Amitav Acharya
American University, Washington, DC, USA
Keywords: Southeast Asian Studies, transnational Area Studies, disciplinary regional studies, comparative method, regionalism, Eurocentrism
DOI: 10.5509/2014873463
Southeast Asian studies faces multiple challenges, such as misgivings among its scholars regarding the field’s geopolitical lineage, skepticism about the relevance of Area Studies in an era of globalization, and the rise of competing discipline-based approaches. But these challenges also provide the impetus for rethinking and broadening, especially through a closer engagement with disciplinary approaches and comparative studies. To this end, this paper highlights two possibilities: “transnational Area Studies” and “disciplinary regional studies.” Together, they attest to the “promise of comparisons.” Using examples such as the discourse on “Mediterranean analogy” in Southeast Asian historiography and the study of Southeast Asian regionalism by international relations scholars, this paper argues that comparisons need to go beyond analogies that do little more than serve as a self-vindicating “comfort zone” for the scholar. Also, comparisons can be enhanced by studying the processes and consequences of diffusion, not in the sense of establishing the universal validity of certain ideas and institutions, but of exploring their localization and contribution to diversity. Comparisons should not privilege an ideal type on the basis of which “others” are studied and judged. Citing the danger of Eurocentrism in comparing Southeast Asia with the Mediterranean, and ASEAN with the European Union, the paper argues that comparisons should recognize the significance of each case in terms of its own context. Such comparisons do not invoke a “spectre,” but offer the promise of broadening Southeast Asian Studies to overcome the lingering doubts about the future of the field.
東南亞研究面臨各種挑戰,諸如學者中對此領域內在的地緣政治傳承、對全球化時代地區研究是否仍有意義懷有疑慮,以及各種以學科為基礎、與區域研究相競爭的研究方法的興起。但這些挑戰也為重塑和拓展東南亞研究——特別是通過與各種學科性方法及比較性研究更為密切地溝通互動——提供了推動力。本文為此目的重點推出了兩種研究方法:“跨國區域研究”和“學科化的地區研究”。這兩種方法共同體現了比較研究的大好前景。本文提出,比較研究需要超越類比分析,學者不可囿於類比分析提供的自我辯明的舒適一隅,為此我列舉了東南亞史學研究中“與地中海地區相似性”之類比的話語體系、以及國際關系學者所做的東南亞區域主義研究等作為例証。比較研究還可以通過研究某些觀念和制度的傳播過程和后果得到提高,但並非試圖為這些制度和觀念建立普遍有效性,而是探索它們地方化的過程及其為多樣化作出的貢獻。比較研究不應該賦予任何理想類型以特權地位,使其成為研究和評判“他者”的基礎。本論文列舉了對東南亞與地中海地區的類比研究及對東南亞國家聯盟與歐盟的比較研究中存在的歐洲中心主義危險傾向,主張比較研究應該將每個案例置於其自身語境中去認識其重要意義。這種比較研究並不會喚起“比較的幽靈”,而是會拓寬東南亞研究,為克服本領域對未來揮之不去的疑慮帶來希望。 Translated from English by Li Guo
重塑東南亞研究:比較研究之疑慮、願望和承諾
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