CfP: Everyday Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia

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Southeast Asia Council (SEAC)- Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSEAS) Initiative
Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference 2025 (AAS2025 @ Columbus)

Submission deadline: July 15, 2024
Shared on behalf of SEAC of the AAS

The Southeast Asia Council (SEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is seeking paper proposals from up-and-coming scholars to join a “SEAC-JSEAS” panel on the topic of “Everyday Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia.” We seek to recruit early career scholars, including graduate students, independent scholars and untenured faculty, with preference for scholars from underfunded institutions in Late Developing Countries (LDC) in Southeast Asia (see below for eligibility). Accepted paper proposals will form a panel for presentation and inclusion in the 2025 Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, to be held in Columbus, Ohio from March 13-16, 2025. Presenters will receive partial financial assistance from the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies to attend the annual conference and meetings.

Panel Topic Description

What constitutes everyday authoritarianism? What does authoritarianism look like in everyday life across various spheres, contexts, and time in Southeast Asia? How do people, groups, and communities in Southeast Asia respond to authoritarian power when they encounter it in their daily, ordinary activities? The state is often powerful and dominates the attention of scholars who study authoritarianism, inspiring them to offer numerous categorizations and definitions of authoritarianism. However, scholars from a wide range of disciplines have also pushed conceptualizations of authoritarianism beyond the state. For example, authoritarianism also exists in non-state orders, such as in clans, corporations, prisons, and religious organizations. It could exist less or more intensely in certain parts of state institutions or organs. Accordingly, authoritarianism manifests in layers and in enclaves in any given political regime, affecting segments of populations differently. It could thus find its ways into everyday life not only through direct interactions with state actors but also through everyday interactions in families, residential communities, workplaces, schools, and places of worship, and intermediary spaces in which manifestations of state domination and non-state forces interact in different Southeast Asian contexts. 

This panel calls for papers that shift attention away from major, headline-grabbing events that usually feature the overtly repressive and violent authoritarian acts of the state, and turn toward examining how authoritarianism also plays out in the quotidian and the mundane. The aim is to encourage authors to look beyond rigid boxes of regime types and categorization of the state, and to draw analytical attention to authoritarianism beyond the state by considering other sources of authoritarianism. At the same time, this panel invites authors to critically examine the relationship between state and non-state sources of authoritarianism that shape everyday life and everyday responses. In these ways, this panel speaks to deepening concerns about rising coercion and suppression of rights and voices challenging authorities in contemporary events, as well as impositions of power and domination in the social, cultural, political histories of Southeast Asian countries and the region. 

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

We seek papers by Southeast Asian scholars who are early career scholars, advanced graduate students (currently writing dissertations based on original field or archival research), or untenured faculty members (including tenure- track assistant professors, adjuncts, and lecturers, or the approximate equivalent based on the academic tradition from which the scholar is coming). Applicants may be currently enrolled as students in, or employed by, any institution of higher education in the world. Preference may be given to students or faculty currently based at underfunded institutions in Late Developing Countries (LDC) in Southeast Asia. Please note that the definition of LDC used by the AAS excludes the following Asian countries: Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of China (Taiwan), Republic of Korea (South Korea), and Singapore. 

The primary criteria for selection will be the quality of the paper proposals as well as the way selected proposals work together as a viable panel.

  1. The panel is intended to be a Southeast Asia-focused panel. Submissions that do not substantively address issues pertaining to the region will not be considered.
  2. The selected panelists will be expected to attend the conference in person and comply with the deadline for paper submissions.
  3. Paper presenters must submit their papers to the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.
  4. Neither published papers nor papers under review can be accepted to the JSEAS-sponsored panels. Moreover, scholars may not submit the same paper proposal to both Rising Voices and JSEAS-sponsored panels. 

To submit a paper proposal, please submit the following, in the order listed below, all in a SINGLE Microsoft Word file or PDF document, by July 15, 2024:

  1. Applicant’s Name, affiliation, and contact information, clearly indicating applicant’s current country of residence.
  2. Paper abstract. 250 words in the format of the standard AAS paper proposal.
  3. Brief bio-sketch of 200-300 words describing current and recent scholarly positions, a brief sentence or two about current research, and any significant publications. The model for this should be the standard blurb onesees on a faculty or graduate student website.
  4. Current curriculum vitae. Maximum 4 pages

Please save the file with the following filename convention: SEAC&JSEAS_ApplicantsFamilyName.doc

Completed applications should be sent to the attention of the SEAC-JSEAS Committee to the following address: seacjseascommittee@gmail.com by the 15 July 2024 deadline. Late submissions or submissions that do not follow the above instructions will not be considered. Applicants should confirm in their email that their paper has not been published or submitted for review elsewhere.