Showing papers in "Sojourn in 2016"
TL;DR: A large number of Thai postage stamps devoted to supernatural cults of prosperity released since 2004 reflect the relocation of these movements from the margins to the centre of national religious practice and reflect a major shift in the regime of power over public imaging that depicts the participation of Thailand's economic, political and royal elites in new forms of supernatural ritual as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Since the 1980s, new supernatural movements have become highly visible additions to Thailand’s spiritual landscapes and religious marketplaces. Focused on supernatural intervention to bring success, wealth and prosperity in Thailand’s expanding economy, these movements are often only tangentially related to orthodox Theravada Buddhist teachings and practice. These highly commodified wealth-oriented movements emerged in the context of Thailand’s economic boom in the 1980s and 1990s, and have continued to grow in popularity and develop further through the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the political conflicts that have destabilized Thai society over the past decade. The large number of colourful special issues of Thai postage stamps devoted to supernatural cults of prosperity released since 2004 reflects the relocation of these movements from the margins to the centre of national religious practice. These stamp special issues also reflect a major shift in the regime of power over public imaging that depicts the participation of Thailand’s economic, political and royal elites in new forms of supernatural ritual. This ritual has now been incorporated into state projects under the aegis of officially sponsored Theravada Buddhism. No longer kept hidden or private, elite participation in supernatural ritual is becoming an increasingly visible and politically significant dimension of the symbolism and exercise of power in early twenty-first-century Thailand.
20 citations
TL;DR: In June 2012, Cambodia's prime minister issued an order on land titling that deployed student volunteers to survey and map the country's territory as discussed by the authors, which dramatically refashioned the land to mimic in advance the expectations of the Map.
Abstract: In June 2012, Cambodia’s prime minister issued an order on land titling that deployed student volunteers to survey and map the country’s territory. Examination of this initiative at the theoretical intersections of mapping, mimicry and governmentality demonstrates the violent exclusions inherent in cadastral projects that restrict measuring and titling to only “productive” properties. In a field of speculation and local power the initiative dramatically refashioned the land to mimic in advance the expectations of the Map. The transformations altered land access and use in ways that told two stories about the power of the Map: “clear it or lose it” and “if you clear it, you can have it”. Neither story was fully realized, but the land was transformed nonetheless.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the information campaign to promote ASEAN Economic Community, with its promise of open borders from the end of 2015 onward, had reached the borderlanders, but the region’s borders, though transgressed daily, remained firmly in place.
Abstract: Ethnographic snapshots from borderscapes in the Greater Mekong Subregion suggest that the information campaign to promote ASEAN Economic Community, with its promise of open borders from the end of 2015 onward, had reached the borderlanders. But the region’s borders, though transgressed daily, remained firmly in place. These snapshots raise questions concerning whether anything was in fact opening up; if so, what was opening up; and for whom it was opening up. Limited agreements, whose implementation has lagged, promise to facilitate tourism, large-scale trade and the cross-border employment of skilled personnel, but national governments continue to manage the heavy flows of low-skilled migrants tightly.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present Bai Shouyi's scholarship on the Song-era materia medica trade and the government-sponsored Chinese Islamic South Seas Delegation's wartime mission to Malaya.
Abstract: During China’s Republican era (1911–49), amid increasing contacts with Southeast Asia, Chinese Muslims crafted politically useful narratives of Sino–Islamic maritime exchange and Islam’s contributions to Chinese civilization. Two examples stand out in particular: Bai Shouyi’s scholarship on the Song-era materia medica trade and the government-sponsored Chinese Islamic South Seas Delegation’s wartime mission to Malaya. In both cases, Chinese Muslims asserted their connectedness not only to the Chinese nation-state and the Arab Middle East but also to the Islamic world as a whole. Southeast Asia’s significance for modern Chinese Islam lay in providing an inspiration and a destination for these travelling civilizational narratives.
13 citations
TL;DR: This paper studied the anti-communism of Vietnamese refugees after the 1954 Geneva Agreements and found that two fundamental factors explain their anti-Communism: their desire to avenge their forced departure from the North and their opposition to atheism.
Abstract: Vietnam War studies have often focused on the United States’ commitment to fight communism, but Catholic refugees who moved to the South after the 1954 Geneva Agreements were also determined to fight against Hanoi. In publications associated with these refugees, two fundamental factors explain their anti-communism: their desire to avenge their forced departure from the North and their opposition to atheism. An analysis of these refugees’ focus on uniting Vietnam and freeing it from communism sheds new light on the aftermath of their migration, on the political significance of religious faith and on the fashioning of a non-communist nationalism in Vietnam.
11 citations
TL;DR: In the twenty-first century, the Thailand-Myanmar border has seen the emergence of a holy man to whom the concept of millenarianism is, in the current changing religious environment, not applicable.
Abstract: The study of holy men active in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries has associated them primarily with millenarian movements. In the twenty-first century, the Thailand–Myanmar border has seen the emergence of a holy man to whom the concept of millenarianism is, in the current changing religious environment, not applicable. Khruba Bunchum, a contemporary Thai monk with a significant ethnic minority following in Myanmar, rose to fame in Thailand after being forced to leave Myanmar and spending three years meditating in an isolated cave. He has gained followers among wealthy and middle-class Thais. His case illustrates the effect of mobile media technology in transforming the practice of venerating holy men. It suggests the need for a new approach to studying religious movements, one that draws on religious, political and media sources.
11 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a renewed and reoriented analysis of the organizational milieux underpinning everyday monastic life is proposed, and the empirical and analytic benefits of a revitalized research agenda along these lines are discussed, as well as demographic, geographic and social factors that should be taken into consideration when pursuing such research.
Abstract: Studies of the Thai sangha as an institution have fallen out of academic fashion in recent decades, despite the fact that during this same time Thai public life has been characterized by widespread organizational ferment and innovation. Accordingly, a renewed and reoriented analysis of the organizational milieux underpinning everyday monastic life is overdue. Nine themes worth examining in research on the monastic order as a public institution are proposed. The empirical and analytic benefits of a revitalized research agenda along these lines are then discussed, as well as the demographic, geographic and social factors that should be taken into consideration when pursuing such research.
11 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the generation gap in Timor-Leste's street art, the medium most accessible to members of the Geracao Foun, or new generation.
Abstract: Of the challenges confronting the nation-building project in Timor-Leste, the “generation gap” is one of the most important. The history of Timor-Leste, characterized by foreign occupations by both Portugal and Indonesia, has produced an emerging national identity founded on the concept of suffering in the name of national self-determination. Official state narratives that outline a national identity based on the recent struggle for independence have privileged the generation of East Timorese whose members led the resistance movement against the Indonesian occupation. This emphasis has not only overlooked youth involvement in the liberation struggle, but it has also estranged the younger generation of East Timorese from the nation-state. The examination of street art, the medium most accessible to members of Timor-Leste’s Geracao Foun , or “new generation”, permits exploration of the ways that they identify with official notions of an emerging national identity.
10 citations
TL;DR: Cambodia's malaria eradication programme is an example of how the disjointed strategy of combining various interventions can lead to increasing spatial and social health inequalities and the criteria for efficient delivery reveal an unsustainable national public health vision.
Abstract: Cambodia is constructing a broad partnership to guide the delivery of public health services in a context of historical anarchy in the health sector and of contemporary political obstacles. Ironically, the conditions of this partnership undermine the sovereignty of the national programme and hinder the ability of the government to provide comprehensive services. National authorities have given in to the pressure of international funding agencies to adopt approaches characterized by verticalization, multicentred interventions, volunteerism and private partnership. The malaria eradication programme is an example of how the disjointed strategy of combining various interventions can lead to increasing spatial and social health inequalities. In addition, the Cambodian government is often overburdened in trying to manage a multitude of frequently incoherent external interventions. The criteria for efficient delivery reveal an unsustainable national public health vision. Local planners should reconsider the parameters under which they engage with external parties and shore up the autonomy of their decision-making.
10 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the biographies of three important Caodaist leaders highlight the diversity of their alliances, disagreements and conflicts, while making clear that all three shared the ultimate and unifying purpose of transforming Caodaism into the "national religion" of Vietnam.
Abstract: Caodaism is an indigenous and syncretistic religion of Vietnam that appeared in the 1920s, during the French colonial period. Caodaists believe that they have the responsibility to save humanity through spirit-mediumship and conversion before the impending end of the world. Their theology thus clearly intersects with politics: Cao Đai texts encouraged Vietnamese nationalism and endorsed the overthrow of French colonial rule. Between 1940 and 1965, Caodaist leaders made a range of strategic choices during wartime: armed struggle, collaboration, alliance and, finally, diplomacy. The biographies of three important Caodaist leaders highlight the diversity of their alliances, disagreements and conflicts, while making clear that all three shared the ultimate and unifying purpose of transforming Caodaism into the “national religion” of Vietnam.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider two Cham rituals, the Imam San Mawlid, a Muslim saint's anniversary, and the Mamun, a possession ceremony to invite royal spirits.
Abstract: Scholarship on Muslims in Cambodia often revolves around a series of cultural, religious and social contrasts between Champa and Cambodia, between Chams and Khmers. Yet such an approach depends in turn on an apprehension of ethnic boundaries as given, fixed, and permanent. Consideration of two Cham rituals suggests a more nuanced perspective. These rituals are the Imam San Mawlid, a Muslim saint’s anniversary, and the Mamun , a possession ceremony to invite royal spirits. While both events are said to celebrate Cham culture and history, Khmer elements make the flexibility, the porosity and the fluidity of identities finally rendered illusive, if not inseparable.
TL;DR: Konuntakiet and Too as discussed by the authors exploit their claims of and access to "Chineseness" and "Chinese culture" to pursue successful careers as "ethnopreneurs".
Abstract: Abstract:Both Chitra Konuntakiet from Thailand and Lillian Too from Malaysia capitalize on their claims of and access to “Chineseness” and “Chinese culture” to pursue successful careers as “ethnopreneurs”. The historical timing, political and economic contexts, and intellectual and ideological underpinnings of their acts of cultural arbitrage account for how these “Anglo-Chinese” women can profit from national and cultural differences within and between nations to promote hybridized national identities and propound gendered visions and practices of entrepreneurship that draw on, but are not reducible to, the prevailing ideologies and imageries of male-powered “Chinese” transnational capitalism.
TL;DR: The International Coordination Committee for the Safeguarding of the Historic Site of Angkor as discussed by the authors was established to coordinate and mediate international and national state interests in the conservation and development of the site and those of the communities living near it.
Abstract: To what extent has the system of international cooperation established to manage the UNESCO “World Heritage Site” of Angkor through the “International Coordination Committee for the Safeguarding of the Historic Site of Angkor” succeeded in coordinating and mediating international and national state interests in the conservation and development of the site and those of the communities living near it? A series of programmes aimed at spatial transformations of the “Angkor region” featured crucial French and Japanese roles in framing the committee’s activities and its interactions with the Cambodian authorities. Representatives of both the committee and UNESCO made self-legitimizing claims asserting the success of their work as a model of international cooperation for the safeguarding of World Heritage Sites. But can a proper mechanism of cooperation for the safeguarding of a major heritage site be realized, or sustained, without the effective participation of the communities living in and around these sites?
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TL;DR: The Thai 78 rpm Discographical Framework as discussed by the authors is a complete listing of all known 78 rpm recordings of Thai music, the first of its kind for any Southeast Asian nation, and its content suggests that a significant but as yet unacknowledged factor in the “golden age of Thai song” in the 1960s was the overlap between 78 rpm technology and 45 and 33 rpm technology.
Abstract: The Thai 78 rpm Discographical Framework is a complete listing of all known 78 rpm recordings of Thai music, the first of its kind for any Southeast Asian nation. Initial analysis of the Framework and its content suggests that a significant but as yet unacknowledged factor in the “golden age of Thai song” in the 1960s was the overlap between 78 rpm technology and 45 and 33 rpm technology. When major companies abandoned the 78 rpm format, singer-songwriters and small publishing companies gained a foothold in the Thai recording industry. The result was the industry’s fragmentation and increased creativity.
TL;DR: Cambodian royalism is in its death throes as mentioned in this paper, and while the death of King-Father Sihanouk in 2012 caused an outburst of popular emotion, in the national elections held the following year royalists failed for the first time to win any parliamentary seats.
Abstract: Cambodian royalism is in its death throes. While the death of King-Father Sihanouk in 2012 caused an outburst of popular emotion, in the national elections held the following year royalists failed for the first time to win any parliamentary seats. A detailed case study of the difficulty of transposing royal legitimacy to the party-political context explains this apparent paradox. During the Second Kingdom (1993–present) a largely hidden struggle to imbue royalism with meaning has unfolded. At the centre of this struggle has been the difficulty of transferring legitimacy from Sihanouk to other royalist actors, and in particular to his son Norodom Ranariddh. Sihanouk’s unmatchable significance has resulted in formidable challenges that now confront Cambodian royalism.
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TL;DR: Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson as mentioned in this paper died on 13 December 2015 in East Java, Indonesia and the news spread swiftly through Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp messages and email from multiple sources that those who received it considered reliable.
Abstract: Benedict Richard O’Gorman Anderson died on 13 December 2015 in East Java, Indonesia. The news spread swiftly — through Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp messages and email — from multiple sources that those who received it considered reliable. Nevertheless, the news was unbelievable, not so much in the sense that the fact was suspect, but in the sense that we found it difficult to habituate ourselves to the fact. In writing about Javanese death practices, Jim Siegel, one of Anderson’s closest friends, started by saying that “[a] person is dead when he has been given up for dead by those closest to him” (Siegel 1983, p. 1). That is, the phenomenology of death includes both biological death and social death. Siegel adds that, in Java, the time lapse between the two is short, sometimes a matter of minutes. With Anderson, this was not the case. He was not given the “hurried, subdued, yet methodically efficient” Javanese funeral (Geertz 1973, p. 146), which would have been too short. Instead, he had an Indonesian funeral, and a unique one at that.
TL;DR: In this paper, the imminent processes of regional integration in ASEAN are again diminishing the Cambodian state's autonomy and room to maneuver, despite more recent regulatory assertiveness reflecting the government's enhanced capacity.
Abstract: Since opening to the international community following the Paris Peace Accords in 1991, Cambodia has incrementally adopted a stance of political liberalization. Whether because of the exigencies of reconstruction and development or by intention, large tracts of the institutional domain have been delivered into the hands of development agencies, corporations, non-governmental organizations and other private entities. Higher education was no exception, witnessing runaway growth in private-sector capacity in a lax regulatory environment since the mid-1990s. Despite more recent regulatory assertiveness reflecting the government’s enhanced capacity, the imminent processes of regional integration in ASEAN are again diminishing the Cambodian state’s autonomy and room to maneuver.
TL;DR: Bira became a successful race car driver on the White Mouse Racing Team, managed by Prince Chulachakrabongse and Prince Birabongse Bhanudej as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Prince Chulachakrabongse and Prince Birabongse Bhanudej were sent to England to study at Harrow and Eton in the 1920s. They lived as Thai princes among the English upper class and indulged in the pastimes of that class, such as athletics, flying and motor car racing. Bira became a successful race car driver on the White Mouse Racing Team, managed by Chula. He even won the Gold Star, awarded to the best “British” race car driver, in three consecutive years — 1936, 1937 and 1938. His achievements were celebrated in Siam as a sign of national greatness and of Siam’s parity with the West. Racing was and still is closely associated with the nation. Bira’s and Chula’s story contributes to the study of the top-down construction of Thai nationalism. Thai nationalism is not about an armed struggle against colonial oppressors. It is about mastering Western civilization in attempts to appear equal. It is a nationalism closely associated with the monarchy, members of the royal family, aristocrats and bureaucratic servants of the crown.
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TL;DR: For example, the authors of as mentioned in this paper have pointed out that there is little room for chance within the intellectual frameworks of academia and that the odds are very high that the reader or he won't find an entry for ‘luck’ in any two dozen important scholarly books.
Abstract: If the reader cares to consult the indexes of any two dozen important scholarly books, the odds are very high that she or he won’t find an entry for ‘luck’. Academics are deeply committed to such concepts as ‘social forces’, ‘institutional structures’, ‘ideologies’, ‘traditions’, ‘demographic trends’ and the like. They are no less deeply committed to ‘causes’ and the complex ‘effects’ that follow from them. Within such intellectual frameworks there is little room for chance. Once in a while I would tease my students by asking them if any of their friends or relatives had ever been involved in a motor accident. In response to a positive reply, I would then ask: ‘Do you really mean it was an accident?’ And they would usually answer with something along the lines of: ‘Yes! If Grandma had stayed chatting in the shop five minutes longer, she wouldn’t have been knocked down by the motorcyclist’; or, ‘If the motorcyclist had left his girlfriend’s house five minutes earlier, Grandma would still have been chatting in the shop.’ Then I would ask them: ‘So how do you explain the fact that over the Christmas holidays the authorities can predict fairly well how many Americans will be killed in accidents? Let’s say that the actual number turns out to be 5,000. The authorities will have looked at statistical trends over past Christmases and predicted, say, 4,500 or 5,500, not 32 or 15,000. What “causes” these predictions about “accidents” to be so good?’ Once in a while a clever student would reply that the answer is probability theory, or ‘statistical probability’. But in what sense can ‘probability’ be understood as a ‘cause’? More than a century ago, Emile Durkheim faced the same problem when he studied the most lonely of all human acts: suicide.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that eventually there will need to be a shift in the philosophy of governance to reflect the conviction that people are actually entitled to the government that they elect and thus truly to solve Thailand's dilemmas.
Abstract: of what is wonderful about the state of knowledge and understanding of reality within Thailand. Its authors are clearly well-informed about the operation of the current pattern of inequality and, to be honest, of political oppression. Remarkably, they are also able to express optimism about the potential for change and improvement in Thai society. While it is clear that eventually there will need to be a shift in the philosophy of governance to reflect the conviction that people are actually entitled to the government that they elect and thus truly to solve Thailand’s dilemmas, it is reaffirming to read such good scholarship delivered with so much hope for the future.
TL;DR: The Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalization Programme is a four-year, 500,000 euro programme devised and implemented by four municipalities and the College of Local Administration of Khon Kaen University in Northeast Thailand as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalization Programme is a four-year, 500,000-euro programme devised and implemented by four municipalities and the College of Local Administration of Khon Kaen University in Northeast Thailand. The design and manufacture — using traditional processes adapted for making Western-style shirts that first became popular in Thailand in the first decade of the twentieth century — of student uniforms for Ban Phai municipality is one of the action lines of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalization Programme. A brief review of Thailand’s decentralization process is followed by a section on school uniforms. The project in Ban Phai had four phases: a survey of citizens’ attitudes towards the use of traditionally designed and woven clothing; a capacity survey to review the local market; design and manufacture of municipal uniforms; and design and manufacture of school uniforms. The result was the production of more than 400 hybrid jackets for municipal officers with local, national and international characteristics and more than 1,200 similarly hybrid student shirts, using both traditional and machined processes and materials.
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TL;DR: The Divine Eye and the Diaspora as mentioned in this paper is a monograph by Hoskins on Cao Đài or Caodaism written in English and Vietnamese, focusing on its history, beliefs and practices.
Abstract: Nearly a century after its founding, Cao Đài or Caodaism deserves to be given the serious scholarly treatment that it receives in this monograph by Janet Hoskins. She writes of it as a religion rather than a sect, much less a “politico-religious sect” — as it used to be labelled — or a Disney-esque spectacle and tourist attraction. The Divine Eye and the Diaspora is meticulously researched, richly detailed and engagingly written, making accessible to Angolophone readers the world of Cao Đài believers overseas and in Vietnam. Hoskins’s deeply sympathetic portrayal is especially welcome, given the complexity of Cao Đài religion and the misunderstandings to which its equally complicated history has given rise. For the purpose of this SOJOURN Symposium, I will not engage in a full review of the book or indeed of Cao Đài as an historical phenomenon or religious movement. Instead, I will offer a number of comments and raise a few questions as catalysts for further discussion. As the title of the book under discussion hints, it focuses on two main themes: the history, beliefs and practices of Cao Đài and
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TL;DR: A Life Beyond Boundaries as discussed by the authors is an English-to-Japanese translation of Ben Anderson's A Life-Beyond-Boundaries into Japanese with the purpose of exposing young Japanese students to the interplay between the author's experiences and his intellectual development and to help them to think in terms of useful comparisons.
Abstract: Ben Anderson originally prepared what has become A Life Beyond Boundaries as a “simple kind of English-language text” (Anderson 2016, p. vii), destined for translation into Japanese and for publication in that language. The purpose was to expose “young Japanese students” (ibid.) to the interplay between the author’s experiences and his intellectual development and to “help [them] to think in terms of useful comparisons” (ibid., p. ix). This purpose helps account for the book’s two distinguishing characteristics. The first of these is, quite simply, its tone of deep and moving kindness, kindness that will recall for a great many readers their own conversations and encounters with the book’s author. The second is its programmatic nature. The book’s programme is of four parts. First, and gently, it sets out Ben Anderson’s misgivings about a number of intellectual — and not so intellectual — fashions, particularly as embraced by younger scholars. Second, it promises to address “the importance of translations for individuals and societies” (ibid., p. x). Third, it takes as a central theme “the danger of arrogant provincialism, or of forgetting that serious nationalism is tied to internationalism” (ibid.). Fourth, every word of A Life Beyond Boundaries affirms the value of what is called “area studies”. I dedicate most of this review to considering the relationship between the third and fourth parts of this programme, between Ben Anderson’s study of nationalism and the Southeast Asian area studies project.11 The importance of that relationship suggests that Verso Books could and perhaps even should have published A Life Beyond Boundaries under a somewhat different title. To be sure, good Marxists know their commodities, and ours is an age of self-conceived “global
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Abstract: and innovative ethnographic study of the male Chinese population of Bukit Mertajam. Its strength lies in the integration of detailed ethnographic field data into the wider framework of Chinese society. Another strong point is the analysis of the neglected role of the Chinese working class and its relationship to both the Chinese upper class and the Malay-dominated bureaucracy. The significance of the study goes far beyond the ethnography of a booming but not otherwise extraordinary middle-sized Malaysian town, and Nonini certainly rectifies the cliché image of a rich Chinese business society by drawing attention to its numerically far bigger class of Chinese workers, hawkers and the self-employed. This is a book worth reading for students of Malaysian society, modern history and economic development.
TL;DR: In the Mekong Delta province of Mỹ Tho, village populations paid attention to print and electronic media controlled by the Government of Vietnam in Saigon and by the National Liberation Front during the early 1960s.
Abstract: In the Mekong Delta province of Mỹ Tho, village populations paid attention to print and electronic media controlled by the Government of Vietnam in Saigon and by the National Liberation Front during the early 1960s. They also relied for news on rumours and on information circulating on the grapevine. At first, NLF militants benefited from their dialogue with an ascendant rural public. But after 1965 mounting violence complicated Front efforts to stay in touch with its mass base, and the grapevine assumed an even greater importance for people in the countryside. On the eve of the Tet Offensive of 1968, the choices made by rural dwellers helped to determine the course of the Second Indochina War.
TL;DR: The SEATIDE workshop as mentioned in this paper examined the impact of the region's past on its present, including the colonial and Cold War periods, and the persistence of pre-colonial principalities as cultural regions.
Abstract: SEATIDE brought together fifty researchers from nine European and Southeast Asian institutions to research national and regional integration in Southeast Asia. Its conclusions examine the impact of the region’s past on its present, including the colonial and Cold War periods, and the persistence of pre-colonial principalities as cultural regions. Nation-building is analysed in the light of assimilation policies, while borders, transnationalism and connectivity are the focus of discussion of regional integration. Other themes include mobility, gender and work; development models and the environment; state centrality, human security and the “ASEAN integration conundrum”; and an “integration/exclusion nexus” showing that integration involves exclusions by its very nature.
TL;DR: A Sarong for Clio as mentioned in this paper is a collection of contributions to the Festschrift for the study of Thai history from the early 1970s to the early 1990s.
Abstract: The serious student of Thai history will do well to read A Sarong for Clio from cover to cover, rather than dipping selectively into the nine essays and an introduction that it brings together. For it is — despite its title and the uneven quality of its constituent chapters — a volume meriting careful consideration for what it indicates about the state of and prospects for historical scholarship on Thailand. In that sense the book represents an admirable and entirely fitting Festschrift for Craig Reynolds. The approach of this review is to take the contributions to this book on their own terms, rather than systematically to consider the specific ways in which each of those contributions is or is not in dialogue with Reynolds’s work. The latter exercise is far beyond the scope of this review, and perhaps also beyond the competence of this reviewer. The review approaches A Sarong for Clio as a conclave of scholars who share Reynolds’s seriousness about the study of Thailand at a time when trends both in the country and in academic life put that study at risk of trivialization and superficiality. Editor Maurizio Peleggi’s brief, not uncritical, introduction to the volume explores Reynolds’s early work with intelligence and perceptiveness; its treatment of later stages in Reynolds’s work is less thoughtful. Further, while Peleggi finds time for a rather cliché swipe at the “typical 1950s American diet” (p. 12), his discussion of American “neocolonial scholarship” (p. 5) on Thailand during the Cold War and of Reynolds’s transition away from participation in such scholarship feels truncated. His introduction notes Oliver Wolters’s success in giving Reynolds “a taste for cross-disciplinary inquiry and conceptual sophistication” (p. 5) during the course of Reynolds’s studies at Cornell, and it alludes to the prominence of Wolters’s work on Reynolds’s syllabi at the Australian National
TL;DR: Jammes et al. as mentioned in this paper used fieldwork, archival and digital research to understand a dynamic religion, described as "doomed" in the 1950s, and again in 1975, but now resurgent as Vietnam's third largest religion (after Buddhism and Catholicism) with 4.4 million followers.
Abstract: undated, makes it possible to work around the official censorship of mediumistic seances, and engage Caodaists in the United States, Europe and Australia in a series of transnational conversations and publications that present various interpretations of their spiritual mission in the twenty-first century. As the Vietnamese government gradually moves to adopt a more liberal policy towards Caodaism, this international network has managed to bring back a significant number of important religious leaders, who have returned to Vietnam after many decades in California or France. A new generation of spirit mediums are being trained in Saigon now, and renewed interest in religion and ritual — evident all over the country since the beginning of Đổi Mới — suggests that Caodaism’s once important position in the public sphere of southern Vietnam may soon be revived. Jammes’s important study shows us how fieldwork, archival and digital research can be brought together to understand a dynamic religion, described as “doomed” in the 1950s, and again in 1975, but now resurgent as Vietnam’s third largest religion (after Buddhism and Catholicism) with 4.4 million followers.
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TL;DR: For example, this paper pointed out that American hegemony in Southeast Asian Studies has markedly diminished, as seen in the efflorescence of scholarship on the region in Australia, and in various parts of Europe, in Japan and recently South Korea, and most importantly, in Southeast Asia itself, with Singapore as an especially impressive hub of academic expertise and empirical research.
Abstract: On the other hand, there have been other developments and trends which suggest a rosier future for the kind of Southeast Asian Studies which Ben Anderson worked so hard to nurture over the years and writes so eloquently about in A Life Beyond Boundaries. Historians, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and other scholars working on the region outside Political Science have continued to combine sustained interest and immersion in the diverse countries of the region with the demands of their disciplines, as seen in the rich body of scholarship now being produced at a wide range of universities across North America. Meanwhile, American hegemony in Southeast Asian Studies has markedly diminished, as seen in the efflorescence of scholarship on the region in Australia, and in various parts of Europe, in Japan and recently South Korea, and, most importantly of all, in Southeast Asia itself, with Singapore as an especially impressive hub of academic expertise and empirical research. Ben Anderson was always especially keen for Southeast Asian scholars to play more prominent roles in the production of knowledge both on Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asia, and there was dramatic change in this direction over the course of his lifetime, change which is certain to continue if not accelerate in the years ahead. Thus, even as we mourn the passing of Ben Anderson and the passing of the era in which he lived, we should also be grateful for the generous legacies of scholarship he bequeathed to us and take to heart the generosity of spirit with which he bade us farewell.