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JournalISSN: 0217-9520

Sojourn 

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
About: Sojourn is an academic journal published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Tourism. It has an ISSN identifier of 0217-9520. Over the lifetime, 485 publications have been published receiving 4371 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Oct 2001-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine four arenas in Vietnam's political life in which statesociety relations are problematic: governing institutions and processes, mass media, agricultural collectives, and corruption.
Abstract: This article examines four arenas in Vietnam's political life in which statesociety relations are problematic: governing institutions and processes, mass media, agricultural collectives, and corruption. Each has evidence to support two common interpretations, which argue that the state and its various organizations in society run the political show in Vietnam. Yet, there is also evidence for a third interpretation, which highlights political activities in society beyond the reach of the state and its organizations. The article also finds ongoing deliberations in each arena about what relations between the state and society should be. Vietnam's leaders say the government is "of the people, for the people, and by the people". Yet the country's political system has only one political party, the Communist Party. Elections typically have only candidates approved by that party. Tight restrictions make very difficult the formation of any organization or the establishment of any publication that criticizes the Communist Party's domination of the political system. In such a system, what is the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, the authorities and "the people"? Secondly, what is being said and debated in the country about what those relationships should be? This article offers an approach to analysing such questions. It uses three interpretations in the scholarly literature to examine specific political arenas. It finds that each interpretation contributes to an understanding of the political system but is incomplete. This approach also reveals contending notions in Vietnam about appropriate relations between state and society.

112 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Oct 2004-Sojourn
TL;DR: The Thai regime of images as mentioned in this paper is an internally differentiated form of power that exerts systematically different types of policing and control over actions and discourse in the private and public spheres, respectively.
Abstract: This study analyses the empirical character and logical form of modes of Thai power, which the author calls the Thai regime of images. The regime of images is an internally differentiated form of power that exerts systematically different types of policing and control over actions and discourse in the private and public spheres, respectively. Under this regime, actions performed and statements uttered in the public ( satharana ) domain are more stringently monitored than identical actions and utterances restricted to domains that may be no less visible but which are culturally labelled as private ( suan tua ). When statements or representations do not conform with idealized forms, and are perceived as disrupting, "the image of smooth calm" ( phap-phot haeng khwam-sa-ngop-riap-roi ), then both formal (legal) and informal (cultural) modes of power may be mobilized to expel the unwanted representations from the public domain. This regime of power/knowledge has epistemological implications, determining what can and cannot be articulated as public knowledge in Thailand.

88 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Apr 1999-Sojourn
TL;DR: This article cast the worker's experience as a type of ritual, a secular pilgrimage knowingly embarked upon by the individual in close dialectical relationship with the social world, with various stages of double liminality experienced by the migrant worker through the balm of commodities and the consumption of modernity.
Abstract: This paper reasserts the place of human agency amid the structural forces that seem to overdetermine international labour migration. To explore the meanings attached by migrants to overseas employment, the paper casts the worker's experience as a type of ritual, a secular pilgrimage knowingly embarked upon by the individual in close dialectical relationship with the social world. Various stages of double liminality are endured by the migrant worker through the balm of commodities and the consumption of modernity, with the journey of achievement eventuating in a new sense of self. Empirical materials are drawn primarily from studies of Filipina and Filipino workers.

84 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Apr 2008-Sojourn
TL;DR: In this paper, the challenges and realistic opportunities of Islamic rural banks and cooperatives in Indonesia with a focus on effective internal control, external supervision, and the establishment of associations with apex services to their member institutions.
Abstract: Forays into Islamic microfinance have been few and scattered and of limited outreach. Some have been mandated by the state, but lack popular demand, as in Iran; others have emerged in response to popular demand, but lack regulatory support by the state, as in Syria. This has provided the background for a more systematic study of Islamic microfinance in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, where several strands of Islamic microfinance, formal and semi-formal, have evolved since 1990 in parallel. Islamic banking is now officially recognized as part of a dual banking system in Indonesia. Lacking broad popular demand, experience differs by sub-sector. Only commercial banks have successfully acquired the art of Islamic banking by training young and dynamic people, yet lack experience in microfinance. Islamic rural banks, mostly under absentee ownership, have failed to prove themselves as efficient and dynamic providers of microfinance services. Unsupervised Islamic, like conventional, cooperatives are an outright menace to their members, who risk loosing their savings. There are two options of promoting Islamic microfinance: (1) assisting Islamic commercial banks to establish units with Islamic microfinance products; (2) reassessing in a participatory process the challenges and realistic opportunities of Islamic rural banks and cooperatives, with a focus on effective internal control, external supervision, and the establishment of associations with apex services to their member institutions.

77 citations

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202244
20202
201931
201841
201739
201646