Narrow Results

Contributing to a nuanced understanding of the life and afterlife of the 19th century Filipino artist Félix Resurrección Hidalgo’s painting, The Church against the State (circa 1904), and also how it has been (re)written by the National Museum of the Philippines, this chapter explores power as an ideological and reciprocal framework that facilitates the dynamic connections between the personal and the political in colonial and contemporary Philippines. It traces how power is manufactured through self and proxy agency and monastic and museological authority which then shape artistic expressions, cultural practices, and knowledge production. As a critical take on knowledge production that is visual and textual, I examine how individual and institutional power manifests itself and how it moves across time and space based on close readings of archival data and anecdotes, analysis of artworks using standard art historical methodologies and critical theory from formalism to semiotics, and embodied research experience. Inspired by a New Area Studies approach that is multi-disciplinary and critical of hegemonic apparatuses such as the church, state, and museum and incorporating a transregional perspective that braids complex systems of contact, exchange, and transfer in Southeast Asia, this chapter on the Philippines constitutes a local response to the colonial and contemporary global challenge of censorship of artistic expression and/or academic and press freedom in other countries like the litigious Singapore and Thailand.

“Fake news”, or disinformation, is a contemporary phenomenon whose potential to impact on societal and political institutions have been widely documented by scholars. How have governments in Southeast Asia responded to the threat posed by disinformation? To address this, this chapter employs securitisation theory to evaluate political responses in Singapore and Malaysia towards disinformation. It has two key focuses: first, what empirical insight can securitisation theory provide towards explaining the heightened political salience of disinformation in both countries? Second, how have political actors in Singapore and Malaysia securitised disinformation, and what are the subsequent socio-political implications? The securitisation of a political issue gives credence to the urgent need for emergency measures and the mobilisation of resources to resolve a purported existential threat. While disinformation has been evidenced to be a societal problem, this chapter advances that the securitisation of disinformation by the Singapore and Malaysian governments can be construed foremost as politically expedient decisions within the unique socio-political contexts of each country. Specifically, it argues that state actors have sought to instrumentalise disinformation to justify the passing of wide-reaching legislation. In both cases, the passing of these laws has allowed the governments to consolidate political power, increase regulatory oversight and censor criticisms against the state. More broadly, this chapter highlights how authoritarian states have increasingly sought to respond to the global challenge of disinformation by adopting securitisation as a transregional response. The findings problematise the notion of securitisation as an optimal societal response to disinformation, and emphasises the need to guard against consequential encroachments upon media freedom and civil liberties arising from such political responses.