Urban anthropology: Southeast Asia

Contemporary scholarship in urban anthropology in Southeast Asia is characterized by an eclectic diversity that stems from the intersections of several distinct trajectories. First, the geographical region has a long history of indigenous urbanism stretching back at least two millennia. Secondly, an array of European (Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, German, and British) and American imperial powers left their varied urban imaginaries and structural imprints on their colonial outposts around the region. Subsequent postcolonial governments have selectively appropriated these tangible and intangible legacies in the pursuit of nationalist development and modernization and, more recently, under the impetus of globalization, world city formation. Thirdly, the inheritance of varied methodological traditions originating from metropolitan academic centers have influenced how urbanism as a specific area of anthropological study has been configured and understood. With the rapid pace of urbanization and the growth of numerous metropolises in the region, anthropological study of the specificity, diversity, and commonalities of urbanism and city life in Southeast Asia is set to broaden and deepen in the years ahead.