Colonialism

The story of Southeast Asia's encounter with Europe spans several centuries, leaving a long and complex record of exchange, negotiation, and domination. Colonialism in Southeast Asia might be considered one important chapter in that much larger story of global interaction. Within the region's early colonial historiography, colonialism pertained to the transformation of "traditionally" defined polities into dependent states modeled along European definitions of organization and administration. Because this approach to colonialism was significantly linked to the perspective of those who were immersed within the colonial service, it was no surprise that this understanding of colonialism was expressed through studies of administrative changes and their effects on local societies, economies, and cultures. Equally important was the overarching representation of the colonial encounter in binary terms: all that was "modern" was inherently European and became the standard to which Southeast Asian culture and history would be measured. Interestingly enough, these studies formed the foundations for the area studies disciplines, as many of the earliest doyens in the fields were from the ranks of the scholar-administrator. Early linguists, anthropologists, and historians, working within the colonial administrations, set the paradigms and agendas that later scholars would either confirm or contest, creating important but imposing discussions that would dominate the course of scholarship. Their views of the peoples and cultures they encountered set into motion a whole genealogy of scholarship that responded in various ways to their findings. For example, reports that discussed the despotic nature of Southeast Asian leadership not only reveal the way in which colonial agendas colored early documentation, they also identify why writing about "Southeast Asian kingship" was important in the first place. While these early writings relate something about Southeast Asia, they also reveal important insight into how colonialism was perceived by those working within it. Thus, the propagation of colonialism in Southeast Asia by these officials was partially responsible for the emergence of Southeast Asian studies as a field of study.

Thematically, colonialism has come to refer to a variety of processes that contributed to a fundamental change in identity, worldview, and consciousness. These institutional and cultural transformations were initiated at different levels and in varying intensities by many groups within the European community, indigenous elites, and rural populations. The complicated and complex nature of this interaction has been decoded by a variety of interpretations, affecting the many understandings and forms of colonialism. Colonial administrator-scholars referred to colonialism in terms of its policies and practices that contributed to the administrative formation of the colonies, whereas nationalist historians treated the subject as the processes of interaction, subjugation, and control that enabled the peoples and societies of Southeast Asia to come under colonial authority. Another manifestation of colonialism took its shape (although indirectly) through studies of indigenous forms of resistance and protest, whereas others explored colonialism through the multitude of indigenous social institutions it encountered and affected. More recent trends position colonialism through its relationship to the nation and the forming of national cultures; criminality, counterinsurgency, and prisons; and its forms of knowledge and various modes of representation. In addition, it has also been illustrated through technology, literature, and film. In short, the shape of colonialism has been fashioned through a variety of approaches, reflecting trends in the study of colonialism as a thematic category and through the interdisciplinary guilds within area studies.