Asian Studies - Recent Titles from Ohio University Press

Power, Change, and Gender Relations in Rural Java

Mon, 16 Jan 2012

Power, Change, and Gender Relations in Rural Java (2012)
A Tale of Two Villages

By Ann R. Tickamyer and Siti Kusujiarti

Women’s status in rural Java can appear contradictory to those both inside and outside the culture. In some ways, women have high status and broad access to resources, but other situations suggest that Javanese women lack real power and autonomy. Javanese women have major responsibilities in supporting their families and controlling household finances. They may also own and manage their own property. Yet these symbols and potential sources of independence and influence are determined by a culturally prescribed, state-reinforced, patriarchal gender ideology that limits women’s autonomy. Power, Change, and Gender Relations in Rural Java examines this contradiction as well as sources of stability and change in contemporary Javanese gender relations.

The authors conducted their research in two rural villages in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, during three important historical and political periods: the end of the New Order regime; the transitional period of reformation; and the subsequent establishment of a democratic government. Their collaboration brings a unique perspective, analyzing how gender is constructed and reproduced and how power is exercised as Indonesia faces the challenges of building a new social order.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Power%2C+Change%2C+and+Gender+Relations+in+Rural+Java.
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The Return of the Galon King

Wed, 17 Nov 2010

The Return of the Galon King (2010)
History, Law, and Rebellion in Colonial Burma

By Maitrii Aung–Thwin

In late 1930, on a secluded mountain overlooking the rural paddy fields of British Burma, a peasant leader named Saya San crowned himself King and inaugurated a series of uprisings that would later erupt into one of the largest anti-colonial rebellions in Southeast Asian history. Considered an imposter by the British, a hero by nationalists, and a prophet-king by area-studies specialists, Saya San came to embody traditional Southeast Asia’s encounter with European colonialism in his attempt to resurrect the lost throne of Burma.

The Return of the Galon King analyzes the legal origins of the Saya San story and reconsiders the facts upon which the basic narrative and interpretations of the rebellion are based. Aung-Thwin reveals how counter-insurgency law produced and criminalized Burmese culture, contributing to the way peasant resistance was recorded in the archives and understood by Southeast Asian scholars.

This interdisciplinary study reveals how colonial anthropologists, lawyers, and scholar-administrators produced interpretations of Burmese culture that influenced contemporary notions of Southeast Asian resistance and protest. It provides a fascinating case study of how history is treated by the law, how history emerges in legal decisions, and how the authority of the past is used to validate legal findings.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Return+of+the+Galon+King.
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Resistance on the National Stage

Sun, 17 Oct 2010

Resistance on the National Stage (2010)
Theater and Politics in Late New Order Indonesia

By Michael H. Bodden

Resistance on the National Stage analyzes the ways in which, between 1985 and 1998, modern theater practitioners in Indonesia contributed to a rising movement of social protest against the long-governing New Order regime of President Suharto. It examines the work of an array of theater groups and networks from Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta that pioneered new forms of theater-making and new themes that were often presented more directly and critically than previous groups had dared to do.

Michael H. Bodden looks at a wide range of case studies to show how theater contributed to and helped build the opposition. He also looks at how specific combinations of social groups created tensions and gave modern theater a special role in bridging social gaps and creating social networks that expanded the reach of the prodemocracy movement. Theater workers constructed new social networks by involving peasants, Muslim youth, industrial workers, and lower-middle-class slum dwellers in theater productions about their own lives. Such networking and resistance established theater as one significant arena in which the groundwork for the ouster of Suharto in May 1998, and the succeeding Reform era, was laid.

Resistance on the National Stage will have broad appeal, not only for scholars of contemporary Indonesian culture and theater, but also for those interested in Indonesian history and politics, as well as scholars of postcolonial theater and culture.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Resistance+on+the++National+Stage.
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Between Frontiers

Mon, 15 Mar 2010

Between Frontiers (2010)
Nation and Identity in a Southeast Asian Borderland

By Noboru Ishikawa

A staple of postwar academic writing, “nationalism” is a contentious and often unanalyzed abstraction. It is generally treated as something “imagined,” “fashioned,” and “disseminated,” as an idea located in the mind, in printed matter, on maps, in symbols such as flags and anthems, and in collective memory. Between Frontiers restores the nation to the social field from which it has been abstracted by looking at how the concept shapes the existence of people in border zones, where they live between nations.

Noboru Ishikawa grounds his discussion of border zones in materials gathered during two years of archival research and fieldwork relating to the boundary that separates Malaysian from Indonesian territory in western Borneo. His book considers how the state maintains its national space and how people strategically situate themselves by their community, nation, and ethnic group designated as national territory. Examining these issues in the context of concrete circumstances, where a village boundary coincides with a national border, allows him to delineate the dialectical relationship between nation-state and borderland society both as history and as process. Scholars across the humanities and social sciences will learn from this masterful linking of history and ethnography, and of macro and micro perspectives.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Between+Frontiers.
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Sino–Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century

Sun, 15 Nov 2009

Sino–Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century (2009)

By Derek Heng

China has been an important player in the international economy for two thousand years and has historically exerted enormous influence over the development and nature of political and economic affairs in the regions beyond its borders, especially its neighbors.

Sino–Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century examines how changes in foreign policy and economic perspectives of the Chinese court affected diplomatic intercourse as well as the fundamental nature of economic interaction between China and the Malay region, a subregion of Southeast Asia centered on the Strait of Malacca.

This study’s uniqueness and value lie in its integration of archaeological, epigraphic, and textual data from both China and Southeast Asia to provide a rich, multilayered picture of Sino–Southeast Asian relations in the premodern era. Derek Heng approaches the topic from both the Southeast Asian and Chinese perspectives, affording a dual narrative otherwise unavailable in the current body of Southeast Asian and China studies literature.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Sino%E2%80%93Malay+Trade+and+Diplomacy+from+the+Tenth+through+the+Fourteenth+Century.
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Wartime in Burma

Sat, 15 Aug 2009

Wartime in Burma (2009)
A Diary, January to June 1942

Edited by L. E. Bagshawe and Anna J. Allott

This diary, begun after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and covering the invasion of Burma up to June 1942, is a moving account of the dilemmas faced by the well-loved and prolific Burmese author Theippan Maung Wa (a pseudonym of U Sein Tin) and his family. At the time of the Japanese invasion, U Sein Tin was deputy secretary in the Ministry of Home and Defense Affairs. An Oxford-trained member of the Indian Civil Service, working for the British administration on the eve of the invasion, he lived with his wife and three small children in Rangoon.

Wartime in Burma is a stirring memoir that presents a personal account of U Sein Tin’s feelings about the war, his anxiety for the safety of his family, the bombing of Rangoon, and what happened to them during the next six chaotic months of the British retreat. The author and his family leave Rangoon to live in a remote forest in Upper Burma with several other Burmese civil servants, their staff, and valuable possessions—rich pickings for robbers. His diary ends abruptly on June 5, his forty-second birthday; U Sein Tin was murdered on June 6 by a gang of Burmese bandits. The diary pages, scattered on the floor of the house, were rescued by his wife and eventually published in Burma in 1966.   What survives is a unique account that shines new light on the military retreat from Burma.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Wartime+in+Burma.
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Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement

Mon, 01 Oct 2007

Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement (2007)
Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power

By Ingrid Jordt

Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power describes a transformation in Buddhist practice in contemporary Burma. This revitalization movement has had real consequences for how the oppressive military junta, in power since the early 1960s, governs the country.

Drawing on more than ten years of extensive fieldwork in Burma, Ingrid Jordt explains how vipassanā meditation has brought about a change of worldview for millions of individuals, enabling them to think and act independently of the totalitarian regime. She addresses human rights as well as the relationship between politics and religion in a country in which neither the government nor the people clearly separates the two. Jordt explains how the movement has been successful in its challenge to the Burmese military dictatorship where democratically inspired resistance movements have failed.

Jordt's unsurpassed access to the centers of political and religious power in Burma becomes the reader's opportunity to witness the political workings of one of the world's most secretive and tyrannically ruled countries. Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement is a valuable contribution to Buddhist studies as well as anthropology, religious studies, and political science.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Burma%E2%80%99s+Mass+Lay+Meditation+Movement.
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Under the Heel of the Dragon

Sat, 07 Jul 2007

Under the Heel of the Dragon (2007)
Islam, Racism, Crime, and the Uighur in China

By Blaine Kaltman

The Turkic Muslims known as the Uighur have long faced social and economic disadvantages in China because of their minority status. Under the Heel of the Dragon: Islam, Racism, Crime, and the Uighur in China offers a unique insight into current conflicts resulting from the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the Chinese government’s oppression of religious minorities, issues that have heightened the degree of polarization between the Uighur and the dominant Chinese ethnic group, the Han.

Author Blaine Kaltman’s study is based on in-depth interviews that he conducted in Chinese without the aid of an interpreter or the knowledge of the Chinese government. These riveting conversations expose the thoughts of a wide socioeconomic spectrum of Han and Uighur, revealing their mutual prejudices. The Uighur believe that the Han discriminate against them in almost every aspect of their lives, and this perception of racism motivates Uighur prejudice against the Han.

Kaltman reports that criminal activity by Uighur is directed against their perceived oppressors, the Han Chinese. Uighur also resist Han authority by flouting the laws—such as tax and licensing regulations or prohibitions on the use or sale of hashish—that they consider to be imposed on them by an alien regime. Under the Heel of the Dragon offers a unique insight into a misunderstood world and a detailed explanation of the cultural perceptions that drive these misconceptions.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Under+the+Heel+of+the+Dragon.
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The Komedie Stamboel

Wed, 15 Feb 2006

The Komedie Stamboel (2006)
Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891–1903

By Matthew Isaac Cohen

Originating in 1891 in the port city of Surabaya, the Komedie Stamboel, or Istanbul-style theater, toured colonial Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by rail and steamship. The company performed musical versions of the Arabian Nights and European fairy tales and operas such as Sleeping Beauty and Aida, as well as Indian and Persian romances, Southeast Asian chronicles, true crime stories, and political allegories. The actors were primarily Eurasians, the original backers were Chinese, and audiences were made up of all races and classes.

While audiences marveled at spectacles involving white-skinned actors, there were also racial frictions between actors and financiers, sex scandals, fights among actors and patrons, bankruptcies, imprisonments, and a murder.

Matthew Isaac Cohen's evocative social history situates the Komedie Stamboel in the culture of empire and in late nineteenth-century itinerant entertainment. He shows how the theater was used as a symbol of cross-ethnic integration in postcolonial Indonesia and as an emblem of Eurasian cultural accomplishment by Indische Nederlanders. A pioneering study of nineteenth-century Southeast Asian popular culture, The Komedie Stamboel: Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891-1903 gives a new picture of the region's arts and culture and explores the interplay of currents in global culture, theatrical innovation, and movement in colonial Indonesia.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Komedie+Stamboel.
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Locating Southeast Asia

Sat, 01 Jan 2005

Locating Southeast Asia (2005)
Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space

Edited by Paul H. Kratoska, Remco Raben and Henk Schulte Nordholt

Southeast Asia summons images of tropical forests and mountains, islands and seas, and a multitude of languages, cultures, and religions. Yet the area has never formed a unified political vision nor has it developed cultural unity. Academics have defined Southeast Asia over the years as what is left over after subtracting Australia, the South Pacific islands, China and India. More technically, Southeast Asia is defined as consisting of eleven countries: the ten members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam), and Timor Leste.

Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space considers Southeast Asia from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The authors—from Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, and the United States—address climate; perceptions from the seas as seen by fishermen, naval officers, and governments; urbanization and industrialization; improvements in transport and communications; and the world of impoverished small farmers and marginalized minorities. Contributors also discuss borders, monetary networks, transnational flows of people, goods and information, and knowledge in shaping Southeast Asia.

Locating Southeast Asia offers important insights for its residents, for those who study it, and for the wider world.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Locating+Southeast+Asia.
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