A post-modern mandala? Moving beyond methodological nationalism

Sutherland, Claire

Abstract

The work of art entitled Returning Home (Figure 1) is a chest-high, cylindrical trunk made from thousands of chopsticks. Painstakingly built up from the inside out, it is a satisfying whole made of many parts that represents home in a solid and enduring, but ‘rootless’ way. As such, it challenges the notion of rootedness as a prerequisite for belonging, suggesting that ‘home’ can be conceived in ways that do not necessarily erect barriers to belonging for nonnatives, or outsiders. Fittingly, it also represents the culmination of a long personal journey for its creator, Anthony Key, as a migrant to Britain. The piece featured prominently in a recent UK museum exhibition exploring nation-building in Vietnam. Co-curated by the author of this article, the exhibition was both an attempt to distil a decade of research for a non-academic audience, and an opportunity to challenge visitors’ perceptions of nationbuilding more widely. Further, it offered a starting point for reflection on the theoretical contribution of Southeast Asian studies to ongoing debates surrounding ‘methodological nationalism’ (Beck and Sznaider 2010 [2006]), which challenge the widespread use of the nation-state as a taken for granted category of analysis. Hence the playful coining of the term ‘post-modern mandala’ to bring Southeast Asian studies into conversation with these interdisciplinary debates

Citation

Sutherland, C. (2016). A post-modern mandala? Moving beyond methodological nationalism. Humanetten, 37, 88-106

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Dec 22, 2016
• Publication Date: Dec 22, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jul 18, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 27, 2017
• Journal: HumaNetten
• Electronic ISSN: 1403-2279
• Publisher: Linnaeus University
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 37
• Pages: 88-106
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1373478
• Publisher URL: https://open.lnu.se/index.php/hn/issue/view/45