Navigation

Structural and rock-cut sites across South and Southeast Asia have been examined by art historians as sacred places of worship, as spaces for economic and social exchange, as expressions of royal power and patronage, and/or as locations for lay and ascetic interactions. While these different approaches prompt us to ask different kinds of questions, they converge on how identities of ‘place’ are constructed. For this Soliciting Contributors session, we would like to invite individual papers that address the nuances of ‘place’ articulated and/or conceived at sites in South and Southeast Asia.For example, place can be construed of as ‘home’ (to an individual, resident, community, and/or the divine) and place can be a destination, a temporary locale, or be miraculously manifested (for a visitor, pilgrim, ascetic, and/or the divine). Place might also be defined primarily through performative actions (rituals, renovations, acts of remembrance and/or memorialization, negotiations with past identities, and/or imaginative acts) that equally contribute to a site’s identity. Specifically, what are the place-making activities that create and characterize a site? We also welcome papers that address place as having layered identities that reveal the complexities of lived and/or desired experiences. With this line of inquiry, we can ask how sites are made more meaningful. By recognizing the fluidity of ‘place’—that it is a construct that is constantly redefined and reimagined—the papers in this session will contribute to a reassessment of how select sites in South and Southeast Asia have been studied and understood.