cultures of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, which officially comprises Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, and the Philippines.
Decolonising Critical Theory in Southeast Asia
Most theoretical frameworks and vocabularies are developed and utilised with Western Europe and North America as their main frames of reference, then applied to different contexts without significantly altering their language or purview to suit the particularities of these contexts. The GRF grant builds on recent initiatives to decolonise theoretical frameworks and vocabularies away from dominant sites of knowledge production that have been concentrated in North America, Europe, and Australia. Because shifting the objects and terms of inquiry to Asia can result in the establishment of new hierarchies, it aims to expand the corpus and scope of critical theory beyond South Asia and Northeast Asia to elsewhere in the larger region.
The goal of the project is to explore how critical theory in or about Southeast Asia might assume several forms: 1) the description and conceptualisation of social and political conditions drawn from vernacular understandings and keywords; 2) the reception and translation of critical theories from North America, Western Europe, Australia, and Northeast Asia in and for Southeast Asian contexts; 3) the engagement by artists and filmmakers based in the region with vernacular understandings and keywords.
