Eric C. Thompson and Vineeta Sinha (eds), Southeast Asian Anthropologies: National Traditions and Transnational Practices. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2019, xi + 335 pp. ISBN: 9789814722964, price: 42.00 SGD (paperback).

There are many reasons to welcome the publication of Southeast Asian Anthropologies: National Traditions and Transnational Practices, edited by Eric C. Thompson and Vineeta Sinha. Of these, what I wish to highlight here is that it is about time that anthropologists turn their analytical gaze on to themselves, apply to themselves their own adage of surfacing and appreciating diversity, and subject themselves to their own data gathering techniques.

Following this, a basic approach to assessing this book is to ask two simple, yet indispensable, questions that anthropologists ask of their own objects of study: (1) how well does this book surface current “ways of doing” anthropology in Southeast Asia, and (2) how well does it give a historical contextualization to these “ways of doing” to show their dynamism through time? This does not stray far from the book’s stated goals “to render more visible” (p. 13) the variety of anthropological thought and practices that have emerged in Southeast Asia.

Between the two, it is to the second question that much attention is devoted in the book’s ten chapters. The form of historical contextualization that they mostly take is as a chronological account of the establishment of institutions—such as university programs, professional associations, and advocacy organizations. It is also frequently circumscribed using the current bounds of nation-states. Such an outcome may be expected: any taking stock of an academic discipline will necessarily need to track institutional development, and the nation-state is a ready and practical way to delineate sub-divisions in this vast region.

On the one hand, this approach was able to present well how the local development of anthropology is often very much tangled with what happens to the nation-state. For example, the chapter on anthropology in Cambodia by Chivoin Peou recounts not only how the Khmer Rouge regime “left local scholarship in shambles” (pp. 56, 75), but how this national circumstance caused recent Cambodian research to concentrate on helping restore a sense of traditional identity and social order. Anthropology in neighboring Vietnam, meanwhile (which, like Cambodia, had been a French colony), has had a more stable national presence up to the present, as it takes up the challenge of Doi Moi policy reforms that are more globally-oriented (as the chapters by Nguyen Van Chinh and Dang Nguyen Ahn show).

On the other hand, this approach sometimes makes the reading experience a bit of a slog. Reflections and evaluations by the contributing authors at some moments get lost in the thick of the particulars of institution building. For example, though Jose Jowel Canuday and Emma Porio try to anchor their contribution (the first of two on the Philippines) in tracing how the concept of “Filipino” in anthropological discourse changed through time, this becomes less apparent towards the second half in favor of going into the detail of formal institutionalization. While historical narration is still important, there is still a way to foreground the conceptual work behind all these institutional occurrences. For instance, discussing the short-lived Mindanao Anthropology Consortium could have adhered more to their set conceptual theme had it focused on ways the Consortium engaged (or not engaged) with homegrown ‘indigenization,’ ‘indigenous psychology and cultural empowerment,’ and ‘native’s point of view’ (p. 39) intellectual movements (this could also have been a chance to unpack these ideas more, which I believe beneficial for Filipino and non-Filipino readers alike).

Maria F. Mangahas and Suzanna Rodriguez-Roldan’s thematic approach in their chapter about maritime anthropology in the Philippines is a fresh contrast to more institutional- and nation-state-bound narrations. Also, it is this contribution that feels to me to be most ethnographic in texture: it explicitly foregrounds “ways of doing” anthropology in local contexts, the authors position themselves clearly and reflexively in the narrative, and it maximizes the use of “less-formal” sources like gray literature. Vineeta Sinha’s chapter on anthropology in Singapore similarly makes good use of her own ‘institutional memory’ (p. 170) and those of others, thus being able to interrogate and go beyond “official” accounts, and keeping true to one of the goals of anthropology as a discipline.

The book makes it clear that it refrains from creating a ‘singular master narrative’ (p. 14) for anthropology in Southeast Asia. But despite keeping these threads loose, by assembling them in a single volume this book is an appealing invitation for added reflection, and to weave these loose threads into new configurations. Of the themes opened by the book, I would like to highlight how it leads us to rethink our focus on relations (often framed as a “divide”) between the West and “the rest”—in particular, Southeast Asia. Research in multicultural and multi-ethnic areas (as discussed in Yeoh Seng-Guan’s chapter on West Malaysia, Yunita T. Wintaro and Iwan M. Pirous’ chapter on Indonesia, and Victor T. King and Zawawi Ibrahim on Borneo) reexamine pre-conceived notions of who is the anthropological “other”. These are needed inputs to current “who studies whom” discussions that foreground “West versus non-West” experiences and dilemmas (see, for example, Nordling 2020), which, nonetheless, still overlook different dynamics that do arise from intra-nation relations. Transnational collaborations beyond the West and non-West “divide” are also closely re-considered by King and Ibrahim, and Ratana Tosakul on Thailand. The former note that it is the clarity of concepts and critique that is more important than geographic origins of researchers, saying that ‘anthropologists from both worlds can […] share similar counter-Eurocentric epistemologies’ (p. 223).

Across the chapters there are also strong expressions of commitment to make anthropology serve a wider social purpose, whether along the lines of sweeping national agendas or to advocate for specific, marginal groups and sectors. It may be in this spirit that the people behind the book intended it to be a democratizing endeavor. Though some use of jargon may have been unavoidable, one could see the effort to try to make the text accessible to anthropologists and non-anthropologists alike, as well as to a broad array of scholarly readers, from university (perhaps even high school) students to those of more senior standing. The decision to make it open access (in its digital form) must be lauded and hopefully sets an example for other such publications.