Movements In Asia Research Articles

Asian Women in the Ecumenical Movement: Voices of Resistance and Hope

AbstractThroughout Asian ecumenical history, Christian women have found ways to organize themselves and create structures that give them the space to articulate their concerns and contribute their theological and leadership skills to the church and society. Asia's complex context has played a pivotal role in framing the contributions of women to the ecumenical movement, while the ecumenical movement in Asia has played a key role in helping define feminism, feminist theory, and feminist theology for this continent, contributing to national‐level initiatives in each Asian country as well as to regional and to World Christianity. At the same time, ecumenical women in each nation of Asia have linked with secular women's efforts and with women of other faiths to bring transformation in the lives of women, to challenge violence in all its manifestations, and to demand justice and dignity for all women and men.

A Reappraisal of Vietnamese Buddhism’s Status as “Ethnic”

In writings of Buddhism in the West, Vietnamese Buddhists have often been pigeonholed as bringing their Buddhism with them like baggage and replicating the practices of their native land. This paper problematizes this characterization by looking more closely at the way that Vietnamese Buddhism has been reconstructed in the diasporic context. I argue that many of the leading figures of this process were, in fact, heavily influenced by intra-Asian and Transpacific reformist trends and engaged in activist movements in southern Vietnam, rather than coming from “traditional’ Buddhist backgrounds. Furthermore, the orientations that they brought were the product of dialogues with other reform movements in Asia that started earlier in the nineteenth century and were, in turn, a result of the colonial encounter. Therefore, rather than a single transference from East to West, what actually took place was a multi-nodal and multidimensional conversation between Asian reformers from different countries and traditions, Western scholars, and Western converts to Buddhism. Consequently, what has been established in the West by Vietnamese is not simply an adaptation of Vietnamese traditional Buddhism to a Western context, but the creation of a new, invented tradition that we can call Vietnamese Transnational Buddhism.

ВЛИЯНИЕ РУССКОЙ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ НА ПЕРВОМАРТОВСКОЕ ДВИЖЕНИЕ В КОРЕЕ (1917-1919 ГГ.)

This article seeks to address the question of how the influence of the October Revolution reached Korea and to what extent it affected the outcome of the March 1st Movement. The author analyzes the documents from the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the articles of the official mouthpiece of the colonial government Maeil Sinbo from 1917 to the mid-1920s. Based on the analysis of the primary sources, the author reveals two main channels of receiving information of the revolutionary events in Russia. The first of them was the official newspaper of the Governor General. The main actions of the government of Soviet Russia covered by this newspaper aroused such great interest among the Korean public that in order to prevent an “incorrect interpretation” of these events, the Governor General had to repeatedly dedicate the front page of the newspaper to the articles directly or indirectly condemning the 1917 October Revolution. The second channel was the Korean labour migrants in Primorye. Coming to Russia in search of a better life, most “unnaturalized” migrants faced difficult economic and social conditions. The February Revolution of 1917 which opened the discussion of the future of the Korean population in the Far East became a prerequisite for the politicization of a large part of the labour migrants who witnessed the revolutionary changes in Russia. The author concludes that the ideas of the 1917 October Revolution found active response in the hearts and minds of the masses in Korea. The political and ethnic oppression intensified the social and political contradictions in the colonial Korea resulting in the nation-wide March 1st Movement of 1919 that became the turning point in the history of the world political anti-colonial movement in Asia. The national-bourgeois idea of “gaining independence through diplomacy” suffered a crushing defeat but it retained the spirit of the March 1st Movement in history and laid the foundation for a new generation of revolutionaries who played a crucial role in the events of 1945-1953.

Kudumbashree: Promoting the Self-Help Group Model of Empowerment Through Women Entrepreneurship in Kerala - A Study.

Women are the basic unit of the society. They become even more critical as a long-term solution to a sustainable livelihood. The women entrepreneurship through empowerment aims to create human resources within the productive sector and to sustain for the further development process. Kerala is only the state in India that attained a remarkable status fulfilling all the criterion of various social well-beings compare with some of the developed countries in the world, which is widely known as ‘Kerala model of development’. This achievement reflects in respect of literacy level of women, salary or wage structure of employment, technical and professional services, women got equality with men. This Political and socio-economic scenario within the state, reinforce to redefine the consciousness about poverty concept. In this sense, poverty is dynamically viewed as freedom of choice from a socio-economic functioning than only the concern of income or money. Again, poverty reduction is not only the matter of an overall economic growth in a society, but also that interconnected with various social aspects like women empowerment and women entrepreneurship. All these multi-dimensional approach lead the government to form a female community intended poverty reduction project in the state and results to the birth of “Kudumbashree”. The mission has set as self-help groups (SHG) model of women empowerment to encouraging the wide range of female entrepreneurial activities. Now Kudumbashree became one of the largest women's movements in Asia. This research study was conducted within the time period of three months from July to September 2015, among the female entrepreneurs those who are actively participating in Kudumbashree mission in Kerala. The aim of this paper was to explore the activities and influence of Kudumbashree and the way it stimulates women empowerment, as well as female entrepreneurship.

Kudumbashree:Promoting the Self-Help Group Model of Empowerment Through Women Entrepreneurship in Kerala-A Study

Women are the basic unit of the society. They become even more important as a long-term solution to a sustainable livelihood. Women entrepreneurship through empowerment aims to create human resources within the productive sector and to sustain for the further development process. Kerala is only the state in India that has attained a remarkable status, fulfilling all the criterion of various social well-beings compared with some of the developed countries in the world, which is widely known as the 'Kerala model of development'. This achievement is reflected in the literacy level of women, salary or wage structure of employment, technical and professional services, equality of women at par with men. This political and socio-economic scenario within the state reinforces to redefine the consciousness about the poverty concept. In this sense, poverty is dynamically viewed as freedom of choice from a socioeconomic functioning than only the concern of income or money. Again, poverty reduction is not only a matter of an overall economic growth in a society, but also that is interconnected with various social aspects like women empowerment and women entrepreneurship. All these multi-dimensional approaches led the government to form a female community intended poverty reduction project in the state and resulted in the birth of "Kudumbashree". The mission has set up the self-help group (SHG) model of women empowerment to encourage a wide range of female entrepreneurial activities. Now, Kudumbashree has become one of the largest women's movements in Asia. This research study was conducted within the time period of three months from July to September 2015 among the female entrepreneurs those who are actively participating in the Kudumbashree mission in Kerala. The aim of this paper was to explore the activities and influence of Kudumbashree and the way it stimulates women empowerment as well as female entrepreneurship.

Publicizing Independence: The Filipino Ilustrado Isabelo de los Reyes and the “Iglesia Filipina Independiente” in a Colonial Public Sphere

ABSTRACT On August 3, 1902, Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino (1864–1938) proclaimed the establishment of an independent Philippine church, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI). Some of its activists (and later de los Reyes himself) soon began to publish two periodicals that served as the church’s official organs, containing important documents such as its constitution and pastoral letters. In this article I argue that these publications were of central importance to the IFI in its early years. They gave it a public voice, allowing it to bring its own concerns and interpretations of events to the Philippine public sphere. In doing so, the writers, especially de los Reyes, engaged in debates with other contemporary periodicals such as the Dominican friars’ Libertas and Pedro A. Paterno’s La Patria. At the same time, and in addition to these local concerns, these early IFI publications were essential to presenting the new Filipino national church as part of a global Christian community and to establishing the first contacts with other independent Catholic movements in Asia and beyond.

Before Bandung: The Anti-Imperialist Women’s Movement in Asia and the Women’s International Democratic Federation

AbstractThe 1949 Conference of the Women of Asia held by the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) amplified a new anti-imperialist solidarity movement for women in the global South. Leftist feminists emerged from anticolonial movements to organize mass-based women’s groups, a process that created new alliances between regional women’s groups. In India, and across Asia, most groups concentrated their efforts on rural women embedded in the agricultural economy. This article looks at the forms of solidarity and the ideologies of anti-imperialist women’s activism that turned the charity model of Western feminist internationalism on its head. Before the celebrated Bandung Conference of 1955, Asian and African WIDF members emphasized a solidarity of commonalty as well as one of complicity in the international women’s movement to fight colonialism and neocolonialism in the new postwar order.

Book Review: Emerging Trends in Factory Asia: International Capital Mobility, Global Value Chains and the Emerging Labour Movement in Asia by Surendra Pratap

Book Review: <i>Emerging Trends in Factory Asia: International Capital Mobility, Global Value Chains and the Emerging Labour Movement in Asia</i> by Surendra Pratap

Understanding Conflict, Change and Power after the Financial Crisis

The most significant progress in the study of political conflict has been related to turmoil, insurrections and rebellions. Revolts against colonial powers in Africa, Asia or the Middle East, transitions to democracy and the struggles against dictatorships in Latin America or Southern Europe, guerrilla and insurrectionary movements in Asia or Central America, the fall of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, or the sequence of demonstrations against international institutions and global financial powers that started in 1999 in Seattle, all these processes of conflict and resistance have invigorated the field of studies in successive waves. The seminal works of authors such as Charles Tilly, Sidney Tarrow and many others are related to the rise of the civil rights movement and the student protests of the 1960s and 1970s. The influence of these authors is enormous, and the debate they generated and the criticisms they received prove it. In Europe, the events of 1968 were the breeding ground and inspiration for many scholars – not only sociologists – which paved the way to the incorporation of these concerns in universities and research institutions.

Collective Farming Through SHGs: A Case of Kudumbashree

Kutumbashree was launched in 1998 as a community network to work in tandem with local self-governments for poverty eradication and women empowerment. Kutumbashree is one of the largest women’s movement in Asia with a membership of 41 lakhs representing equal number of families. Collective farming is an initiative introduced by Kutumbashree to encourage cultivation by neighbourhood groups (NHGs/SHGs). It facilitates to enchance the agricultural production by bringing fallow and cultivable waste land into agricultural use, and has significance as a food security measure. Women enter the programme as cultivators as opposed to agricultural labour and control the means of production and access formal credit which helps in increasing the returns from farming. Joint liability groups (JLGs) of women farmers are formed under the collective farming initiative to help women cultivators access agricultural creditfrom the banking system. The paper highlights the various processes of promoting the JLGs of SHG women and how they take up collective farming in Idukki district of Kerala by presenting various case studies. Through the collective farming programme of SHGs, the twin benefits of poverty eradication, food security and financial returns through agriculture, and increased agricultural production are being accomplished by the poor women.

The Oxford handbook of Christianity in Asia

The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia. Edited by Felix Wilfred. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, Pp. 684. $160.00 cloth.)Felix Wilfred's edited volume, The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia, is a substantial resource that should be on the shelves of every library serious in its research of theology and religion. Unlike a dictionary or an encyclopedia that seeks breadth in its scope but potentially delivers a work that lacks depth, the Oxford handbook achieves the latter through insightful and clearly written essays on a range of issues related to Christianity in Asia. The editor offers in the general introduction that the handbook intends to provide a hermeneutical reading of Christianity in Asia and not necessarily a comprehensive study through an alphabetical accounting of the topic. The handbook unapologetically delimits the conversation as a way to shape the discourse of Christianity in Asia. Some may take issue with this approach arguing that the editorial decisions are rather limiting. Others, however, will find that this method provides much more than a cursory glance.The handbook divides into five overarching parts: Mapping Asian Christianity (Part I); Cross-Cultural Flows and Pan-Asian Movements of Asian Christianity (Part II); Asian Christianities and The Social-Cultural Processes (Part III); Asian Christianity in Interaction with Asian Religious Traditions (Part IV); and Some Future Trajectories of Asian Christianity (Part V). Each of the five major sections consists of its own introduction which frames the section's conversations. Part I provides an informative survey of Christianity in Asia throughout five separate regions including West, South, Central, Southeast, and East Asia. In this part, one can appreciate the interpretive flow of the section moving from the birth of Christianity in Western Asia (Middle East) to interreligious work. It sets up the overall text to make a compelling argument with regards to the hybrid nature of Asian Christianity and the reason Asian Christianity appears so readily to incorporate interreligious dialogue and ways of being unlike some of its Western counterparts. Part II moves from regional expressions of Christianity in Asia to an exploration of particular characteristics that help to form general patterns and movements in Asian Christianity. Here, the contributors identify Asian theological trends and scriptural hermeneutics, critically reflect upon ecumenical, missionary, Pentecostal and charismatic movements, introduce regional indigenous Christianities, and offer a cogent piece on the Christian feminist movement in Asia. …

China's Dominance Hypothesis and the Emergence of a Tri-polar Global Currency System

This study assesses whether the international monetary system is already tri-polar by testing what we call China's ‘dominance hypothesis’, i.e. whether the renminbi already influences exchange rate and monetary policies strongly in Asia, a direct reference to the old ‘German dominance hypothesis’ which ascribed to the German mark a dominant role in Europe in the 1980s. Using a global factor model of exchange rates and a complementary event study, we find evidence that the renminbi has become a key driver of currency movements in Asia since the mid-2000s, especially since the global financial crisis, in line with China's dominance hypothesis.

Kudumbashree as a Catalyst for Economic Empowerment of Rural Women through Self Help Groups in Kerala

The Empowerment of women in economic, social and political settings has become one of the most important concerns of modern and elite world of 21 st century. The organisation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) constitutes a widely accepted development strategy for women empowerment and poverty alleviation. The present paper focuses on the role of Kudumbashree (KDMS) in women's economic empowerment through SHGs in Kerala. It is one of the largest women's movement in Asia having over 37 lakh members covering more than 50 percent of households in Kerala. The broad objectives of the study is to examine the demographic profile of the KDMS members, to identify the effect of the various demographic variables on economic empowerment of KDMS members for the sub samples based on age, marital status, educational level and occupation. The study is mainly based on primary data from 150 KDMS members collected through interviews and meetings. Secondary data from research studies, annual reports, websites etc of government and non-governmental organisations were also used. Data collected was carried out by using structured interview schedule and data analysis done through applying ANOVA as the main statistical technique, using SPSS software. The demographic profile of Neighbourhood Groups (NHG) members selected as sample reveals that majority of the members in KDMS are married and most of them belong to the age group of 31 to 45 years. It was found that there is economic empowerment among the members with respect to certain demographic variables. Statistical significance in the inter group differences between the various categories of demographic variables and economic empowerment in general and with respect to certain specific economic parameters were also identified. KDMS acts as a catalyst for economic empowerment of women by providing economic security, social solidarity and political betterment of women of the particular region.

Singapore, 1915, and the Birth of the Asian Underground

AbstractThis paper examines the 1915 Singapore Mutiny within the context of border-crossing patriotic and anarchist movements in the early twentieth century world. It traces some of the continuities and discontinuities with later revolutionary movements in Asia, especially in terms of networks and the sites of their interactions. Through this, it reflects on the meaning of the ‘transnational’ at this moment in Asian history.

Asian American critique and Moana Nui 2011: securing a future beyond empires, militarized capitalism and APEC

In light of the United States’ 2011 declaration of an economic and military policy refocusing on the Asia-Pacific region, Kuan-Hsing Chen's argument for Asia as method can be expanded in Asian American critique to consider Asia and the Pacific as method. A critical analysis of Asian American settler colonialism in Hawai‘i and in the United States constitutes one such methodology that mobilizes a mode of self-reflexive inquiry in Asian American critique and conjoins it to a decolonizing and deimperializing movement in Asia and the Pacific, underscoring the need for Asian American settlers to challenge the US settler state and its assault on indigenous peoples and to enact a future beyond empires. On a global scale, US settler colonialism and its seizures of indigenous lands enable and are enabled by US imperialist practices in Asia and the Pacific. The Moana Nui 2011 conference in Honolulu countered the militarized capitalism of empires represented by APEC and the TPP, illustrating the ways that peoples of Asia and the Pacific can build on each other's struggles and enact economies that will sustain us beyond empires, economies premised not on the production of scarcity that drives capitalism but on the restoration of abundance.

Economic Growth and Sustainability: A view from China

Lau Kin Chi is an Associate Professor teaching Cultural Studies at the Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She is co-chair of Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), a forum and network of activist scholars in Asia. She has been involved in various global projects, and is member of the Board and International Coordinating Committee of PeaceWomen Across the Globe. She is also Board Member of China Social Services and Development Research Centre (CSD), and former associate director of the James Yen Rural Reconstruction Institute (YIRR). Her books include Colours of Peace: Stories of 108 Women in China; Resurgent Patriarchies: Challenges for Women's Movements in Asia; Beyond the Financial Crisis: People's Responses and Alternatives in Action; The Masked Knight: Collection of Writings of Sub-Commander Marcos; Subaltern Studies.

Women's movements in Asia: feminisms and transnational activism

Women's movements in Asia: feminisms and transnational activism

Growth and evolution of high-technology business incubation in China

The business incubator is an innovative organizational entity, with origins in the United States, designed to provide a supportive environment for new ventures. This innovation was adopted by Chinese government in the late eighties as part of a plan to address market failure in innovation and to win the global game of technological competition. The successful diffusion and subsequent reinvention of this innovation in China has resulted in one of the most successful business incubation movements in Asia that is second only to the United States in the number of business incubators. Chinese incubator models initially tended to be monolithic in form due to the heavy influence of government as innovation gatekeeper guiding their creation and operation; however local demands, such as the need to attract well educated overseas Chinese students back to the homeland, have led to indigenous incubation approaches within these broad parameters as manifested in the second generation of incubation approaches. This contribution traces the growth and evolution of the two phases of business incubator growth in China, taking into consideration determinants of incubator success, along with the role of government, and the macro-environment for new venture creation. Related incubator level dimensions are discussed followed by the various indigenous genres of incubators that have evolved in China in response to local needs. The study includes a critical assessment of the successes and the challenges that lay ahead of the incubator movement in China. Policy and managerial implications are put forth at the conclusion of the study.

Remembering Asian Anticolonialism, Again

Gertrude Stein once remarked that history must be understood not as the passage of time, but as the killing of centuries. This killing of centuries takes a very long time, she added, and she discerned the final death throes of the nineteenth century—a period in thrall to science and the idea of civilizational progress—in the middle of World War II. Being an American Jew in France, that denouement was realized, for her, by Hitler's Germany, in the moment that it fell to American industrial war making. But Stein's insight might as easily and as correctly be applied to the analysis of anticolonialism and the collapse of European rule in South and Southeast Asia. It was there, after all, that the ideology of a civilizational mission was revealed in all its hypocrisy. Such, at least, is the impression one gathers from reading the works of Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Leela Gandhi, and Benedict Anderson, each of whom offers a perspective on the history of empire's end, and the rise of revolutionary and nationalist independence movements in Asia. As counterpoint to their insistently particularizing narration of these movements, James C. Scott sketches a deep history of recurrent antistatism as the context in which European empires made their ill-fated claims to civilizational exceptionalism, and in which anarchism could emerge as a technics of ungovernability.

Political Regimes and the Media in Asia

This book analyzes the relationship between political power and the media in a range of nation states in East and Southeast Asia, focusing in particular on the place of the media in authoritarian and post-authoritarian regimes. It discusses the centrality of media in sustaining repressive regimes, and the key role of the media in the transformation and collapse of such regimes. It questions in particular the widely held beliefs, that the state can have complete control over the media consumption of its citizens, that commercialization of the media necessarily leads to democratization, and that the transnational, liberal dimensions of western media are crucial for democratic movements in Asia. Countries covered include Burma, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.