Panel

Symbolic Capitals: Southeast Asian Museums and Cities as Nation-Building Sites
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The panel sets out to examine the significance of Southeast Asian cities and museums as powerful and evocative spaces which contribute to nation-building. It seeks to focus on cityscapes and museums as examples of the formation and transformation of national belonging and legitimacy, and consider the conditions under which some forms of communication and commemoration are encouraged whilst others are suppressed.

Nation-building describes the nationalist project of governments, namely the aspiration to equate nation and state. Capital cities are symbolic centres representing the national community, and are thus privileged nation-building sites. Yet the inherent dynamism of city life also highlights the negotiated nature of identity, national or otherwise. Not only are capital cities awash with architectural and monumental symbols of state power and ideology, but the street can also be taken as a metaphor for the fluidity of state-society relations. The way in which nation-building ideology is expressed in cityscapes, together with city-dwellers’ response to that message, is a key theme of the panel.
The empirical analysis of cityscapes and museums serves to illustrate how ‘nation buildings’, taken literally, help cement the dominance of an official national discourse. Nevertheless, this can always be subverted, reinforced or questioned by individuals’ response. The choice to preserve some buildings and, literally, erase others contributes to the story told by a cityscape, whether it presents an image of modernity, a seamless narrative of continuity, or an architectural hodge-podge hinting at historical disjuncture and change. Some monuments might become sedimented on the landscape over time, but their meaning can shift as official interpretations respond to evolving public attitudes and political culture. Museums, which are often responsible for interpreting complex themes such as colonialism, are a prime example of this. With their explicitly didactic function, these can convey historical memory or future vision in stone, whilst reinforcing ideological messages through exhibitions. By situating museums within their urban and national contexts, we can seek to discern a dominant narrative, which is increasingly unlikely to be linear or closed. Differing conceptions of the museum’s role in socialist and capitalist, contemporary and traditional settings also offer a solid basis for comparative analysis.
Some museums, inspired by post-modern thinking, seek to integrate multiple perspectives in their exhibits. The issue then arises as to who is being represented and how, both key to constructing national identity and nation-building more generally. Museums also highlight the role of objects as symbols of state legitimacy, as well as the importance of exhibition space as a meaningful context within which to create this narrative. For instance, non-Western traditions may have a different understanding of the object and its authenticity. Museum exhibits in post-colonial countries are often a combination of pre-independence, prejudiced collections, contemporary nation-building, and transnational prestige projects. Nevertheless, many museums in post-colonial countries serve the same legitimating purpose as they did in nineteenth-century European states, by reaching into the past to document the nation’s antiquity and its place amongst great civilizations. As such, both museums and cityscapes are rich areas for studying the evolution and negotiation of nation-building in contemporary Southeast Asia.

Please send paper proposals to Dr Claire Sutherland, University of Durham: Claire.sutherland@durham.ac.uk.