The conventional interpretation of the “race problem” in Peninsular Malaysia (Malaya) is founded upon the supposedly inevitable frictions between ethnic communities with sharply divergent cultural traditions. In this view, assimilation between the indigenous Malay population and the descendants of immigrants from China and India was always a remote possibility. In this paper I argue that modern “race relations” in Peninsular Malaysia, in the sense of impenetrable group boundaries, were a byproduct of British colonialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Prior to 1850, inter-ethnic relations among Asian populations were marked by cultural stereotypes and occasional hostility, but there were also possibilities for inter-ethnic alliances and acculturation. Direct colonial rule brought European racial theory and constructed a social and economic order structured by “race.” A review of the writing of observers of colonial society provides a crude test of this hypothesis.

The making of race in colonial Malaya: Political economy and racial ideology

Humanities Open Book Program, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia

Despite the assumptions of both the 'modernization school' and Marxist theorists that ethnicity was a transitory phenomenon along the path to political development, the past few decades have seen a resurgence of ethnic nationalism. In recent years a number of explanations has been offered for the persistence and resurgence of ethnicity. Within this context, this thesis looks at ethnic separatist politics among the Muslim mir~ority populations in Mindanao, the Philippines and in Patani, Thailand. It addresses several questions: having regard to the alternative explanations offered for the persistence and resurgence of ethnic nationalism, how does one account for the survival of Moro and Malay identity over centuries in the face of repeated attempts to inte~rate these ethnic communities into the larger political entities of the Philippines and Thailand? More specifically, what immediate factors triggered the recent emergence of armed separatist movements in the two areas? Chapters 2 and 3 describe the historical, economic and social background of the Moro and the Malay communities. They discuss how these two distinct ethnic communities evolved and examine the socio-economic conditions of the communities as minorities under the domination of Filipino-Christian and Thai-Buddhist majorities. They depict also the history of the Moro and the Malay resistance movements in the 20th century, which culminated in the emergence of full-fledged organized separatist fronts. The particular role of Islam in creating a sense of ummah (community) that distinguished Muslim from non-Muslim communities, and in shaping and legitimating the separatist movements both within the Moro and Malay societies and in the context of the larger Islamic world community is explored. Beyond these broader questions, the study scrutinizes the form which the separatist struggles have taken over time and examines in detail the structure, leader-

Muslim Separatism: The Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand

This study examines how the historical state conditions long-run development, using Vietnam as a laboratory. Northern Vietnam (Dai Viet) was ruled by a strong centralized state in which the village was the fundamental administrative unit. Southern Vietnam was a peripheral tributary of the Khmer (Cambodian) Empire, which followed a patron-client model with weaker, more personalized power relations and no village intermediation. Using a regression discontinuity design across the Dai Viet-Khmer boundary, the study shows that areas historically under a strong state have higher living standards today and better economic outcomes over the past 150 years. Rich historical data document that in villages with a strong historical state, citizens have been better able to organize for public goods and redistribution through civil society and local government. This suggests that the strong historical state crowded in village-level collective action and that these norms persisted long after the original state disappeared.

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The Historical State, Local Collective Action, and Economic Development in Vietnam

The thesis underlying this essay may be summarized as follows: The modern European concepts frontier, state and nation are interdependent but they are not necessarily applicable to all state-like political organisations everywhere. In default of adequate documentary materials most historians of South-East Asia have tended to assume that the states with which they have to deal were Nation-States occupied by named “Peoples” and separated from each other by precise political frontiers. The inferences that have been made on the basis of these initial assumptions sometimes conflict with sociological common sense. It is not the anthropologist's task to write history, but if history is to be elaborated with the aid of inspired guesses then the special knowledge of the anthropologist becomes relevant so as to point up the probabilities.

The Frontiers of “Burma”

A History of South-East Asia

A History of South-East Asia.

Historians of South East Asia

The earliest English contact with Burma the episode of Thomas Samuel the foundation of the Syriam factory and its early prosperity, 1647-52 the failure of the Syriam factory conditions of trade experienced by English merchants in Burma in the 17th century negotiations with Burma, 1680-86 the Negrais episode, 1686-87 private trade and the affair of Bartholomew Rodrigues the mission of Edward Fleetwood and James Lesly to Ava, 1695-96 the period of intermittent relations, 1697-1723 shipbuilding and the last years of the Syriam factory, 1722-44 appendices.

D. G. E. Hall

Papers

A History of South-East Asia

A History of South-East Asia.

Historians of South East Asia

Early English intercourse with Burma, 1587-1743,

history of South-east Asia