1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Southeast Asia as Frontier Space
| Project/Area Number |
63400005
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
広領域
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| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAKAYA Yoshikazu Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Professor, 東南アジア研究センター, 教授 (90027582)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
FUKUI Hayao Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Professor, 東南アジア研究センター, 教授 (10027584)
KAIDA Yoshihiro Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Professor, 東南アジア研究センター, 教授 (00026452)
TUBOUCHI Yoshihiro Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Professor, 東南アジア研究センター, 教授 (00027583)
MAEDA Narifumi Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Professor, 東南アジア研究センター, 教授 (50027588)
YANO Toru Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Professor, 東南アジア研究センター, 教授 (60033734)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1988 – 1990
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| Keywords | Southeast Asia / Frontier / Development / Migration / Plantation / Case Study / Values |
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| Research Abstract |
We have attained two types of research results : 1. results of case-study nature and 2. those of theoretical nature. As for the first type of results, we achieved the following results. Firstly, we studied rubber plantations and urban centers in Peninsular Malaysia and established the frontier nature and high death rates in these areas. Secondly, we studied rain-fed sawah in North-east Thailand and clarified the one-hundred year history of its development by pointing out that the structure of this frontier society based on rain-fed sawah was predicated on high population mobility. Thirdly, we studied lowland areas of tropical rain forest in Sulawesi and described the present situations in the last lowland tropical rain forest areas on earth.
As for the second type of research results, we propose the following three theoretical observations. Firstly, we maintain that the frontier space in Southeast Asia has experienced constant circulatory movements, that is, people migrate, make new encounters and establish a mestizo world, which in turn leads to another round of new circulatory movements. Our conclusion is that the frontier is nothing but the manifestation of circulatory movements. Secondly, epistemologically speaking, we forward the conclusion that the understanding of the frontier space among the people in the desert-dominated environment is fundamentally different from that of the frontier space among the people in the forest-dominated environment. Thirdly, we maintain that the frontier space of Southeast Asia can not be characterized as a periphery. It is a network society full of creative energy ; it deserves our positive appreciation of its own value and raison d'etre. Lastly, we assert that we have to overcome the European prejudice of equating the frontier space with a "savage space" in order to truly understand the frontier nature of Southeast Asia.
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