BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//EuroSEAS 2019//EN X-WR-CALNAME:EuroSEAS 2019 BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Berlin X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Berlin BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19700329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19701025T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260405T234100 UID:the-government-intermediary-the-role-of-middlemen-and-socio-cultural-brokers-in-past-and-present-southeast-asia-ca-1800-2000 SUMMARY:The Government Intermediary: The Role of Middlemen and Socio-Cultural Brokers in Past and Present Southeast Asia, ca. 1800–2000 LOCATION:Fritz-Reuter-Saal DESCRIPTION:To many of the ethnic groups throughout Southeast Asia, both hi storical colonial regimes and contemporary national governments were foreig n (Tarling 1998). The drawing of borders (Cribb and Li 2004), establishment of institutions, levying of taxes and other impositions of governance have therefore occurred largely without popular consent or interaction between government and people. To claim territory, elaborate government programs ov er popular masses, colonial and national governments relied on the paradoxi cal processes of simplifying complex local circumstances (Scott 1998) while depending upon increasingly complex bureaucracies (Elson 1993, Cribb 1994) . Effective communication between colonial officials and their postcolonial successors with regional peasant masses was problematic. Therefore, these bureaucracies, governed by expanding bureaucracies (Elson 1993), of highly- trained, technocratic and self-proclaimed ‘rational’ civil servants carryin g out unifying policy schemes, were also characterized by ambivalence, limi tations and the incapacity to effectuate these schemes on the ‘colonial gro und’, as has been highlighted in more recent literature (see for instance S toler 2009, Bloembergen 2009, Kloos 2014). Critical were the people, networ ks and groups in between, who communicated with both. Attention has been ca lled to fluctuations and crossroads in the reality of colonial governance, policy-making and practice, as framed in pluralism in the governance and le gal structures of colonies (Benton & Ross, 2013; Yahaya 2009, 2013 & ; 2015), and shaped by the intermediary role of for instance Chinese, Arabi c, and Japanese merchant networks, European industrialists (Bosma 2010 & ; 2013; Taselaar 1998) and urban middle-classes (Hoogervorst & Schulte Nordholt 2017). Yet, cultural brokers (Geertz 1960) have been addressed ind ividually, but never have they been categorized as a group and studied as t he governmental intermediaries they were on the spot. How did local elites, merchants, soldiers, diplomats and others co-determine the colonial agenda ? What role did they play in either reinforcing or subverting colonial rule ? And what was their fate in the wake of imperial disengagement and decolon ization after the Second World War?\n\nThis panel aims to reflect on these questions, emphasizing the role of various intermediaries in colonial and n ational governance and social engineering. We would like to contribute to t he growing literature that argues (colonial) Southeast Asian states were no t run exclusively by metropolitan officials, but all the more by merchants, industrialists and other migrants, by local political, religious and merca ntile elites (see for instance: Benda 1965; Sutherland 1979; Young 1994), a nd by the general population of both indigenous peoples and migrant populat ions like the Chinese and Arabs through their kapitan or chiefs (see: Lohan da 1996; Kapitein, 2014). We would like to investigate how colonial governi ng traditions continued throughout the era of decolonization, and how inter mediaries fared following the rise of post- colonial nation-states. Doing s o will help us move beyond stereotypical ideas of Southeast Asian governanc e and enhance the general understanding of how states communicated with its subjects. URL:https://euroseas2019.org/program/panels/the-government-intermediary-the-role-of-middlemen-and-socio-cultural-brokers-in-past-and-present-southeast-asia-ca-1800-2000 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20190911T153000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20190911T170000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR