Rethinking the Field: Locality and Connectivity in Southeast Asian Studies

The paper comments on the contribution of Oscar Salemink on his personal intellectual journal from Vietnam to Europe and back again. This then leads to the contemplation of the construction of Southeast Asia as a "place" or "locality", early preoccupations within the region of the national dimension. And more recent developments in universities in Singapore, examining the continuing perceptions of Southeast Asia as a region and Singapore as its "gateway", and the increasing interest in "connectivities" and transnational relations between the region and other parts of Asia and the wider world.