Our research team, representing six Singapore institutions of higher learning, combines three disciplinary approaches—history, anthropology, and legal studies—to study the creation of archival knowledge in modern Southeast Asia, from the late eighteenth century to today. We break from conventional studies of knowledge production by focusing on the marginal figures who were (or are) involved in procuring information for the archives. Through critical examinations of such figures’ records and testimonies, we answer questions that still challenge scholars and policy-makers today:

• How is information—evidence, intelligence, stories, data—collected on the ground?
• When do everyday peoples engage with efforts to collect information? When do they resist?
• How is information transformed even before it reaches the archives or another repository?
• How reliable is the information that reaches the archives? Or the desks of state officials?
• How can we recover marginal voices from official reports, court records, and other materials?

Our research team will (1) study the production of archive-based knowledge from the bottom up, and (2) produce a new "Archive of the Underclasses" to amplify the voices of information providers and collectors on the ground.

PI & Co-PI(s): Maitrii Victoriano Aung-Thwin, Matthew Reeder, George Radics, Ho Chi Tim, Koh Keng We, Simon Creak & Elliott Prasse-Freeman
Collaborators: Kwa Chong Guan & Samson Lim
ARI Team: Aishah Alhadad & Hema Kiruppalini

Funding Agency: Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP40121-0007)
Project Duration: 14 February 2022 –13 February 2025