Showing papers in "Sojourn in 2003"

Global Flows of Foreign Talent: Identity Anxieties in Singapore's Ethnoscape

Abstract: This paper draws on Appadurai's (1996) concept of ethnoscapes — the global flow of people or what has become increasingly popularized as the global flow of talent. Singapore has initiated a foreign talent policy to compete for a global pool of talent to make up for its shortfall of indigenous work-force. The rationale for recruiting foreign talent is informed by a nationalist competitive ideology to sustain Singapore in the new knowledge-based economy. This paper examines the competing and dissenting discourses surrounding the foreign talent policy. It argues that the mobility of migratory flow has transformative and disruptive effects at the level of culture and the identity landscape of Singapore, where its discursive cultural boundaries are drawn according to a nationalist framework. Drawing on theories and concepts of ‘diaspora’, ‘hybridity’, and ‘third space’, these are the political and cultural issues that this paper attempts to tease out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violent youth groups in Indonesia: the cases of Yogyakarta and Nusa Tenggara Barat.

Abstract: Problems of violent youth groups have escalated In Indonesia, following economic recession, unemployment, and weakened state institutions. Young people have been hit oy the lack of income and broken expectations. In consequence, youth groups emerge and arrange for members' economic revenue as well as identity creation and confidence. Religion In some cases is used to legitimize violence and to strengthen the boldness of group members. The paper offers a brief overview of gangster [preman) traditions in Indonesia. Empirical findings on violent youth groups in the two selected provinces are presented within a multi-factor analytical framework, where the need for income and identity strengthening, political elite interests, and the lack of law enforcement contribute to explaining criminal and vigilante violence. Interviews with leaders and members of movements engaged in violent actions offer insights into a problem that threatens national security and control. Since the economic crisis started in 1997, an increasing number of people in Indonesia are thrown into the harsh reality ofjoblessness. The younger generation is most severely affected by the lack ofemployment or pertinent possibilities of income generation, and identity creation. More than 40 million people are without a reliable income from employment in Indonesia today, most ofthem young and male, having nothing to sell but their own muscles. Rates of criminality have increased, not least as a consequence ofweakened state and police power since the fall of Soeharto's authoritarian regime in 1998.

Space, Theory, and Hegemony: The Dual Crises of Asian Area Studies and Cultural Studies

Abstract: The classical form of area studies based on the notion of culture-language areas has been critiqued by globalization theorists and poststructuralists as old-fashioned (pre-globalization) and theoretically naive (empirical). However; the death of area studies would leave students of Asian societies in a theoretically and politically fraught situation. While the essentialism of classical area studies must be abandoned, the critiques presented by globalization and poststructuralist theorists often presume that capitalist globalization entails the erasure of borders, the homogenization of cultures, and the end of spatiality as a domain of theoretically significant difference. These views are critiqued as ideologically driven and empirically unfounded, Geography remains a theoretically significant domain of discursive and cultural difference under globalization. A theoretically sophisticated area studies project therefore remains an essential method for understanding the twenty-first century world.

Mapping Poststructuralism's Borders: The Case for Poststructuralist Area Studies

Abstract: The growth of highly formalized varieties of deconstructionist and Foucauldian analysis in Asian cultural studies is commonly based upon ideological accounts of capital st globalization as entailing cultural homogenization. This implicit economic determinism supports the universalization of Western poststructuralist theory. In Asian cultural studies a conjuncture between globalization theory, Marxism and poststructuralism can operate as a parallel to, and implicit legitimation of, Western geopolitical hegemony. The "application" of poststructuralism outside its culture of origin reveals its capacity to obscure cultural difference despite rhetorical claims that this body of theorizing valorizes the importance of difference. In Asian studies the critical thrust of poststructuralism can be preserved by incorporating the notion of bordered spatialities as theoretically significant domains of difference between forms of discourse and culture. That is, in cross-cultural analysis the critical value of poststructuralism can be salvaged by drawing insights from the methods of area studies. A theoretical hybridization of poststructuralism and area studies can resist Euro-American theoretical hegemony.

The Impact of Urbanization on Family Structure: The Experience of Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract: This paper argues that women and men encounter the processes of migration and urbanization in very gendered ways. It examines state development policies and their role in accelerating the pace of urbanization, Using material from a recently concluded study on single mothers in the lower socio-economic strata, this paper explores the impact of these wider processes on the structure of the family and women from this strata specifically.

Migrant Family Drama Revisited: Mainland Chinese Immigrants in Singapore

Abstract: This paper attempts to unfold the drama of mainland Chinese migrant families in Singapore in terms of their gender and generation politics -- the interpersonal as well as role conflicts within the domestic domain as they were engendered and negotiated during the migration process. The "better life" promise of migration for each and every family member was scrutinized -- each time gazing at a different member in the context of his or her institutionalized position in the family. As it happened divided rather than common interests emerged. Not all benefited from moving. Yet all were convinced of the family having made "the right move". The social construction of the family was further strengthened by transnationalism which reproduced the "reality" of family solidarity through mundane everyday life activities acted out across borders. But when internalized as a construct an ideal the family bonded its members -- thus its internal cohesiveness. It also bound and controlled the self. Sure there were gains but there were also losses especially on the part of the less powerful. Globalization and transnationalism have yet to fulfil their promises. (authors)

Social science research and conservation management in the interior of Borneo : unravelling past and present interactions of people and forests

Abstract: The Culture and Conservation Research Program in Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, constitutes a unique interdisciplinary engagement in central Borneo that lasted for six years (1991-97). Based on original ethnographic, ecological, and historical data, this volume comprehensively describes the people and the environment of this region and makes a rare contribution to the understanding of past and present interactions between people and forests in central Borneo. Kayan Mentarang has thus become one of the ethnographically best known protected areas in Southeast Asia. By pointing at the interface between research and forest management, this book offers tools for easing the antagonism between applied and scholarly research, and building much needed connections across fields of knowledge.

The Socio-Economic Impacts of Rice Policies Implementation in Rural Burma/Myanmar

Abstract: This paper, focusing on two rice-farming villages where the Burmese government has experimented with a variety of agricultural programmes, explores the problems associated with rice implementation processes. In particular it looks at the basic structure and operation of agricultural administration — salary and income of government officials, the predominance of military officers in civilian ministries and departments, the creation of departments with overlapping responsibilities, and the hierarchical structure of the Agricultural Ministry — and highlight their limitations. It provides another aspect to evaluating the roots of poverty among average rice farmers.

From Travelogues to Guidebooks: Imagining Colonial Singapore, 1819-1940

Abstract: People come to know about places in a variety of ways, among which the most important and highly valued is through travel. Travel experiences seldom occur in a vacuum, but, instead are filtered through preconceived images and expectations. Moreover, even though these images or travel representations may or may not be congruent with the actual experiences, they, nevertheless, give rise to a definition of the "place" as an entity with an identity, spirit, and personality internal to itself. In this paper, I examine travel representations of Singapore (1819-1940) produced by the two genres — travelogues and guidebooks. By doing so, I hope to show how these discourses are instrumental in the constitution of the colonial geo-body of Singapore.

After the Malay Dilemma: The modern Malay subject and cultural logics of "National Cosmopolitanism" in Malaysia

Abstract: Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir's The Malay Dilemma has provided the ideological foundation of the pro-bumiputera policy; it Is for that reason worth re-reading. The paper will deconstruct the authorial desire of the text in order to excavate the psychological depth of Dr Mahathir's understanding of the "the problem facing the Malays". The relentless Othering of the Chinese, i argue, creates a cul-de-sac In the Malay subject whose socio-economic arrival is finally measured by the achievement of the Other. Both Malay marginalization and Chinese excessive endowment are constructions for making the "truth claims" about cause and origin of Malay backwardness. In this context, the new Malay subjectivity embodied in the Melayu Bam strikes precisely against this self-Identification vis-a-vis the Chinese Other. More than that, as a new class located In capitalist modernity, the "New Malays" expresses a new and located cosmopolitanism characterized by going beyond the traditional ethnic binary of us versus them, Malay versus non-Malay, so central to the ruling UMNO Ideology. This nascent sensibility of "national cosmopolitanism", it Is ardently hoped, will be a beginning of the rupture of the terse antagonism of ethnic relations in Malaysia.

Indonesian Azharites, Fifteen Years Later

Abstract: This short note is a nostalgic return to the places where the Indonesian students in Cairo resided and studied. It hints at the significant change in the space and the ongoing transformation of the Indonesian student community in Cairo.

A Game of Three Monkeys: KadazanDusun Villagers and Violence Against Women

Abstract: Based on detailed and long-term anthropological research among rural Kadazans, the paper sets out the social history of domestic violence in one Sabah village. In more than 30 per cent of the households, there is a woman who has experienced repeated spousal abuse during her life. Adding those men who abused earlier spouses, and adults who lived through the abuse of their mothers in childhood, it is clear that violence is and has long been part of everyday — yet secret — village experience. For various reasons, researchers appear to have colluded in ignoring the issue. To help those women and their children whose lives are blighted by fear and fearful memories, it would be wise to assume domestic violence is as present in rural as in urban settings.

The Thai Village Economy in the Past (review)

Abstract: How wonderful to have this classic work available in English! Originally published in Thai in 1984, this book, The Thai Village Economy in the Past, catalysed a generation of scholars in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology. Even today, this book continues to shape the work not merely of academics, but also a wide range of° activists. Thanks to this polished translation by Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, together with Silkworm Press, a wider international audience will now be able to enter these debates. Included in this English edition is an \"Afterword\" by Baker and Pasuk which provides an excellent overview of the intellectual trajectory of Chattip's scholarship and its wide-ranging impact on others. Chatthip's writings are widely read and have been extremely influential. As Baker and Pasuk note, Chatthip's research has spurred three schools of study: \"the political economy group at Chulalongkorn University, the school of village study based on a cultural approach, and a new social and cultural study ofTai communities across the region\" (p. 116). Chatthip was trained as an economist in the United States, and his dissertation was on the impact of foreign trade and foreign finance on Thailand's economic development in 1959-65. However, despite his American training, his approach to economics was more continental. His interests were at once humane and humanitarian, grounded in a concern with the quality of life of ordinary people. His first major work in English, The PoliticalEconomy ofSiam, written and edited with Suthy Prasartset, was a trailblazer. Using a variety of English and Thai archival sources, Chattip and Suthy offered a characterization of the overall political economy of nineteenth century Thai society. Included in their historical reconstruction was an effort to understand the condition of