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Anthony Reid: Encouraging asians to study asia
(JP/Aimee Dawis) Throughout more than four decades, he has researched as well as written and lectured on the geography, religious dynamics and interethnic relationships among the Chinese in Southeast Asia, and the national and social revolutions in the area
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(JP/Aimee Dawis)
Throughout more than four decades, he has researched as well as written and lectured on the geography, religious dynamics and interethnic relationships among the Chinese in Southeast Asia, and the national and social revolutions in the area.
Of his many publications, Reid is most famous for his groundbreaking and comprehensive study, the two-volume Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, published in 1988 and 1993. Both volumes have been translated into various languages – Indonesian, Japanese, Thai, Korean and even Khmer.
However, as he pointed out during his lecture, “Re-Imagining Southeast Asia” at the University of Indonesia last month, the first in a series of public lectures sponsored by the Southeast Asian Regional Exchange Program Foundation (SEASREP), he did not begin his academic career being a “Southeast Asianist”.
Rather, he regards himself as an “Indonesianist” – focusing on Aceh, South Sulawesi and 20th century Indonesia.
A native of New Zealand, he first encountered Indonesia as a 13-year-old when his father was posted to Jakarta in 1952 as a New Zealand representative to the United Nations. The brief period that he spent in Indonesia (1952–1954) had a significant effect on the young Reid, who described himself as “someone who grew up in New Zealand – a homogeneous society”.
In his observations, Indonesia presented “an interesting challenge” as the country struggled with “poverty, conflict and nation-building as a newly independent nation”.
While he was conducting his doctoral work at Cambridge University, Reid examined the contest for power in northern Sumatra in the late 19th century.
His dissertation was published in 1969 as The Contest for North Sumatra: Aceh, the Netherlands and Britain, 1858–1898.
Upon the completion of his doctoral studies, Reid was offered his first appointment to be a lecturer in history at the University of Malaya in 1965. It was here when he was invited to teach a course on Southeast Asia. Although he began lecturing on Southeast Asian history, his major works continued to concentrate on Indonesia.
Reid embarked on a comprehensive Southeast Asian project in 1978, when he was on a sabbatical from the Australian National University (ANU).
Spending his sabbatical in the Netherlands, England and France, he began collecting and analyzing data on the history of Southeast Asia. The series culminated in the two-volume Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce.
While at ANU, where he spent close to three decades, Reid became officially tenured as professor of Southeast Asian history.
He left ANU in 1999 and established the Center of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He also continued teaching as a professor of history at UCLA.
Shortly before he left for UCLA, in 1997, Reid was pushed by his colleagues and other scholars to globalize Asian studies.
Along with other scholars based in Europe (mainly Holland), he initiated the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS). The first biannual ICAS, held at Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1998, served as a platform for Asian Studies scholars to establish networks and share cutting-edge research about Asia.
After the second ICAS at Berlin, Germany, the venue of subsequent ICAS was always in Asia. ICAS 3 was held in Singapore, ICAS 4 at Shanghai, China and ICAS 5 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The upcoming ICAS 6 will be held at Daejeon, South Korea, in August 2009.
The decision to hold ICAS in Asia corresponds with Reid’s’s belief that “the place to do Asian Studies
is in Asia”.
According to Melani Budianta, a professor at the School of Humanities at the University of Indonesia, it is also one of his many initiatives to “encourage Asians to study about Asia”.
While at UCLA, Reid enlisted the help of the Ford Foundation to set up the Asian Scholarships Foundation in 2001 to aid young scholars to study Asia.
In 2002, Reid moved to Singapore and became the founding director of the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore. Under his leadership, ARI has flourished into a significant center of research and publication, attracting scholars from all over the world. ARI is also active in organizing seminars and conferences with topics revolving around Asian Studies.
Researchers, students and writers will always appreciate Reid’s’s many contributions in the field of Asian Studies, especially on Southeast Asian history.
As Bambang Shergi Laksmono, dean of the University of Indonesia’s School of Political and Social Sciences mentioned as he officially opened the SEASREP lectures, the question of “How do you analyze what Southeast Asia has been and what it can become?” may be explored by looking into the thoughts and feelings of Southeast Asian people.
In 2002, Reid was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize for his outstanding work to foster mutual learning and extensive interaction for Asian people.
Reid’s’s endeavors in founding research centers and his many publications not only examine “what Southeast Asia has been and what it can become”, but also nurture interactions and cultivate new ways of thinking about Asia in the globalized world.
