INTRODUCTION

This sentence in a long paragraph, which considered the history of institutions which are engaged in Southeast Asian Studies within Southeast Asia itself, seems to have two implications: first, it is notable that an organization for Southeast Asian Studies was established in Vietnam relatively earlier than in some other Southeast Asian countries. Second, it is not clear whether this Department played its role as an independent research institute. Western scholars count Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and Malaysia's Department of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Malaya, among the leading institutions of this region. Until the 1990s, outsiders might have perceived that “Vietnam is not something” which falls within the scope of Southeast Asian Studies (Halib and Huxley 1996, p. 4; Reid 2004, p. 15).

However, Vietnamese scholars contend that they have developed Vietnam's Southeast Asian Studies programme viewing Southeast Asia as both a geographical entity with a long history and cultural tradition and a strategic region for modern development. Based mainly on the arguments of Vietnamese scholars, this study has traced the construction of Southeast Asian Studies as an academic subject in Vietnam. The study has also paid heed to the institutionalization of Southeast Asian research institutions and their activities focusing on the perceptions and evaluation of Vietnamese scholars.

Firstly this chapter provides a historical overview of the institutionalization of Southeast Asian Studies focusing on the relevant research institutions in Vietnam. Secondly, it describes the perceptions of Southeast Asian Studies inside Vietnam and the local evaluation of the effort to indigenize Southeast Asian Studies. In this regard this study has taken note of Vietnamese scholars’ perceptions and assessment of Southeast Asian Studies performed by outsiders, primarily by Western scholars; in other words it concerns the perceptions and evaluation of Southeast Asian Studies conducted by Southeast Asian insiders and its origin in an indigenous Vietnamese point of view. And finally, this chapter examines the construction and limitations of Southeast Asian Studies in Vietnam, including the issue of this field as one which advocates interdisciplinary regional studies.