Southeast Asia Program Publications Research Articles

Timor-Leste. The land of gold: Post-conflict recovery and cultural revival in independent Timor-Leste By Judith M. Bovensiepen Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2015. Pp. 216. Illustrations, Maps.

Timor-Leste. The land of gold: Post-conflict recovery and cultural revival in independent Timor-Leste By Judith M. Bovensiepen Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2015. Pp. 216. Illustrations, Maps. - Volume 50 Issue 2

Contributors

Previous article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreCarlos Garrido CastellanoCarlos Garrido Castellano is Lecturer of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University College Cork. He has taught widely on Spanish, Lusophone and Latin American visual culture. His research interests focus on visual culture, critical theory, activism and collaborative artistic practices in postcolonial contexts.Daria GhiuDaria Ghiu lives and works in Bucharest. She wrote a book on the history of the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (IDEA Publishing House, 2015) and is an art critic and radio author. Since 2016 she is an associate professor at the University of Bucharest.Vasif KortunVasif Kortun is a curator, writer and teacher in the field of contemporary art – its institutions and spatial practices. He was the founding director of Research and Programs of SALT, Istanbul. A recipient of the Award for Curatorial Excellence from Bard College, he is the chairman of the board of the Foundation for Arts Initiatives.Ana LongoniAna Longoni is a writer, researcher and professor at the University of Buenos Aires and teaches in the Independent Studies Program of the MACBA, Barcelona. She studies the intersections between art and politics in Argentina and Latin America from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Currently, she is the director of public activities for Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid.Michael A. MelMichael A. Mel is of the Mogei tribe in the Mt Hagen area in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). He completed a PhD at Flinders University, Adelaide and was Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Goroka, PNG. He is currently a manager for Pacific and international collection at the Australian Museum, Sydney.Serubiri MosesSerubiri Moses is an independent writer and curator. His curatorial work, writing and research has been presented internationally in Kampala, Hong Kong, Cali, Nairobi, Accra, Johannesburg and Berlin. He was on the curatorial team for the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, ‘We don’t need another hero’, in 2018.Vijay PrashadVijay Prashad is director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He first wrote about Naeem Mohaiemen’s work for journal TAKE on art (New Delhi) in 2010 and appears in Mohaiemen’s film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017).Filipa RamosFilipa Ramos is editor-in-chief at art-agenda, and lectures at Kingston University, London and Institut Kunst, Basel. Ramos is co-curator of Vdrome, was associate editor of Manifesta Journal and contributed to dOCUMENTA 13 and documenta 14. She edited Animals (Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 2016) and curates ‘Animalisk’ at Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden in 2019.Jerssi Esperança Restino PauloJerssi Esperança Restino Paulo is an Angolan student in African Studies at Universidade de Lisboa. In the future, she would like to work with NGOs that support Africa’s development or in matters related to African history.Charles StankievechCharles Stankievech is an artist and Director of Visual Studies, Faculty of Architecture, University of Toronto. From 1996 to 2004 he worked as a licensed atomic energy technician for the world’s largest materials engineering firm that did forensic analysis on architectural, industrial and military assets. He is a contributing editor to Afterall.Nora A. TaylorNora A. Taylor is Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian art at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is author of Painters in Hanoi: An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art (Hawaii, 2004/NUS Press, 2009) and numerous articles and co-editor of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology (Southeast Asia Program Publications, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2012) among other edited volumes.Reiko TomiiReiko Tomii is an independent art historian who investigates post-1945 Japanese art in global and local contexts. She is co-director of PoNJA-GenKon (www.ponja-genkon.net), a scholarly listserv. Among her latest publications is Radicalism in the Wilderness: International Contemporaneity and 1960s Art in Japan (MIT Press, 2016).Clare VealClare Veal is a lecturer in the MA Asian Art Histories programme at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore where she conducts research on Southeast Asian photography, art and visual culture with a focus on Thailand. She received her PhD in art history from the University of Sydney in 2016.Kaelen Wilson-GoldieKaelen Wilson-Goldie is a writer based in New York and Beirut. She is contributing editor for Bidoun and writes regularly for Artforum, Bookforum, Aperture and Frieze. Her first book, Etel Adnan (Lund Humphries), on the paintings of the Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan, was published in 2018. Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Afterall Volume 47Spring/Summer 2019 Published by Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/704207 © 2019 by Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Islam and Politics in the 20th Century Scholarship: A Journal Review of Indonesia

Discourse on Islam and politics during the 20th century is inseparable with related scholarly publications about Indonesia, taking time on that period. Reviewing “Indonesia”, a journal issued by Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University, this writing mainly aims to report the notion of how Islam and politics were being represented in the international scholarly works. Three categorizations of sub-themes are gained by evaluating two numbers of “Indonesia”, they are (1) group and hierarchy, (2) perception and knowledge dynamics, and (3) public figure. The categorizations are used as a framework in analyzing how the notion of Islam and politics was internationally perceived through scholarly works issued during that period. The result shows that the impression of the notion of Islam and politics tends to be perceived as a power for promoting groups formation. The power distribution is another critical substance which can be derived from the group formation. The role of religion, to this extent, can easily be used as a legitimate source for any critical political decision. Societal segregation can be considered as a result of a certain kind of discrepancies in the realm of power distribution among several groups of people. In other words, the role of Islam is very critical in shaping the political expression of the people in Indonesia. Keywords:Islam and politics, Group and Hierarchy, Public Figure

Vietnam. Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967–1975) Edited by K.W. Taylor Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2015. Pp. 180. Maps, Illustrations, Tables, Notes, Contributors.

Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967-1975) Edited by K.W. TAYLOR Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2015. Pp. 180. Maps, Illustrations, Tables, Notes, Contributors. Four decades have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but recently scholars of Vietnam have published many new books redefining the Vietnam War as a 'Vietnamese War'. However, two gaps remain. First, new scholarship on South Vietnam has focused on the First Republic period (1955-1963), which excludes a consideration of Vietnamese experiences in the south at the height of American involvement. American narratives frequently exclude political developments of Vietnam in 1967, including the promulgation of a new constitution and the successful elections leading to Vietnam's Second Republic. Second, few English-language Vietnamese memoirs are available for this later period. Although several Second Republic officials have written books, many of these are difficult to find, dated, or self-serving. Taylor's volume provides an in-depth look at the diplomatic, political, military, economic, and even agricultural workings of the Second Republic from the point of view of the civil servants dedicated to making South Vietnam thrive despite continuous challenges. Voices of the Second Republic features recollections of civil servants. They faced crisis after crisis, from the Vietnamisation of the War to the sudden withdrawal of American troops in 1973 (along with a precipitous decline in aid), to the oil crisis, to rampant inflation. The volume features a helpful and concise introduction to the Second Republic period from editor K.W. Taylor, followed by contributions from Ambassador Bui Diem, Central Intelligence Organisation member Phan Cong Tarn, diplomat Nguyen Ngoc Bich, Vice Minister of Agriculture Tran Quang Minh, Minister of Trade Nguyen Duc Cuong, Judge and candidate for the Lower House Phan Quang Tue, opposition members of the House, Tran Van Son and Ma Xai (of the People's/Socialist Coalition and the Tan Dai Viet party, respectively), Rear Admiral Ho Van Ky-Thoai, and General Lan Lu. These men, all of whom held important administrative, political, or military positions during the Second Republic period, give detailed expositions of previously neglected policy priorities. Nguyen Duc Cuong's chapter explicates the challenges of economic management in South Vietnam while circumstances changed rapidly and Americans withdrew aid. He also shows us how bureaucrats competently managed despite intractable levels of inflation. This chapter's discussion of South Vietnam's oil exploration efforts, along Ho Van Ky-Thoai's reflections on the naval battle with China over control of the Paracel Islands, provides us with much-needed context for understanding the current diplomatic wrangling today. …

Indonesia. Historical dictionary of Indonesia; third edition By Audrey Kahin Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. 724. Maps, Chronology, Appendices, Bibliography.

Historical dictionary of Indonesia; third edition By AUDREY KAHIN Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Pp. 724. Maps, Chronology, Appendices, Bibliography. doi: 10.1017/S0022463416000588 The Historical dictionary of Indonesia, compiled by the noted Indonesianist Audrey Kahin is on its third edition, the first one being published in 1992 under the deft hands of another noted Indonesianist, Robert Cribb, and the second edition published in 2004, a collaboration between Cribb and Kahin. All three editions were under the editorship of Jon Woronoff, who has edited a series of Asian historical dictionaries, from East Timor and Nepal to India and the People's Republic of China. Aside from being an esteemed historian of Indonesia herself and significant other of another celebrated Indonesianist, George McTurnan Kahin, she had been the managing editor of the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) Publications at Cornell University and editor of the important journal Indonesia from 1978 to 1995. She is now the executive director of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies and thus is exceptionally able to sense current interests in Indonesian studies along with extensive personal contacts of Indonesianists and Indonesians. This has been very telling in her choices regarding the dictionary entries. Going solo in this latest instalment, Audrey Kahin continued Cribb's focus on post-1800 political and economic history, especially focusing on the later period of Indonesian history. This gives the dictionary--a more contemporary presence, with a focus on the Reformasi period (1998-present day), especially the developments during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's presidency (2004-14) and the first three months of the Joko Widodo presidency in early 2014. The edition contains 12 black and white maps which very usefully illustrate political changes at the geographic level. It also manages to incorporate the significant political changes of the Reformasi, with an emphasis on decentralisation and shifting from Jakarta-focused to regional-focused events, and putting greater emphasis on the growing importance of political Islam in the post-Suharto period. The dictionary follows the contours of Indonesian nationalist history, with a heavy emphasis on the development of the nationalist movement, the state and its elites. This is no doubt due to Audrey Kahin's interest in political history. This emphasis reduces non-political entries; even entries on culture, for instance, are often selected based on their political importance. While Indonesian politics has been an important arbiter in the development of Indonesian society and culture, using this as a yardstick results in excluding less politically relevant developments or discussing cultural and social development within a political perspective. As a result of the emphasis on following the contours of nationalist political history, the variety of possible entries on colonial society, minorities or other more 'obscure' cultural or social topics are restricted. …

Maurizio Peleggi, ed. A Sarong for Clio: Essays on the Intellectual and Cultural History of Thailand, Inspired by Craig J. Reynolds

A Sarong for Clio: Essays on the Intellectual and Cultural History of Thailand, Inspired by Craig J. Reynolds Maurizio Peleggi, ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2015, 208p.When a stellar cast gathers for the festschrift, the result is both a thoughtful reflection on the past oeuvre by Craig J. Reynolds, who inspired the essays, and a peek into the various issues and debates that will characterize the future of Thai studies.If not directly mentioned, Reynolds' influence and carefully crafted concepts from his decadeslong career in Thai and Southeast Asian Studies pervade the book. This can partly be attributed the contributors' association with Reynolds as his students, colleagues, and friends. However, it would be wrong assume that the volume represents a closed academic circuit. Reynolds' opuses span from the 1970s the 2010s and counting. His seminal works illuminate important aspects of these often turbulent decades, such as the analyses of Buddhist and Marxist writings in Thailand and beyond, the charting of previously under-explored terrain of historiography in Southeast Asia, the clearing of the ground for intellectual and social histories in the area, the probing of the ideas of national identity and globalization, and the meditation on varied aspects of power, including its unorthodox linkage with magic and local knowledge. All the while, he widely borrows conceptual tools from, inter alia, semiotics, feminism, structuralism, and post-structuralism, but always subjects them scrutiny and test in the Southeast Asian weather. The editor Maurizio Peleggi's introductory chapter well captures this across-the-board and seasoned nature of Reynolds' works and thoughts.In the essays that follow, three Reynolds' leitmotifs emerge quite clearly, namely: (1) power in its multifarious manifestations, (2) an emphasis on the outcasts of Thai history, and (3) knowledge, especially in its written forms of manual and historiography. All three permeate the chapters, although some bring each of these themes out more evidently than others.One common ground of all authors is that power operates in many fields. It operates in art historiography, in artifact of museological practices, in Buddha statues, and in beauty. Rather than in the eye of the beholder, according Peleggi in his own essay (Chapter 4), Thai art is a discursive field of power, an intense playground of national myth and colonial rule. Power also operates in the visual sense as art history (and arguably all histories) works to make the past synoptically visible (p. 92), especially through classifying and inscribing meaning in objects. In Chapter 7, Yoshinori Nishizaki argues along the same line, though in a different context, that visibility is a matter of power. In his analysis, it is inscribed in a grandiose observation tower in the provincial city of Suphanburi, the public work that has become a symbol, a source of collective pride and social identity.We can also approach power via semiotics and politics of translation, as Kasian Tejapira illustrates in Chapter 9 where he discusses the term in Thailand in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis and the shock doctrine of neoliberalism. Kasian skillfully traces the transformation of the IMF's notion of good governance as part of its liberalization and privatization package imposed on crisis-ridden economies, its Thai translation as thammarat, which was picked up and used by several groups with various intentions, be it liberal, communitarian, or even authoritarian.The collection also demonstrates that power exists in all levels of a society: it is concentrated in the elites' hands, but also practiced by the subalterns. When these forms of power clash, various mechanisms are called forth resolve the tension, and they can be brute, hegemonic, discursive, or emotional. This formulation of power is encapsulated in a number of essays in the volume. …

Michele Ford and Thomas B. Pepinsky, eds. Beyond Oligarchy: Wealth, Power and Contemporary Indonesian Politics

Beyond Oligarchy: Wealth, Power and Contemporary Indonesian Politics Michele Ford and Thomas В. Pepinsky, eds. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2014, x+178p.The end of the Suharto regime in 1998 Indonesia's population in a variety of ways: it opened the door to democratic governance and the development of a critical and outspoken civil society, and saw a new government retract the strong grip the state held on numerous aspects of civil, political, and economic life. The regime's end also liberated a small group of extremely rich and well-connected individuals. These individuals, risen to wealth and influence under Suharto's protection but not having gone down with him, applied their capital to setting themselves up in the leaderships of the nations' new political parties, to expanding their grasp on resources and industries, and to building a public image sustaining these activities through the television channels and newspapers they owned. The rise of these oligarchs in democratic post-Suharto Indonesia has been worrying and intriguing observers, particularly regarding their influence on democracy, rule of law, and the protection of Indonesia's market to foreign competition. It also raises numerous questions regarding their strategies and modus operandi. Should we understand them as a mutually-supportive class with shared interests, or as individual actors with shared characteristics? How are they placed vis-a-vis other power holders, how do they obtain popular support?While research and publications on the role and influence of in Indonesia has been undertaken, most notably the works of Robison and Hadiz (2004) and Winters (2011), the number of publications remains limited and contains but little debate. Beyond Oligarchy is making an important difference here. The contributors seek to start a discussion between proponents of the oligarchy framework (see below) and scholars drawing on other theoretical traditions, exchanging views on starting points and emphases in understanding and explaining the role of oligarchs in Indonesian politics. This discussion has strengthened the debate and avoided the specter of a of inward-looking scholarly camps (p. x) with a weak collective capacity for understand- ing Indonesian politics. Furthermore, they aspire to take this debate beyond Indonesia and combine their own expertise with broader scholarship in order to refine theories and concepts and generate new insights.The discussion element has come out very well indeed. The authors read each other's chapters and address their colleagues' criticisms and theories in relation to their own ideas. To this reviewer, this is already a very valuable contribution to the debate because it makes the book stand out among so many other edited volumes that do not get beyond a collection of thematically-similar papers. This great result is likely due to the fact that the contributions are based on conversations taking place between the authors during two meetings in 2012 and 2013, thus allowing for reflection and reconsideration.The book consists of nine chapters which, after the introduction by Michele Ford and Thomas Pepinsky, can be seen as falling into three parts. First are two chapters by, respectively, Winters, and Hadiz and Robison in which they outline their theses of the role of in post-Suharto Indonesia. Both chapters, albeit differing in various other aspects, place oligarchs in a position of having captured Indonesia's political institutions for the accumulation of private wealth and social power and as a strategy of wealth defense. These chapters constitute what is referred to as the oligarchy framework of analysis (given the differences in analyses it might perhaps be more illuminating to speak of oligarchy frameworks). The second part of the book consists of chapters by Liddle, Pepinsky, and Mietzner who argue for a study of Indonesian politics that uses broader approaches than the frameworks do, and include a greater variety of power resources, interests, and actors. …

K. W. Taylor, ed. Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967–1975)

Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967-1975)K. W. Taylor, ed.Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2015, 180p.Four decades removed from the fall of Saigon, now is perhaps the right time to revisit the Vietnam conflict, for no longer pressing is the impulse to assign blame, discredit others, or find excuses (p. 159). So begins Lan Lu's contribution to the collection Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967-1975). Edited by Keith Taylor, it consists of chapters by 10 different contributors, each of whom played a role in the administrative, political, and military milieu of the Republic of Vietnam based in Saigon from 1955 to 1975.The collection can be situated in two different contexts. One is the growing interest in the Republic of Vietnam and the efforts of scholars to develop more nuanced accounts of the Second Indochina War that situate the struggle in local as well as global contexts and highlight the agency and ideologies of participants on all sides. Key works in this emerging body of scholarship include Ed Miller's (2013) and Philip Catton's (2002) works on Ngo Dinh Diem and Nu-Anh Tran's work on nationalism in the First Vietnamese Republic (2006). An equally important context is the scholarly trajectory of Keith Taylor, Professor in Cornell's Department of Asian Studies and a renowned historian of Vietnam. In a very personal account published in 2004, Taylor described how over the course of his career he came to contest the three axioms in the dominant interpretation of the U.S.-Vietnam War, namely that the government in Saigon was illegitimate, that the U.S. had no grounds to be involved in Vietnamese affairs, and that the fall of the Republic of Vietnam was inevitable (Taylor 2004).1) Together with his History of the Vietnamese (Taylor 2013), the present volume can be seen as part of the exposition of Taylor's theses that the Vietnamese are characterized by a fundamental North-South division, that their history is driven not by nationalism or resistance to foreign aggression, but rather an inescapable connection to the Chinese political world, and that the struggle of Vietnamese and their allies to create and sustain a non-Communist Vietnamese government after 1945 was a just one (ibid., 620-626).It is an uneven collection, with entries ranging from Bui Diem's 5-page A Vietnamese Perspective on US Involvement, to Tran Quang Minh's 49-page A Decade of Public Service. text could have benefitted from closer editing that would have tightened up some chapters and avoided such things as flights in beach craft [sic. Beechcraft] airplanes (p. 27). In some places, contributors attempt to gloss 2,000 years of history in a few pages; in others, they veer into questionable attempts to refute commonly-held beliefs about the nature of the regime, as in Nguyen Ngoc Bich's description of the so-called Tiger Cages used for solitary confinement in the prison at Con Son island (p. 34).Nevertheless, the accounts provide important insights into life under the Second Republic, reminding us it was a functioning regime attempting to create institutions, build capacity, and carry on the day-to-day operations of governments everywhere. Over the course of the 1960s and early 70s, the Republic came to be shaped by a new generation of highly trained and motivated young officials and activists. As Tran Quang Minh explains, The Vietnam War was not all about killing and maiming, battles lost and won, and American and Vietnamese frustrations. . . . It was for us very much about building a nation and changing lives, about social revolution, rural reconstruction, agricultural development, economic improvement, and building a happy future for our children (p. 87).Moreover, this new generation achieved results that are often ignored. Programs like the Land To Tiller Program (LTTTP), the Accelerated Miracle Rice Production Program (AMRPP), and the National Food Administration (NFA), detailed in Tran Quang Minh's chapter A Decade of Public Service, created millions of new smallholders in the Vietnamese countryside and reintroduced market mechanisms, contributing to an increase in food production so that after years of wartime shortages by 1974 the country was once again largely self-sufficient. …

Indonesia. Beyond oligarchy: Wealth, power, and contemporary Indonesian politics Edited by Michele Ford and Thomas B. Pepinsky Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2014. Pp. 178.

Indonesia. Beyond oligarchy: Wealth, power, and contemporary Indonesian politics Edited by Michele Ford and Thomas B. Pepinsky Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2014. Pp. 178. - Volume 47 Issue 2

Thailand. A sarong for Clio: Essays on the intellectual and cultural history of Thailand — inspired by Craig J. Reynolds Edited by Maurizio Peleggi Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2015. Pp. 208. Appendix.

A sarong for Clio: Essays on the intellectual and cultural history of Thailand--inspired by Craig J. Reynolds Edited by MAURIZIO PELEGGI Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2015. Pp. 208. Appendix. This edited volume is a fitting tribute to Craig J. Reynolds, who for over four decades has influenced the field of Thai studies as a scholar, teacher, and mentor. The introduction, penned by volume editor Maurizio Peleggi, offers a brief but revealing assessment of Reynolds's career arc and commentary on his scholarship. Peleggi describes Reynolds as a master of the 'hermeneutical essay' which reinterprets historical facts in an attempt to tease out possible alternate readings of past narratives. In this volume, an impressive assembly of scholars has used a similar approach, isolating variables within Reynolds's own scholarship and re-calculating them to extract different meanings or pursue new directions. One of Reynolds's most important contributions to the field lies in his ability to shed light on the relationship between the Thai intellectual tradition and the hegemonic nature of the state. This thoughtful and provocative collection of essays raises two important questions related to that crucial intersection of ideas. What role has historical writing played in establishing systems that regulate the proper exercise of power in Thai society? And what intellectual strategies have been deployed to challenge the established order? Many contributors focus on the subversive. Reynolds himself has written on the lives of dissidents and intellectual mavericks in order to understand the condition under which they acquired these labels. Several essays in A Sarong for Clio take up this theme, examining how acceptable practices become subversive as cultural and intellectual paradigms shift from traditional to modern. One example is Thongchai Winichakul's essay on the case of Mr Kulap, a discredited Thai historian whose name became synonymous with the practice of 'fabrication'. Reynolds's own work on Mr Kulap argued that he was ostracised for transgressing class boundaries, since he helped break the royal monopoly on both printing technology and the production of historical knowledge. Thongchai, however, recasts the infamous writer as a casualty of the transition from folk writing towards a new historiography based on empiricism. Mr Kulap was guilty of employing a hybrid methodology that blended both western models and the traditional use of legend and chronicle that other intellectual elites had already abandoned. Likewise, James Ockey's biographic analysis of the Thai politician Kru Cham illustrates how premodern strategies for individual empowerment lost their potency in the scientific age. Kru Cham's erratic behaviour cultivated the impression that he was 'mad', which generated enormous publicity and helped him win provincial elections. His constituents interpreted this madness as a form of 'possession' and thus believed it gave him power to challenge ruling authority. Once psychiatry became the acceptable means of explaining madness, however, Kru Cham was diagnosed as an unstable and irrational character, unsuited to political life. A final subversive figure from this volume is the exiled Prince Prisdang, the subject of Tamara Loos's research on the distinction between Buddhist 'life-writing' and modern autobiography. Having fallen from royal grace, the Prince used biography as a means to restore his place in history, rather than to enact a moral display of penitence. This violation of the code of life-writing explains why his work was banned from the acceptable canon of Thai literature. Other scholars demonstrate how royalist power has proved surprisingly nimble as it neutralises potential intellectual threats to its dominance. …

Demographic Change in Southeast Asia: Recent Histories and Future Directions edited by LindyWilliams and Michael PhilipGuest, Ithaca, NY, Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2012, 221 pp.

The Developing EconomiesVolume 53, Issue 2 p. 150-154 Book Review Demographic Change in Southeast Asia: Recent Histories and Future Directions edited by Lindy Williams and Michael Philip Guest, Ithaca, NY, Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2012, 221 pp. Naohiro Ogawa, Naohiro Ogawa Nihon University Population Research Institute, Tokyo, JapanSearch for more papers by this author Naohiro Ogawa, Naohiro Ogawa Nihon University Population Research Institute, Tokyo, JapanSearch for more papers by this author First published: 18 May 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/deve.12074Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume53, Issue2June 2015Pages 150-154 RelatedInformation

The Philippines. A mountain of difference: The Lumad in early colonial Mindanao By Oona Paredes Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2013. Pp. 195. Maps, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

A mountain of difference: The Lumad in early colonial Mindanao By OONA PAREDES Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2013.Pp. 195. Maps, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Index. At the end of her book, Oona Paredes writes that the contemporary Lumad of Mindanao 'certainly do not let the outside world define who they are, much less who they ought to be. Nor do they struggle with the things that bog down outsiders (lowlanders, scholars, state officials) who, in the process of trying to understand the Lumad, obsess over what is culturally 'authentic' and what is not' (p. 175). This insightful observation regarding Lumad agency and their sophisticated awareness about the world in which they live is the subtle thread that underlies and solidifies the main argument of this historical ethnography about the Lumad. Using a varied set of historical narratives, Paredes presents a dynamic picture of the encounters between the Lumad and diverse authorities throughout the Spanish colonial period in Mindanao. Paredes divides the book into six convenient chapters. In the first chapter she emphasises the need to analyse the political space of the archipelago from outside of colonially constructed centres reinforced by the nation-state in order to fully understand the encounter between the Lumad and the Spaniards. In the second chapter, Paredes demonstrates this point by exploring the complex socio-political relationship between Spanish missionaries and the Lumad by examining the multivalent meanings of blood pacts between both groups. In doing so, she portrays an encounter between two worlds completely unknown to each other. Paredes delves more deeply into this encounter between the Spanish and the Lumad in the third chapter as she considers the conversion of another Lumad group, the Kagayanon, and the development of strong social and emotional ties between this group and the Fathers of the Order of the Recoletos. In contrast, Paredes probes the conflicts and tensions also generated by the coexistence between the Lumad and Spaniards in Mindanao through the analysis of the Caraga revolt of 1631 and the treachery of Maria Campan in the fourth chapter. In the fifth chapter Paredes further investigates the tensions of coexistence with a different actor, the distant colonial state in Manila. Paredes uses three documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how the Lumad resolved these tensions and conflicts by harmonising their needs with those of the colonial state while keeping their autonomy. In the final chapter, Paredes studies the silent legacies of the colonial encounter that pervaded Lumad culture. Paredes lays the foundation for her analysis of the sources by taking the localisation theory and cultural matrix developed by O.W. Wolters as a point of departure for her inquiry. Paredes's use of colonial sources adds another level of understanding as it describes Lumad actions and reactions towards the Spanish presence by using a cultural lens. By contrasting Lumad and Spanish cultural perspectives, Paredes co-opts the colonial documentation. …

Meredith L. Weiss. Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications and Singapore: NUS Press, 2011, xi+302p.

Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow Meredith L. Weiss Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications and Singapore: NUS Press, 2011, xi+302p.In April 2012, the amendment of the University and University College Act (UUCA) was approved in the lower house of Parliament in Malaysia. Before the amendment, UUCA had prohibited students from joining political parties and supporting political campaigning and protests. Although the amended law now allows students to engage in political activities outside campus, it is still restrictive because, for example, the law gives each university the power to decide which organizations are allowed for participation except political parties. But what is important here is that the Malaysian government has relaxed the UUCA, the restrictive provisions of which the government had hitherto refused to amend its introduction in 1971. Against this background, the decline of the intellectual quality and the apathy of students in local universities have become increasingly apparent in recent times. The major parts of Student Activism in Malaysia read as an historical narrative, but also give us numerous suggestions and hints concerning current Malaysian politics and society.The concept of is ambiguous, as this book points out. While Weiss defines student as a collective identity and discussions of in this book usually refer to students enrolled in tertiary-level institutions, the status of students is rather confusing since they are expected to be future leaders, students' potential may gamer them respect and cultivate arrogance disproportionate to their age and experience, yet they remain for the moment still subordinates in society (p. 3). On the other hand, Weiss argues that efforts to define activ- ism not as a social movement like others, but as a 'culture', obscure the mechanisms behind that activism: implicit or explicit framing processes, organizational maintenance, and other aspect of micromobilization for collective action (p. 5). Within the context of this book, its main objectives are to explore activism as a distinctive genre of social movement and also examine those political impacts and externalities that influenced activism in Malaysia (p. 3).The underlying focus of this book is activism, but Weiss's perspective is wider. She locates the within a larger environment and examines the relationship between activism and outside political forces, such as political parties and NGOs, and agenda like anticolonialism and socialism. This book consists of seven chapters. Except Chapters 1 and 7, each chapter develops historical narratives starting with World War II until 2010. Following the introductory and theoretical parts of Chapter 1, Weiss examines the pre-independence period (before 1957), analyzing the alliance between Malayan students, radical journalists, and early political parties and how they prepared for independence (p. 25). The first decade after independence from 1957 to 1966 is covered in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 focuses on the period of the heyday of protest from 1967 to 1974, when activism in Malaysia peaked. Students allied with peasants and urban squatters supported the protests among these sectors and also involved themselves in the general elections outside their campuses. However, activism and its environment drastically changed after 1974, following changes in the demographic trend. Weiss notes how prior to 1969 it was Chinese students who accounted for around 70 percent of the Malaysian undergraduate population, while Malays made up less than 30 percent (p. 19). She also notes how by the mid-1970s, those populations had nearly reversed (p. 19). The government tightened control over students and universities with the introduction in 1971 and the amendment in 1974 of the UUCA. Chapter 5 looks at the period of normalized higher education from 1975 to 1998 where new universities and other institutions for higher education proliferated and discusses how campus politics increasingly came to mimic the partisan patterns outside the gate (p. …

Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance. By Tran Ngoc Angie. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2013. 354 pp. $51.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper).

Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance. By Tran Ngoc Angie. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2013. 354 pp. 23.95 (paper). - Volume 73 Issue 4

Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance. Tran Ngoc Angie. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2013, 340 pp.

<i>Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance.</i> Tran Ngoc Angie. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2013, 340 pp.

Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow. By Meredith L. Weiss. Ithaca, N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2011. x, 302 pp. $46.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper).

Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow. By Meredith L. Weiss. Ithaca, N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2011. x, 302 pp. $46.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper).

Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia. Edited by May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. viii, 258 pp. $46.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper). - Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology. Edited by Nora A. Taylor and Boreth Ly. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. viii, 262

Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia. Edited by May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. viii, 258 pp. 31.95 (paper). - Volume 72 Issue 2

Southeast Asia. Cultures at war: The Cold War and cultural expression in Southeast Asia. Edited by Tony Day and Maya H.T. Liem. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2010. Pp. 287. Plates, Notes.

Southeast Asia. Cultures at war: The Cold War and cultural expression in Southeast Asia. Edited by Tony Day and Maya H.T. Liem. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2010. Pp. 287. Plates, Notes. - Volume 44 Issue 2

Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian independent cinema: Essays, documents, interviews. Edited by Tilman Baumgärtel. Singapore: NUS Press, 2012. Pp. 273, Notes, Bibliography, Index. - Southeast Asia. Glimpses of freedom: Independent cinema in Southeast Asia. Edited by May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. Pp. 239, Illustrations, Bibliography.

Southeast Asian independent cinema: Essays, documents, interviews Edited by TILMAN BAUMGARTEL Singapore: NUS Press, 2012. Pp. 273, Notes, Bibliography, Index. Glimpses of freedom: Independent cinema in Southeast Asia Edited by MAY ADADOL INGAWANIJ and BENJAMIN MCKAY Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. Pp. 239, Illustrations, Bibliography. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000131 Given the heterogeneous geographies and disjunctive histories of Southeast Asia, any attempt at discussing the region's cinema must always err on the side of the plural. In turn, discourses on its independent cinema must attend to contesting notions of independence. Through what forms of relationality can cinema become independent? And independent of what? Such questions are posed by both Southeast Asian independent cinema and Glimpses of freedom: Independent cinema in Southeast Asia, the first two published collections of literature devoted exclusively to the study of the field. The appearance of the two titles within the same year marks a milestone not only for the region's independent cinema, but also its screen culture as a whole, considering that previous discussions of Southeast Asian films were mostly framed within the larger context of Asian cinema. Comparing the two collections to earlier titles such as Being & becoming: The cinemas of Asia (ed. Aruna Vasudev, Latika Padgaonkar and Rashmi Doraiswamy, Macmillan India, 2002) and Contemporary Asian cinema: Popular culture in a global frame (ed. Anne Tereska Ciecko, Berg, 2006) also reveals the shifts in approach, for their chapters are titled not after countries but issues and ideas--a reflection of the post-national paradigm in which Southeast Asian independent cinema operates today. Southeast Asian independent cinema is divided into three sections: 'Essays', 'Documents' and 'Interviews'. The first two essays by John A. Lent and editor Tilman Baumgartel give a broad overview of the region, foregrounding the affinities shared by the independent filmmaking practices of its different countries. Lent's 'Southeast Asian independent cinema: Independent of what?' identifies three forms of independence: of government control, of the studio system and of traditional film aesthetics. While his arguments are mostly cogent, the attempt at designating aesthetic independence as a category in itself is questionable, for it obscures the social realities and economy of means from which 'independent' aesthetics often emerge. Meanwhile, Baumgartel's 'Imagined communities, imagined worlds: Independent film from Southeast Asia in the global mediascape' takes as its key theoretical reference Arjun Appadurai's concept of 'imagined worlds'. Theorised by Appadurai as transnational relational fields through which people, media, technologies, finances and ideas circulate, these 'imagined worlds' are insightfully posited by Baumgartel as 'zones of territorial and cultural disjuncture' (p. 31) in which independent films in the region are made, challenging the Andersonian 'imagined communities' formed through mainstream, state-sanctioned cinema. Another notable essay is Alfian bin Sa'at's 'Hinterland, heartland, home: Affective topography in Singapore films'. Analysing films such as 12 Storeys (1997), Eating Air (1999) and Singapore Dreaming (2006), Alfian puts forth a compelling thesis on how the heartland, referring to the neighbourhoods of high-rise public flats where most Singaporeans live, operates as an imperfect hinterland for a country with none to call its own. Less convincing is the added claim that such images of the Singaporean heartland bear the traces of the kampungs as depicted in Malay films of the sixties, which smacks of romanticism and retroactive rationalisation. Intan Paramaditha's 'Cinema, sexuality and censorship in post-Soeharto Indonesia' also offers keen insights. Through a historical examination of the uneasy relationship between cinema and public morality in Indonesia, Paramaditha illustrates how the shift towards a post-Soeharto institutional environment did not ease censorship laws concerning cinematic depictions of gender and sexuality, but merely transferred the power to oppress from a paternalistic regime to a social climate governed by revived Islamic values. …

Southeast Asia. Modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art: An anthology. Edited by Nora A. Taylor and Boreth Ly. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. Pp. 280. Plates, Notes.

Southeast Asia. Modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art: An anthology. Edited by Nora A. Taylor and Boreth Ly. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012. Pp. 280. Plates, Notes. - Volume 44 Issue 2