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State and Personhood in Southeast Asia: The Promise and Potential for Law and Society Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2015

Lynette J. CHUA  and
David M. ENGEL
Lynette J. CHUA
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Law, National University of Singapore
David M. ENGEL
Affiliation:
SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, SUNY Buffalo Law School
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Abstract

The diversity and pluralism of Southeast Asia make it an ideal subject for law and society researchers, but by and large they have not given the region the attention it deserves. In this article, we argue for a more intense and systematic linking of research about Southeast Asia and the field of law and society. We focus on the theme of state and personhood to suggest how some of the central concerns of law and society may be relevant to Southeast Asian peoples and cultures. We illustrate our argument by selecting nine excellent articles by Southeast Asian scholars who do not currently identify their work with the law and society field, and we demonstrate that their research is rich with implications for the field. We welcome in particular the ways in which they have portrayed personhood as an ongoing construction and have highlighted its contingent relationship with the state. Building on these themes, we conclude the article with a plea for a more far-reaching engagement between Southeast Asian studies and law and society research.

Keywords

identitylegal consciousnesspersonhoodlegal pluralismSoutheast Asia
Type
State and Personhood in Southeast Asia
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 211 - 228
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

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Footnotes

*

Lynette J. Chua is Assistant Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with research interests in law and social change, and law and social movements. Correspondence to Lynette J. Chua, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, 469G Bukit Timah Road, Eu Tong Sen Building, Singapore 259776. E-mail address: lynettechua@nus.edu.sg.

**

David M. Engel is SUNY Distinguished Service Professor at the SUNY Buffalo Law School. He studies law, culture, and society in Thailand and the US, with particular attention to injuries and globalization.

Funding was provided by the National University of Singapore’s Academic Research Fund (Grant No. R-241–000–105–112). We wish to thank the three reviewers of this article as well as our research assistants in Singapore and Buffalo: Charlotte Kelly, Jennifer Sadeli, Khine Khine Zin, Lauren Gray, and Frances Stephenson.

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