Marginalisation, Indigeneity, and Human Rights in Contemporary Southeast Asia

This groundbreaking volume explores the state of human rights issues across several Southeast Asian countries and examines the extent to which those rights are recognized and protected in the region, underscoring the need for transformative policies that foster genuine inclusion and respect for Southeast Asia’s diverse and marginalised populations. Drawing on rich empirical research from Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia, the contributors reveal the complex intersections between law, politics, identity, and lived experience. Rather than treating marginalization as isolated phenomena, the chapters demonstrate how structural inequalities are continually reproduced through state policies, humanitarian governance, armed conflict, and entrenched social norms, while simultaneously highlighting the resilience and agency of affected communities. The book is comprehensive in approach, spanning issues of statelessness, forced migration, indigenous dispossession, gender inequality, child marriage, human trafficking, and the enduring legacies of authoritarian violence. By amplifying minority voices, the book captures how shifting socio-political climates directly impact the dignity and well-being of the people involved. The book urges a reconsideration of current frameworks and marks a compelling call to acknowledge the humanity, rights, and dignity of those often left at society’s fringes. The book will therefore be an indispensable resource for scholars and postgraduates in the fields of human rights, indigenous peoples, Southeast Asian politics, and Southeast Asian studies more broadly. Policymakers working in exclusion and injustice in Southeast Asia may also benefit.