Examines a significant and hotly debated issue in the governance of China, one closely associated with legitimacy change (from an economy-based approach to welfare-based one), income distribution and central–local relations.

In sharp contrast to today's disorder was the apparent cohesion and stability of Indonesia during much of the New Order period (1965-1998). While Suharto's authoritarian rule was significant, the regime's cultural policies also played their part in demonstrating that his regime created order throughout Indonesia not just through coercive means. Ethnic, religious, and regional sentiments were to be channeled into art, which was used to help develop a national Indonesian identity. This theme is explored by this study, which focuses on the efforts of a group of young art students based at the Bandung Academy of Performing Arts to revitalize traditional Longser theater.

This is the first time that Japanese, Portuguese and other European accounts have been brought together and presented in English regarding the arrival of Europeans in Japan.

This pioneering work from a member of Malaysia's new generation of historians is a tale of two very different cities, the one with a trading heritage dating back centuries, the other a new creation spawned by the declining fortunes of the once mighty Dutch East India Company. Melaka was an important commercial entrepot on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula long before it fell to Portugese forces in 1511, but thereafter began an extended process of decline that would continue after the Dutch conquest of the city in 1641. Penang became a significant port after 1786 when 'country traders' created a base on the island to defy the Dutch monopoly, although it was quickly overshadowed by Singapore after the founding of a British settlement there in 1819. Drawing on a large volume of archival records, many of them not used by earlier historians, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka examines the social and economic fabric of these two port cities, the one very much a Dutch town and the other British. Along the way, the author deals with a number of key questions. Did colonial port cities have a different character and structure from indigenous towns? Did the administrative style of the Dutch and English differ substantially? What was the economic basis of Melaka and Penang? What was the effect of the European presence on indigenous trade and society? The answers involve considerations of urban morphology, demographic characteristics and migration, property rights, and slave ownership. The author also provides a detailed account of shipping in the Straits of Melaka, and discusses how this information contributes to debates concerning the decline of the region's 'Age of Commerce' in the face of imperialist competition. By documenting the impact of imperialist ambitions on the economy and society of two major trading centers, this book breaks new ground and will provide a point of reference for all future research concerning the period.illus. For sale only in the U.S., its dependencies, Canada, and Mexico

Perhaps we shall never know the truth about Indonesia’s failed (supposedly Communist) coup of 1965. This book analyzes Indonesian literature produced during the New Order period that deals with the events of 1965–1966 and its consequences.

This beautifully illustrated volume offers a rare study of Isan-Thai customs and beliefs associated with pregnancy and birth and how they have changed over almost half a century. Using a psychological and socio-therapeutic framework, Anders Poulsen discusses the function of various birth rites while giving an unmatched description of all traditions specifically connected to pregnancy and birth. He includes an interesting description of the tradition of confinement by fire (yuu-fai) and documents that it is still widely practiced, contrary to what has been reported. He also puts forward a theory of why some traditions maintain their importance while others fade away. The findings of this study are supported by the transcription in Isan (and translated into English) of the ritual texts that are used in these rites. Published by NIAS Press in Denmark. Available exclusively from ISEAS for distribution in Asia (excluding Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam).

Land and Longhouse examines the role of community, market, and state in the historic transformation of upland livelihoods in Southeast Asia. Focusing on the Saribas Iban of Sarawak, the book combines in-depth, generation-long village case studies with an account of changes in land use and tenure at the regional level spanning a century and a half. This analysis demonstrates that, far from being passive victims of globalization, the Iban have been active agents in their own transformation, engaging with both market and state while retaining community values and governance. R. A. Cramb makes a significant new contribution to debates about economic, social, and environmental change and conflict in upland Southeast Asia. His book offers a fascinating, empirically rich account of interest to scholars, development practitioners, and the general reader alike. "This study is certain to become a major reference point for future work on land use, tenure, and agrarian change in Upland Southeast Asia." ―Clifford Sather, Univer­sity of Helsinki “Rob Cramb has written an excellent book with a much needed longitudinal perspective on agrarian change. The book is an important contribution to the urgent need for understanding the dynamics and consequences―both environmental and social―of upland transformation in Southeast Asia.” ―Ole Mertz, University of Copenhagen “Rob Cramb’s study raises provocative questions about Iban society, the nature of the Southeast Asia uplands, and agrarian history. He presents a work distinguished by the depth of its scholarship and the breadth of the questions addressed by it.” ―Michael R. Dove, Yale University

The West has seen the rise of the organic movement. In the Muslim world, a similar halal movement is rapidly spreading. Exploring consumption practices in urban Malaysia, this book shows how diverse forms of Malay middle-class consumption (of food, clothing and cars, for example) are understood, practised and contested as a particular mode of modern Islamic practice. It illustrates ways in which the issue of 'proper Islamic consumption' for consumers, the marketplace and the state in contemporary Malaysia evokes a whole range of contradictory Islamic visions, lifestyles and debates articulating what Islam is or ought to be. Its rich empirical material on everyday consumption in a local context will reinvigorate theoretical discussions about the nature of religion, ritual, the sacred and capitalism in the new millennium.

Key points \* Offers a unique blend of historical anthropology and contemporary ethnography. \* A key text for scholars and students of Cambodia and Southeast Asia in general. \* An important resource for development planners and aid workers in medical and related fields. At face value, this book is about medicine in Cambodia over the last hundred years. At the same time, however, by using ‘medicine’ (in the sense of ideas, practices and institutions relating to health and illness) as a prism through which to view colonial and post-colonial Cambodian society more generally, it offers an historical and contemporary anthropology of the nation of Cambodia. Rich in ethnographic detail derived from both contemporary anthropological fieldwork and colonial archival material, the study is an account of the simultaneous presence in Cambodia of two medical traditions: the modern, biomedical one first introduced by the French colonial power at the turn of the twentieth century, and the indigenous Khmer health cosmology. In their reliance on one or the other of the two traditions, to a large extent the Khmer people have been concerned to find efficient medical treatment that also adheres to social norms (not least the emphasis on the morality of social relations). This concern is also evident in the prevailing medical pluralism in Cambodia today. The authors trace the interaction (and lack thereof) between these two traditions from the French colonial period via the political upheavals of the 1970s through to the present day. The result is more than a medical anthropology; this is a key text that also makes a significant contribution to the anthropological study of Cambodian society at large and will be an important resource for development planners and aid workers in medical and related fields.

NIAS Monographs, No. 118 Distributed for NIAS Press (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies) Vietnam has experienced not only market reform and economic growth but also a related, symbiotic revival of popular religion. So it is no surprise that popular beliefs and rituals once attacked as wasteful and superstitious have again become a conspicuous feature of contemporary life. A blossoming of spirit mediumship has been part of this revival, not least that involving ritual possession by the deities of the Four Palace Pantheon, which this study brings to life with a deft handling of complex theory, historical research, ethnographic material and analysis. illus. For sale only in the U.S., its dependencies, Canada, and Mexico

This book explores a central tension in identity how the state, civil society, and people want to create and maintain cultural, religious, and social cohesion while paradoxically their everyday practices often run counter to this. Malaysia is no exception, with a political elite maintaining control and cultural dominance but juggling many political pressures. At the heart of this study is the conjuncture between Malay ethnicity and Islamic faith, a state discourse on “civilized Islam,” but other areas are also examined, resulting in a study that combines philosophical and social theory with anthropological insights.

This volume examines the careers and intellectual positions of three prominent Japanese “dissidents” in the later Imperial period―Minobe Tatsukichi, Sakai Toshihiko, and Saitō Takao―as individual responses to the new forms of authority that appeared after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The principles to which each adhered―the rule of law, socialist egalitarianism, and representative government―contributed to the new ideas about authority and the individual in post-Restoration Japan. They also remain fundamental (at least in theory) in today’s Japanese polity and society. The study reaffirms the serious limitations of the pre-war Japanese political system, its structural and institutional problems, and deep-rooted ambivalence about democratic change.

The widespread destruction of Cambodia’s forests in recent decades saw the loss of the last major area of pristine tropical forest in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of often indiscriminate logging and sale of forest and plantation concessions have enriched the country’s ruling elite but cost its rural population dearly. It was, moreover, a process in which foreign aid donors were deeply involved, even if the outcome was contrary to their intentions. The tragedy of Cambodia’s forests has received much international publicity from environmental NGOs like Global Witness, quoted above, but far less scholarly treatment. That deficiency is now addressed by this detailed and sophisticated case study of how externally sponsored reform agendas can be manipulated by domestic elites. It offers a powerful critique of ideas of ‘ownership’ as well as a clear and persuasive argument why forestry protection programmes so often fail within the modern international system. The book will appeal to people interested in political change in contemporary Southeast Asia, the politics of foreign aid, and those concerned with the conservation of the world’s remaining tropical forests. For sale only in the U.S., its dependencies, Canada, and Mexico

This gripping memoir narrates the formative years of the Indonesian nation through the lens of English adventurer John Coast. After years in Japanese POW camps where he first met Indonesians and learned Malay, this young British officer made his way back to Southeast Asia in order to help Indonesian Republicans in their struggle against Dutch rule. In time he became a trusted friend and employee of the new nation. John Coast's life story is entangled with the history of the blockade-running; broadcasting from the besieged rebel capital; advocating for the Republicans to the press and politicians abroad; and having long discussions with president-to-be Sukarno. Later, John Coast and Sukarno's shared love of Balinese music and dance bore fruit in the famous Dancers of Bali tour of the West End and Broadway, which in turn paved the way for Coast's career as a leading international theatrical agent for the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar and Mario Lanza.

One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, the Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and communist insurgents in Malaya from 1948 to 1960. Souchou Yao tells its story in a series of penetrating and illuminating essays that range across a vast canvas. Throughout the book runs a passionate concern for the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women in colonial Malaya. Here, the effect of counterinsurgency measures are captured by the anthropologist's art of ethnography and cultural analysis. Among the vignettes are an ethnographic encounter with a woman ex-guerrilla, and the author's remembrance of his insurgent-cousin killed in a police ambush. As such, this fascinating study examines the Emergency afresh, and in the process brings into focus issues not normally covered in other accounts: nostalgia and failed revolution, socialist fantasy and ethnic relations, and the moral costs of modern counterinsurgency.

A fresh understanding of the ongoing Thai political conflict is offered in this exploration of the connections between status, space, and social life in Bangkok. Looking beyond the ‘urban–rural divide’, the author points to a more complex reality in which city and countryside are linked by reciprocal relations based on status and class. Everyday interclass relations in Bangkok have seen a diminishment and marginalization of upcountry Thais by the urban middle classes, thus creating an incendiary dynamic exploited in the current political power struggle. At the same time, middle-class culture and identity are shaped by elite perceptions but aspirations for upward mobility are thwarted by structural constraints and a privileging of wealth and connections. Disenchantment is feeding a potentially explosive political situation yet there are few chances for reform while most people feel their only avenue for advancement is via the current system that many perceive as unjust.

Across the world states are seeking out new and secure supplies of energy but this search is manifesting itself most visibly in Asia where rapid industrialisation in states such as China and India is fomenting a frantic scramble for energy resources. Due to entrenched societal inequities and widespread authoritarian governance, however, the pursuit of national energy security through transnational energy projects has resulted in devastating impacts on the human and environmental security of local populations. These effects are particularly evident in both Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), which, located at the crossroads of Asia, are increasingly engaged in the cross-border energy trade. Based on extensive fieldwork and theoretical analysis this ground-breaking book proposes a new critical approach to energy and environmental security and explores the important role that both local and transnational environmental movements are playing, in the absence of effective and democratic governments, in providing ’activist environmental governance’ for energy projects throughout the region. By comparing the nature of this activism under two very different political regimes it delivers crucial theoretical insights with both academic and policy implications for the sustainable and equitable development of the South’s natural resources.

Indonesia’s contemporary art scene is fast becoming a favorite among collectors and critics, taking its place alongside the growing interest in works from China, India, and Korea. Pieces by Indonesian artists are selling for record-breaking prices, and the country is preparing to open its first Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art this fall. After decades of struggling to find representation in international galleries and museums, Indonesia is staking its claim as a key player in the global art world. Contemporary Indonesian Art is a comprehensive introduction to the country’s key artists, curators, institutions, and collectors. It demonstrates how early artists broke from colonial and post-colonial power structures and shows how today’s artists grapple with issues of identity, globalization, and nation-building in Indonesia. The survey crosses ethnic, cultural, and religious boundaries, combining the traditional (batik, woodcut, dance, and Javanese shadow puppet theater) with the contemporary (comics and manga, graffiti, and advertising). Taken together, it is a powerful argument for why Indonesia is becoming a major force in the international art community.

This mammoth study is a major contribution to the study of Chinese literature, making available to scholars a genuine storyteller's script from China's Yangzhou oral tradition, dated to the late Qing period (1880-1910). This rare script is published in its complete form (all 367 pages), both in facsimile and transcription, with an English translation also made. Its publication is of high importance not only to preserve knowledge about one of the famous oral traditions of China, but also as a unique documentation of the interplay between orality and literacy in Chinese storytelling. The book is also the first translation into a European language of the popular 'Western Han' narrative, one of a corpus of Chinese semi-historical romances brought to life in recent decades after the discovery in 1974 of the terracotta army commemorating the life and achievements of the first Chinese emperor. Moreover, this storyteller's version is unique and entertaining. The work is an ideal classroom book for students studying Chinese history, literature, oral literature, storytelling, etc.

Many recent works on Muslim societies have pointed to a growing ‘de-culturalization’ and ‘purification’ of Islamic practices. Instead, by exploring themes such as architectural designs, preaching activities, political engagement and cultural celebrations, this book describes and analyses the formation and negotiation of Chinese Muslim cultural identities in Indonesia today—a rapidly evolving environment where there are multiple ways of being or not being Chinese and Muslim. By engaging with the notions of ‘inclusive Chineseness’ and ‘cosmopolitan Islam’, this book gives insights not only into the cultural politics of Muslim and Chinese identities in Indonesia today but also into the possibilities and limitations of ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism in many other contemporary societies.

One figure strides across modern Cambodian history—Norodom Sihanouk. From his accession to the throne of Cambodia in 1941 until his extravagant funeral ceremony in 2013, the prince turned 'king father' in later life never dodged controversy. But this is not a biography of Sihanouk; the focus is upon the final decades of the French protectorate, the rise of a counter-elite and winning of Cambodia's independence. Manipulation of the 1,000-year-old monarchy comes to the heart of this book, as does indigenous resistance, Buddhist activism, French cultural creationism, the rise of radical republicanism, Thai recidivism and wartime Japanese machinations. Carried through into the post-war period, the seeds of Cambodia's own destruction were being sown in the jungle perimeters, rubber plantations, schools and monkhood, and even in the classrooms of prestigious French institutions. Deeply embedded Khmer cultural conventions and the interplay of charismatic power and patronage are not irrelevant to this discussion, indeed inform us as to the future and even present-day patterns of political behaviour. The skill of the young Sihanouk in navigating between Vichy France, Japanese militarists, republican opportunists, armed rural insurgency and French proconsuls is brought to life by a range of new archival documentation. A book is also a work of premonition as much inquiry, exploring how did a country of such grace and natural bounty come to be associated with the worst excesses of mass murder and genocide experienced in the twentieth century. The long political prelude as exposed in this book makes the now clich�d 'tragedy of Cambodian history' much more comprehensible.

This is the first book to scrutinize the root causes of problems today with Afghan reconstruction. It begins in 1880 with the coming to power of Emir Abdur Rahman and departure of an occupying British army. On the northern border, Russian forces were also poised. Determined to preserve Afghan independence, Abdur Rahman devised a nation-building project grounded on centralized, autocratic rule and based on security, modernization and economic reform. Though continued by his successors, this project ultimately failed. A key reason for this was that, even as Abdur Rahman implemented policies that might be understood as 'Western' and 'rational', the great powers of the day took their cue from traditional institutional relationships in Afghanistan; local patronage relations were extended to the international level. In the process, Afghanistan became a rentier state, Abdur Rahman's model abandoned in favor of foreign subsidies increasingly diverted from security and economic development. Successive foreign powers, especially the Soviet Union and United States, have upheld this centralized, rentier model of governance and development despite it consistently failing over the years. This work explores dynamics seldom covered in other studies of Afghanistan, including conflict between state-imposed pashtunization and multiple local/ethnic identities, likewise contradictions between the clericalism and secularism deployed in the nation-building process. It explores the largely overlooked ebb and flow of institutional development in Afghanistan, at all levels, in the context of international interest in the country, with special attention to Soviet and US/Coalition strategies and their effects. It also focuses on the power of patronage relations in establishing and retaining control in Afghanistan, and how the extension of such relations to the international level transformed Afghanistan into a rentier state that struggles to unite its people. Described by one Afghanistan expert as an excellent piece of work, very well documented with close attention to detail, this study offers sober analysis and critical insights. It will interest scholars and students of Afghan affairs plus policy-makers, diplomats, soldiers, international organizations and NGOs, businesses, journalists and many others engaged with Afghanistan and issues of political, military and economic power, democratization and civil-military relations in the region.

In Gender and the Path to Awakening, Martin Seeger lays out the nuances and varying conceptions of female renunciation in modern Thai Buddhism. Centered on long-term textual and ethnographic research on six remarkable female practitioners, Seeger considers trends and changes over the last 140 years in the practices of female renunciants and their devotees. He also investigates understandings of female sainthood in Thai Buddhism, its expressions in material culture, and the importance of orality and memory in Thai Buddhist epistemology. Supported by interviews and careful study of sermons, hagiographies, and hitherto untranslated and rare Thai sources, this book examines the social backgrounds, modes of expression, veneration, and historical contexts of Thai women pursuing the Buddhist ideal. Rich in ethnographic detail and with additional grounding in foundational Indian Buddhist texts, this book offers new insights into the complexities of female renunciation and gender relations in modern Thai Buddhism. Highlights Offers a fresh and comprehensive understanding of female practitioners and gender relations in modern Thai Buddhism. Based on meticulous long-term ethnographic and textual research. Considers the role of orality and memory in the epistemological framework of Buddhist education, particularly for female practitioners. Illustrated by a number of photos―sometimes rare―of key figures and the material culture associated with them. Makes extensive use of early Buddhist texts to present or juxtapose modern developments with events and people in early Buddhism

Di Balik Bendera Persatuan bertutur tentang masa-masa mahasiswa yang dijalani oleh Mohammad Hatta, Ali Sastroamidjojo, Sam Ratu Langie, Achmad Soebardjo, dan beberapa mahasiswa ternama lain yang tergabung dalam Perhimpoenan Indonesia di Negeri Belanda. Mereka memanfaatkan keberadaan di Belanda pada periode antara Perang Dunia I dan Perang Dunia II untuk membuka kontak dengan pelbagai gerakan antikolonial lain di Eropa. Mengikuti petualangan para mahasiswa ini serta aktivis seperti Semaoen dan Darsono, buku ini melacak pelbagai jaringan politik dan sosial orang-orang Indonesia di Zürich, Paris, Berlin, dan Moskow. Mereka terlibat aktif dalam berbagai prakarsa internasional seperti Liga Melawan Imperialisme, dan berjumpa dengan tokoh-tokoh antikolonial terkenal seperti Jawaharlal Nehru dari India dan Messali Hadj dari Aljazair. Buku ini mengungkap bahwa kebangkitan politis elite terdidik Indonesia selama periode itu harus dipahami dalam konteks global perjuangan antikolonial. “Buku penting, baik bagi sejarah nasionalisme Indonesia maupun bagi mereka yang tertarik menekuni ‘gerakan internasional’ antikolonialisme pada masa interbellum. Menggunakan sumber-sumber arsip Belanda, Indonesia, Prancis, dan Inggris, termasuk berbagai macam surat kabar dan sumber-sumber tercetak lain, Stutje benar-benar meyakinkan dalam keteguhannya bahwa masa awal ‘nasionalisme Indonesia memperoleh banyak inspirasi dan legitimasi dari pentas internasional’.” Heather Streets-Salter, BMGN—Low Countries Historical Review

Statesman or warlord? Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) has been hailed as China’s George Washington for his key role in the country’s transition from empire to republic. In any list of significant modern Chinese figures, he stands in the first rank. Yet Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal sheds new light on the equally controversial history of this talented administrator, fearsome general, and enthusiastic modernizer. After toppling the last emperor of China, Yuan endeavoured to build dictatorial power and establish his own dynasty while serving as the first president of the new republic, eventually declaring himself emperor. Ever since his death during the civil war his actions provoked, he has been condemned as a counterrevolutionary, and much Chinese historiography portrays Yuan as a traitor, a usurper, and a villain. Patrick Fuliang Shan offers a wide-ranging analysis of the man’s complex part in shaping modern China. He develops a fresh account of Yuan’s life and career that introduces unique insights and challenges long-held stereotypes. Just a single biography of Yuan has been published in English in the past hundred years. Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal rectifies that remarkable dearth, drawing on previously untapped primary sources and recent scholarship to posit a lucid, comprehensive, and critical new interpretation of this multifaceted figure. Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers who are interested in modern China and its history.

The Modern Chinese Folklore Movement coalesced at National Peking University between 1918 and 1926. A group of academics, inspired by Western thought, tried to revitalize the study of folklore to stave off postwar disillusionment with Chinese elite culture. By documenting this phenomenon's origins and evolution, Jie Gao opens a new chapter in the world history of the folklore movement. Largely unknown in the West and underappreciated in China, the Chinese branch failed to achieve its goal of reinvigorating the nation. But it helped establish a modern discipline, promoting a spirit of academic independence that continues to influence Chinese intellectuals today.

Civilians play crucial roles in building empires. Constructing Empire shows how Japanese urban planners, architects, and other civilians contributed—often enthusiastically—to constructing a modern colonial enclave in northeast China. As Bill Sewell shows, Japanese imperialism in Manchuria before 1932 developed in a manner similar to that of other imperialists elsewhere in China—but thereafter the Japanese sought to surpass their rivals by transforming the city of Changchun into a grand capital for the puppet state of Manchukuo, putting it on the cutting edge of Japanese propaganda. Providing a thematic assessment of the evolving nature of planning, architecture, economy, and society in Changchun, Sewell examines the key organizations involved in developing Japan’s empire there as part of larger efforts to assert its place in the world order.

Thai politics have been intensely polarized since demonstrations against the government of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra began in 2005. Conservatives aligned with the military and monarchy are pitted against critics of the establishment supporting a more open political order. In the election of 24 March 2019, this pattern was broken by the emergence of Future Forward, an upstart political party led by 40-year-old autoparts tycoon Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. Although only founded a year before, and with minimal local roots, the party won 81 seats and became the third largest party in parliament. Future Forward was a rare attempt to break the flawed mold of Thai politics. Borrowing elements from such ‘antiparties’ as Spain’s Podemos and Italy’s Five Star Movement, the party used internet technologies to promote its leaders, Thanathorn and his leadership team gaining a celebrity status. It also appealed directly to voters with a national platform, rather than relying on local efforts to mobilize voters. Since the election, the party has been dissolved and its leaders banned from politics. Thanathorn and his colleagues represented an existential threat to the Thai establishment – at least in the imaginations of the elite. Their ability to capture the zeitgeist and tap into the aspirations of digital natives and millennials feeling little loyalty to older notions of Thai identity posed an immense challenge to the powers-that-be. Despite the demise of Future Forward, a significant shift in Thai politics signaled by the party’s success seems to be in motion. This is the first book to examine the most interesting new force to emerge in Thai politics for two decades, one also exploring the wider dynamics of political leadership, party formation and voter behavior in a society where popular participation has been largely suppressed since the 2014 military coup. Based on exclusive interviews with party leaders and a wide range of Thai-language sources, it examines how Future Forward succeeded in mobilizing so much electoral support, whilst also arousing intense hostility from the conservative forces demanding its dissolution. Organized into three main themes – Leaders, Party, and Voters – this is a must-read study of Thai politics.

This remarkable and timely ethnography explores how fishing communities living on the fringe of the South China Sea in central Vietnam interact with state and religious authorities as well as their farmer neighbors – even while handling new geopolitical challenges. The focus is mainly on marginal people and their navigation between competing forces over the decades of massive change since their incorporation into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. The sea, however, plays a major role in this study as does the a once-peripheral area now at the center of a global struggle for sovereignty, influence and control in the South China Sea.The coastal fishing communities at the heart of this study are peripheral not so much because of geographical remoteness as their presumed social ‘backwardness’; they only partially fit into the social imaginary of Vietnam’s territory and nation. The state thus tries to incorporate them through various cultural agendas while religious reformers seek to purify their religious practices. Yet, recently, these communities have also come to be seen as guardians of an ancient fishing culture, important in Vietnam’s resistance to Chinese claims over the South China Sea.The fishers have responded to their situation with a blend of conformity, co-option and subtle indiscipline. A complex, triadic relationship is at play here. Within it are various shifting binaries – e.g. secular/religious, fishers/farmers, local ritual/Buddhist doctrine, etc. – and different protagonists (state officials, religious figures, fishermen and -women) who construct, enact, and deconstruct these relations in shifting alliances and changing contexts.Fishers, Monks and Cadres is a significant new work. Its vivid portrait of local beliefs and practices makes a powerful argument for looking beyond monolithic religious traditions. Its triadic analysis and subtle use of binaries offer startlingly fresh ways to view Vietnamese society and local political power. The book demonstrates Vietnam is more than urban and agrarian society in the Red River Basin and Mekong Delta. Finally, the author builds on intensive, long-term research to portray a region at the forefront of geopolitical struggle, offering insights that will be fascinating and revealing to a much broader readership.

How can we conceive of kinship and sociality in the rapidly transforming uplands of mainland Southeast Asia? How to write about kinship in a way that neither falls into the trap of taking for granted kinship phenomena nor ignores the body of knowledge from earlier research? This in-depth study uses its rich findings from extensive fieldwork among the Khmu, upland dwellers of northern Laos, to bridge the divide between classical ethnography and modern approaches to kinship studies. Here, the author offers a fresh perspective on kinship by, first of all, stepping backwards and delving into how it is actually lived locally in northern Laos. She highlights that not only the beginning of life but also its ending deserves our attention when considering the relevance of kinship. Indeed, to a considerable extent, living kinship is about death. The context of kinship and sociality among the Khmu is significant here, these being framed by ties of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage and patrilineal descent – concepts on which this study casts new light. Dr Stolz explores this complexity in an absorbing series of intimate and self-reflective accounts. These touch upon a variety a topics, beginning with the language of kinship, then proceeding to examine the house, the changing importance of kinship throughout the life cycle, the key roles that gifting and commensality play, the meaning of work and, finally, to offer glimpses of the intricacies of village sociality and its cosmological dimensions. The underlying approach here is asking how the nature and praxis of kinship bring us closer to understanding what it means to live kinship – not just in upland northern Laos but in other societies as well. This is a significant study, one of long-term significance.

This fascinating study explores the daily lives, constraints and social worlds of children born in the slums of Bangkok. It examines how slum children define themselves – and are defined by others – in relation to a range of governing technologies, state and non-state actors, and broad cultural politics. It does so by interrogating the layered meanings of ‘childhood’ in slums, schools, Buddhist temples, Christian NGOs, state and international aid organisations, as well as in social media. Giuseppe Bolotta employs ‘childhood’ as a prism to make sense of broader socio-political, religious, and economic transformations in Thai society. His analysis demonstrates that Bangkok slums are political arenas within which local, national and global social forces and interests converge and clash.At the same time, it highlights poor children’s roles in processes of sociopolitical change, considering how young people’s efforts to achieve social mobility and recognition reflect the broader tensions facing the urban poor in this complex moment of Thai history. Belittled Citizens reveals that ‘childhood’ is best understood in Thailand as a political category, offering startling new insights into how ideas of ‘parenthood’ and ‘infantilisation’ shape Thai political culture in an era of resurgent military authoritarianism. It also shows how attention to children, typically excluded from national politics and therefore invisible in most political analyses, has important potential for producing fresh understandings of contemporary Southeast Asian societies.

The United Wa State Army (UWSA) is a nonstate armed group that administers an autonomous zone in the difficult-to-reach Wa Hills of eastern Myanmar. As China expands its geopolitical interests across Asia through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Wa have come to play a pivotal role in Beijing's efforts to extend its influence in Myanmar. In a book relevant to current debates about geopolitics in Asia, the illicit drug trade, Myanmar's decades-long civil wars, and ongoing efforts to negotiate a settlement, Bertil Lintner, the only foreign journalist to visit the Wa areas when they were controlled by the Communist Party of Burma, traces the history of the Wa Hills and the struggles of its people, providing a rare look at the UWSA.