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Shared Cultures and Shared Geography: Can There Ever Be a Sense of Common ASEAN Identity and Awareness?

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  • Farish A. NOOR

    (S Rajaratnam School of International Studies Nanyang Technological University Singapore)

Abstract

This paper looks at the state of identity politics in Southeast Asia today, and focuses on how the postcolonial nation-states of the ASEAN region have been trapped by the somewhat exclusive narratives of national history, as written by the first generation of postcolonial historians of the 1950s/60s. However, it is argued that such narrow national narratives overlook the fact that Southeast Asia has always been a region characterised by fluidity and movement, and where identities – of individuals, communities, and nations – were seldom fixed. For there to be a deeper understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asian identity, a more comprehensive and less exclusive approach needs to be taken in the writing of history which takes off from the premise that the region was always a fluid continuum and that societal development never takes on a linear trajectory. The chapter calls for a different way of understanding Southeast Asian identity that accepts hybridity and complexity as the attendant realities of social life, anywhere.

Suggested Citation

  • Farish A. NOOR, 2015. "Shared Cultures and Shared Geography: Can There Ever Be a Sense of Common ASEAN Identity and Awareness?," Working Papers DP-2015-77, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    • Handle: RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2015-77
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    Keywords

    ASEAN; Southeast Asian history; precolonial Southeast Asia; nationalism and national identity;
    All these keywords.

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