Established in 1986, the Social Issues in Southeast Asia (SISEA) Programme was renamed Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS) Programme in 1995. The RSCS is devoted to the study of key issues in the social and cultural development of Southeast Asia, including urbanisation, migration, ethnicity, religion, nation-building, civil society, family and gender.

Projects and Activities

• Project on Language, Nation and Development in Southeast Asia.
  
  The project aims to study how the language policies of Southeast Asian countries were and continue to be influenced by nation-building and development, especially economic development, considerations. Academics and experts from Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam were invited to a two-day workshop, 26-27 November 2003, held at ISEAS. Selected papers from the workshop will be published in an edited volume. Leo Suryadinata and Lee Hock Guan are the project coordinators.
  
  
  

• Project on the History of Nation-building in Southeast Asia.

  This project (1997-2002) aims to look at the processes of nationalism, nation-building and regionalism in Southeast Asia in the last four decades through a historical perspective.  It covers the selected cases of Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore which will be examined by five prominent historians of the respective countries.  The project aims to produce a series on the nation-building histories of the five countries and a sixth volume that takes a regional view.  Professor Wang Gungwu is the project coordinator and series editor. The most recent meeting was held on February 2001 where it was decided that the final manuscripts should be ready for the publication by 2002.

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