This roundtable poses reflections on the general feelings of unease that surrounds and permeates critical discourse on the challenges of deconstructing SouthEast Asia with the complexities permeating current rhetoric on globalisation. In riding out the blurring and unmarking borders that inscribe Southeast Asian scholarship, how does one situate one’s attempt at problematizing what has previously been conceived as falling within the purview of Western domains, grappling with frameworks, media genres, and a narrativisation of history that follows Western thought?
We situate ourselves in the eddies of IASPM’s conference economy, capped biennially as it will be in Paris of 2025. The first wave of Southeast Asian music scholars collided on the shores of Canberra, Australia, where we endured a palpable sense of being isolated and boxed in (or out) of germane discussions on what constituted the popular in a specific Southeast Asian experience. Our experiences are cradled in a common history of colonialism.
We grapple with questions that elude binaries in spite of the formulations: in recognising our colonised position, e.g., as students in foreign universities in the US, UK, Australia, or Canada (to name some), how do we deal with unshackling whilst proving or flexing our proficiency in Western theories? How do we come to terms with the paradoxical feelings of solidarity and isolation? In attempting to decolonise our critical and personal selves, are we tethering our scholarship to un-globalising – and in effect actively localising – our positionalities?
But does this mean that we have retreated and isolated ourselves from engaging with the debates and discourses of the centre? IASPM-SEA is a relatively young branch, all of five international conferences old, and this is the first time that we are easing ourselves into the new centres that can embrace East Asia contextualisation of othering, marginalisation, and peripheries. Are we too quick or eager to erase what can barely be defined, as it were, to “outsiders” or “Westerners”?
Is it too soon to blur the edges of area studies or is it a necessity? This roundtable will share four different perspectives on the notions of unease, bounded by our national histories and personal experiences. In doing so, we offer constructive reflections on how popular music scholarship might be re-/de-/un-centred from the peripheries of SouthEast Asia.