IKMAS SEMINAR SERIES 17/14

Towards an Area Sensitive Approach of Social Inequality

By:

PROF. DR VINCENT HOUBEN
Southeast Asian History and Society
Humboldt University
Berlin, Germany 

Date     :   5th September 2014 (Friday)
Time    :  10.00 am – 12.00 pm
Venue :   IKMAS Seminar Room

Summary:

Thomas Piketty has recently triggered an intense debate on the rising social inequality produced by capitalism. As historian and area specialist of Southeast Asia, I am convinced that social inequality is also governed by spatio-historical contingency and cultural specificity which escape simple measurements by using standard quantitative indicators. How then would genealogy of the specific sociocultures of the large Nusantara area look like? The aim is to outline a decentered, polycentric approach to what has become a worldwide problem.

Speaker:

Vincent Houben (1957) is professor of Southeast Asian history and society at Humboldt University (Berlin) and currently a research fellow at IKMAS. He has published widely on modern Southeast Asian history. Besides inequality his current research interests include the theory of area studies, indentured labour, heritage and memory making.