This course highlights Southeast Asia as an important region for the study of politics and power from an anthropological perspective. It sheds light on how notions of “power” stemming from the unique political histories of Southeast Asia might help us rethink its role in governmentality, knowledge-producing practices, and in creating the conditions for political legitimacy. We will examine how various forces shaped what power came to be in time and place. We will examine how this legacy continues in terms of patron-client networks, the meaning of political legitimacy, and ways of seeing sex and gender.

What is the relationship between politics and power? How does a perspective informed by a look at another part of the world broaden our conceptions? This course highlights Southeast Asia as an important region for the study of politics and power. It sheds light on how notions of “power” stemming from the unique political histories of Southeast Asia might help us rethink its role in governmentality, knowledge-producing practices, and in creating the conditions for political legitimacy. We begin by tracking how “Southeast Asia” developed as an idea via reading texts on colonial history, trade, and political exchange within the region. Throughout the course we will examine how various forces shaped what power came to be in time and place. Towards the end of the semester, we will examine how this legacy continues in terms of patron-client networks, the meaning of political legitimacy, and ways of seeing sex and gender. Students should come out of this class with an appreciation for the region and its challenges, a knowledge of the different traditions and histories that make it up, and a capacity to analyze politics anthropologically. The insights from this class should not be taken as a snapshot across every place and time within Southeast Asia, but as a vantage point from which to analyze politics and power in the region and beyond.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.