Power and Knowledge in Southeast Asia ― Indonesia and the Philippines

The Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (SNI) and the Tadhana Project are two state-sponsored history-writing projects that took shape in two comparable Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia and the Philippines. These projects germinated at about the same time in the 1970s and under the auspices of authoritarian regimes that shared some close similarities and striking differences.

This book compares two state-sponsored history writing projects in the 1970s in Indonesia and the Philippines to analyze the dynamics of state-scholars relations in the two countries. Known respectively as Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (SNI) and the Tadhana Project, these projects were initiated by the Suharto and Marcos authoritarian regimes against the backdrop of rising and competing nationalisms, as well as the regimes’ efforts at political consolidation. The author illuminates the contents and contexts of the two projects and, more importantly, to provide a nuanced characterization of the relationship between embodiments of power (state, dictators, government officials) and knowledge (intellectuals, historians, history).

Offering pathways to re-examining the role of well-meaning scholars and scholarship in creating and sustaining unequal power relations in society, the book presents the implications of this alternative line of analysis for ethics of scholarly practice and knowledge consumption in general. It will be of intrest to academics in the fields on Southeast Asian history and politics, nationalism, historiography, intellectual history and the sociology of knowledge.

Rommel A. Curaming is Assistant Professor of History and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD).