Over the past two decades, Southeast Asian Studies have experienced considerable growth both in Southeast Asia itself, especially in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, as well as in other Asian countries such as Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and South Korea. At the same time, a significant and potentially irreversible decline of Southeast Asian Studies can be observed in the once dominant “knowledge centres” of the Global North, i.e. Europe, the USA, and Australia. By positioning Asia as the centre of knowledge production about Southeast Asia, in this roundtable we want to discuss where and how the new generations of Southeast Asianists will be trained? To understand the political, epistemological, and institutional developments in knowledge production about Southeast Asia, the past, present, and future are examined from a transregional perspective, attempting to locate and map both new and old centres of knowledge production.
Speakers of this roundtable are invited to share their insights into institutional histories and biographies as well as their experiences when designing and implementing curricula, teaching content, and research initiatives. The roundtable aims to identify trends, patterns, and networks of knowledge production about Southeast Asia, thus answering the central question: Who will research and teach about Southeast Asia in the future, for what purpose, and with which means?