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This qualitative research paper was designed to explore Tai Phake music in Assam State, India, and examine its role in the formation of Tai Phake ethnic identity. Data was gathered from documents and field investigation. The results show that Tai Phake music can be thought of as cultural capital, which propels ethnic identity through the use of language, dress, beliefs, and traditions that help create a collective awareness among people in the community. The construction of Tai Phake ethnic identity through music is carried out via singers, musicians, dancers, traditional costumes, melodies, and the use of Tai Phake language in the lyrics. These processes reproduce Tai Phake ethnic identity through ritual music, entertainment, and traditions, helping to preserve the Tai Phake ethnic identity. The results demonstrate the power of both traditional and modern Tai Phake music in the preservation of local identity, strengthening community relationships and network building between Tai Phake people and other Tai groups in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 'majoritarian turn' identified by scholars of Asian democracy in the 1990s saw the rise of mixed-member majoritarian electoral systems and more centripetal party competition across both Northeast and Southeast Asia. In this paper, we argue that since the 2000s, the institutional pendulum has shifted, with more consensual approaches to democracy appearing to better represent key identity cleavages of gender, ethnicity, and territory—a trend evident not just in East Asia but South Asia as well. This new 'Asian model' typically involves increasing the proportional components of existing electoral formulas and grafting gender quotas, multiethnic party lists, and quasi-federal elements onto ostensibly majoritarian state structures. We show that these reforms have, as intended, mostly increased female and ethnic minority representation and decentralized governance structures. At the same time, however, these de jure changes are not associated with de facto political development in terms of greater democratic quality, counter to theoretical expectations. Indeed, democracy has declined across most of Asia at the same time as its democratic institutions have become more consensual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Studies: Interdisciplinary Political & Cultural Journal is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main focus of studies on ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia is generally their business acumen or the extent to which they are assimilated into their respective country of residence. This paper concentrates on a rather different aspect among this ethnic group, namely the influence of Islam amongst the Chinese, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia. This is a topic on which very little research has been done, especially in terms of identity and ethnicity together with processes of integration and assimilation—in relation to both other ethnic Chinese and the local communities in which they are socially imbedded. Because of the deficiency of empirical data, it is imperative that we understand the historical processes that lead up to the present marginalised position of this group of Chinese. As a consequence, the present paper employs a historical approach towards the study of the Chinese Muslims in their respective local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although historians of traditional Southeast Asian cultures rely primarily on written sources, the societies they study were intensely oral and aural. Research on sound in Southeast Asia has focused on music and musicology, but historians are now considering the wide variety of noises to which people were exposed, and how the interpretations and understanding of these sounds shaped human experience. This article uses an 1899 court case in Singapore concerning a noisy neighbour as a departure point to consider some of the ways in which "noise" was heard in traditional Southeast Asian societies. Focusing on Singapore, it shows that European attitudes influenced the attitudes of the colonial administration towards loud noise, especially in the streets. By the late 19th century, the view that sleep was necessary for good health, and that noise interfered with sleep, was well established. The changing soundscape of Singapore in the early 20th century led to increasing middle class demands for government action to limit urban noise, although these were largely ineffective. The regulations and public campaigns introduced over the last 60 years still face the problem of intrusive noise, both in the public and private domain. The richness of the Singapore material, only some of which has been consulted for this paper, suggests that the Southeast Asian region has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of sensory history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines intersecting notions of distance, place and community across Insular Southeast Asia for the last several hundred years. The piece is not an attempt to chronicle all these affiliations over time and space, but is rather an effort to re-think how people have moved in Southeast Asian history, who they did this with and why. The essay is divided into three parts. The first section looks at some of the meanings of place in the last five centuries, as place has pertained to communities in 'centers' and maritime 'peripheries', as well as in several supposedly discrete arenas. The second section focuses on people, and how different communities in Southeast Asia have envisioned the terms and conditions of movement in divergent ways. The last third of the paper concentrates on period, or how conceptions of community, distance and travel have changed over time. It is hoped that this essay will show how all three of these variables - people, place, and periodization - have intersected in specific, complicated ways in shaping local notions of 'community'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nation building is a major issue in the political agenda of many countries, a project made more arduous in countries fragmented along racial, linguistic, and religious lines. In an attempt to gain some understanding of the issue, this paper examines the trajectory of nation building in Malaysia. Basically, the Malaysia government uses the model of nation-state to create a sense of collective national identity in a multi-ethnic society. It is a top-down approach with the state playing a dominating role. The main political parties are communal parties, based on race or religion. Well-crafted programs of nation building have been not properly implemented. While the government has achieved impressive economic development, it is at the same time becoming more authoritarian and the country faces a range of disturbing social and political problems. Thanks to a growing educated middle class, urbanization, demographic change, globalization, and the spread of the Internet, mass-based civil movements and a multi-ethnic coalition of opposition parties have emerged with the potential of redressing the situation. The study suggests a framework for understanding the trajectory and dynamics of the nation-building project in Malaysia. The framework gives a list of historical forces that are likely to shape the course of nation building in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the state of the study of ethnic tourism in mainland Southeast Asia in light of Wimmer’s and Brubaker’s paradigmatic approaches to ethnicity. The prevailing ‘ethnic regimes’ and their impact on ethnic tourism policies and development in four of the region’s states, China (whose Southwest area is customarily considered part of the Southeast Asian culture area), Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, are discussed as a background to a survey of the principal findings of recent sociological and anthropological studies of ethnic tourism in those countries. The various processes of change engendered by ethnic tourism, revealed in those studies, such as the commercialisation, spectacularization or exoticization of ethnic cultures, the exploitation of the ethnic peoples by outsiders, and the gradual dissociation between ethnic cultures and their bearers in touristic performances are highlighted. While Wimmer’s and Brubaker’s theoretical approaches are not expressly deployed by the researchers, some of their tenets are reflected in the findings. However, it is conclude that the studies fell short of examining the role of mainland Southeast Asian ethnic tourism in the processes of formation and dissolution of ethnic boundaries, thereby missing the opportunity to contribute, or at least integrate into, the contemporary mainstream theorising on ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of scholarship has examined the intertwining of ideological polarization and inter-ethnic tensions during the Cold War. In this context, increasing attention has been paid to the experiences of the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, and how they were affected by international and national-level developments. Less scrutiny has been given to the role of sub-national forces, despite the fact that patterns of ethnic conflict sometimes varied markedly between different parts of a single country. This article addresses this lacuna via the case study of West Java, Indonesia. The article analyses the relationship between the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia , PKI), Indonesia's ethnic Chinese population and anti-Chinese agitation in the 1950s and 1960s. International and national forces encouraged closer relations between the PKI and some ethnic Chinese Indonesians through the 1950s. From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s there were also recurrent episodes of anti-Chinese harassment, driven primarily by anti-communist groups. The strength of the anti-communist coalition within West Java helped make the province the epicentre of anti-Chinese agitation during crises in 1959–60 and 1963. Yet shifts in the configuration of military and political forces in the region meant anti-Chinese actions in West Java during the contentious period 1965–67 were less severe than in some other provinces. Overall the article highlights the need to consider the interaction of not only international and national processes but also sub-national regional dynamics when analysing the relationship between Cold War polarization and inter-ethnic conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 1990s, the number of cross-border marriages between Southeast Asians and citizens of Taiwan has been gradually increasing. Such marriages are typically between women from Southeast Asian nations and Taiwanese men. Today, such women, referred to as Taiwan New Immigrant Females (TNIFs), and their children outnumber Taiwan's total aboriginal population. However, despite their large numbers, TNIFs suffer from stigmatization in Taiwan. This paper adopts ethnographic approaches to explore the ethnic identity of TNIFs to better understand their status in Taiwan. It is expected that the findings might contribute to an improved understanding of Taiwan's immigrant populations as well as contributing to migration studies in general. The findings indicate that interaction with their Taiwan family members plays a significant role in their identity construction, in addition to policy development and societal perceptions. Those who feel cherished by their Taiwanese family tend to have a positive identity and take pride in their ethnic language, dress and food. Others say they feel alienated by a lack of appreciation of their efforts on the part of their Taiwan family and society at large. However, many indicate that they feel the recent policy changes reflect the fact that Taiwanese society has become more welcoming to them, which has had a positive effect on their personal ethnic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burma/Myanmar has been the epicenter of human trafficking and unsafe migration in mainland Southeast Asia. While “root causes” of trafficking are always complex, clearly, counter-productive agricultural and tax policies, political repression, military actions, and widespread human rights violations are heavily implicated in the underlying political ecology of trafficking/unsafe migration. Burma has been the embodiment of an “ethnocratic state,” in that the majority ethnic group in the country seeks to both dominate and exclude minorities. One result is that ethnic minorities have been disproportionately represented among irregular migrants and those most at risk of trafficking. Today, reforms are taking place in Burma. An eager international community embraces an optimism that may be the triumph of hope over experience. Yet Aung San Suu Kyi has warned of the dangers of “reckless optimism.” This paper examines the dynamics of trafficking in Burma and the possible implications of the current reform process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite Asian immigrants have increasingly received attention in the scholarly study as heritage language learners (Lee, 2003; Kim & Chao, 2009; Dixon et al., 2012; Park et al., 2012), there is still a crucial gap in exploring heritage language (HL) maintenance among the multilingual Chinese descendants in Southeast Asia. This study intends to reveal individual influences as well as linguistic and psychosocial factors in maintaining the Chinese language as a heritage language (CHL) among the new generation of Chinese learners in Malaysia. Sets of questionnaires were distributed to 238 informants ages 16-18 native speakers of Chinese. From the statistical analysis fact, it is concluded that 1) under the postcolonial education system, the diverse education stream or the type of school is one of the most influential individual factors on CHL maintenance level, i.e. SMJK>STPC>SMK in that order when considering the overall achievement on the Chinese language as a core subject, while age and gender had least impacted CHL maintenance; 2) linguistic factor which referring to parental language or dialects did not contribute to the differences in their CHL levels due to the fact that the Chinese language is commonly used in their daily lives and domestic domains; 3) attitudes towards ethnic identity as Malaysian Chinese and Chinese language classroom learning anxiety were significantly contributed to psychosocial factors in the given setting. It is hoped that this study helps to reinforce Chinese language maintenance to a greater connectedness between the young generation of Malaysian HL learners and the Chinese HL community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies of women of European ancestry have shown that the average familial relative risk for first-degree relatives of women with breast cancer is approximately twofold, but little is known for Asian women. We aimed to provide evidence for the association between family history and breast cancer risk for Asian women by systematically reviewing published literature. Methods: Studies reporting the familial relative risk of breast cancer for Asian women were searched in three online databases and complemented by a manual search. Odds ratios (ORs) for the association between family history and breast cancer risk were pooled across all included studies and by subgroups in terms of the type of family history, age, menopausal status and geographical region. Results: The pooled OR for women who have a first-degree relative with breast cancer was 2.46 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.03, 2.97). There was no evidence that the familial risk differed by the type of affected relative (mother versus sisters), the woman's age (< 50 years versus ≥ 50 years), menopausal status (pre versus post) and geographical region (East and Southeast Asia versus other regions) (all P > 0.3). The pooled ORs for women of Asian ancestry with a family history in any relative were similar for those living in non-Asian countries (2.26, 95% CI: 1.42, 3.59) compared with those living in Asian countries (2.18, 95% CI: 1.85, 2.58). Conclusions: Family history of breast cancer is associated with an approximately twofold relative risk of breast cancer for Asian women, which is of similar magnitude to that observed for women of European ancestry. This implies that similar familial factors are implicated in breast cancer risk between women of European and Asian ancestries. Genetic factors are likely to play a substantial role in explaining the breast cancer familial risk for Asian women, as similar risks were observed across different living environments and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is one of the quintessential markers of ethnicity. It allows co-ethnics to easily identify one another and underscores in-group and out-group boundaries. Recognizing this, politicians frequently employ ethnic tongues to enhance their political appeal. To what extent does this shape the opinions of their audiences? Utilizing a survey experiment, I test the impact of an ethnic tongue against that of the common political language among the Javanese in Indonesia, the Tagalog in the Philippines, and the Isan people in Thailand. The experiment demonstrates that the ethnic language has a significant impact in both Thailand and Indonesia, but there appears to be little effect of using Tagalog over Filipino English in the Philippines. The findings suggest that ethnic tongues have the potential to significantly enhance political appeals, both among dominant (Javanese) and marginal (Isan) ethnic groups, but when the ethnic group is already the linguistic hegemon (Tagalog), such effects may be limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rohingya living in Thailand undergo a process of de facto integration that is based on a dual performance of nationality requiring the concealment of their Rohingya ethnicity in the public sphere. This dual performance of nationality is a result of their 'double consciousness' in displacement and aims to legitimatize the Rohingya as a minority group in and of Thailand that has its roots in Myanmar; and on which they base their claims to a rights-based inclusion in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 20th century, the expansion of North American Pentecostal and neo-evangelical movements was greatest in the traditionally Catholic countries of Latin America. And in the 1960s the first scientific analysis related to the overseas development of this movement was of Brazil, Chile and Argentina. More recently the conversion process has spread into Africa and as far as Asia. The various dynamics perceptible in the Pentecostal movement today in Southeast Asian cultures clearly made it pertinent to undertake a comparison between the Latino-American and Southeast Asian situations by considering, as the author proposes, the various methods and concepts developed over the last seventy years in the study of the neo-evangelical movements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Post-colonial states in the Asian region have frequently been subject to political tensions derived from their multi-ethnic make-up and, what some have argued to be, the failure of states to adequately represent the interests of their ethnic minorities. This article will look at examples of where states in Asia have failed to adequately represent or otherwise incorporate their ethnic minorities as full and equal citizens. It also considers the range of responses to such perceived or actual state failure in adequately incorporating all citizens, including inter-ethnic and racial violence and separatist conflict. The article will conclude by considering conceptual and actual models of state organization intended to resolve racial and ethnic tensions in the Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lasting legacy of colonial rule across the world is the political salience of ethnicity in many modern postcolonial nation-states. Upon independence, these nation-states had to grapple with the challenging task of nation-building amidst often tense inter-ethnic group relations. This article examines and compares the state approaches towards ethnic diversity of two former British colonies in Southeast Asia – Myanmar and Malaysia. It finds that in both countries, the key similarity is that the state has favoured the numerically dominant ethnic group in its policies. However, while the main ethnic divisions in Myanmar are within the indigenous ethnic groups, the Malaysia's ethnic divisions lie along an indigenous/non-indigenous dichotomy. Given the long histories of these ethnic divisions, any long-term solution will be challenging, but is arguably not impossible. A closer analysis of nationalist concepts in Myanmar and Malaysia suggests that moving towards a more civic form of nationalism is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So far, the study of indigenous people's attitudes towards Indo-Europeans in the era of decolonization, especially in Indonesia, has focused on native militia violence against Indo-Europeans. Serious studies on the desire of the indigenous people to persuade Indo-Europeans to become part of Indonesian society have been neglected. By employing the historical method, this study examines how Indonesian nationalists publicly imagined, framed, and convinced Indo-Europeans of their place as the most recent members of the nation during the Dutch-Indonesian war (1945-1947). The newly-born nation essentially consisted of indigenous ethnic groups, which in colonial times were socially inferior to Indo-Europeans. This study shows that there was a systematic attempt from the Indonesian side to define Indo-Europeans as 'new citizens' of Indonesia and as siblings of native Indonesians rather than a threat to Indonesian nationalism. Indonesian nationalists took various approaches to attract and educate Indo-Europeans. This article demonstrates that the relationship between the birth of the Indonesian nation-state and ethnic minorities is not only marked by violence, as it has been understood so far, but also by Indonesian public discussions about what mixed-race people mean for a multicultural Indonesian society, on how Indo-Europeans influenced the perspective of Indonesian nationalists on the new racial landscape in Indonesia, and on discourse about identity, nation, state and citizenship in the context of the end of European colonialism and the birth of an indigenous state in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses issues relating to the adaptation of notions of hybridity from contemporary Diaspora Studies to the study of Hadhrami migration to Southeast Asia. It also presents a series of short biographies of prominent figures in the networks of Muslim scholarship that spanned the Indian Ocean from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries from perspectives that highlight intersections of religion, language, and ethnicity during that time. Integrating this historical data into the inter-disciplinary theoretical frameworks of contemporary Diaspora Studies approaches provides an opportunity for reflecting on changing conceptions of identity under processes of modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the fringes of the debates on nationhood are minority ethnic groups struggling to preserve cultural identities. To them, globalism is shapeless, indeterminate, unfathomable as to whether it should be desired or deplored. It brings more confusion to the already confounded problematic of identity formation. The struggle of minority ethnic groups used to be against assimilationist national programs imposed by the dominant majority, but now it appears to also be against the rising tide of globalization and its hegemonic elements that tend to erode whatever value was attached in the past to the small group, the indigenous and the particular. On the other extreme, globalization--which belittles the state-nation and the nation-state--liberates the oppressed and the marginalized cultures by making their differentness legitimate, through its arguments that we are--in the ultimate analysis--all different and all the same in one world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To determine the lifetime cumulative incidence of syncope, potential ethnic differences and factors associated with syncope using the Malaysian elders longitudinal research (MELoR) study first wave dataset. Methods: The MELoR study recruited community-dwelling adults aged 55 years and over, selected through stratified random sampling from three parliamentary constituencies. The baseline data collected during the first wave was obtained through face-to-face interviews in participants' homes using computer-assisted questionnaires. During their baseline assessments, participants were asked whether they had ever experienced a blackout in their lifetime and if they had experienced a blackout in the preceding 12 months. Results: Information on blackouts and ethnicity were available for 1530 participants. The weight-adjusted lifetime cumulative incidence of syncope for the overall population aged 55 years and above was 27.7%. The estimated lifetime cumulative incidence according to ethnic groups was 34.6% for Malays, 27.8% for Indians and 23.7% for Chinese. The estimated 12-month incidence of syncope was 6.1% overall, equating to 11.7% for Malays, 8.7 % for Indians and 2.3% for Chinese. Both Malay [odds ratio (OR) 1.46; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.10–1.95 and OR 3.62, 95% CI 1.96–6.68] and Indian (OR 1.34; 95% CI 1.01–1.80 and OR 3.31, 1.78–6.15) ethnicities were independently associated with lifetime and 12-month cumulative incidence of syncope, respectively, together with falls, dizziness and myocardial infarction. Conclusion: Ethnic differences exist for lifetime cumulative incidence of syncope in community-dwelling individuals aged 55 years and over in an urban area in Southeast Asia. Future studies should now seek to determine potential genetic, cultural and lifestyle differences which may predispose to syncope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians have long engaged in marketing themselves by employing distinct speaking styles to signal social standing, competence, or a shared background with their audience. What effect does this use of different language appeals have on voter opinion? Utilizing a survey experiment in Thailand, I test a set of hypotheses about the effect of language on respondent opinions. Relying on three distinct treatments, a formal language register, an informal language register, and an ethnic language, I demonstrate the multiple effects of language on political appeal. The use of a formal register has mixed effects, signaling both high education as well as preparation for national office while also creating social distance between the speaker and audience. An informal register and the ethnic tongue both signal kinship ties to listeners, with the ethnic tongue having a much more profound effect. The results also show that an ethnic overture has greater electoral appeal than formal speech. These findings highlight the causal effect language has in shaping political opinions and illustrate the varied impacts of linguistic hierarchies on political appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the financial implications for studying at a higher education institution, students are faced with many decisions both in terms of the topics they wish to study but also the decision of whether to remain at home or move away. The aim of this article is to compare the experiences of South Asian (Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani) female students to White females, to identify similarities and differences between women from the three Asian groups and also compare changes over time. This article is focused on the term-time accommodation status of these students, i.e. the decision to move away or stay residing in the parental/guardian home during their first year of university. Understanding students’ accommodation choices is important as it can limit the other choices they have to make such as which course to choose and students who are limited to their local institutions can only study what is offered by those particular institutions. We examine this issue by using binary logistic regression to analyse administrative enrolment data on HE students in England for academic years 1998/99 and 2005/06 from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the tensions that emerge when transnational identities are juxtaposed against claims of multiculturalism and de facto assimilation processes. The article focuses on the resettlement of co-ethnics who arrived in China through forced migration between 1949 and 1979 and the generational transitions of their descendants. The Chinese state resettled these forced migrants from Southeast Asia on state-owned farms known as the ‘overseas Chinese farms’ and gave them preferential treatment as ‘returnees’ rather than ‘refugees’. They retained transnational cultural identities which set them apart from the China-born Chinese and suffered further stigmatization during the Cultural Revolution. This article highlights the limitations of using ethnicity as a lens for understanding how ‘difference’ is negotiated in China. In contemporary times the (multi)cultural identities of the refugee-returnees are promoted for the purposes of tourism to help reinvent the farms for economic sustainability. Yet the identity transitions experienced by the children and grandchildren of the refugee-returnees suggest that they are assimilating a national identity that subsumes their overseas Chinese cultures, serving to normalize a Chinese identity associated with the locally born Chinese instead. The article argues that the objectification of overseas Chinese heritage and assimilation ideology work together to selectively highlight China's historical connections to its co-ethnics abroad while simultaneously projecting a new national narrative of contemporary Chinese identity that is distinct from the overseas Chinese. This article on Chinese forced migration and resettlement provides useful insights concerning the negotiation of transnational identity with respect to multiculturalism and assimilation, and further suggests new directions for overseas Chinese studies today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

n this essay, I examine the role of collective identities in democratization processes in Europe and East and Southeast Asia. This study contributes to the latest academic "neorealist-liberal debate" and constructivist theories, by emphasizing a crucial acknowledgement. With the exception of the case of the European Union, which boasts the only peaceful democratization process in the post-war era, in East and Southeast Asia there is strong evidence that the orthodoxy of democratization processes is going to take place. This means that in this vast area, democratization processes will be long-lasting social constructions mixed with strong ethnic consciousness, and therefore, not so peaceful but rather violent processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theravada Buddhism is often practised in contexts of significant ethnic diversity in Southeast Asia, but much scholarship has not sufficiently accounted for the role of this diversity in shaping the imagination of Theravada Buddhism among its practitioners in the region. Examination of Theravada Buddhist communities in the three very different contexts of Singapore, Southwest China and Thailand serves as the basis for consideration of this role. Despite the differences among these settings, Theravada Buddhism in each is shaped by state discourses on race and religion. The ways in which Theravada Buddhism and ethnicity in both local and state forms mark each other merits more attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the practice of Buddhism by the people of South East Asia. It informs that being an ethnic minority, the Karen constituted the second largest population group after the Burman and were known for their large-scale conversion to Christianity. It also informs the Karen formed the first ethnically oriented organization in close association with the British colonial administrators.

This collection of articles highlights issues related to the representation of social meanings and identities in the production and reception of the creative arts in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Burma. The articles illustrate that the creative arts are sites of dialogue which articulate diverse meanings to different audiences. They are forms of representation which generate new identities and provide spaces for artistes to speak. Artistes become agents of change as they negotiate their identities and respond to larger social issues and forces such as gender, ethnicity, modernity, nation building, migration, global flows of culture, militarism and authoritarianism. The articles exemplify ways of negotiating the dominant modes of power that prevail in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Economic & Social History of the Orient is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Cham people had established extensive and intense webs of relationships that encompassed activities in the economic, religious, cultural, and political spheres throughout maritime Southeast Asia. This article seeks to answer the question: What qualities do the Chams possess that allowed them to successfully participate in the cultural and social dynamics in societies other than their own? Throughout the course of this article, I attempt to locate Cham ethnicity in the context of several theories of Ethnicity. This will be followed by an attempt to address this issue through various means namely understanding the phenomenon of "Cham Ethnic mobility" throughout the perspective of "layers" i.e., the "historical" layer, the "religious layer", and the "oppressed minority". I argue that by analysing the Chams through the perspective of these layers, one is able to garner a more nuanced view of the Chams especially in regard to their ability to negotiate cultural and national boundaries of nation states in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the introduction of ethnicity into Southeast Asia, as a component of the nineteenth century British projection of empire. The argument is that rather than projecting a cosmopolitan vision of community, British liberalism naturalised ethnicity through the concept of civil society. This presented a global vision of societies being independent and emerging from the local landscape. These liberal notions of civil society represent an early incarnation of self-determination. The British Empire in Southeast Asia emerged within this intellectual climate, and its early construction reflected this vision. In essence, the British Empire in Southeast Asia was founded on the nebulous idea of providing self-determination to Southeast Asian nations. This notion of self-determination was a qualified concept of independence, framed around opening these civil societies to British trading hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is intended to explore in some empirical detail the relationships between culture, including ethnicity, nature, tourism, development, and political action, and in this connection to focus specifically on what is widely called 'heritage' and its conceptualization and representation in South-East Asia. Heritage is both a narrow concept, literally what is or may be inherited and a broader one pertaining to notions of ethnicity and nationalism, and even global identity. Heritage has become something which the state and its agents, as well as tourists and local communities appropriate and create as an object worthy of touristic attention, though only certain items are selected for this purpose and others are discarded. According to the World Heritage Convention, one which was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1972, cultural heritage embraces a group of buildings or a site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological or anthropological value. In contrast UNESCO defines natural heritage in terms of outstanding physical, biological, and geological features, habitats of threatened plants or animal species and areas of value on scientific and aesthetic grounds or from the perspective of conservation.

While there has been a growing Interest in studies of dress in Southeast Asia among academics in recent years, analysis of the relationship between dress and ethnic identity has been largely neglected. The present article examines this relationship in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. The article begins with a brief survey of writing on dress and ethnic identity in Southeast Asia, with a focus on Indonesia, This is followed by an overview of traditional Irianese societies and dress. The next section examines acculturative influences during the period of Dutch rule and under the early years of Indonesian rule. The final section looks at developments over the past few years in regard to acculturative pressures and the contemporary use of items of dress associated with Irianese identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is one the most confusing and rare malignancy in most part of the world with significantly high occurrence in some populations of Southeast Asia, North Africa and Alaska. Apart from the dietary and environmental factors, NPC is well‐associated with Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV) infection in these ethnic groups. However, the internal molecular mechanism(s) for such association in specific populations is not known till date. Polymorphisms in the genes of histocompatibility locus antigens (HLA) are reported in NPC, but association of any particular polymorphism with ethnicity is not established yet. Here, we report a set of HLA polymorphisms in EBV‐infected NPC samples from Northeast Indian population. These polymorphisms might play an important role for the lack of proper immune function against EBV infection and thus, eventually, for NPC generation in endemic populations like those of Northeast India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]