nationalism in the new states, he suggested, depended on the nature and
extent of societal diversity, on one hand, and the success of state leaders in
managing such diversity, on the other.
Nearly forty years after Geertz published this essay, a distinctly Geertzian
approach still dominates the study of post-independence nationalism in Southeast Asia today. Leading historians have reasserted the importance of ethnicity
in the making of modern nation-states in the region.6 Anthropologists have
focused attention on interactions between national state policies and ethnic
minorities across Southeast Asia, whether the small but disproportionately
wealthy immigrant “Chinese” communities or the poor upland populations of
the region.7 Meanwhile, political scientists have devoted considerable energy
to the study of separatist struggles and ethnic conflicts in countries like
Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, while emphasizing the difficulties of managing ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity within these
nation-states.8