Pocketing the Prize: Lingering Patterns of Prestige in Southeast Asian Studies

While the field of Southeast Asian studies in US, European, and Australian academies faces challenges and decline, the discipline has developed significantly in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in Asia. Given the apparent shift in academic investment, this examination of patterns in awarding prizes for work in the field over the past two decades seeks to understand where “prestige” in the field is located. Assuming that prizes are more than just recognition for a scholar’s individual work, and that they also act as indicators for the development of Southeast Asian studies in a broader sense, this analysis concludes that prestige continues to be bestowed predominantly to those studying, working, and publishing in countries outside the region, particularly the United States. Our analysis reveals that overwhelmingly awardees of the preeminent book prizes given for excellence in Southeast Asian studies completed their higher research degree in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (91 percent) and are currently affiliated with institutions in Europe, the United States, and Australia (94 percent). Although the number of institutions based in Asia, both old and new, has increased in recent decades, these institutions do not yet award book prizes akin to those under study, nor is there a regional association that does. It may be that a lack of institutionalized collaboration across these regional centers is one of the factors that indirectly boosts the ongoing dominance of institutions based in the US, Europe, and Australia. Rather than explaining this absence, in this article we seek to raise questions about the current state of Southeast Asian studies, who is shaping global ideas about Southeast Asia, and who currently—and will in the future—constitute their “communities of assessment” (Appadurai 2000).