Dynamic Alignments and Dealignments in Global Southeast Asia

Duration

October 2014 - September 2015

Description

The FRIAS Research Focus seeks to examine dynamic alignments and dealignments of collective entities related to global interaction in Southeast Asia. By alignments we mean forms of cooperation, alliances, coalition-building and caucuses, by dealignments fragmentation and disintegration as responses to intensifying global challenges. At the same time, dealignment entails options for reorientation and realignment. Collective entities denote social and functional groups at different levels of formation - regional, national and local. How alignments and dealignments of such groups play out in a strategically vital, economically vibrant and highly diverse world region like Southeast Asia and which cultural processes are involved is an issue of great significance. It provides answers on how globalization is managed in arrangements of cooperation and correspondence as well as dissociation and identity politics both within the region and in global entanglements.

In this project, the actors, patterns and processes which drive social and institutional alignments and dealignments in Southeast Asia, how cultures of cooperation are negotiated and through which encounters and narratives changing alignments between nations as well as diverse ethnic, economic, religious, political and professional groups are framed, will be analyzed. These inter- and transcultural processes are relational as they do not only capture encounters within Southeast Asia but also beyond its regional boundaries and with the global world.

The project is funded by the European Union Co-Fund Programme, State of Baden-Württemberg, through FRIAS.

Project Members

An international research group comprising researchers from Europe, Asia, and Australia has been established. It is organized and led by four academics from the University of Freiburg, namely, Prof. Dr Jürgen Rüland (Department of Political Science), Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe (Institute of Ethnology), Prof. Dr Sabine Dabringhaus (Department of History), and Prof. Dr. Günther Schulze (Insitute of General Economic Research).

Further Information

• Detailed Project Description