Papers by Meredith Weiss
In 2011, the Malaysian police banned the sexuality rights festival Seksualiti Merdeka. As Seksual... more In 2011, the Malaysian police banned the sexuality rights festival Seksualiti Merdeka. As Seksualiti Merdeka responded by defending the rights of LGBTs, some self-identified LGBTs in Malaysia resisted the sexual rights activists's appeal to international human rights for sexual identities. For them, the citizenship proffered by human rights appear counter-intuitive to their own survival strategies or are antithetical to their political stances. Through a discourse analysis of how marginalised sexual subjects perform citizenship norms, I argue that different modes of citizenship have been structured by the racialised politics of Malaysia, tendering different citizenship statuses to different citizens. The contestation over the potential for sexual citizenship in the public is therefore crucial for LGBTs in Malaysia in the way we imagine our place within the nation.
Conferences, Talks and Panels by Meredith Weiss
"A two-part panel on activism in Southeast Asia that engages theories from social movement studie... more "A two-part panel on activism in Southeast Asia that engages theories from social movement studies and facilitates comparative perspectives"
Abstract:
Southeast Asia has seen dramatic political and social change in the last decade. Accompanying this sea-change is the ebb and ow of popular protests, including anti- and pro-democracy movements, as well as struggles over issues of identity and the environment. Regrettably, this rich reservoir of bottom-up contention has not been fruitfully tapped by social movement studies (SMS) writ large. Tellingly, from 2010 onwards, the top two SMS journals (“Social Movement Studies” and “Mobilization”) have featured only four research entries that drew on Southeast Asian examples. When Southeast Asian movements are examined, it tends to be by area studies scholars, uninformed by the SMS literature, or by political scientists, who overwhelmingly focus on overtly political contention. This panel will therefore engage insights from SMS, facilitate comparative perspectives, and in turn, ignite intra-region and border-crossing theoretical debates. New light is then shed upon certain well-studied movements, questioning current orthodoxies, which tend to be elite-centred, and revolve around political economy and civil society frameworks.
Based on empirical research, this panel illuminates novel ways of integrating local studies of grassroots contention with SMS, whether via a culturalist lens, or an institutionalist orientation. Sensitive to local particularities, our papers will address not only the overtly political contention, but also the less obviously political, which is so often overlooked. Amidst the apparent tensions between discipline and area studies, we illustrate their mutual complementarity. The analytical rewards, we argue, are far-reaching; besides contributing to theory development, an integrationist approach reinforces the “synergy between region and discipline”
Conference Presentations by Meredith Weiss
Asia’s political landscape is in flux. Conventional, institutional taxonomies are limiting: class... more Asia’s political landscape is in flux. Conventional, institutional taxonomies are limiting: classifying regimes along an authoritarian–democratic continuum suggests a static, homogenous categorization that aligns imperfectly with the experience of most citizens. Policy access, civil liberties, and political empowerment are less broadly disseminated in the illiberal regimes predominant across Asia than in liberal democracies, and unequal even in the latter.
Authoritarianism cannot preclude political participation, but it may push engagement into informal, less visible, more creative, less readily suppressed niches. Even in more liberal polities, the core attributes of ‘democracy’ are unevenly distributed; not all actors have equal chance of being heard or influential. What most characterizes these struggles across regimes is the asymmetry of available resources, options and alliances. Moreover, a dichotomous division of civil society and political society fits poorly at best where new online media, transnational networks, and other dimensions of political space—the discursive and material terrain of politics—transcend or sidestep both territorial and institutional boundaries. Such a division is further complicated by the mix of formal and informal organizations and networks within ‘civil society’, including in authoritarian regimes, and the fact that actors from civil society, and not just the state itself, participate in policing political space.
In the face of these complex dimensions and ongoing transformations, political space bears closer examination. That need is especially keen in authoritarian or hybrid (electoral authoritarian or semi-democratic) contexts, where political space may be obscured, manipulated, or subject to novel or subtle means of construction, policing, and constraint.
This panel aims to deconstruct and disentangle political space across interactive subnational, national and transnational scales; across categories of individuals and groups, including those with greater or lesser access to decision-making power; and across modes and media, from street protests and rallies, to documentaries and blogs, to petitions and press conferences. Our focus in these papers—on China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Burma—is primarily outside formal, or electoral politics, although a given actor or group may also use available institutional channels for influence.
Among the key questions the papers in this panel explore are: How do activists navigate across scales and institutional forms, to find venues and allies? What actors benefit from new technologies of participation, and in what ways? How do categorical inequalities structure access to voice, given changes in available political space and allies? Who creates, controls, and polices political space—as some of these arenas may be outside the purview of the state itself? And taking the papers as a group, the task for our discussants: given the mutability of political space, how do we best conceptualize patterns of participation and representation across Asian political regimes?
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Papers by Meredith Weiss
Conferences, Talks and Panels by Meredith Weiss
Abstract:
Southeast Asia has seen dramatic political and social change in the last decade. Accompanying this sea-change is the ebb and ow of popular protests, including anti- and pro-democracy movements, as well as struggles over issues of identity and the environment. Regrettably, this rich reservoir of bottom-up contention has not been fruitfully tapped by social movement studies (SMS) writ large. Tellingly, from 2010 onwards, the top two SMS journals (“Social Movement Studies” and “Mobilization”) have featured only four research entries that drew on Southeast Asian examples. When Southeast Asian movements are examined, it tends to be by area studies scholars, uninformed by the SMS literature, or by political scientists, who overwhelmingly focus on overtly political contention. This panel will therefore engage insights from SMS, facilitate comparative perspectives, and in turn, ignite intra-region and border-crossing theoretical debates. New light is then shed upon certain well-studied movements, questioning current orthodoxies, which tend to be elite-centred, and revolve around political economy and civil society frameworks.
Based on empirical research, this panel illuminates novel ways of integrating local studies of grassroots contention with SMS, whether via a culturalist lens, or an institutionalist orientation. Sensitive to local particularities, our papers will address not only the overtly political contention, but also the less obviously political, which is so often overlooked. Amidst the apparent tensions between discipline and area studies, we illustrate their mutual complementarity. The analytical rewards, we argue, are far-reaching; besides contributing to theory development, an integrationist approach reinforces the “synergy between region and discipline”
Conference Presentations by Meredith Weiss
Authoritarianism cannot preclude political participation, but it may push engagement into informal, less visible, more creative, less readily suppressed niches. Even in more liberal polities, the core attributes of ‘democracy’ are unevenly distributed; not all actors have equal chance of being heard or influential. What most characterizes these struggles across regimes is the asymmetry of available resources, options and alliances. Moreover, a dichotomous division of civil society and political society fits poorly at best where new online media, transnational networks, and other dimensions of political space—the discursive and material terrain of politics—transcend or sidestep both territorial and institutional boundaries. Such a division is further complicated by the mix of formal and informal organizations and networks within ‘civil society’, including in authoritarian regimes, and the fact that actors from civil society, and not just the state itself, participate in policing political space.
In the face of these complex dimensions and ongoing transformations, political space bears closer examination. That need is especially keen in authoritarian or hybrid (electoral authoritarian or semi-democratic) contexts, where political space may be obscured, manipulated, or subject to novel or subtle means of construction, policing, and constraint.
This panel aims to deconstruct and disentangle political space across interactive subnational, national and transnational scales; across categories of individuals and groups, including those with greater or lesser access to decision-making power; and across modes and media, from street protests and rallies, to documentaries and blogs, to petitions and press conferences. Our focus in these papers—on China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Burma—is primarily outside formal, or electoral politics, although a given actor or group may also use available institutional channels for influence.
Among the key questions the papers in this panel explore are: How do activists navigate across scales and institutional forms, to find venues and allies? What actors benefit from new technologies of participation, and in what ways? How do categorical inequalities structure access to voice, given changes in available political space and allies? Who creates, controls, and polices political space—as some of these arenas may be outside the purview of the state itself? And taking the papers as a group, the task for our discussants: given the mutability of political space, how do we best conceptualize patterns of participation and representation across Asian political regimes?
Abstract:
Southeast Asia has seen dramatic political and social change in the last decade. Accompanying this sea-change is the ebb and ow of popular protests, including anti- and pro-democracy movements, as well as struggles over issues of identity and the environment. Regrettably, this rich reservoir of bottom-up contention has not been fruitfully tapped by social movement studies (SMS) writ large. Tellingly, from 2010 onwards, the top two SMS journals (“Social Movement Studies” and “Mobilization”) have featured only four research entries that drew on Southeast Asian examples. When Southeast Asian movements are examined, it tends to be by area studies scholars, uninformed by the SMS literature, or by political scientists, who overwhelmingly focus on overtly political contention. This panel will therefore engage insights from SMS, facilitate comparative perspectives, and in turn, ignite intra-region and border-crossing theoretical debates. New light is then shed upon certain well-studied movements, questioning current orthodoxies, which tend to be elite-centred, and revolve around political economy and civil society frameworks.
Based on empirical research, this panel illuminates novel ways of integrating local studies of grassroots contention with SMS, whether via a culturalist lens, or an institutionalist orientation. Sensitive to local particularities, our papers will address not only the overtly political contention, but also the less obviously political, which is so often overlooked. Amidst the apparent tensions between discipline and area studies, we illustrate their mutual complementarity. The analytical rewards, we argue, are far-reaching; besides contributing to theory development, an integrationist approach reinforces the “synergy between region and discipline”
Authoritarianism cannot preclude political participation, but it may push engagement into informal, less visible, more creative, less readily suppressed niches. Even in more liberal polities, the core attributes of ‘democracy’ are unevenly distributed; not all actors have equal chance of being heard or influential. What most characterizes these struggles across regimes is the asymmetry of available resources, options and alliances. Moreover, a dichotomous division of civil society and political society fits poorly at best where new online media, transnational networks, and other dimensions of political space—the discursive and material terrain of politics—transcend or sidestep both territorial and institutional boundaries. Such a division is further complicated by the mix of formal and informal organizations and networks within ‘civil society’, including in authoritarian regimes, and the fact that actors from civil society, and not just the state itself, participate in policing political space.
In the face of these complex dimensions and ongoing transformations, political space bears closer examination. That need is especially keen in authoritarian or hybrid (electoral authoritarian or semi-democratic) contexts, where political space may be obscured, manipulated, or subject to novel or subtle means of construction, policing, and constraint.
This panel aims to deconstruct and disentangle political space across interactive subnational, national and transnational scales; across categories of individuals and groups, including those with greater or lesser access to decision-making power; and across modes and media, from street protests and rallies, to documentaries and blogs, to petitions and press conferences. Our focus in these papers—on China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Burma—is primarily outside formal, or electoral politics, although a given actor or group may also use available institutional channels for influence.
Among the key questions the papers in this panel explore are: How do activists navigate across scales and institutional forms, to find venues and allies? What actors benefit from new technologies of participation, and in what ways? How do categorical inequalities structure access to voice, given changes in available political space and allies? Who creates, controls, and polices political space—as some of these arenas may be outside the purview of the state itself? And taking the papers as a group, the task for our discussants: given the mutability of political space, how do we best conceptualize patterns of participation and representation across Asian political regimes?