Page 117 - Transformasi Masyarakat Indonesia dan Historiografi Indonesia Modern

Djoko Suryo

of “culture” in the anthropologists’ sense;
5. The transformation of societies (for example, moderniza-
tion or industrialization);
6. Social movements and phenomena of social protest.
The first two groups can be single out because they have
already institutionalized themselves as field, regardless of the
importance of their subject matter. Historical demography is a
rapidly growing and fruitful field, which can be developed in
each area in the Southeast Asian region. The major interest for
the social historian of historical demography lie in the light it
sheds on certain aspects of family structure and behaviour, on
the life curve of people at different periods, and on intergene-
rational changes within Southeast Asian societies. The perspec-
tive of dynamism of the region from within in this case can be
identified. Urban history as well as rural history also posses a
certain technologically determined unity. It also reflects the
urgency of urban problems which have increasingly become
major, or at least the most dramatic, problems of social plan-
ning and management in modern industrial societies, such as in
the urban centers in each country within the region, in which
the local dynamism can also be understood. The other clusters
of concentration related with the history of classes and social
groups could also be developed in the region, for example about
aristocracy, local elite, peasants, workers, and professions. His-
tory of “mentalities” and “culture” would be fruitful to be
developed in the plural society in the region of Southeast Asia.
Issues on transformation of societies in relation to the process
of modernization and industrialization will be the most inter-
esting topic dealing the regional dynamism in the Southeast
Asian region. While the works on the social movement and the
social protest will be able to provide the explanation of true
regional history from the bellow or from the within in the South-
east Asia from the past to the present.
Generally speaking, the regional history from within in the

96