Power lies at the core of these important developments, whether in the form of brute military force or as a more capillary 'disciplinary' influence on religious and political subjectivities. New religious, economic and political movements — all drawing deeply on local traditions while proposing new forms of personhood, civil and political society — cut across national, cultural, ideological and sectarian boundaries.

Yet for all that power can be detected in the region, there seems to be little specifically South-east Asian about contemporary scholarly analysis. This is both puzzling and ironic given the central role that earlier ethnographic studies of South-east Asia once played in Identifying distinctively regional modalities of power, prompting us to reconsider how 'power' could be most profitably studied in South-east Asian contexts.

Continuity and Change will be a major interdisciplinary and International conference on South-east Asia. Its key aim is to reopen the debate on the issue of 'power'  — both in real life and academic scholarship — as it is manifest across the region. Conference themes and questions will include:

•    Are there, or were there ever, distinctly 'South-east Asian' notions of power that could still exist as alternatives or complements to Western folk and political models?
•    Are scholars' analytic imaginaries of power in relation to nationhood and governance congruent with the imaginaries of South-east Asians witnessing or involved in such projects and processes?
•    What are the shapes that 'power' takes?
•    How have recent theoretical developments within various disciplines reshaped our understanding of the nature and location of power?
•    How useful is the concept of 'South-east Asia' as a geographical, political and analytical entity in dealing with these issues?