*Hosted by the UBC Centre for Southeast Asia Research*
Contentious Identities in Southeast Asia
Friday, January 7th, 2022, 5 – 6:30 pm Pacific Time
(Saturday, Jan 8th 2022, 9-10.30am SGT/MYT, 8-9.30am WIB)
Roundtable description:
Southeast Asia is a tremendously diverse region where different religious, ethnic and linguistic groups co-exist alongside one another — sometimes in tension, and at other times in outright conflict. Yet these intergroup relations are not static, and group boundaries are constantly being challenged or re-negotiated.
Over the last two years, as the world dealt with the covid-19 pandemic, various Southeast Asian countries have also experienced political turmoil and social movements. In Indonesia, the ruling political coalition has consolidated power amidst a health crisis, prompting accusations of prioritising political survival over citizen welfare, especially for Indigenous peoples whose lives and livelihoods are even more threatened and precarious. In Malaysia, government failure to cope with the fallout from the pandemic gave rise to the #kitajagakita movement, where individuals reached across communal lines to provide support to communities in need. In Singapore, the pandemic (and a pandemic election) highlighted deep-seated xenophobia, even as discourses of privilege and racism continue to be debated online.
What are the implications for dominant-minority relations going forward? Will the current social cleavages remain relevant in post-pandemic Southeast Asia? And how will this affect the way we study the region?
In this roundtable, we bring together distinguished panelists to examine how events of the last two years have contested and challenged group identities and group relations within the region, and how these will continue to evolve going into the future.
The panelists are:
- Nur Amalia, Activist, Association of Indigenous People’s Lawyers of the Archipelago (wings organisation of AMAN)
- Walid Jumblatt Abdullah, Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University
- Lee Hwok Aun, Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
The roundtable session will be moderated by Kikue Hamayotsu, Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University.
Register for the roundtable here: https://ubc.zoom.us/