how could this be accessed? A primary methodological challenge was thus
securing resources and indeed institutional locales where one would find the
study of religion, either as part of the religious studies component, or from
social science and historical disciplinary perspectives.
Universities and tertiary institutions constituted a natural point of entry but
my investigations also highlighted in some contexts the significance of religious
and theological institutions as locales where the academic study of religions
(both within and outside the religious community in question) was given some
importance, particularly in posing the question of comparative religion and
the need to understand this. Some data were also obtained from primary
conversations with Southeast Asian colleagues who teach and research religion
and related themes and problematics, while drawing upon my own first-hand
experience of teaching and researching religious phenomena at the National
University of Singapore. Given the timing of this research at the turn of the
twenty-first century and the geographical spread of the survey, the Internet
was a crucial research tool and source for accessing data. I trawled the Internet
and visited websites of universities and theological and religious institutions,
in addition to securing brochures and other publicity material from the same.
But this approach is also limited in that, in comparison to those in the North
American and European settings, not all universities in the region have the
technological and financial resources to mount comprehensive websites. Apart
from data from the Internet, I also had access to some printed material from
universities, such as brochures of program and curricula descriptions.
In all I looked at data from fifty universities in the region and a handful of
theological schools, from the Islamic, Christian, Catholic, Hindu, and Buddhist
religious traditions. This review does not profess to be all-inclusive and
exhaustive. Instead, its reach is necessarily selective and its parameters have
been determined primarily by access to the relevant material. I have, however,
made an attempt to include the major tertiary institutions and some theological
institutes in the region to document scholarly accounts of religion in the region.
As far as I could ascertain, no previous reviews of the field in question seem
to have been undertaken. In the absence of secondary published material on
this subject, my own study is based entirely on combing through available
primary material.
Mapping the field: religious studies in Southeast Asia
This investigation vis-à-vis the state of religious studies in Southeast Asia has
led me to make observations which are not entirely unexpected or surprising.
Of the 50 universities I looked at, only four formally offer the subject ‘religious
studies’, either in a program or a department of study. Within this very small
cluster, autonomous and independent programs or departments of religious
1111
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1011
1
2
3111
4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1
2
3
4
35
6
7
8
9
40111
42222
3
411
SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
141
