Brilliant findings, among others revealed by a new book that uses an ethnographic approach to analyzing the historical past of Southeast Asia. People who are not taken into account that, according to the authors, including the small farmers, urban laborers, pirate / sea gypsies.
In traditional historiography of Southeast Asia, pirate or pirates, prostitutes, rickshaw repairman and others as a small group of people classified as an underclass and presented as the people without history. In fact, they are an important element that affects change in the cultural landscape and history of Southeast Asia.
Inspired predecessor, Prof John Smail, who advocated an autonomous historical writing with a parallel perspective (case 4), the writer tries to write the history of Southeast Asia alongside frantic bingarnya history of Western imperialism, as much as possible through the use of data sources and local history neglected over the years.
Historical approach as it clearly produces alternative historical reconstruction of several communities in the region, the history of those who have been marginalized.
Enterprises author clearly has added a row of other historians who tried (and succeeded) in reviving the voices of marginalized groups to emerge strongly resonates in the history of historiography. By using archaeological findings, oral traditions, and for enriching the visual material written sources, Jean Taylor, in Indonesia: Peoples and Histories (2003), for example, managed to reconstruct a more pluralistic Indonesian history, lifting the small community and the topics to be taken lightly demonstrate their strong contribution to the processes of creation of modern Indonesia.
Not unlike Taylor, Ruth Balint in Troubled Waters: Borders, Boundaries, Possession in the Timor Sea (2005) also succeeded in lifting dynamics civilization living, growing and disappearing in the waters south of Indonesia area, ie the area between the Timor Sea and the northern coast of Australia. The story of fishermen and indigenous Aboriginal Timor there can be sticking out thanks to the use of the concept of rejection Balint modern geography partition 20th century Southeast Asia as a barrier to the continent of Australia.
Like Balint, in this book Warren doing more or less the same approach: adopting the concept of territorial Southeast Asia are completely different than the previous social historians. Extensive use of archival material once it has been helping in the preparation of the historical narrative story.
However, anthropological research is supported by the widest source of oral tradition, photographs, and paintings have proved that the geographical distribution and reconstruction of the history of the West has not always able to demonstrate a history of typical communities in this region are real.
Many new things
The topics covered in this book Warren is almost never touched before historians. Gave rise to the story of slavery that happened to Bajau tribe (the sea) in the context of the Sultanate of Sulu and the story of the rickshaw and the prostitution industry are poor and starving in Singapore's colonial history has featured a medley ranks of topics in this area, which refers to the theory that social history and culture of the region is actually an evolutionary proceeds from bottom to top.
In addition to closely interconnected economically and politically, the processes that occur in the community have donated the face of modern Southeast Asia known now. They played a formative role in transforming this area of economic, social and cultural rights, the strong historical roots communities in Southeast Asia.
When we understand the concept of territoriality Southeast Asia in perspective like that, the disappointment that comes from not finding specific essay about Indonesia (as the initial impression) to be dashed against the book and not unfounded. That is, the historical dynamics of social groups revealed is already covering Indonesia, although politically they are now partitioned the territory of modern Southeast Asia in the context of the modern state of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
Featuring 16 essays history has ever appeared in various scientific journals, this book can be divided into three major research themes of Southeast Asian history. The first theme is an emerging research on the history and development of the maritime world in the latter half of the 18th century until the early 19th century, in the zone in the waters under the strong supervision of the Sultanate of Sulu.
Warren was able to show that the power control and mastery of the Sultanate of Sulu was ordained as the most important cardiac trade globalization that time. Thanks seafood commodity trading activities, rampant maritime piracy activity that correlates strongly with the practice of slavery (sales and human exploitation) in the context of the proceeding, evolved and crystallized to leave a distinctive culture, which is now its influence extending far up into the Straits of Malacca in the west.
In this book, the history of the people who had been marginalized in other works, not only successfully lifted into place in the main stage of history, but also at the same time shows the processes are complex and lengthy journey became the forerunner of the formation of inter-Asian trade in modern era. The story of the pirates in the waters of the sea, a group of people and the sea gypsies 18th century until the 19th, featured authors as a way of explanation to see the history of Southeast Asia in relation to aspects of the wider political.
The second topic in this luminous book about the past or the social history of colonial Singapore. Focused on the story of a rickshaw puller who migrated from southern China, the feel of the past history of Singapore is also becoming exposed. Various life stories of migrant sex workers previously untold other historians appointed not only as a solo writer, but once combined in parallel with the story of the rickshaw. As a result, the reconstruction of the fascinating history of the little people who are so rich in nuance as accentuate the theme of suffering, poverty, powerlessness, and exploitation are rarely written in the chronicles of history.
The third theme, the collection of writings that focuses on the close relationship between transnational crime, which include sea piracy and human trafficking (trafficking in persons) after the opening of China's early 21st century in the region of Southeast Asia, is the most relevant discussion mainly to answer questions contemporary quaint region.
Multidisciplinary approach
Recent publications Sally Cameron and Edward Newman, Trafficking in Humans; Social, Cultural and Political Dimensions (2008), shows that in developing countries the phenomenon of human trafficking and organized crime phenomena cause enough to dominate the global crisis on the world's 21st century.
The book also reveals further that the activities of organized crime and global migration patterns are also affecting the Southeast Asian region is still very difficult to handle. One reason is the failure of the discovery of effective strategies for handling our lack of knowledge of the phenomenon.
The process of globalization in the context of maritime piracy in the region of Southeast Asia, where the trafficking problem was entered in it, is an important focus of discussion at the end of this book (p. 309-331). The author provides a sharp analysis of answers to questions about the dynamics of the root of the problem.
By linking the phenomenon to the activity of a few centuries ago, including maritime crime and trafficking in human beings, it was concluded that the phenomenon of maritime piracy and maritime crime in the modern era of South East Asian waters is not a new phenomenon. In essence, it provides a historical imagination that happened in the era of 1968-2000 in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines have a strong correlation with the impact of the economic boom in Southeast Asia that occurred nearly three centuries ago, the era from 1768 to 1800.
Clearly, this work became one of the few works that have opened up new possibilities for writing the history of communities in Southeast Asia conducted through a multidisciplinary approach that richly detailed, imaginative, and profound.
Those who are doing studies of Southeast Asia, its main aspects of maritime observers, need to consider this book seriously. Stories about how small communities in Southeast Asia who are appointed Warren has opened up new horizons for further elucidation of a new, more critical understanding in this area studies.
0 comments :
Post a Comment