Professor Victor T. King of the Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (IAS @ UBD) has edited a special issue of the journal Suvannabhumi: Multi-disciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies on “Debating Southeast Asia.”

The papers in this special issue were first presented at a conference organized by the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies at Busan University of Foreign Studies in 2019 on the theme of “The Recognition and Construction of Southeast Asia as a Whole.”

In addition to an introduction, Professor King also has a paper in this special issue entitled “Who Made Southeast Asia? Personages, Programs and Problems in the Pursuit of a Region” that re-examines and reconsiders the early development of the field of Southeast Asian Studies.

IAS Research Associates, Senior Assistant Professor Rommel Curaming, and Associate Professor Iftekhar Iqbal of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at UBD, also contributed to this special issue.

Dr. Iqbal investigates the spacial configuration of Southeast Asia in an article entitled “From Zomia to Holon: Rivers and Transregional Flows in Mainland Southeastern Asia, 1840-1950,” while Dr. Curaming’s article, “Area Studies, History and the Anthropocene,” considers how the reality of the Anthropocene will affect how scholars view Southeast Asia and its past.

To view the full articles, please visit the Suvannabhumi website.