Explorations Volume 09, Spring 2009
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ItemBoxing Day in Cotabato: Notes from the Field(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:46:26Z)
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ItemFour Days in Papua: Notes from the Field(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:38:52Z)
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ItemBook Review: Benny Widyono’s Dancing in Shadows.(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:37:47Z)
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ItemInterrogating National Identity Ethnicity, Language and History in K.S. Maniam's The Return and Shirley Geok-lin Lim's Joss and Gold(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:37:02Z)The author examines how two Malaysian authors, ethnically Chinese Shirley Geok-lin Lim and ethnically Indian K.S. Maniam, challenge the Malay identity that the government has crafted and presented as the national identity for all Malaysians. In their novels in English Joss & Gold (2001) and The Return (1981) respectively, Lim and Maniam interrogate this construct through the lenses of ethnicity, history and language. In critiquing the government’s troubling construction of a monoethnic and monolingual national identity, Lim and Maniam present both the alienation and the unstable existences of ethnic minorities that are purposely excluded from the national identity by the Malay nationalist culture. Malaya attained independence from Britain on the 31st of August 1957. “Malaysia” came into existence after the first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman convinced Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore, three British crown colonies, to join Malaya in a federal union. Singapore would later leave the union on the 9th of August 1965. When the British left Malaya, they transferred political power to the United Malay National Organization (UMNO), a right-wing political party that continues to be a powerful advocate of organization believes that the Malay ethnic majority are the rightful citizens of Malaysia and deserve to be given special political, economic and educational privileges. Then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, a Malay himself, created this concept as well as the practice of giving special privileges to Malays. He also coined the term bumiputera (sons/princes of the soil) to refer to Malays. Both the term and practice came into official use in 1965 and are still in existence today. Two years later, the predominantly Malay government established Malay as the national language of the country. In 1970, the government made Islam the state religion. Today, all Malays are required by law to profess Islam as their faith or lose their status as bumiputera1. By making special allowances for Malays based on their status as bumiputera and institutionalizing Malay as the national language and Islam as the state religion, the government constructed a national identity that was Malaysian in name, but Malay in spirit. Both Joss and Gold and The Return are two decades apart but their relevance to the recent political and social turmoil in Malaysia is undeniable. They speak to a burgeoning dissatisfaction among Malaysian ethnic minorities who have become far less willing to tolerate a government and national identity that denies them the full privileges of their citizenship.
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ItemThe Geopolitics of Cambodia During the Cold War Period(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:35:17Z)After gaining its independence from France in 1953, Cambodia, like many other newly independent countries, had to face the new escalating global problem of the time: the Cold War. As far as Cambodia was concerned, the effects of the Cold War were discernible from the outset, with the formation of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1951 in Vietnam and its influence on the communist movement in Cambodia. However, it was not ideological conflict alone that accounted for the destruction of Cambodia in the following decades. Michael Leifer, for instance, notes: “Ever since the decline of the ancient Khmer Empire, geography has combined with politics to shape the fortunes of the Cambodian state.”1 Similarly, British journalist William Shawcross also writes: “Cambodia is a victim of its geography and of its political underdevelopment.”2 This essay therefore intends to examine the main factors that were crucial to the development of Cambodian geopolitics during the Cold War era. I would argue that the geopolitics of Cambodia from 1953 to 1991 is characterized mainly by three factors: the Vietnam War, the legacy of French colonial rule, i.e. the country’s territorial disputes with her neighbors, and finally, the rivalry of hegemonic powers in the region as well as the politics of the Cold War itself.
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ItemPlaying with Piety: The Phenomenon of Indonesian Muslim Dolls(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:34:39Z)Introduction Muslim dolls are a new phenomenon within contemporary popular Islamic culture, particularly in Indonesia. While most contemporary Indonesian Islamist movements like Salafism (neo-Wahabism) are deeply influenced by transnational Islamist ideologies and thus reject any figures of humans,1 moderate Salafists often allow children to play with dolls. This acceptance is based on the Hhadits that spoke about Aisyah, the youngest wife of the Prophet, playing with a type of doll when she was about nine years old. Despite this acceptance, many conservatives still argue that Aisyah’s doll was not precisely a human-shaped doll. Muslim dolls emerged in Indonesia in 2005, soon after the reformation era2 when Islamic movements emerged more prominently in public spheres, marking a modern turn in the evolution of Islamic movements. Along with this transition into modernity, members of various Muslim organizations that married and built families began to consider secular toys for their children’s entertainment, particularly dolls. Not only were Muslim parents concerned about whether toys were or affordability of toys. Toy makers developed creative strategies in order to take these concerns into account. Muslim dolls and other popular “Islamic”imagery in popular culture—such as busana Muslim (Islamic clothes), Islamic stickers, Islamic music performances, among others—represent a huge material database for “religious visual culture.”
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ItemConsumerism and the Emergence of a New Middle Class in Globalizing Indonesia(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:33:52Z)Most analysts of the middle class agree that the emergence of a new middle class in Asian countries was the inevitable result of economic reform in the developing states. The emergence of this new middle class in Asian countries took place in the 1980s and 1990s during the third wave of economic development and industrialization in the region, resulting not only in economic modernization, but also leading to the implementation of important economic policies. Apart from increasing economic growth, those policies encouraged export-led industrial transformation and further facilitated the growing movement towards a new economy driven by financial globalization, market liberalization and the globalization of products. As a result of these economic policies, the process of economic growth and industrialization has produced improvement in absolute living standards. This can be seen in the state-led industrialization policy of South Korea, whose rapid economic growth in recent decades continuously improved people’s living standards, and a large number of people were able to move into the expanding middle class.2 Rapid industrialization accompanied by modernization and market liberalization created affluent and prosperous groups in society. A range of indicators reveal improvements in living standards. For example, ownership of cars, telephones, televisions, refrigerators, and other such material possessions hasincreased. In addition, safe water supplies and healthy foods have become more accessible. Indonesia is experiencing a similar trend of economic and social change. The country’s economic modernization and development was initiated and promoted by the New Order (1966-1997). The 1980s were an important period as economic progress at the time led to the emergence of the Indonesian middle class. People obtained work as business executives and managers, stock analysts, engineers, bankers, lawyers, accountants, white-collar office workers in city centers and other professional jobs often associated with a booming middle class. This state-led industrialization was intended to stimulate the emergence of a new middle class in Indonesia. William Liddle, a prominent Indonesianist, has suggested that Indonesia’s liberalizing economic policy during the New Order regime is largely responsible for the growth of the middle class.
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ItemCode-switching in Kuala Lumpur Malay: The “Rojak” Phenomenon(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:30:39Z)
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ItemBeing a Santri: Notes from the Field(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:29:58Z)
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ItemDrowned in Romances, Tears, and Rivers: Young Women’s Suicide in Early Twentieth-Century Vietnam(Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2009-08-14T16:29:08Z)