New Persons in Southeast Asia

Type

Double Panel

Part 1

Session 1
Wed 09:00–10:30 Room 1.201

Part 2

Session 2
Wed 11:00–12:30 Room 1.201

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Abstract

This panel examines the emergence of new persons across various settings and historical periods in South East Asia. How do new kinds of person emerge and with what consequences—biographical, relational, ethical, as well as political? How and why might such newness be defined, experienced, aspired for, imposed, rejected, or reworked? To what extent does the emergence of new persons entail a rupture with the past? How does newness co-exist or get folded into existing ways of being a person, as well as relationships? In contexts where lives and trajectories appear to be heavily constrained by the past, institutions, policies, or inequalities, how does newness enter the world? What happens in the wake of new modes of being a person? How is newness recalled and narrated? By addressing these and related questions, the panel seeks to develop novel South East Asian perspectives on the analytic importance of foregrounding persons and personhood in understanding processes of rapid social, political, and economic change, thereby contributing to wider conversations on personhood and its generative and transformative potentials. It also aims to develop connections with recent and ongoing work on ethical lives and conundrums, aspirations, as well as work on biography, history, and temporality.

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