• Editorial
  Hajar Abdul Rahim
  

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• Audible Pasts: History, Sound and Human Experience in Southeast Asia
  Barbara Watson Andaya
  
  Abstract: Although historians of traditional Southeast Asian cultures rely primarily on written sources, the societies they study were intensely oral and aural. Research on sound in Southeast Asia has focused on music and musicology, but historians are now considering the wide variety of noises to which people were exposed, and how the interpretations and understanding of these sounds shaped human experience. This article uses an 1899 court case in Singapore concerning a noisy neighbour as a departure point to consider some of the ways in which “noise” was heard in traditional Southeast Asian societies. Focusing on Singapore, it shows that European attitudes influenced the attitudes of the colonial administration towards loud noise, especially in the streets. By the late 19th century, the view that sleep was necessary for good health, and that noise interfered with sleep, was well established. The changing soundscape of Singapore in the early 20th century led to increasing middle class demands for government action to limit urban noise, although these were largely ineffective. The regulations and public campaigns introduced over the last 60 years still face the problem of intrusive noise, both in the public and private domain. The richness of the Singapore material, only some of which has been consulted for this paper, suggests that the Southeast Asian region has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of sensory history.
  
  Keywords and phrases: ethnicity, nervous anxiety, noise abatement, sensory history, Singapore

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• Water in the Study of Southeast Asia
  Leonard Y. Andaya
  
  Abstract: This paper advocates the use of a water perspective in the study of Southeast Asia. Such a perspective, it is argued, is multidimensional and complex, and incorporates an understanding of the physical characteristics of water, the transformations it undergoes through human intervention, and the sociocultural meaning that is applied to it by individual human communities. Moreover, water is a generic term that refers to a variety of types (salt, fresh, brackish, land-water) and forms (oceans, seas, straits, estuaries, rivers, lakes, ponds, reservoirs, canals). By citing examples across the world, this paper proposes the study of the differing combinations of types and forms of water in order to gain a greater precision of its role in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the water approach is the understanding that a body water should be studied as an equal partner to the human community. By examining the dynamic interaction of these two elements, important connectivities and new spatialisations based on water could greatly enhance our understanding of society. The seas, oceans, the littoral, and other forms and types of water are all understudied and deserve renewed attention if we are to find new ways of thinking and learning about Southeast Asia’s past, present and even its future.
  
  Keywords and phrases: ecology, historical spaces, rivers, Southeast Asia, water perspective

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• Reconstructing the Past Through Oral History: A Malaysian Experience
  Mahani Musa
  
  Abstract: This paper examines the development of the oral history programme in Malaysia as a methodology to reconstruct the nation’s history and heritage. Oral history refers to efforts to record and document a historical event or social phenomenon through people’s experience and memory that enable us to have a deeper understanding of the past. In short, by recording people’s experiences and memories from their personal lives, the oral history methodology acts as a bridge to connect the past to the present. For Southeast Asian countries which are rich in historical experiences and cultural diversity, the oral history project had begun in the 1960s with each country individually initiating its own oral history programme. This paper focuses on the experience of Malaysia which was the first to initiate an oral history programme, its subsequent development, the parties involved and the inclination or focus of oral history projects that were implemented. Even though Malaysia preceded other Southeast Asian countries in creating an oral history programme, the oral history methodology as a mode of reconstructing the nation’s past and heritage is not particularly outstanding. This paper addresses this nagging issue and examines the challenges in implementing the oral history programme in this country. The paper recommends to the Malaysian government to activate the oral history programme which should be subsumed under an Oral History Centre at the national level so that the collection of historical information and the nation’s heritage will be based on the inclusive memory of the community not just on written documents which are remnants of the colonial legacy.
  
  Keywords and phrases: documentation, heritage, history from below, Malaysia, oral history

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• Early Dutch Exploits in the Western Archipelago of the Indies: In Praise of Equal Partnerships
  Ingrid S. Mitrasing
  
  Abstract: In this article I investigate both what we can know about Dutch ways of dealing with the important ports in the western archipelago, a commercially rich and politically divided region, and what we think we know. I take a fresh look at the beginnings of their presence and at how relations were established and evolved. By employing a critical assessment of the documents produced during this period and comparing these with the scholarly findings in the historical literature, I aim to present an informed perspective of the nature of the different relationships. The documents have at least the merit of being contemporary and therefore reflect perceptions and conditions during this period. Closing alliances and treaties with the rulers of these ports was one way to break the Portuguese trade monopoly which ultimately led to rewriting the region’s narrative on the familiar lines of conquest.
  
  Keywords and phrases: deceptions, partnerships, strategies, treaties, western archipelago

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• The Birth of Prophet Muḥammad in the Qur’ān: A Critical Analysis of al-Jāḥiẓ’s Thought in his Kitāb al-Ḥujja fī Tathbīt al-Nubuwwa
  Ahmad Sanusi Azmi
  
  Abstract: According to Islamic tradition, Prophet Muḥammad was born in the Year of the Elephant, the year of Abraha’s unsuccessful expedition against Mecca. Relying on references made from the Qur’ānic text alone, not a single verse refers definitively to the event of the Prophet’s birth. However, some Muslim biographers have chosen sūrah al- Fīl of the Qur’ān as the verse which carries an early sign of the Prophet’s emergence, while others attributed this chapter to the event of the Prophet’s birth. Al-Jāḥiẓ was among them, and this notion was articulated in his Kitāb al-Ḥujja fī Tathbīt al-Nubuwwa, where he expressed his opinion on the exegesis of this chapter. Thus, the present study aims to explore the narrative of the Prophet’s birth, analyse the historical connection between the occurrence and sūrah al-Fīl and examine hermeneutical responses of Muslim exegetes on the verse, especially al-Jāḥiẓ. The study is qualitative in nature in which the researcher employed both critical and analytical approaches to the works of tafsīr and sīra. Findings of this study assert that conviction and zeal to authenticate the story of the People of the Elephant seems to have influenced al-Jāḥiẓ to adduce sūrah al-Fīl as a solid basis of evidence of the whole truth of this narrative.
  
  Keywords and phrases: Abraha, al-Jāḥiẓ, infancy, Muḥammad, prophethood

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• Islam and Prejudice: Special Reference to Gordon W. Allport’s Contact Hypothesis
  Benaouda Bensaid and Mustafa Tekke
  
  Abstract: This study explores the Muslim perspective on human interaction, relationships and prejudice. A survey of the literature recognises Islam’s fundamental acknowledgement of human diversity, drawing on a dynamic theological, moral, spiritual and legal philosophy revolving around the preservation and sustainment of non-prejudiced human contact. This study discusses the Muslim perspective of human contact, non-prejudice, and accordingly, revisits Gordon W. Allport’s “Theory of Contact Hypothesis” in an effort to compare and contrast it with the Muslim perspective on related issues such as racial prejudice, gender inequity, age prejudice, disability discrimination, social status and classism. This research concludes that Islam has developed a framework necessary for cultivating religiosity and morality without risking the value of effective and harmonious human relations. Further empirical studies on the interplay between Muslim theory and practice on contact hypothesis and prejudice are required to further interpret the dynamics of Muslim values in working settings, and the viability of translating religious ideals into reality.
  
  Keywords and phrases: contact hypothesis, Gordon W. Allport, Islam, prejudice, racism

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• Between Danger and Pleasure: Rethinking the Imperilled Filipina Migrant Body in Jose Dalisay’s Soledad’s Sister
  Grace V.S. Chin
  
  Abstract: This article explores the complexities and tensions of negotiating female agency and freedom by examining the theme of danger and pleasure through the representation of the Filipina migrant body in Jose Dalisay’s Soledad’s Sister. Of interest here is the Filipina migrant body’s negotiation between the danger posed by the patriarchal systems of the global economy and the pleasure of self- and sexual discovery, for it highlights the empowering possibilities and opportunities that can be found in the very same transnational spaces where dangers also lurk. Subjected to local and global patriarchal discourses – including motherhood and martyrdom – and their prescribed limits, the Filipina migrant body is rendered marginal, displaced and inferior. Despite these limits however, I argue that the migrant body-in-transition should be considered a corporeal “third” space that holds multiple meanings and liminal possibilities that can engender significant changes in identity, voice and agency. Using postcolonial and gender theories, this article problematises the prevailing, authoritative discourses on migrant identity, subjection and subjectivity by showing how the novel undermines essentialist assumptions associated with the stereotyped helper through the exploration of sexual pleasure in the dangerous phallocentric spaces of the global economy.
  
  Keywords and phrases: Filipina migrant body, gender, sexuality, Philippine literature, domestic helper

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• Deconstructing Androcentrism in Buddhist Literature Through the Lens of Ethnography: A Case Study of Bhutanese Nuns
  Sonam Wangmo, Juli Edo and Kamal Solhaimi Fadzil
  
  Abstract: Traditional androcentric sociology has reinforced biased views of women and portrayed women as silent research objects of minor importance that figure marginally in academic writing, thereby distorting the knowledge base. The same tendencies have been observed in Buddhist religious literature. The bone of contention in the feminist critique of Buddhism is the omission of women from religious literature. Although Buddhist women’s spiritual prowess was well documented in early Buddhism in religious literature such as the Therīgatha, later Buddhist literature began to demonstrate androcentric tendencies, in most instances completely ignoring the religious lives of women. Since women have been largely sidelined in Buddhist texts, it is important to go beyond textual dimensions to gain deeper insights into women’s religious lives. The feminist Buddhist scholar, Rita Gross (2009), in her monumental work, A Garland of Feminist Reflections, emphasised the need to explore various ways other than our own to think, live and practice religion to broaden our horizons to avoid a narrow-minded approach to academic research. Citing two case studies of Buddhist nuns in Bhutan, this paper argues for ethnography as an alternative to traditional text-based scholarship on religious studies whereby women tell their stories and paint their own reality.
  
  Keywords and phrases: androcentrism, ethnography, feminist Buddhist methodology, Buddhism, Bhutanese nuns

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• Point of View in Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly: A Stylistic Perspective
  Shakila Abdul Manan
  
  Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine how point of view is signaled in Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly and how it is used to exercise control over the attitudes we have of characters and events in the story. Specifically, it aims to examine who sees and who speaks in the story, whose views or ideas are being expressed as well as how characters and events are represented. As regards the characters, the focus will be on the representation of the white European self vis-a-vis the native Other. In achieving this aim, the study will utilise Halliday’s transitivity system, Fowler’s point of view model and Said’s Orientalism or discourse of Othering. Findings reveal that the features which indicate or control point of view include the system of deixis, vocabulary and transitivity structures, the use of modality as well as the various modes of speech and thought presentation. Almayer is the main focaliser in the text as the internal type of narration (narration within a character’s consciousness) is mostly accorded to him. Prolonged intrusions into Almayer’s mental faculties allow the reader to empathise with his victimised and helpless state and to distance the readers from the natives who have been depicted externally (narration from outside a character’s consciousness) in a most unsavoury manner. To some extent, an internal perspective is also accorded to the natives as it is through their perspectives that the white man’s duplicitous nature is revealed and the moral justifications for empire questioned. These are moments when Conrad registers his ambivalence towards the colonial project and empire, however his attempts are not fully realised as he invariably gets pulled back into the time-worn discourse of Othering in his representations of the Other.
  
  Keywords and phrases: point of view, Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly, Halliday’s transitivity system, Fowler’s point of view model, Said’s Orientalism or discourse of Othering

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• (Re)Positioning Humanities in the Malaysian Higher Education Landscape
  Morshidi Sirat and Chang Da Wan
  
  Abstract: This paper discusses the humanities and humanities education, which is inevitably embedded in the context of a re-assessment of the role and functions of universities in the current and future Industry 4.0 environment. While the humanities are generally considered as an embattled field since the emphasis on science and technology subjects in many developed and emerging economies, this paper does not subscribe to the notion of the humanities being handcuffed to a crisis narrative that are incomplete and disabling its future potentials. In the Industry 4.0 environment and perhaps an equivalent Society 4.0, there would be a dire need for society to envision a plan that would give top priority to the potential benefits of a higher education based on human-technology convergence. Failure to do so would mean humans would be overwhelmed by robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), peripheralising any disciplines that are considered as not relevant. In the context of Malaysia, the paper unpicks the issues and challenges in the provision of humanities education in the higher education landscape that begin to acknowledge and reclaim values and the human outcome in the higher education system still in the nascent stage of realising the importance of framing policies in the context of the human-technology convergence. This paper concludes by suggesting the way forward in re-positioning the humanities and humanities education, which would contribute to the idea of humanising higher education in the context of Industry 4.0.
  
  Keywords and phrases: humanities, humanising higher education, human-technology convergence, Industry 4.0, neoliberalism

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