The book contains essays on current issues in arts and humanities in which peoples and cultures compete as well as collaborate in globalizing the world while maintaining their uniqueness as viewed from cross- and interdisciplinary perspectives. The book covers areas such as literature, cultural studies, archaeology, philosophy, history, language studies, information and literacy studies, and area studies. Asia and the Pacifi c are the particular regions that the conference focuses on as they have become new centers of knowledge production in arts and humanities and, in the future, seem to be able to grow signifi cantly as a major contributor of culture, science and arts to the globalized world. The book will help shed light on what arts and humanities scholars in Asia and the Pacifi c have done in terms of research and knowledge development, as well as the new frontiers of research that have been explored and opening up, which can connect the two regions with the rest of the globe.

The book contains essays on current issues in arts and humanities in which peoples and cultures compete as well as collaborate in globalizing the world while maintaining their uniqueness as viewed from cross- and interdisciplinary perspectives. The book covers areas such as literature, cultural studies, archaeology, philosophy, history, language studies, information and literacy studies, and area studies. Asia and the Pacifi c are the particular regions that the conference focuses on as they have become new centers of knowledge production in arts and humanities and, in the future, seem to be able to grow signifi cantly as a major contributor of culture, science and arts to the globalized world. The book will help shed light on what arts and humanities scholars in Asia and the Pacifi c have done in terms of research and knowledge development, as well as the new frontiers of research that have been explored and opening up, which can connect the two regions with the rest of the globe.

Political changes since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998 have had a significant impact on linguistic and discursive practices in Indonesia. The language policy of the state has become less restrictive than in the past, when Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) was vigourously promoted as one of the symbols of the unity of the country's diverse ethnic groups. Monolingualism in public space has given way to more fluid and pluralistic language use, and regional autonomy legislation enacted in 1999 has encouraged expressions of regional identities and aspirations, opening up a space for the promotion and use of regional languages in the media, education and the bureaucracy. Concurrently, technological development, in particular widespread access to the internet, has exposed Indonesian society much more directly than before to global flows of information, giving rise to changes in stemming in part from sources outside Indonesia, but interpreted and shaped according to local conditions and socio-cultural practices. The meeting of these two vectors, one generated internally and the other coming from exposure to global trends, is producing a situation of diversity, fluidity and change in language use and discursive practice in contemporary Indonesian society. While contributors to this volume discuss Indonesian-language expression at the national level, a particular focus on the collection is on regional, local and minority languages, where problems associated with decentralisation find their counterpart in the role that language plays in the workings of regional and national identity politics.