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On Tuesday, May 14, 2024, the Department of Anthropology invited Eric C. Thompson, a lecturer from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore (NUS), to discuss his latest book titled The Story of Southeast Asia (2024). The book discussion event, attended by the academic community within the Faculty of Cultural Sciences at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), provided fresh perspectives for the participants on the historical materialism approach in contemporary anthropological studies. On this occasion, Thompson provided a general overview of the book’s content and arguments about several sections he found particularly interesting when discussing the Southeast Asian region.
The book The Story of Southeast Asia uses historical and anthropological perspectives to examine the diversity of traditions and cultures within contemporary Southeast Asian communities, highlighting a long process. Cultural contacts between communities, established since the era of Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, the introduction of Islam through trade, and the influence of European colonial occupation have uniquely shaped the identity and cultural practices and traditions in Southeast Asia. Through his presentation, Thompson demonstrated how these processes illustrate Southeast Asian people’s agency and the formation of social and economic networks marked by trade. The creation of these networks is considered the beginning of the formation of cultural and social identities in Southeast Asia. After the book’s content presentation by the author, Prof. Dr. Pujo Semedi, acting as the moderator, guided the Q&A session, which received enthusiastic responses from the attendees. Some questions prompted the author and discussion participants to reflect on how the process of identity formation requires sensitivity and critical thinking towards data, documents, and artifacts to provide historical and anthropological interpretations.
