INTRODUCTION - Ecology and Indigeneity: An Exploration of ASEAN Literatures

Abstract

This special issue on ASEAN works of literature seeks to commemorate the founding of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment-Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASLE-ASEAN). An inaugural ASLE-ASEAN conference on Southeast Asian environmental literature and ecocriticism, titled Global in the Local, was organized at the National University of Singapore, in August 2016. Our objective in sharing select papers from this conference, that have been further expanded and revised through this special issue of JOE, is to share ecological concerns regarding the ASEAN region with a larger readership. We wish to celebrate the founding of our organization, as well as record the beginnings of a larger conversation on the interactions between literature and nature within ASEAN.