ABSTRACT
Home to a variety of world religions, writing systems, languages, and cultural traditions, Southeast Asia is a region known for its immense ethnic diversity. While this diversity is a blessing, allowing for cultural enrichment and fusion, it has sometimes stood as a curse, with Southeast Asia beset by various ethnic conflicts. This chapter examines some of the concepts, cases, and solutions related to ethnic conflicts in Southeast Asia. It outlines two distinct forms, secessionist and communal conflicts, illustrated in terms of Acehnese secessionism in Indonesia and Muslim-Buddhist violence in Myanmar. It also notes how these forms of conflict overlap, illustrated in these cases and in Mindanao in the Philippines. The chapter concludes by discussing different forms of peace suited to each form of ethnic conflict, with autonomy helped to address secessionism and more diffuse mechanisms helping to manage communal conflicts.
