Kerinci: Two Historical Studies : Occasional Paper No 3, Centre of Seasian Studies, University of Kent at Canterbury

Politics & Social Sciences

Watson, C. W.

Politics & Government

Cellar Book Shop

Multiculturalism (Concepts in the Social Sciences)

Multicultural and multiculturalism are words frequently used to describe the ethnic diversity which exists everywhere in the world today. However, there is some confusion about what precisely they signify. Do they simply describe diversity or are they advocating a particular response to that diversity? This book looks at some of the debates associated with these words and with the concepts attached to them. In particular the arguments for and against multiculturalism are examined in the context of modern states in different political and historical circumstances. Attitudes and emphases in relation to multiculturalism differ, it is argued, from one country to another and the chapters of the book draw out the dimensions of difference with examples ranging from Europe and the USA to South-East Asia and China. The focus of the discussion is placed on issues such as minority rights, education, religious tolerance and the trend to global homogenization. Running through the description of these issues in an implicit critique of the loose way in which the word culture is used to mean an unchanging set of definitive characteristics and how that usage bedevils discussions of multiculturalism. The result is a concise and balanced overview of a topic with wide appeal across undergraduate and postgraduate courses from sociology and politics to cultural studies and anthropology.

Social Sciences

Open Univ Pr

Of Self and Nation: Autobiography and the Representation of Modern Indonesia

Recent scholarly work on nationalism has revealed the importance of the nation imagined as a community. The subjects of these works, however, have been largely political speeches, polemical essays, and radical journalism. Missing has been the one literary genre where the individual's commitment to the imagining of the nation is most explicitly addressed: autobiography. In looking critically at eight autobiographical works, all concerned in one way or another with the question of what it means to be an Indonesian in the twentieth century, C.W. Watson demonstrates the value of reading autobiographies as accounts of nation-building.Opening with a critique of a turn-of-the-century collection of letters by an aristocratic Javanese now celebrated as the founder of the women's movement in Indonesia, Watson goes on to consider the autobiography of another Javanese who was coopted into the Dutch colonial service and whose reflections on his relationships with senior Dutch officials lay bare the dynamics of the process of twentieth-century colonialism. Other autobiographies by writers and religious figures from Sumatra and Java who actively participated in the struggle of the nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s are also carefully scrutinized. The final chapter considers how autobiographies written by a younger generation of Indonesians in the late 1980s reconsider Indonesian nationalism in the light of a commitment to a modernist Muslim perspective on the nation.

Literature & Fiction

Univ of Hawaii Pr

In looking critically at eight autobiographical works, all concerned in one way or another with the question of what it means to be an Indonesian in the twentieth century, C.W. Watson demonstrates the value of reading autobiographies as accounts of nation-building. Close attention is paid to the declared intention of each autobiography, how the writers set about constructing a self-image of themselves by selecting one episode of their lives over another and how they see their lives as being bound up with that of the nation. In making use of this and other methods drawn from literary criticism, history, and critical ethnography, Of Self and Nation offers an original and illuminating approach to understanding how a modern nation came into existence and how its people have constructed a sense of national identity.

"A brilliant reinterpretation of Indonesian history, providing a wonderful access for historians and anthropologists to Indonesian culture. Indeed, it gives them the literary tools which they sorely lack and which, I fear, they don't always realize they lack. This is a major milestone in the study of Southeast Asian autobiography." -Amin Sweeney, University of California, BerkeleyRecent scholarly work on nationalism has revealed the importance of the nation imagined as a community. The subjects of these works, however, have been largely political speeches, polemical essays, and radical journalism. Missing has been the one literary genre where the individual's commitment to the imagining of the nation is most explicitly addressed: autobiography. In looking critically at eight autobiographical works, all concerned in one way or another with the question of what it means to be an Indonesian in the twentieth century, C.W. Watson demonstrates the value of reading autobiographies as accounts of nation-building.Opening with a critique of a turn-of-the-century collection of letters by an aristocratic Javanese now celebrated as the founder of the women's movement in Indonesia, Watson goes on to consider the autobiography of another Javanese who was co-opted into the Dutch colonial service and whose reflections on his relationships with senior Dutch officials lay bare the dynamics of the process of twentieth-century colonialism. Other autobiographies by writers and religious figures from Sumatra and Java who actively participated in the struggle of the nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s are also carefully scrutinized. The final chapter considers how autobiographies written by a younger generation of Indonesians in the late 1980s reconsider Indonesian nationalism in the light of a commitment to a modernist Muslim perspective on the nation.Watson's approach to the autobiographies highlights particular sections in the texts where the writers hesitate or shift their perspective within their narratives and consequently reveal more than they perhaps intended. Close attention is paid to the declared intention of each autobiography, how the writers set about constructing a self-image of themselves by selecting one episode of their lives over another and how they see their lives as being bound up with that of the nation. In making use of this and other methods drawn from literary criticism, history, and critical ethnography, Of Self and Nation offers an original and illuminating approach to understanding how a modern nation came into existence and how its people have constructed a sense of national identity.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Equinox Publishing

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