Temporalities in Southeast Asian Historiography

Abstract

The challenge of globalizing historical theory requires that theorization be grounded in material from all parts of the world. Southeast Asia is a world region that is somewhat underrepresented in the theorization of history. The distinctive historical traditions of Southeast Asia present an opportunity to bring new insights to existing theories of history. In this article, I offer a theoretical approach to historical temporality that is grounded in close readings of texts from this region by focusing on how these texts construe temporality through choices of narrative organization. I develop a toolkit for analyzing the temporalities in historical texts from equatorial Southeast Asia (the region covering present-day Indonesia and Malaysia), which includes a precise analytical vocabulary to fully account for their diversity. This approach leads to a theoretical stance that supersedes the conceptual dichotomies of linear/cyclical time and empty/full time, in favor of a more pluralistic understanding of temporalities. The grounded theory presented in this article is not only better suited to working with Southeast Asian materials, but it can also be placed in useful dialogue with existing theories, such as the narrativist approach of Hayden White and recent theorizations of the medieval historiography of Western Europe. Show more