Oldest primary civilisations of the world, like that of India and China, that continue to flourish even today are in South and Southeast Asia. They are the cradle of very rich multicultural, multilingual, multi religious and philosophical traditions. Despite long colonial rule, they have been the centres of diverse forms of arts, polity and ancient wisdom. Therefore, the contribution of South and Southeast Asia to the theory and pedagogy reflecting on the discourse of enlightenment and modernity is a very pertinent area of study within anthropology. The panel seeks to bring together diffrent national traditions of the said region.
Some important issues/themes that can be discussed in detail will be as follows:
1) How theories developed in South Asia will make sense to countries/regions outside South and Southeast Asia?
2) Deliberations on current intellectual production in South and Southeast Asia delineating the relationship between the state, public sphere and academic institutions that are very intricate
3) Role of social movements in South and Southeast Asia in producing as well as shaping anthropological theories and methods
4) Revisiting the notion of development coming from the Western modernity as true and original and all other modernist processes are imperfect or degraded imitations of them warrants a discussion on South and Southeast Asia as an active contributor to ‘multiple alternative modernities’
5) Analysis of active role that South and Southeast Asia plays as a space of experimentation, despite colonial subjugation, that prefigures the future of growth of anthropology in it.
