WENDY MEE and JOEL S. KAHN, eds. Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2012, vi+257 p.

Abstract

Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia WENDY MEE and JOEL S. KAHN, eds. Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2012, vi+257 p.In Asia, there is a lot of emphasis on the progress. In this light, the term is one that is very much bantered about by national leaders and the society in general, but perhaps little understood. The book Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia engages readers less in a theoretical discussion of the concept of as in its application to two significant countries in the region. The contributors problematize a simplistic East versus West discussion in the study of modernity, contending that the form found in Indonesia and Malaysia cannot be viewed as merely derivative of a European/Western modernity (p. 1). The work of Joel S. Kahn, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at La Trobe University, which argues for what historian John S. Smail called an autonomous understanding of in Southeast Asia, is drawn upon in the book. Kahn's work calls for an ethnographic understanding of that is rooted in cultural and historical context, an approach that has been well-executed by the volume's contributors in their examination of (p. 3).The editors rightly include the caveat that the volume does not pretend to be comprehensive in its thematic and geographic (p. 1). Rather than aiming for even distribution of case studies for both countries, the contributors saw value in a wide-ranging distribution of themes. The thematic scope in the examination of is one of the book's strong points. Issues as diverse as capitalism in the border areas and technology in Indonesia and Malaysia are raised in the book.The first section of the book examines transnational and border-zone identities. Kahn studies manifestations of in marginal communities in his chapter on Islam and capitalism. He argues that modernizing processes are able to come about irrespective of state leadership and criticizes the assumption that is linked to any particular civilization (p. 38). Kenneth Young and Yekti Maunati discussed ethnic identities in Malaysia and Indonesia respectively in separate chapters. Both acknowledge that cultural identity is a construction shaped by the push and pull of historical development (pp. 60, 91). Drawing on Kahn, both highlighted the intercultural foundation of the societies in both countries. Young also questions the adequacy of Western social theory in explaining the modern concept of social imaginary in Indonesia (p. 81).The second section discusses the topic of nation-states and citizenships. While, as argued above, a multiplicity of civilizations form the foundations of contemporary life in general, the chapters by Goh Beng Lan and Thung Ju-lan reinforce Kahn's observation of the equally dark aspect of exclusion and oppression of fringe groups. As Thung pointed out, the nation-state is imbued with the power to exclude (p. 161). Goh tries to remedy this, looking not at a modern universal expression of entitlement to values such as human rights, but to examples from a country's own past for a different way a detente (p. 128) in resolving the political impasse that resulted from the exclusion. Both acknowledge, however, that the resolution for religious and ethnic minorities in Indonesia and Malaysia will be long in coming and there are no easy answers to the problems of (p. 162).The final part of the book studies cultural and orientations of in Malaysia. Modernity, usually seen as a linear progress towards a certain utopia, ironically fears the inability to continue towards the ideal future. For example, in the case of Malaysia, Maila Stivens observed that the state's response towards its new generation is one of moral panic (p. 172), fearing the subsequent generation's inability to carry the successes of the present towards the future. …