Dr Catherine Allerton, A615

For MSc Social Anthropology, MSc China in Comparative Perspective and MSc Anthropology and Development.

This course will introduce students to selected topics in the anthropology of Southeast Asia through the lens of the region’s material cultures. What are some of the distinctive aspects of material culture in Southeast Asia? How does a comparative study of material culture help illuminate such key regional themes as: colonialism and post-colonialism, gender and personhood, ‘custom’ and ‘religion’, power and the foreign, unity and difference? Since this is a huge and varied region, the course will focus on the Austronesian-speaking island world of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, with some material from Thailand.

The first lectures of the course will focus on some broad regional themes from the ethnography and history of island Southeast Asia. We will look at similarities of ecology and cultural patterns throughout the region, especially the contrast between highland and lowland societies. We will also consider comparative perspectives on notions of identity, power, gender and the construction of person in hierarchical and egalitarian systems of Southeast Asia.We will then move to look at some key aspects of material culture, examining their significance amongst different societies and considering some of the ways in which both state and religious authorities have responded at different times to their perceived ‘threat’. Topics will include:

Houses and architecture
Landscape
Textiles and weaving
Clothing
Food and Sacrifice
Heirlooms
The materiality of modernity
Tourism, postmodernity and theme-parks

Lectures AN420 weekly, Seminars AN420.A weekly.

Students are expected to prepare discussion material for presentation in the seminars.

V.T. King and W.D. Wilder, The Modern Anthropology of South-East Asia: An introduction; J.M. Atkinson and S. Errington, Power and Difference; Roxanna Waterson, The Living House; Henk Schulte Nordholt, Outward Appearances; Janet Hoskins, Biographical Objects; Penny van Esterik, Materializing Thailand; Webb Keane, Signs of Recognition; Jill Forshee, Between the Folds; John Pemberton, On the Subject of ‘Java’; Janet Carsten, The Heat of the Hearth; Patricia Spyer, Border Fetishisms. Detailed reading lists are provided at the beginning of the course.

There is a two-hour examination in the ST.