Between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British Singapore was a popular destination for migrants. The ample supply of labour helped the British develop the port city as a midway point between India and China. By the turn of the twentieth century, the proliferation of trading networks that converged in the port city also turned it into an emporium of British textiles. Later, after the 1910s, when Japan launched its agenda of southward advance to the region known today as Southeast Asia, Tokyo journalist Inoue Kiyoshi spent a year touring the region and concluded that Singapore was “the threshold of the South Seas” (Inoue K. 1913, pp. 17–65).

South Sea — or nanyang in Chinese and nan'yō in Japanese — was the term the Chinese and Japanese adopted to refer to the region generally called Southeast Asia in the post-war years. My choice of naming the region South Seas was to emphasize the contested responses to the changes in the region generated from the imposition of the British free-trade imperialism in the long nineteenth century. As pointed out by Prasenjit Duara, the British system intensified “some of the old relationships and generat[ed] new linkages between the cities (and hinterlands) of Aden, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai as enterpôts and financial centers for Asian trade” (Duara 2010, p. 964). The rise of Japanese power in the late nineteenth century, however, challenged the British imperial regional formation. Japan looked at the South Seas — including the natural resources, markets and land — as its economic frontier. The Japanese pan-Asianism thus entailed an anti-imperialist tone from the beginning (Duara 2010, pp. 969–73). Therefore, regardless of the formation of the Anglo– Japanese alliance that lasted between 1902 and 1923, and despite the fact that the initial goal of southward expansion of the Japanese was primarily economic, not territorial, tension between the two empires was inherent. Both the Anglo–Japanese economic competition in the South Seas and the white supremacy of racial disparagement against the non-white Japanese accounted for the final military confrontation in the Pacific War (Best 2002; Horne 2005).

The role of the Chinese overseas residing in the South Seas in general and in Singapore in particular was key to understanding the Anglo–Japanese rivalry.

Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary programmes like Asian Studies can be found in many universities, particularly those located in Western societies. This is, by and large, a result of a curiosity over Asian “exotic others” and a reflection of colonial tradition to a certain extent. By contrast, Asian universities that have not inherited a Western colonial legacy have no strong tendency to maintain Asian Studies as a separate discipline. However, in part due to the influence of the United States (on the development of area studies) and the colonial legacy in other countries, area studies by region and country exist in Asian universities. In Japan and South Korea, for instance, East Asian area studies by and large started with Chinese language and literature and later embraced regional social sciences. Area studies ([chiki]) in Japan started to appear in the 1950s, and the discipline expanded in the 1980s and 1990s. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies was the first university to offer such programmes (Takeuchi 2012, p. 10). In Korea, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies has language- and area-based departments. Later, the Kim Young Sam government (1993–98) of South Korea, which rapidly embraced a globalization discourse (sekyehwa) as an important state agenda, established a set of nine graduate schools of international or area studies in 1997. In addition, the shortage of experts on trade and international political economy provided the impetus to establish more area studies programmes.

There is a rationale for comparing the development of Chinese Studies in Japan and South Korea. First, as neighbouring countries in East Asia, China, Japan and Korea have cultural proximity and shared histories. Second, the region is facing issues of sovereignty over Dokdo/ Takeshima Island, which has an impact on relations between South Korea, Japan and China. Japan has been in conflict with both China and South Korea over sovereignty issues involving Diaoyus/Senkaku Island in the South China Sea and Dokdo/Takeshima Island in the East Sea/Japan Sea. Third, relations among the three countries are inevitable; they are economically interdependent. China is the largest trading partner for Japan and South Korea. Fourth, the human flow of Chinese international students and tourists to Japan and South Korea is larger than to any other country (Lee 2014). Therefore, there are strong motivations for Japan and South Korea to know about China.

One of the most salient, and longest-running, public discussions about Asian Studies in Australia is the “Asia literacy” agenda, which commenced in the early 1970s and has experienced discontinuous federal government funding through to present times. In essence, “Asia literacy” focuses on encouraging more Australian students to take up Asian languages and Asian Studies in Australian education systems. Much of the debate about Australia's “Asia literacy” has concentrated on the need for corresponding increases in education funding and other resources in order for participation targets to be achieved. This includes training and retraining programmes to boost the stock of “Asia-literate” teachers able to deliver these courses in Australian schools and universities.

To view Asia literacy in such narrow “supply and demand” terms or to focus on unmet participation targets, however, is to overlook the ways in which Asia literacy is framed by Australian geopolitical and social perspectives. Underscoring these concepts is a spatial assumption that “Australia” and “Asia” are separate geographical and cultural categories: that “Australians” cannot also be “Asians” and vice versa.

In this chapter, I argue that an analysis of Asia literacy reveals deeper truths about how Australians view “Asia” and their own geopolitical place in the world, as well as the make-up of Australian society. Asia literacy has been framed as an educational and geopolitical project aimed at “knowing Asia”, which has also been equated to knowing others. This dismisses the fundamental concept of Australians knowing themselves.

In this chapter, I first present a background of Australia's Asia literacy. I then separately examine geopolitical and social framings of Asia literacy. From a spatial perspective, which can also be thought of as the “where” of Asia literacy, I draw on Lewis and Wigen's concept of “metageography” to reveal the geographical and geopolitical assumptions that underpin Asia literacy, particularly in terms of thinking about Australia as part of Asia and as a member nation of an “Asian neighbourhood”. I then explore Asia literacy from a sociocultural viewpoint, which is a function of the “who” of Asia literacy. I use this perspective to analyse agency, and I consider Ang's work on “hybridity” as an alternative to the apparent “Australia” and “Asia” categories that permeate Asia literacy. Ultimately, these two perspectives of Asia literacy — geopolitical and social — demonstrate that concepts of space and place are fundamental to Australian framings of Asian Studies.

Southeast Asian states and Russia are not often seen as natural partners or countries engaged in a tight web of interconnections. They lack the geographical proximity which usually drives such interconnections in the political, economic and intellectual spheres and creates a shared space, literally and figuratively, of mutual practices, narratives and academic discourses. Southeast Asia would also seem to have lower strategic appeal for Russia compared to the larger entities like China or India. Historically, the region was not a sphere of colonial expansion for Russia, nor had Russia and Southeast Asia enjoyed shared cultural features which could have generated mutual interest. However, Southeast Asian Studies in Russia has not only managed to take shape but has also resulted in several wellestablished academic schools focused on area studies, linguistics and international relations in the region.

Southeast Asian Studies in Russia may be seen as falling into different periods — first, fragmented interest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, then a well-grounded rise in the Soviet period, a dramatic decline in the 1990s, and more or less pragmatic stabilization in recent years. Geopolitical and structural factors shaped the background conditions for Southeast Asian Studies during each of these periods. The USSR's role as one of the geopolitical centres in the bipolar system during the Cold War presupposed its global reach both politically and intellectually. In contrast to this outreach, the early 1990s witnessed a sharp “shrinking” of Russian foreign policy. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia rapidly transformed from a power with a visible presence in all regions of the world, including Southeast Asia, to a state with limited economic capacity and internal structural problems. However, the intellectual asset of Southeast Asian Studies did not vanish overnight.

This chapter thus argues that it was mainly the geopolitical context of the Cold War that shaped Southeast Asian Studies in Russia (and the USSR). Though Southeast Asia was not a high geopolitical priority for the USSR relative to larger Asian countries like China or India, the logic of Cold War competition with the United States, which unfolded in virtually all parts of the world, provoked not only academic but also practical interest in this region.

Modern Indian academic interest in East Asia has a multilayered context. Historical connections built through the movement of ideas and material objects were decisively reshaped during the colonial period so that these earlier linkages were always in tension with the colonial construction of the “East”. These ways of understanding created tensions and ambiguities in Indian engagement with countries in East and Southeast Asia. The writing of India's past was an enterprise carried out under British supervision, but also in resistance to it. In this enterprise, India's historical relationship with Asia played an important role in highlighting the unique qualities of Indian civilization — ideas that continue to shape contemporary thinking and, perhaps, account for the lack of an “Asian” boom in Indian intellectual circles.

India has yet to witness studies of Japan or China comparable to what has occurred in Europe, the United States and many other countries. That is not to say that Asian countries have not been studied, or that there is no sustained engagement with these countries. Rather, it is to suggest that this “past” has been marginalized or forgotten, and recovering this history provides a way of relocating India as part of a larger regional community. In this chapter I argue that Indian “understandings of Asia” have a different and layered history, and exploring these provides a way of thinking about knowledge production and its relationship to both civil society and the state.

I begin the chapter by first discussing the idea of Asia and the historical development of modern Indian conceptions of Asia. I look at four defining moments. The first is the pre-modern basis for Indian engagement, which began to change sometime in the early eighteenth century. The second came during the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries when Indian intellectuals engaged directly with China, Japan and other parts of the Asian region. This first modern engagement, often in colonial capitals, grew out of the anticolonial struggle and resistance to Western intellectual domination, where the idea of “community” was on resistance. In fact, often India was projected as the core element of “Asia”. The third moment was in the year of independence, the Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi. This could be called an “Afro-Asian” moment, for it built on the idea of resistance that included not only geographical Asia but all the former colonized territories.

During the month of Ramadan on 30 August 2009, a female reporter interviewed the Fourth Region army commander for the evening TV news about the unrest in the Deep South, a region that fell under his jurisdiction. She asked him why the number of violent incidents had dramatically increased during the month, and he replied that it was mainly because the insurgents had distorted Islam to serve their cause. He explained:

The commander's explanation was supported by prominent stateappointed Islamic religious leaders and scholars. They gave interviews clarifying that Islam neither encourages nor condones any violence or killing, which in fact is a sin in Islam. Importantly, during the month of Ramadan, they said, Muslims are specifically required to refrain from committing any sin. Rather than double merits, to commit violence, especially killing, during the month of Ramadan would burden Muslims with double sins instead

Whether or not killing for Islam during the month of Ramadan brings Muslim perpetrators double merits is a question Guba residents find difficult to answer. Saifuldin said that while watching the news, he was uncertain about the insurgents’ claim because his knowledge about Islam is just rudimentary. Aiman did not say anything but hinted that this is a serious question in need of thorough pondering and strong reference. Daessa felt uncomfortable when I addressed the issue to her and suggested that I seek the “correct” answer from knowledgeable persons. In general, the residents felt they had been put on the spot when I asked them this question. This is not only because the question is difficult for some of them to answer or because it is the first time they have had to answer the question, but also because how they answer it reflects what kind of Muslims they are and the extent to which they feel obliged to Islam.

Late one afternoon, the back of the house of the family I stayed with was converted into a place to perform a ritual in response to a misfortune that had befallen the family's horse. Seven offering trays were placed in the middle of the space, and they were surrounded by family members, relatives, and acquaintances; Jaafar, Guba's leading ritual specialist, acted as leader. After Jaafar finished the first part of the ritual, Aiman, the horse's owner and also known to be a ritual specialist, continued the ritual by touching each tray while chanting to give the offerings to revered spirits. The spirits include family ancestors, art masters, the village founder, the Prophet and a Raman sultan, each of whom represents an authority figure in each domain of importance to the residents, namely kinship, art or tradition, community, religion and polity, respectively. While the authority figures representing the first four domains are non-controversial, that representing polity vividly points to conflict and that side of the conflict residents associate themselves with — Raman rulers vis-à-vis Patani rulers. Aiman told me later that, unlike people on the east coast of Thailand's Deep South who associate themselves with the Patani Sultanate, Guba residents are tightly connected to the Raman Sultanate in various ways. Guba was founded as a place for training the war horses and elephants that Raman rulers used in their wars with Patani, and Guba's founder had been appointed by a Raman ruler. In addition, Raman rulers also adopted several Guba children, and many Guba residents worked in the palace. The bonds between the people of Guba and Raman's rulers are deep and cordial and still strongly felt to the present day.

That Guba associated itself with Raman rather than rival Patani is crucial. Thailand's Deep South is often indiscriminately regarded as a region of the ancient kingdom of Patani, with Langkasuka1 as its predecessor. Other interior polities, especially Raman, were considered by Thai and Malay nationalist historiographies as “a unilateral Siamese initiative” in Siam's attempt to dissolve Patani into more manageable petty states. Separatists of past decades as well as present-day insurgents have invoked this historical construct to justify their means and goals.

The notion of sovereignty has captured attention across academic disciplines, especially in anthropology. Although Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat (2006, p. 296) argue that the return of sovereignty as a central concern in anthropology has been informed by the work of Giorgio Agamben, the discussion of sovereignty in anthropology is also informed by Michel Foucault's works. Foucault cautions readers not to view the emergence of governmentality in terms of total replacement. Rather than the elimination of sovereignty by discipline and of discipline by governmentality, what exists, argues Foucault, is a triangularity of sovereigntydiscipline- governmentality, which “has as its primary target the population and as its essential mechanism the apparatuses of security” (Foucault 1991, p. 102). Foucault reminds readers of the existence of sovereignty in contemporary power relations, although he has not demonstrated how it operates and converges with the two other modes of power.

Anthropologist Aihwa Ong elaborates on the notion of sovereignty using Foucault as a backdrop. She argues that Agamben conceptualizes the notion of exception too narrowly, regarding it only as a fundamental principle of sovereign rules. The exception, she maintains, can be conceptualized more broadly as “an ordinary departure in policy that can be deployed to include as well as to exclude” (Ong 2006, p. 5). She argues that, in practice, sovereignty is manifested in multiple, contradictory strategies. Rather than a singularity or a simple opposition of normativity and exception, as Agamben suggests, sovereign power is a “shifting and flexible ensemble of heterogeneous calculations, choices, and exceptions that constitute security, life, and ethics” (Ong 2006, p. 10). Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality — the right disposition of things, arranged so as to lead to a convenient end (Foucault 1991, p. 93) — Ong proposes a notion of neoliberal exception, arguing that, rather than simply an economic doctrine, neoliberalism is the most recent development of biopolitics and in particular a governmentality that “relies on market knowledge and calculations for politics of subjection and subject-making” (Ong 2006, p. 13). In addition, Ong maintains that governmentality involves two entangled processes of subjectification: “one is subjected to someone else by control and dependence [subjection], and tied to one's own identity by a conscience of self-knowledge [selfmaking]” (Ong 2003, p. 15).

In 1993, a leading scholar of international relations, Samuel Huntington, published an article, “The Clash of Civilizations?” in Foreign Affairs. He argues that, rather than ideological differences or economic competition, the fundamental source of conflict in the future would be differences among civilizations. The state as a source of identity is weakening, whereas religious and other cultural identities that make up civilizations will replace the state in primacy; cultural identity tends to be less mutable, less able to be compromised, than political or economic identities. Differences among civilizations strike at the core of human singularity and are increasingly evident, given that the world is becoming a smaller place. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics in the twenty-first century, and the fault lines between civilizations will become the world's new battle lines. Huntington specifically points to conflicts between Islamic civilization and Western civilization to illustrate how the clash of civilizations will come to dominate global politics.

Huntington's thesis garnered broad attention. The general public and mass media were terrified by such speculation. Many scholars from various disciplines embraced the prophecy, pointing to the possibility of wars between different “civilizations”. However, some scholars, especially those working on Islam and Muslim politics, questioned Huntington's thesis. John Esposito (1999) maintains that the thesis overlooks the plural nature of Islam, the diverse political realities of the Muslim world, and its diverse relations with the West. He argues that disputes and civil wars have more to do with political and socio-economic grievances than with religion and that there are similarities and constructive connections between Islamic civilization and the Western world. Bassam Tibi (2001) contends that Islam as a civilization is composed of a variety of local cultures and, as such, to take Islam as monolithic vis-à-vis the West is misleading. He adds that Islam is both a religious faith and a cultural system but not a political ideology. It is not Islam or Islamic civilization but the politicization of Islam that is not only hostile to other civilizations but is also a threat even to Islam itself. The heterogeneity and “clash” within Islam are emphasized by Robert Hefner (2001; 2002), who points to struggles within Muslim societies, especially Indonesia, where the proponents of civil society and democracy have clashed with the supporters of an anti-pluralistic Islamic state in imagining the Muslim public.

My roommate Najmudin is a fascinating individual. He is a native of Baunae Jeudong village, about 15 kilometres away from Guba. But given that his maternal grandmother and relatives live in Guba, he has travelled to the village since he was young. He spent his youth and early adulthood in Yala city with “unconventional” friends, many of them Thai Buddhists. Then, he worked as a driver for Shakib, the Arzeulee SAO chief executive who at the time was an antique dealer. However, for various reasons, he quit that job and began to work for other people, mostly as a driver. After two years of being a freelance driver, Najmudin settled into the house of the family I stayed with, mostly driving and doing other chores for the family. The day I began my field research in Guba, Saifuldin and other family members assigned me to stay on the second floor of the house. The floor has one room, which belongs to Aiman (the homeowner), and outside the room is an old bed with a shabby mattress and pillow covered by a torn mosquito net, where Najmudin spends the night. The empty space between Aiman's room and Najmudin's area was allocated for me to make a sleeping place with some old mats. It is largely from our before-sleeping talks that I gradually learned how fascinating Najmudin's life is.

In addition to helping the family out with various matters, Najmudin does some work for one kratom cocktail producer/seller, getting paid in product. If there is no work in the family, he hangs out with his friends, most of them living on the fringes of the law, during the day and returns home late at night. His life is like a mystery, and many residents regard it as extraordinary. However, he is still committed to being a good Muslim. He regularly performs Friday noon prayers at the mosque, and he attempts to fast during Ramadan despite the pain this causes because of his kratom addiction. Meanwhile, he also considers himself a Malay. In addition to participating in various Malay cultural activities with Aiman, he wears a waistband with ta krud (tiny, rolled pieces of metal inscribed with magic spells), a local belief he considers not in conflict with Islam, because, he said, “I don't revere it”.

This book is about how the Malay Muslims of Guba, a village in Thailand's Deep South, live their lives in the wake of the ongoing insurgency that was reinvigorated in 2004. It argues that the unrest is the effect of the way in which different forms of sovereignty converge around the residents of this region. It also argues that the residents at the same time have cultivated themselves and obtained and enacted agency through the sovereigns. As such, rather than asking why the violence is increasing and who is behind it, like most scholarly works on the topic, I examine how different forms of sovereignty impose their subjectivities on the residents, how they have converged in so doing and what tensions have followed, and how people have dealt with these tensions and cultivated themselves and obtained and enacted agency through the sovereigns.

The question of sovereignty in southern Thailand dates back for many centuries. Between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, the question revolved around the ambiguity of sovereignty over the region. On the one hand, the region was composed of Malay sultanates, whose sovereignty had to be realized. On the other hand, the region was regarded by successive Siamese kingdoms as vassal states whose sovereignty needed to be recognized as well. A suzerain-vassal relationship was attempted, in order to address the ambiguity, but to no avail, resulting in wars between the Malay sultanates and Siam that recurred over the course of centuries. The question of ambiguous sovereignty was put to an end when the sultanates were incorporated into Siam in a process that began in the late eighteenth century and was only completed at the turn of the twentieth century. Now, Siamese sovereignty was the only form of sovereignty to be realized over the clearly demarcated territory.

However, singular sovereignty over the territory did not put the question to an end. Rather, it generated a new question and a new form of conflict — a question of sovereignty over subjectivity, which led to the emergence of separatist movements. That is to say, although Siam's nation-building project was first launched inclusively, it was later carried out exclusively, associating the nation with Thai ethnicity and Buddhism at the expense of other ethnicities and religions.