발전 속의 저발전: 싱가포르 동남아연구 발전사

Development and Underdevelopment: Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore

Southeast Asian studies in Singapore has had a problem with locating local scholarship from the outset. The initiation of English-track scholarship was done by British scholars while Chinese scholars in the beginning were not considered as local people but as sojourners who identified China as their fatherland. If the latter had successfully located their scholarship in the post-colonial environment of Singapore, the job of identifying local scholarship would have been much easier. Indeed, for some time in the 1960s-70s, there existed a relatively strong local scholarship that was based mainly at Nanyang University. However, they became marginalized as English became dominant not just in education but also in Singapore society. Unlike the Chinese-track scholarship, the English-track scholarship in Singapore has developed greatly over the years. The establishment of ISEAS was the crystallized form of Singapore's endeavors to develop a Singapore brand of Southeast Asian studies to the world. Alongside ISEAS, NUS has carried on the English-track Southeast Asian studies and become a world-class university in this academic field. The formation of the Southeast Asian Programme and ARI marked a cornerstone for NUS in advancing Southeast Asian studies. However, Singaporean scholarship continues to be weak in comparison to foreign scholarship. In the absence of strong local scholarship, the typical way in which Singapore has chosen to develop Southeast Asian studies has been to establish world-class institutes and to bring in foreign talents. This strategy has perhaps paid off since it has situated Singapore as the prime place where scholars gather, information goes around and quality research outcomes are published. However, whether or not it has strengthened local scholarship remains a controversial issue. The dominant contribution of foreign scholars continues to pose the problem of whether the ownership of Southeast Asian studies in Singapore belongs to Singapore itself. The identification of scholarship in Singapore is an unsettled matter.