Welcome to Modern Southeast Asia 2020 (AKA Social Change in Southeast Asia)

Greetings! Welcome to Anthropology 244, also known as “Modern Southeast Asia” and listed on the course listing as “Social Change in Contemporary Southeast Asia”. Why so many titles for the course? One reason is that Southeast Asia is so complex that no single title will suffice to capture the diversity of the region.  The other reason is that the registrar entered the wrong title into the computer system and it didn’t seem to make much difference what the course is called. After all, contemporary Southeast Asia is of course a modern place with plenty of social change is going on. So the course gets to be called whatever we want to call it: “Modern Southeast Asia” or “Social Change in Contemporary Southeast Asia.”

Normally, at this time of year, I would be posting a news item reporting on my summer research in Vietnam, or other Southeast Asia related projects. But in the time of Corona, I’ve been watching events unfold in Southeast Asia while social distancing from home in Connecticut. The summer heat waves here have matched the heat of Saigon, but other than that, my closest connection to the region was publishing a few articles based on earlier research.

Here’s one on lost planning maps:

• The Case of the Missing Maps: Cartographic Action in Ho Chi Minh City. Critical Asian Studies Early View. [webpage]

And one on how people being evicted from their homes tell stories of settling the place they are being evicted from:

• Unsettling Stories of Eviction from a Vietnamese New Urban Zone. City & Society. Early View. [Webpage]

And here’s one on the overlooked things (like trees and pathways) that disappear alongside urban development:

• Lost Pathways of Urban Development. EchoGéo [En ligne], 52 (July). [Webpage]

I’m looking forward to the start of class and an entire semester talking about events and issues in Southeast Asia.