Ethnicity studies in the ASEAN region: focus on ethnicity and conflict transformation

Abstract

The search engine www.google.com registers 2,081 entries to the search category "Ethnicity and Conflict Resolution/Transformation in Southeast Asia." To my knowledge, the entries are not even quite exhaustive. This means that the number of literature, programs and institutes on conflict transformation is tremendous and overwhelming. This paper is therefore a "very" preliminary review of the literature on the subject matter. This paper aims to provide a glimpse of the most recent studies on conflict resolution and peace-building in Southeast Asia; tease out the main concepts, themes, and methodologies employed in these studies; identify the gaps and identify possible areas for further research. The paper is divided into two main sections. The section is a plain rendering of research outputs by key institutions like Asian Development Bank- World Bank, Conciliation. Resources (London, UK), Asian and Pacific Centre- Gender and Development Program (Kuala Lumpur) and Toyota Foundation. There is no attempt (yet) to classify them according to themes due to time constraint and limited available materials. At best, I tried to draw the key themes/issues after the presenting each work. In the second part of the paper, I become a bit theoretical as I delve into the discursive categories of ethnicity, nation, nationalism, state and gender. I believe that it is necessary to bring these issues in the workshop- not necessary to clarify or fix these categories (as this is not possible) but to engage in some level of discussion of these concepts, before we even begin to identify our research topics and problems.