Bandung humanism and a new understanding of the Global South : an introduction

Abstract

As one of the most significant events of the immediate post-colonial period, the 1955 Bandung Conference, officially known as the first Asia-Africa Conference (Konferensi Asia-Afrika), brought together delegates from twenty-nine newly independent states representing more than half the world’s population at the time.1 In addition to recent monographs and edited volumes,2 special issues of academic journals were published in 2015 and 2016 on the occasion of fiftieth anniversary of the Bandung Conference.3 While bringing important insights to our understanding of the Bandung Conference and its legacies, these recent studies have focused primarily on geopolitical, diplomatic, and global social justice issues. There remains a need to critically assess and unveil the dynamics, mechanisms, and impact of transnational flows of ideas and practices about culture, society, economic development, and governance within the Global South, which can be traced back to the mid-1950s.