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Compared to other Festschrifts in honor of Professor William J. Gedney, this volume with a variety of papers on synchronic and diachronic studies of Tai languages and Thai literature best [...]

Opinion. Focuses on the experience of Jose Gaston, a wealthy sugar hacendero from Victorias in the Visayan Island of Negros, during the World War II. Information on Gaston; Details on Negros; Reference to the Japanese occupation of the island.

On 31 December 1985, Singapore left the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), turning against the ‘New International Information Order’ demanded by UNESCO at that time. In October 2007, after 22 years of absence, Singapore rejoined UNESCO, looking for an intensification of cultural and scientific exchange. Taking this example of reviving co-operation between Singapore and UNESCO, this paper assesses the concept of ‘creative industries’ as a boundary concept that allows for increased co-operation between players with generally opposing knowledge concepts — as manifested in their respective knowledge and cultural politics. The paper starts with a conceptual discussion on the crossing of boundaries. This is followed by an assessment of first, UNESCO's and second, Singapore's gradual repositioning towards culture. While UNESCO turned from distinctly separating ‘culture’ and ‘market’ in the 1970s and 1980s to an increased openness for profit-oriented conceptualisations of culture today, Singapore identified the economic potential of culture, creativity and the arts, and therefore the need to foster these as part of its development into a knowledge-based economy. The underlying differences in interests and the orientation of content, expressed by the traditionally opposing conceptualisations of knowledge and culture, are still valid today, yet the concept of ‘creative industries’, adopted by both sides, seems to offer a common meeting ground. It acts clearly as a bridge, and hence a boundary concept, allowing for an intensification of mutual co-operation. This is discussed in the final part of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) is today one of Burma's largest remaining ethnic opposition armies. This paper investigates ethnic politics of the SSA-S and their strategic use of media. It argues that Shan insurgency today has moved into a new phase characterised by its intense involvement with mass media. The paper examines, on the production side, the Shan insurgency's media products and its networking with the Thai press. On the reception side, it explores how the images of ethnic insurgency are consumed by Shan audiences living in exile, analysing how long-distance Shan nationalism is generated through the spectatorship of these ‘militarised’ images. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reads the debates of the Straits Settlements Legislative Council to trace the political contentions over policies affecting the Chinese community in Malaya. These contentions brought the Straits Chinese unofficials to engage the racial ambivalence of British rule in Malaya, in which the Straits Chinese was located as both a liberal subject and an object of colonial difference. Contrary to conventional historiography which portrays Straits Chinese political identity as one of conservative loyalty to the Empire, I show that the Straits Chinese developed multiple and hybrid political identities that were postcolonial in character, which would later influence the politics of decolonisation and nation-building after the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working from recently declassified Australian and British government files, this paper examines the archival evidence on policy thinking in London and Canberra towards the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) during the period 1970-75. The article argues that one of the main reasons for the Heath government's decision to deploy a token military force in Southeast Asia as part of a multilateral defence arrangement with Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore was the desire to uphold these Commonwealth connections. By contrast, Canberra was beginning to question the value of such arrangements in a rapidly changing Southeast Asian strategic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policies of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) related to heritage preservation and promotion have been spreading worldwide for the past few decades. This ethnographically focused paper examines two UNESCO devices, the Crafts Prize and the Awards of Excellence for Handicrafts, as they apply to the contemporary Laotian textiles scene. It questions in particular the uses and values locally assigned to these international certifications of excellence and their mobilisation in the commoditisation of fabrics. On a larger scale, it considers what those devices reveal and entail regarding a ‘traditional’ handicraft that is, from now on, entangled between trade and the ‘politics of culture’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a critical historical analysis of the Muhammadiyah movement in Singapore. I argue that four processes have been crucial in the emergence and sustenance of the Muhammadiyah within a predominantly non-Muslim society: the symbiotic relationship between the leaders and their followers, the formulation and subsequent reformulation of the ideology of the movement, political opportunities which were judiciously exploited and the availability of a wide array of infrastructures. The Muhammadiyah, as will be shown, provides an informative example of an Islamic movement in Southeast Asia that has transcended the challenges faced by the minority Muslim population by making effective use of the limited resources at its disposal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that Lao bureaucrats who migrate to the uplands offer possibilities for re-thinking the immutability of upland–lowland distinctions and the power of the modern state. The specific focus is on low-ranking government officials on the Nakai Plateau in central Laos who are positioned at the nexus of state authority, development schemes and the rural poor. Nakai is a site of nationally significant resource utilisation and practices that has provided a model for development across the country. Officials' experiences in Nakai suggest that the upland–lowland contrast can provide valuable understandings of power when combined with an awareness of social processes that reproduce and shift the meanings ascribed to these nominally distinct domains. Significantly, the experiences of mobile marginal officials highlight an idea of state power as the potential to grant prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Calatagan pot, with an inscription around its rim, is one of the very few existing archeological evidences of ancient writing in the Philippines. It was discovered in Calatagan, Batangas and bought by the Philippine National Museum in 1961. Having since eluded decipherment, the present paper proposes a strategy which combines traditional palaeographic techniques and cryptographic methods. By means of this procedure, a tentative decipherment of the inscription is proposed here. The preliminary results show that the inscription is some kind of ancient spell or charm written in a central Philippine language with a Javanese admixture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with the consequences of the increasing commercialisation of the rice industry in west Indramayu from the mid-1880s to the late 1930s. Instead of prosperity as a result of growing rice for sale in a free market, local peasants found their survival being threatened by traders who had them bound to a vicious cycle of debts and who acquired much of the rice they produced. The rice growers in west Indramayu were impoverished far more than the peasants growing cash crops such as sugar elsewhere in Java. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research has sought to understand why mixed communities in Indonesia have been torn apart by violent conflict. By contrast, little is known about how people live together successfully in the mixed, low-conflict communities that exist in abundance throughout the Indonesian archipelago. This paper explores the inter-communal relations in the multiethnic, Christian-Muslim coastal village of Oelua in Roti, Nusa Tenggara Timur province. Mechanisms of agreement across ethnic, religious and livelihood differences have shaped and reproduced a low-conflict community — including transfers of land, labour, technology and surplus; use of customary law and conflict management; and social mixing and interpersonal relations. The findings suggest that there are lessons to be learned from communities like Oelua about how to foster social and economic inclusion, which could inform national and regional political agendas concerned with governing difference in a post-New Order Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical studies of Burma-China relations have emphasised warfare, seen from the perspective of Chinese sources. One commonly studied event is the thirteenth-century Mongol invasion of Bagan. Burmese sources describe the flight of King Narathihapate (1257-87) from the Mongols, thus earning the Burmese epithet 'Taruppye'. 'Tarup' now refers to the Chinese, but the identities of the people and region to which the term applies have not been constant. This paper discusses the question of the identity of ' Tarup' in the Burmese chronicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Larisa Efimova on the 1948 revolt in Southeast Asia and another by Karl Hack on the origins of the Asian Cold War.

The article examines the role of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), a pro-Western international labor union organization founded during the Cold War, in the labor movement in Singapore in the 1950s, and how that involvement related to U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. The involvement of a rival organization, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), backed by the Soviet Unions is discussed. The influence this rivalry had on the political thinking of Lee Kuan Yew, who became the authoritarian leader of Singapore, is analyzed.

This article presents an overview of scholarly interpretation of Myanmar. The author credits the unique mixture of historical, cultural and political forces for the ever-changing, contradictory and debatable nature of Burmese society. Contemporary debate generally centers on the conflict between the forces of democracy, as represented by Aung San Suu Kyi, and the military dictatorship that rules the nation. The papers that follow in this issue consider Myanmar's intellectual history from various perspectives.

Investigates the formulation of the Dutch East India Company's treaties and alliances, based on the papers written and in possession of Hugo Grotius. Grotius' commentary on the sultan of Johor; Establishment of a link between `De Jure Praedae' and `De Societae Publica cum Infidelibus;' Justification of Grotius on the cooperation between the Dutch and Johor.

Examines the Malay separatist movement in Thailand from 1945-1949. Background and early experiences; Role of Tengku Mahmud Mahyiddeen, the most influential separatist leader; Reasons for failure of the separatists; Approaching international conflict and its impact; Independent means and the independence movement; `Strengthening Soup.'

This paper uses the example of songket to explore translocal Malay cultural processes in Sambas, West Kalimantan. I argue these intra-Malay cultural exchanges reframe selected Sambas Malay cultural forms as Malay 'cultural heritage', making it difficult to view cultural practices in purely localised terms. Consequently, many cultural forms lose their localised normative values and become aspects of a wider cultural heritage to be preserved, performed and consumed. The paper begins with a discussion of the historical, political and social grounds that forge a sense of translocalism amongst many Sambas Malays. Building on this, the more specific interest in participating in intra-regional Malay cultural exchanges is explained with reference to commodification, internationalisation and institutionalisation., Until recently, the intra-regional or translocal dimensions of contemporary Malay identity processes seem to have been relatively overlooked in discussions of Malay ethnicity. With the exception of studies linking Malay [...]

The Thai literary canon identifies three novels published around 1929 as the first authentic Thai novels. This pronouncement elides the importance of novels published before that date. Because literary scholars focus their teaching, writing and research on novels defined by the canon, lesser-known works have been overlooked or ignored. The current Thai canon obfuscates literary transmission, in particular, the significance of pre-1929 compositions. In this essay, three novels--Mae Wan's Khwam phayabat (1902), Khru Liam's Khwam mai phayabat (1915) and Nang neramid (1916)--are selected to show that these early compositions represent important genres of novels that should be considered for the canon, even though they are seen as less than 'authentic' Thai. This paper examines the three novels through the lens of critical, translation and postcolonial theories. It is a study of vernacularisation, authenticity, hybridity, mimesis, and bi-culturalism., Preamble and caveat As someone not trained in literary studies and teaching in America, I am contesting the Thai literary canon from the margins--disciplinarily and geographically. This paper examines three [...]

Abdul Rahim Kajai (1894-1943), his life and his work, are discussed against the background of socio-cultural developments on the Malay Peninsula in the 1930s. A journalist, writer and author, Kajai played an important role in the emergence of notions of 'Malayness' which made Malays feel different from and hostile to the growing numbers of 'others' in the colony. In particular, his stories, splendid exercises in fragmentariness, suggest a strong nostalgia for the pastoral way of life, at variance with Kajai's own life in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There was a tremendous acceleration in newspaper publishing between 1930 and 1941 despite the Great Depression. The Malay press began to evolve into a site for discussing and debating the circumstances of Malay life in the 1930s. Rather than news, opinions, commentaries, leading articles and editorials made up the bulk of column space in Malay newspapers and magazines of the 1930s. It was a 'viewspaper' rather than a newspaper. New forms of public-opinion making like the editorial, increased participation in the media through letters to the editor and contributors' articles, public readings of newspapers, and the extension of newspapers into classrooms meant that a broader cross-section of Malays were able to access debates and discussions on issues of the day and raises new questions about public life in Malaya among Malays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines declassified archival documents concerning the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948. The documents are from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The author discusses the relationship between Russian and Southeast Asian communists at the time. 1948 revolts in Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines are examined. The author states that there is no evidence that Soviet communist leadership planned to call upon Asian communists to revolt against their governments. The article talks about the actual Soviet involvement.

The article discusses the changes that have occurred in the lives of people who live in rural Thailand as the country's economy has changed from an agricultural to industrialized society from the 1960s through the beginning of the 21st century. Alterations that have been made to the way in which land in Thailand is being used over time is discussed. Changes which have occurred to the way in which villages are viewed are mentioned. According to the article, villages with a common history and identity are becoming scarce.

This article reviews the anthropology literature of Burma, featuring an interdisciplinary approach and how these studies have affected the entire field. The author attempts to convey how anthropology has broadened the overall understanding of Burma and its place in Southeast Asia. He briefly discusses the history of scholarship of Burma, presenting an overview of the work of Ola Hanson, Harry Marshall and Edmund Leach. He also mentions his own work and that of Walter Yuan Jianwei on the Chinese in Burma.

An essay is presented describing the political unrest in post-independence Burma and its resolution. Details are provided regarding political factions such as the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), the Red Socialists, and the Social Democrats. The rise of socialism through parties such as the Revolutionary Council (RC) and the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) is explained. The author argues that factional unity was achieved through hegemonic leaders and centralized government.

The article discusses the significance of the Islam, which is the religion of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, based from the provision in Article 3(1). However, scholars were not able to consult the primary constitutional documents, in which most given varied, ambiguous interpretations. The primary constitutional documents and debates between 1956 and 1957, tracing the origin of Article 3(1), to determine intentions of framers in inserting the provision in the constitution is presented.

The article examines the political, economic and cultural aspects in relation to the extent and impact of trade between Song, China and other parts of Asia. The sudden forceful flow in Song foreign trade impacted Ðai Viêt greatly, helping to incorporate the upper and lower valley of the Red River economically, politically, and culturally. Major change across the land was due to the embarkation of coastal wealth, power and classical Chinese scholarship in the inland capital of Hanoi.

Compares the trajectories over the last two decades of export-oriented 'boom crops' in Southeastern Asia, the industrial shrimp aquaculture and industrial plantation forestry and focuses on the difference in the establishment, operation and politics of these sectors to explain why they have experienced different kinds of growth. Move to an agricultural model; Overview of the establishment of the two sectors; Politics and representation.

Responds to author Anthony Short's article about the Malayan communist insurrection which appeared in the September 2000 edition of the 'Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.' Counter-factual world in which Henry Gurney survived and struggled; Misplaced recognition given to British plans and leaders' role in the Malayan Emergency success; British and Malayan-Chinese narratives' integration.