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An introduction is presented for the issue, which is in honour of Professor Ian Brown, on the theme of South Asia's colonial history.

Burma's first well known welfare plan was entitled Pyidawtha or Happy Land, and it was launched in 1952. In vernacular terms, the literal meaning of Pyidawtha is 'Prosperous Royal Country'. The government's attempt to sustain tradition and culture and to instil modern aspirations in its citizens was reflected in its choice of the word Pyidawtha. The Plan failed and its implications still overshadow the development framework of Burma. This paper discusses how the country's major decisions, including whether or not to join the Commonwealth, have been influenced by language; how the term and concept of 'development' were conceived; how the Burmese translation was coined to attract public support; and how the detailed planning was presented to the masses by the government. The paper also discusses the concerns and anxieties of the democratic government led by U Nu in introducing Burma's first major development plan to a war-torn and bitterly divided country, and why it eventually failed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recruitment of the all-female Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army in Japanese-controlled Singapore and Malaya, with a particular focus on the period between the first female guard of honour on 12 July 1943 through to the opening of the regiment's main camp in Singapore on 22 October 1943, has to date been insufficiently studied. Starting with the conception of the Regiment in an Axis submarine by the Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945), this paper examines the ideas and figures that inspired the regiment and the role of Bose and Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan (1914-2012) in mobilizing recruits. A division of labour can be distinguished, whereby Bose's rallies and speeches awakened a desire and commitment to join the regiment, whereas Dr Lakshmi used a door-to-door approach and access to homes to convince parents and to confirm participation. By 22 October 1943, 156 women and girls from among the Indian communities in Singapore and Malaya from a wide range of ethnic, social, religious and language backgrounds had joined the regiment that was part of Bose's plan to liberate India from British domination. Among the key sources used in this paper are Dr Lakshmi's late-1960s autobiography and the 2007 autobiographical account of one of her then 16-year-old recruits, Rasammah Naomi Navarednam (b 1927). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a case study of the H...ôi An-Da Nang corridor in Qu...ang Nam province, Vi...êt Nam, to examine some of the pressures that whale worship - a traditional cultural practice of coastal fishing communities in central and southern Vi...êt Nam - has faced since the Đ...ôi M...ói reforms of 1986. Whale temples, the physical manifestation of the veneration of the whale as an ancestor of fishers, are coming under increasing pressure as tourism development displaces coastal communities from the shores and as the younger generations turn their back on the sea as a source of livelihood. The paper seeks to draw attention to a locally important manifestation of intangible cultural heritage, the existence of which is threatened even before the country's first tentative efforts at cultural heritage conservation come into full swing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of 'speaking beyond trauma' in societies undergoing post-war reconstruction and recovery after decades of colonization and violence. It examines inequalities in the production of knowledge and the re-colonization of knowledge economies dominated by well funded 'experts'. It draws contrasts with the precarious lives of underfunded local knowledge producers, especially musicians and artists, whose compositions transcend methodological nationalisms. The focus of this paper is on the tactile aspect of practising and playing music: perceived by, connected with, appealing to the sense of touch, producing the effect of solidity. The paper examines how music can weave, repair, connect, disconnect and reconnect people and affective communities of belonging in a society shattered by colonization, war and ongoing conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste (1975-99), the Roman Catholic Church grew in importance to the East Timorese people. This is demonstrated by the large increase in Timorese affiliation to the Church: 25-30% of the populace were baptized Catholics in 1975 compared with over 90% in the 1990s. Various explanations have been offered for this growth, many of which identify 'extrinsic' factors such as the religious prescriptions of Indonesian law or the pressures of Islamization. While acknowledging the importance of these factors, this paper argues that certain intrinsic factors substantially influenced the identification of the Timorese experience of occupation with Catholic faith and solidarity. An understanding of these intrinsic factors can provide a more expansive understanding of Timorese culture, experience and history. Drawing on original research into the faith and experience of Timorese people during the occupation, the author explores the relationship between suffering, resistance and the Catholic faith of the Timorese in four areas: language; 'a spirituality of resistance'; martyrdom; and sanctuary and advocacy for the persecuted. The paper draws on the insights of French philosopher and literary critic, René Girard, regarding the importance of Christianity in the context of violence. Girard has argued for a particular understanding of the centrality of the victim in human culture and of how Christianity helps to reveal this centrality. Girard's perspective sheds light on how the Timorese came to terms with their experience of suffering and violence under Indonesian occupation through their identification with Jesus Christ and the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the existence of Shi'ite women in Indonesia as a religious minority group. Although studies of numerous aspects of women's lives and organizations in an Indonesian context are increasing, there have been few on issues of religion and women, particularly on women from minority religious groups. It is only in the last few years that scholars have paid more attention to women's divisions of Muslim organizations, focusing mainly on Sunni Muslim women's organizations such as Aisyiyyah, Muslimat NU, Persistri and Al-Irsyad. However, information on gender and women's roles in minority religious groups is still hard to find. The paper fills this gap by working towards a better understanding of the position and the role of Shi'ite women in their Shi'ite community and within the Indonesian community in general. The subject of the study is Fathimiyyah, the women's division of Ikatan Jamaah Ahlul Bait Indonesia (IJABI, the Indonesian Council of Ahlul Bayt Associations), an Indonesian Shi'ite organization founded in 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What makes a 'classic' in South East Asian studies? In addressing this question, the paper compares and contrasts the features of two books written in the late 1940s and early 1950s: Teodoro Agoncillo's The Revolt of the Masses and George Kahin's Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia. It examines the subject position of the authors and the politico-academic contexts in which their works were written, assessed and consumed. Specifically, the paper explores the following questions. To what extent did scholarly merit define a 'classic'? What features internal to particular area studies stimulated or impeded the making of a potential classic? What sort of political and academic architectures were conducive or unreceptive to potential candidates? In what ways, and to what extent, have the 'rules of the game' changed 60 years later? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of political parties in the parliamentary arena in Indonesia is in its infancy. This has led to various assumptions about the way parties act in the House of People's Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, or DPR) that are based on scanty evidence and are heavily influenced by hostile attitudes to the DPR common in the media and the NGO community. The paper argues that, contrary to assertions that central party leaders exercise strict discipline over their members in parliament, coordination between party and caucuses, or fraksi, is weak, inconsistent and ad hoc. The paper concludes that this situation is facilitated by the eschewing of public votes through the process of decision making by 'consensus', a practice that is actually a vote by fraksi leaders to the exclusion of ordinary members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the links between Bangkok's smoking skyline and the political and economic aspirations of North Eastern Thais. The author proposes that much of what was at stake during the 2009 and 2010 political upheaval was closely tied to a constricted sense of citizenship apparent in the frustrated political and economic aspirations expressed by North East Thailand's urban poor. Through an ethnographic analysis of the experiences of residents of Khon Kaen's railway communities as they participate in a new housing project, the paper explores the obstacles that poor citizens encounter when they try to 'become right with the law' and 'unite' in the name of 'developing' themselves, their communities, their cities and their nation. In reflecting on the politics of belonging that arise during this project, the author's analysis reveals how hard these citizens work to comply with laws and to take part in national development projects, even when many of those same laws and processes frequently work against them. The author argues that, although coups and mass mobilizations form the most public faces of the current political moment, they simply reflect more pernicious, complex forms of the everyday politics facing poor citizens. Indeed, these frustrated aspirations expose the links between Bangkok's burning shopping malls and the charred provincial government buildings of the North East (Isan). The analysis suggests that the events of 2009 and 2010 were not an uprising against the state, but rather a movement demanding recognition and the opening of the political and economic order to the poor as full citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent political events in Thailand have shed light on a long neglected and dangerous corner of 'Thai' history. An oceanic shift in Thai politics, only beginning to be tracked, now threatens the 'Thai race nationalist model', the foundations of which date back to the early twentieth century. Made near complete under military dictatorship after 1958, and perfected after the bloody crackdown of 1976, this model has enjoyed apparent rejuvenation since the 2006 coup, now with the monarchy at its centre. This paper focuses on the question of Lao ethnicity and the North East of Thailand, or Isan. It shows how a combination of linguistics, a pseudo-science of race and ethnicity and historical revisionism have created the appearance of an ethnically and culturally homogenized 'Thailand'. The paper argues that an ethnic history from the periphery has run parallel to the history of the Thai centre, and its broad contours become ever sharper. 'Thailand', as a nationalist construct, now faces competing 'ethnic' narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the resilience of local Cambodian kinship and village communities in the aftermath of devastating violence. These communities are explored as cross-cutting sets of exchange relationships between local community residents, community members and their urban relatives, lay people and Buddhist monks, and the living and the dead -- in the context of the annual phchum ben ceremony, or 'festival of the dead'. The phchum ben ceremony is an act of 'social resilience' in the spirit of this special issue; the ritual is an act of mourning, a demonstrative activity expressing grief, and a process to restore the disrupted social relations between the living and the deceased ancestors, especially those who died during war and the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the state known formally as Democratic Kampuchea (1975-79). The ritual focuses on community cohesion, as most rituals do, and social networks are enacted, recreated and displayed; by participating, people declare their membership of various social groups. The paper emphasizes that, in the contemporary economic and social context, the ritual is also about enacting and proclaiming social hierarchy, highlighting the gap between wealthy and powerful (now often urban) family members and their poor and dependent rural cousins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the recovery in Thailand after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The country worst affected by the tsunami was Indonesia, while in Thailand about 8,000 people were assumed dead. In all the countries affected more females were killed than males. Disasters test the strength of a society's structures and relationships, and this paper focuses on the interplay between gender, vulnerability and social resilience. It provides an overview of social resilience as a concept and theory and discusses vulnerability and resilience in disaster situations. The paper is based on findings from a long period of anthropological fieldwork, which included interviews with survivors and relatives and with Buddhist monks and nuns. Buddhist temples, monks and nuns played important roles after the tsunami and became a refuge for survivors, and this paper explores religion as a resilience factor. Religious explanations and daily and other religious practices were of major significance in the recovery process, and Thai people have shown themselves to be both vulnerable and resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, Hanoi historians have presented different views of the role of communist organizers in the events of 1930–31. Thanks to the opening of the Comintern archives, we can now see that in 1929–30 there was a strong shift in international communism towards revolutionary violence in all parts of the world. This paper discusses the ideological precedents and influences reaching Vietnam from Russia and the Comintern, as well as from the Chinese revolutionary movement. These include the slogans and political analysis of colonial countries that the Comintern and its agents were popularizing in Moscow, Paris and China. They also include the experience of peasant revolt in southern China, in particular what became known as the Hai-lufeng Soviets in Guangdong province in 1927–28, as well as Chinese left-wing politics of 1928–30, when Li Lisan was a dominant force. The author explores the idea that violent anarchism, with roots in the theories of early Russian revolutionaries, may have been a link between these disparate influences. An examination of the attitudes expressed by different Vietnamese communist leaders towards the revolutionary violence of 1930–31 forms an important part of this paper. To what extent were they in tune with the Comintern? Did they find other sources of inspiration closer to home? Were they simply riding a wave of peasant anger? In conclusion, the author discusses conceptions of what the Revolutionary High Tide represented in terms of political change in Vietnam. Was it the coming of age of the proletariat; an expression of peasant grievances that got out of control; or a first step on the path to independence? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the regional network of the Indonesian chapter of Hizbut Tahrir (HT), a transnational Islamic group aiming to revive the Islamic Caliphate. Focusing on the chapter of HT in Indonesia, the paper highlights how Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) supports the activities of other HT chapters in the region and beyond. The key argument of the paper is that an understanding of HTI's transnational activism brings new insights to the current understanding of HT as a transnational movement. The author seeks to show the linkages between HTI and other HT chapters around the world and to analyse the implications of HTI's transnational activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tablighi Jama'at ranks as one of the biggest missionary movements in the contemporary Muslim world and it has spread its network of itinerant members right across Asia. This paper looks at the spread of the Tablighi Jama'at in and across South East Asia in particular, tracing its early arrival in the 1950s to the present. The author identifies it as one of the many currents of globalization that has brought the region closer together in a borderless world that is now being integrated by the forces of capital. Interestingly, the Tabligh is one example of an alternative form of globalization that is faith-driven, and yet spreads across national political boundaries with relative ease. Understanding the Tablighi Jama'at, plus what motivates its members to opt for an alternative understanding and praxis of normative Islam in an age of mass consumerism and global capital, is one of the aims of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most media coverage of the 'Abu Sayyaf, an allegedly militant Islamist group or organization in the Philippines, derives ultimately from official sources, but the information provided by such sources has never been subject to scrutiny. To redress the oversight, this paper critically examines official and media accounts of the 'Abu Sayyaf. Beginning with a survey of media reports from June 2007 to January 2009, it highlights the contradictions uncovered in the sample before accounting for such inconsistencies and other peculiarities in terms of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's propaganda model. Applying the model to the performance of the media in the southwestern Philippines, the paper then looks at the factors that render journalists in the region highly dependent on official sources for data, and hence vulnerable to state disinformation, before exploring the framework of presuppositions that influence popular representations of the 'Abu Sayyaf and the troubles in the zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how ethnic Shan singers use the Burmese language to redefine their own ethnic identity, in the process helping to construct Shans' place in the Burmese national imaginary. The paper focuses on the songs of two Shan artists, Sai Htee Saing and Sai Sai Mao. These two singers have been singing in Burmese for three decades. Both have gained nationwide popularity and are now among the most famous singers in Burma's music industry. The paper consists of two parts. The first one discusses the dynamics of self-representation, examining how Shan artists select and adapt dominant discourses about them to their own task of crafting themselves. The second part investigates the audience reception of these two singers, exploring how particular groups of audience members bring their own ethnicity into interpreting a media text. Through participant observation, interviews with audiences and with the singers themselves, the author seeks to illuminate how such self-fashioning and listening practices reveal complex relations between ethnicity and the popular construction of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although diverse and extensive, scholarship on ethnic riots in South East Asia has given inordinate attention to the genesis, evolution and eventual suppression of such episodes of violence, while many of the available studies have been local in scope and have centred mainly on incidents in modern-day Indonesia and the Philippines. This paper takes as its point of departure some lacunae in the literature on ethnic riots in South East Asia. It seeks to initiate a shift from the study of the causes, processes and conditions that led to the outbreak of ethnic riots to a critical analysis of regional and global responses by both colonial and anticolonial actors in the aftermath. By focusing on the case of the deadly ethnic riots - commonly known as the Maria Hertogh riots - which broke out in Singapore in December 1950, and by drawing connections between local events and wider developments overseas, the paper demonstrates how the study of collective violence in South East Asia and elsewhere can be further enhanced through an analysis of the various strategies that were enacted by colonial states and by the forms of resistance and collaboration of the colonized and other non-state agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, Filipino cinema has presented internationally distinguished narratives on same-sex sexuality. Contemporary films from the Philippines dealing with issues of sexuality demonstrate an increasing interest in Filipino men who identify themselves as gay. Looking closely at two such films, Ang Lalake sa Parola (Man in the Lighthouse, dir Joselito Altarejo, 2007) and Bathhouse (dir Crisaldo Pablo, 2005), this paper examines how Filipino men engage with (or disengage from) the global gay construct. Drawing on ethnographic research, queer theory and post-colonial discourse, this article analyses how these filmic texts reflect the changing diversities of incumbent homosexual and global gay subjectivities. Using notions of cultural imperialism and protest as a conceptual backdrop, the paper considers the relevance of dichotomies - global/local or metropolitan/rural - in understanding appropriations of the gay identity by characters tied to globalized spaces. Its contention is that these texts illustrate how same-sex screen identities are recontextualized, visually and digitically, through self-peripheralization of the body and of the self. The author argues that the reshaping and redistribution of homosexual identities is synonymous with a reconstituted (national) resistance to non-Filipino global gay identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent processes of decentralization have dramatically changed local political configurations and access to resources throughout Indonesia. In particular, the resource-rich regions at the margins of the state have, in the name of regional autonomy, experienced new spaces for manoeuvre in their claims for a larger share of forest resources. By stressing the unfolding relationship between local ethnic elites and the state, and their different strategies in negotiating and claiming authority over forests within Indonesia's changing forest regimes, the paper examines how local-level politics has taken on its special configuration in the remote border region of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The author demonstrates this by focusing on the ongoing struggle over forest resources and by tracking the fate of a political movement for a new district in this resource-rich region. The paper further examines how current local elite strategies and networks can be related back to the period of border militarization in the 1960s and, once again, how these seem to challenge the exclusivity of the Indonesian--Malaysian border. The main argument is that central authority in the borderland has never been absolute, but waxes and wanes, and thus that state rules and laws are always up for local interpretation and negotiation, although the degree of such negotiation changes depending on the strength of the central state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Philippine government, military and media regularly represent the Abu Sayyaf as being the main perpetrators of atrocities in the southern Philippines. This paper challenges such representations through an outline of the phenomenon of kidnapping in the region. Opening with a vignette of the phenomenon drawn from primary sources, the paper then considers in greater detail its objective conditions, the identities of its perpetrators and sponsors, and their interdependencies. The available evidence strongly indicates that kidnappings in the zone are instigated mainly by key power brokers, who engage or collaborate with local armed groups for the purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic nationalism is often associated with the mercantilist view. Being nationalist is viewed as non-conventional, particularly in the age of globalization in which cross-border trade and investment are perceived to bring benefits to all participants. The paper questions this notion of economic nationalism. The author argues that in today's context, policy changes that appear to be 'nationalist' may not be totally inconsistent with policies advocated by liberals. This description of economic nationalism is applicable to Singapore and Thailand. By means of a case study (involving the Shin Corporation of Thailand and Temasek Holdings Limited of Singapore), the paper shows that the governments did not hesitate to arouse local support to maximize their respective national interests while at the same time remaining active in regional and global initiatives. The decisions of the Thais and Singaporeans reflect the trend towards an increasing discomfort with globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper emphasizes the deeply embedded economic interests of Islamic charities: the accumulation of land and property, commercial and financial activities, rather than their role in providing social welfare, educational opportunities, and facilities for individuals to perform the Hajj. These entrepreneurial priorities are global, since the waqf (Islamic endowment) is linked to the homeland of the founders in the Hadhramaut and to Saudi Arabia. The paper appraises the application and success of Islamic finance in the commercial exploitation of these assets. The focus then shifts to the role of shari'a law in determining and shaping the issuance of bonds and derivatives. Throughout the paper, attention is given to the nature of an 'ethical capitalism' that emerges, and a brief comparison is drawn with the Chinese or Confucianist Tong (lineage). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the religio-political role of ulama in Malaysia. Its key argument is that historically the ulama in Malaysia have maintained a symbiotic relationship with various political authorities. From early Islamic history to the Japanese occupation, ulama have usually worked with any power willing to secure their authority and influence. The paper also shows that even when the ulama oppose the government – exemplified by the opposition of Parti Islam Se-Malaysia ulama to the UMNO-led Malaysian government – this opposition tends to stem from differences in politics rather than religious ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the processes and outcomes of Indonesia's first ever direct local elections through an analysis of the 2006 mayoral election in Batam. The paper highlights and seeks to explain a paradox in contemporary Indonesia's local politics: that is, the weakening of political parties' influence in local political change at a time when political parties maintain a monopoly over the nomination of candidates for local government heads. The analysis shows that, instead of parties, party machines and party platforms, wealthy and politically influential local elites have come to dominate electoral competition for local government heads. The paper provides an understanding of how direct local elections have affected the political dynamics of Batam, which was an integral part of Soeharto's patronage system that upheld the New Order regime until 1998. Furthermore, the author suggests that analysing local political change can improve our understanding of Indonesia's political development more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-nineteenth century, as part of Thailand's modernization programme, Thai elites embarked on the conscious construction of a Thai national identity, which included the promulgation of three central elements: chāt [nation], sādsnā [religion] and Phra Mahāgasat [monarchy]. Essentially, these elements came to mean Central Thai ethnicity and the Buddhist religion. This paper seeks to assess the effects of Thai nationalism on ethnic relations in Thailand with an evaluation of the ethnic composition of income inequality. It specifically tests a structuralist model of social exclusion using a variety of quantitative empirical tests that rely on survey and census data in order to uncover the dynamics of Thai nationalism's effect on ethnic economic inequality. The paper ends with suggestions for a new approach to Thai nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although alcohol has long been a feature of Thai society, historical evidence indicates that excessive drinking on a regular basis is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the nineteenth century, there were significant quantitative and qualitative changes in both alcohol consumption and production in Siam, due largely to the introduction of new alcoholic beverages and methods of distillation by Chinese immigrants and Western entrepreneurs. As public drunkenness became more common, excessive drinking was blamed for an apparent increase in violent crime throughout the kingdom. This paper examines how the Thai government tried to manage the upsurge in drunken behaviour and the obstacles it faced in doing so. Most of these problems stemmed from the limits on the kingdom's fiscal and judicial sovereignty imposed by the unequal treaties it had signed with the Western imperial powers; as such, they are indicative of Siam's semi-colonial status during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the imaginations of Asia, the West and various self-concepts in contemporary, post-Reformasi Indonesia. Departing from a problematization of the underlying concepts in recent social science literature, the author asks how Indonesians construct their moral order and their sense of Self, 'Asia' or 'the East' by constructing a Western counterpart. This question is traced with respect to various religious and spiritual orientations and to Indonesian popular culture. Finally, relocated orientations towards other imagined centres in the Global South and East are considered as potential indicators of an increasingly decentred world. The study is grounded in empirical fieldwork with people from various walks of life in different regions of Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting an ethnographic approach, this paper traces the various forms that resilience and vulnerability took in a post-tsunami Sri Lankan village, as well as the interpretations of these two 'action devices' by both humanitarian operators and the survivors themselves. The author shows that the practices of community-based disaster management involved approaches, visions and modus operandi that were highly ambiguous and divergent. Indeed, these practices revealed intense contestation around the concepts of resilience and vulnerability and wide variation in the ways the concepts were embodied by reconstruction actors. Still vulnerable yet already resilient, the survivors were encouraged to employ strategically one or the other of disaster management's Janus faces, calibrating the features that rendered them desirable for gifting: a moving need for help and an untiring ability to cope with uncertainty. To attract additional aid packages, the survivors had carefully to weigh up the level of resilience achieved through training; they had to appear 'just resilient enough' to be eligible for gifting, but not so resilient as to tarnish the image of vulnerability still required to intercept aid. In an attempt to promote resilience at the community level, the humanitarian actors thus ended up creating a 'social drama' with ambiguous and controversial implications. Paradoxically, the most important lesson the villagers learned during the reconstruction was how to retain their position as a 'good product of the tsunami'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, transnational Chinese investors from the Greater China region have been seeking natural and mineral resources in foreign countries. This paper focuses on a mineral-rich region in the Philippines where China's resource-led diplomacy was first launched in 2007. Although foreign Chinese mining companies have made inroads into mineral-rich local communities, they have also encountered resistance from non-state actors, causing their operations to be disrupted and suspended. The authors argue that the local reception of China's resource-led diplomacy can be attributed to two factors. First, in light of the debate on 'China's globalization versus South East Asian state sovereignty', the growing strength of the Philippine state in resisting transnational mining endeavours hinges on the democratic space constituted by both state and non-state actors, resulting from political decentralization and active social activism. Second, it shows that the transnational Chinese actors have an insufficient knowledge base, in which they privilege a top-down state-centric approach that reinforces the patrimonial rule of the Philippine politicians. The authors conclude, first, that such patrimonial rule is largely made possible through the provincial governor as the key agent connecting the national state authority, local government units, mining operators/ investors and the affected villagers. Second, local resistance to resource-led patrimonial rule hinges on the formation of Philippine democratic space. This space remains transient and unpredictable in nature, and so cannot be assimilated into the patrimonial character of the Philippine state. Such democratic struggle is like wind, thunder and lightning -- hard to chase, hard to catch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Duncan McCargo's influential model of 'network monarchy' enables us to understand how King Bhumibol Adulyadej has mobilized his nationwide patronage network to shape contemporary Thai politics. This model, however, focuses mainly on the conflicts between reform-minded virtuous leaders (represented by Bhumibol) and unprincipled, self-serving politicians, and pays insufficient empirical attention to the porous boundaries between the two. The author makes up for this weakness by unravelling the historical process through which Bhumibol has developed a symbiotic, if ambiguous, relationship with Banharn Silpa-archa, regarded as the epitome of unscrupulous rural-based politicians. The author shows that the two have used each other for their respective political purposes. In an effort to protect and advance his personal and dynastic interests, Bhumibol has found it necessary and expedient to rely on Banharn as a valuable political ally. Banharn, for his part, has relied on the king and his proxies to legitimate and consolidate his authority at the local level. By casting light on this interdependence between the two seemingly contrasting types of leader, the paper contributes to a further elaboration of McCargo's model and, more generally, to a deeper understanding of the complexity of Thailand's patronage politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resilience of Asian firms in the face of the current economic downturn in North America and Western Europe is attracting renewed attention to the role of government in sustaining firm competitiveness. The paper adds to this debate by drawing from institutional theory to assess the impacts of selected formal government institutions on business performance in the Philippines. Based on a large-scale survey (n = 658) of business owners in the Philippines undertaken by the World Bank, the study finds that access to finance, the rule of law and regulatory quality contribute significantly to business performance. The policy implications of the findings are fully discussed, along with avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thai-Lao of North East Thailand (Isan), the major ethnic group in a core area of the Red Shirt movement, have long expressed concern with the well-being of the muang -- now nation-state -- in which they reside. This paper explores the proposition that the moral foundations for continuing political engagement at the muang level are explicitly stated in the annual Theravada Buddhist festival, the Bun Phra Wet, celebrated in almost every Thai-Lao village. Moreover, these concerns also involve appropriate actions by the people to correct the systems in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is the contention of this paper that, because North Eastern villagers or their urban-dwelling close relatives from North East Thailand have become workers in a global system of labour, they have come to understand their place within Thailand as what the author terms 'cosmopolitan villagers' rather than as traditional rice farmers. Even as this transformation has taken place, representations of 'rural' North East Thailand that urban Thai encounter in TV programmes, films, fiction and the media have remained predicated on the assumptions that 'villagers' still live lives that are primarily agrarian and that they have inadequate or misguided understandings of the larger world. It is this disjunction between the 'rural' that cosmopolitan North Easterners actually identify with and the 'rural' that Thai urban middle-class people imagine to exist that helps explain why consensus on Thai politics broke down. The actual villagers constitute the base of support for populist movements that in contemporary Thailand have mobilized to make their voices heard not only through demonstrations, but also more significantly through electoral politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the peace agreement has put an end to the 30-year-long civil conflict in the province of Aceh in Indonesia, poverty, parental loss, lack of opportunities and an old tradition have caused a growing number of Acehnese girls and boys to spend between three and ten years in residential Koranic schools [dayah or pesantren]. There, they process their experience of the conflict, be it direct or indirect. In this article, thanks to ethnographical data, the author explores this labour of transformation. An idea of resilience which is culturally based in local societies is analysed. Key issues are the difference between personal and social resilience, plus the transformations that a resilient process enhances in the very culture from which it stems. The dayah have proved very effective structures in facing the needs of the poorest Acehnese children. Nevertheless, the author argues, they tend to shape the children according to a general model that can create exclusion and crystallize pre-existing psychic suffering. This paper indicates that different visions of trauma and memory characterize different parts of the same society, and that selecting one or another is a political choice that is embedded in international policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet relationships, particularly those involving 'Asian' women and 'Western' men, are typically depicted as problematic. This article explores online intimacy between Filipino women and non-Filipino Australian men. It seeks to extend our awareness of the different ways intimacy is understood, measured and materialized online. In exploring how intimacy takes place online and is interpreted by people who may have different emotional repertoires and expectations about what constitutes intimacy, love and romance, the article engages with authenticity, gender performance and the development online of cathexis -- trust, intimacy and love -- across national and cultural boundaries and offline. In the process, it challenges popular myths about Filipino women, their non-Filipino partners and online relationships in general. The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork which entailed interviews and participant observation in the Philippines and Australia and on the Internet with Filipino--Australian couples who met each other through some form of Internet technology. It also draws on the author's ethnographic research on Kasal, an online moderated forum that explores 'Fil--West' relationships. She highlights how participants use the Internet for relationship negotiation in ways that are meaningful to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detective figure, literary and real, emerged in Siam between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to bring clarity to increasingly complex social and political situations. In early detective fiction including the Seup saphakan […] Investigating it All] (1892-97) and Nithan Thorngin […] The Tales of Thorng-in] (1904-05) series this was certainly the case -- mysteries were solved, secrets revealed. In real life, however, the state's deployment of an army of detectives did not so much clarify as codify mysteries. This paper examines the links between the literary and the real detective, arguing that the appearance of detective fiction provided the vocabulary for understanding and dealing with social and political change in early twentieth century Siam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events of the early 1930s in Vietnam left an important legacy to France's literature of enquiry and protest. Writers, essayists and journalists enquired on behalf of their audiences, and in the process developed France's littérature coloniale. By showing an interest in the colonial 'other' and identifying discrepancies between imperial ideology and colonial reality, they formed a new body of thought. This new colonial humanism arguably changed metropolitan sensibilities towards the French civilizing mission. Nevertheless, while they are critical of colonial abuses and in favour of reforms, the authors discussed in this paper do not really question the French colonial project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the quality of the trade statistics of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) by comparing its export/import data with the import/export data of its trading partners (mirror data). The author finds, first, that publicly available Lao PDR statistics compiled by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC) are not consistent with the Harmonized System (HS) of classification. It would therefore be advisable for the Lao PDR to release the HS classification-based data. Second, there is concern about the quality of the import data. For example, total imports from major trading partners are less than half of the total of those partners' recorded exports to the Lao PDR. Lao PDR imports of fuel and gas, vehicles and parts, plus construction materials, do not seem to be correctly reflected in the statistics. The government's policy of controlling domestic prices, irrespective of international prices, seems to produce incentives for import smuggling. Third, the overall quality of the Lao PDR's export data is good compared with its import data. Most of the differences between the respective statistics of the Lao PDR and its trading partners are connected with mineral-related and wood-related products. However, export restrictions on raw logs, for example, which aim to support domestic wood processing industries, seem to produce incentives for export smuggling. The unsatisfactory quality of the trade statistics, especially with regard to imports, has important policy implications. First, there is a large loss in tariff revenue. Second, while annual Lao PDR trade deficits appear to be small or moderate if calculated using MIC statistics, the actual deficits are likely to be far larger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the meaning of poverty in different periods, as defined by the use of language. It examines the creation of codes as a representation of escape from poverty. The author shows variations in the meaning of poverty in Thai society as three overlapping layers: deprivation, used to evaluate the poor in a straightforward way; development poverty, used for negotiating with the government in the sense of receiving development benefits; and social poverty, used to set social hierarchies. All three meanings have become integrated and have been selectively used in differing contexts in everyday life. However, they each share the feature of comparing differing degrees of wealth relating directly to divisions in social class. This reflects people's awareness of the poverty gap in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) is one of the poorest countries in South East Asia. Yet it has great potential for hydropower development, and the Government of Laos plans to build a large number of hydroelectric dams on the tributaries of the Mekong. Among the areas where these dams are being built is the Bolaven Plateau, the country's main coffee-producing region, inhabited by 22,000 smallholder households (15,000 of which produce coffee), distributed in small villages of 40 to 300 households each. This paper describes the attitudes of the farmers displaced due to the construction of dams. Fieldwork was carried out in communities displaced by two dams: the Huay Ho, completed in 1997, and the Xe Katam, whose construction, at the time of the fieldwork in early 2009, was planned to start in the near future. By comparing these different communities, the authors look at the attitudes, expectations and perceptions of those faced with future relocation, as well as the difficulties and coping strategies of those relocated, 13 years after they were resettled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how a social system based on bilateral and non-hierarchical kinship is able to establish and maintain systems of authority. The Muga Lahu in Yunnan practise a bilateral and non-lineal kinship system based on the gender equality principle, and communal life is also based on equal couples' kinship networking, bound to non-lineal ties through marriage. The Lahu here never practise matrilineal, patrilineal or cognatic kinship and descent in daily life, but an individual couple is bound to immediate ancestors through the redistribution of cropland property. In communal life, family separation and farmland reorganization are carried out dynamically through the marriages of the younger generation. The flexible kinship group establishes labour-sharing, ritual-participating and intermarriage groups in everyday life. Therefore, the kinship system is closely bound to farmland redistribution and the continuation of families. This bilateral, non-lineal kinship system constitutes a dynamic social institution, but all couples are equal to each other. Due to the lack of authority over the equality of social units such as equal couples, the Lahu communal authority historically comes from superior external powers, such as the religious power linked with religious movements involved in the Yunnan-Burma frontier formation since the 1720s. The established Lahu political system was destroyed by the coming of the Qing and the Republic states, because of its anti-Han or anti-state stance in frontier history. It is clear that the superior religious power over the kinship network worked as a means of social mobilization through religious movements, and became the authority source for social cohesion in history, but it has been replaced by state-appointed cadres in current communal life in China. The Lahu case shows that more attention should be paid to the relationships between frontier history, dynamic kinship and social organization among ethnic minorities in Chinese and South East Asian frontier societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tattooing, in terms of both practice and tattoo design, has become a significant component of popular global culture and the focus of anthropological studies worldwide (for example, Gell, 1993; Allen, 2005; Kuwahara, 2005; Thomas et al, 2005). Tattoos also played a role in twentieth century identity politics (De Mello, 2000; Atkinson, 2003) and they take on a similar role within the Filipino diaspora. This paper examines how diasporic Filipinos are turning to tattoos, and tattoo designs from the Kalinga ethnic group in particular, to formulate specific expressions of cultural authenticity and identity. Appropriating such tattoos reinvents a Filipino tradition as a way of sustaining and reshaping ties to a newly imagined homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how diasporic indigenous peoples from north Luzon in the Philippines explore their identification through Bibaknets, an electronic mailing group (e-group). Collectively known as Igorots, members are using e-groups to redefine and reconstruct discourses about indigenous identities within the context of their diasporic lives. The interactions of the members on Bibaknets illustrate how translocality is embodied and mediated. Indigenous peoples' identifications transcend places or spaces as these are in turn constructed by them. In investigating the online interactions of diasporic Igorots, I will illustrate how Bibaknets as a virtual community itself serves as a translocal site. It is a space inhabited by members who live and work outside the confines of their villages, regions or nations, and consequently reconfigure new relations that bring about material consequences in the localities where they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a historical perspective on communication among Filipino transnational families. Before the explosion of communication channels and opportunities accompanying the arrival of mobile telephony, cheap international calls and the Internet in the late 1990s, communication between migrant parents and left-behind children was dominated by letters and cassette tapes. For mothers who arrived in the UK in the 1970s, these were the main means of communication for almost two decades. The authors' research is based on a one-year-long ethno- graphic study of Filipino migrants in the London and Cambridge areas of the UK, who typically came to the UK after periods in the Middle East or Hong Kong and were employed as domestic workers or nurses. These were mainly mothers separated from their families for almost the whole of their children's development. Apart from fieldwork with mothers, many of whom recall this early period of their migration as being dominated by letters and cassettes, fieldwork was also conducted in the Philippines, where the mothers' now grown-up children were interviewed. The authors compare the accounts of the mothers and children, and the different qualities associated with letters and cassettes, such as temporality, materiality and the public-private distinction. They examine how the different types of media structure relationships between parents and children and how these media are appropriated in the context of different relationships as part of our understanding of the dialectical nature of media as a process of mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international disarmament debate of the 1920s provided an important opportunity for the Netherlands to raise the international profile of its colonial interests. This paper examines how Dutch participants in the disarmament debate combined the long-lived Dutch principle of neutrality with the different geopolitical situation of the Dutch East Indies. It shows that (1) Dutch delegates did not strictly interpret and apply the principle of neutrality to their colony in the Pacific. This seems contrary to (2) the Dutch perception that the position in Europe was almost identical to the situation in the Pacific. The little attention paid to these different interests in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies arguably developed from (3) a surprising naivety and provincialism concerning the geopolitical position of the Dutch East Indies. These three related conclusions illustrate the unfortunate composition of the delegations to the disarmament negotiations and the ignorance with which the Foreign Ministry intervened in colonial issues, arguably also indicating that Dutch colonial external relations and defence policy were ill-defined and not effectively adapted to the Pacific context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Thai and Western academia have recently paid increasing attention to the changing roles of Thai Buddhist women. Still conspicuously missing, however, are more in-depth studies of female Buddhist saints in Thailand and the attendant symbolism, which would provide a more adequate depiction of the contemporary Thai Buddhist landscape. Similar to the prominent role of the mae chi in monastic education, the emergence of hagiographies and the veneration of female Buddhist saints has not, to date, been given sufficient attention in academic studies. To help remedy this situation, this paper provides a life account of one of the most outstanding female practitioners of modern Thai Buddhism: Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam (1901-1991). A summary of an increasing number of available biographical materials on Mae Chi Kaew's life is followed by a thematic analysis in which the author examines various aspects of her life accounts and her veneration. The purpose is to study the enormous significance of Mae Chi Kaew's biographies and attendant symbolic representations in the context of the religious landscape of Thai Buddhism. The author shows that many hagiographical elements in the sacred biographies of Mae Chi Kaew approximate the hagiographical paradigms not only of the Buddha and other Pali canonical figures, but also of modern saints of the Thai forest tradition. At the same time, however, significant hagiographical and venerational particularities can be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By exploring Islamic charitable clinics in Indonesia, this paper shows how community-based initiatives and zakat [Islamic charitable obligation] agencies have provided wider access to viable health services for destitute families in poor urban and rural areas. Zakat agencies, with their charitable clinics, have recently gained strong support from both society and the government. They have, for example, tried to bring a community response to the current social economic challenges through the revitalization of the zakat and Islamic charity practice. Low-priced, accessible and free medical assistance for poorer families and small economic enterprises provided by the zakat agencies reflect the endeavours of middle class Indonesian Muslims to translate Islamic discourse on social welfare in a more concrete way. The rise of Islamic charitable clinics, whose origins and motives can partly be linked to the Islamic discourse of the welfare of the ummah [the Islamic community], is without doubt a consequence of emerging interpretations of the meaning and function of Islamic aid in contemporary Indonesian Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the most important contributors to the study of Indonesia have observed that the concept of 'rakyat' [the people] has been central to the way Indonesians understand their nation. Yet until now there has been little attempt to consolidate and build on these observations by analysing the nuances and implications of understandings of the term 'rakyat'. In this paper, the author encourages the development of such research by critiquing its use in the period following the Second World War. The author analyses two key novels written by leading authors from opposing sides of a great cultural debate and shows that, regardless of the spiteful divide between left-wing and right-wing, the two authors viewed the rakyat as somewhat inferior. The rakyat was also seen as belonging to the village, but could transform into a violent yet manipulable throng in the city. Despite these pejorative implications, however, the rakyat was also key to the nation's aspirations. The author situates these developments in relation to a longer history of the term 'rakyat'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]