New Books In Southeast Asian Studies

In this interview, I speak with Till F. Paasche and James D. Sidaway about their new book, Transecting Securityscapes: Dispatches from Cambodia, Iraq, and Mozambique (University of Georgia Press, 2021). In addition to the book's methodological and theoretical contributions, we also discussed the extensive field research and important personal experiences informing this project. This is an innovative book on the everyday life of security, told via an examination of three sites: Cambodia, the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and Mozambique. The authors' study of how security is enacted differently in these three sites, taking account of the rich layers of context and culture, enables comparative reflections on diversity and commonality in "securityscapes." The book puts into practice a diverse and contextual approach to security that contrasts with the aerial, big-picture view taken by many geopolitics scholars. In applying this grounded approach, Paasche and Sidaway develop a method of urban and territorial transects

When people think of the “Vietnam War” they usually think of the hugely devastating and divisive conflict between North Vietnam and a United States-backed South Vietnam that finally ended in 1975. We know much less about the earlier conflict, often referred to as the “First Indochina War”, from 1946 to 1954, which ended almost a century of French colonial rule and brought about the division of the country into North and South Vietnam. In his new book, The First Vietnam War: Sovereignty and the Fracture of the South, 1945-1956 (Cambridge UP, 2021), Shawn McHale examines this earlier conflict, focussing on the complex and diverse society of south Vietnam. The book begins with a provocative question: why did the communist-led resistance against French colonial rule in Vietnam fail in the south? This is an exhaustively researched book which does a lot to change our understanding of how south Vietnam became independent, and helps explain what came after the end of the “first Vietnam War”. Patrick Jory teaches Sout

What does a cup of coffee tell us about Thailand’s intricate power relations? Where does the country’s monarchy come into this? And why does it matter? Prominent political scientist and NIAS director Duncan McCargo joins Petra Desatova to revisit his famous ‘network monarchy’ concept and explain why Thailand should not be seen as a ‘Deep State.’ Duncan McCargo is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Duncan is well-known for publishing a dozen books and over 100 articles and chapters on Asian politics. His latest books are Fighting for Virtue: Justice and Politics in Thailand (Cornell 2019) and (with Anyarat Chattharakul) Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party (NIAS Press, 2020). His 2005 Pacific Review article on Thailand’s ‘network monarchy,’ which is the subject of this episode alongside his 2021 Pacific Affairs article that revisits this concept, has been extremely influential. The Nordic Asia Podcast is

Southeast Asia is the most tectonically and geologically active region on Earth. These processes have enriched the mountains and basins with world-famous mineral and energy resources, fresh water, and highly productive soils. However, the same geological processes are responsible for incredible destruction – from the 1991 Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in the Philippines to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. These natural hazards, coupled with the effects of human-induced climate change, are driving significant change. To talk us through these changes, Dr Sabin Zahirovic joins Dr Natali Pearson on SSEAC Stories, exposing how climate change is amplifying existing vulnerabilities in Southeast Asia. He explains how understanding past and current geological process can help us reduce risks from natural hazards like earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, but also address the huge challenges faced by growing populations and increased vulnerabilities resulting from climate change. About Sabin Zahirovic: Dr S

“The Europeans raise all the cattle, but the Chinese get all the milk.” This joke, told in colonial Singapore, was indicative of the importance of the Chinese diaspora throughout Southeast Asia. Chinese migrants were miners, laborers, merchants and traders: the foundation of many colonial cities throughout Asia--while also making sure that their own communities back home benefited. Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China's Maritime Frontier (Princeton University Press: 2021), written by Professor Melissa Macauley, looks at one particular community within the Chinese diaspora: the Chaozhou people--also known as the “Chiu Chow” people--hailing from the Shantou--also known as Swatou--area in Eastern Guangdong Province. The Chouzhouese traveled far and wide, engaging in trade, commerce and business--a history that survives to this day, with many Southern Chinese and Southeast Asian business tycoons having ties to this migrant community. Professor Melissa Macauley is a Professor at Northwestern University, wh

Why do so many Cambodian small landholders live in fear? How did the issuance of official land titles contribute to growing indebtedness in rural areas? Why did the government send thousands of university students to the countryside to help with the land titling process? And why did international donors eventually become so disllusioned? In this podcast, Alice Beban, senior lecturer in development sociology at Massey University, discusses her new book Unwritten Rule: State Building Through Land Reform in Cambodia (Cornell 2021) with Duncan McCargo, Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Unwritten Rule draws on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork to paint a disturbing picture of how an ambitious land reform project, generously funded by leading donors, largely failed to deliver the benefits it promised. In 2012, Cambodia—an epicenter of violent land grabbing—announced a bold new initiative to develop land redistribution efforts inside agribusiness concessions.

On 16 August 2021, Muhyiddin Yaseen resigned as Prime Minister of Malaysia, with Ismail Sabri Yaakub sworn in as the new Prime Minister a week later, making him Malaysia’s third Prime Minister in two years. This marked the return to power of UMNO, or the United Malays National Organisation, and the graft-tainted coalition that had been ousted from power in 2018. Meanwhile, another former Prime Minister, Najib Razak, is eyeing a return to Parliament, notwithstanding a conviction and 12-year prison sentence for abuse of power and ongoing trials for corruption. His wife Rosmah Mansur is also now facing three corruption charges. Associate Professor Salim Farrar joins Dr Natali Pearson on SSEAC Stories to talk about corruption and the politics of public prosecution in Malaysia, surveying the landscape of law and justice in Malaysia now and beyond, through a re-evaluation of Vision 2020. About Salim Farrar: Salim Farrar is Director of Islamic Law, an Associate Director of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the

In his new book In Search of New Social Democracy: Insights from the South - Implications for the North (Zed-Bloomsbury), Olle Törnquist has returned to findings from fifty years of research on democracy and social rights movements in especially Indonesia, India and the Philippines, to address the major puzzle of our time: why the vision about development based on social justice by democratic means has lost ground, and if there are openings. In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Olle Törnquist to discuss the main results and arguments in what he calls his endbook. Olle Törnquist is a Swedish global historian and Professor Emeritus of Politics and Development at the University of Oslo, Norway. He has written widely on radical politics, development and democratisation. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with o

Don F. Selby’s Human Rights in Thailand (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018) is a rich anthropological study of the emergence of human rights in Thailand at a national scale following the adoption of the 1997 “People’s Constitution” and establishment of the Human Rights Commission of Thailand. The book argues that what gave emergent human rights in Thailand their shape, force, and trajectories are the ways that advocates engaged, contested, or reworked debates around Buddhism in its relationship to rule and social structure; political struggle in relation to a narrative of Thai democracy that disavowed egalitarian movements; and traditional standards of social stratification and face-saving practices. In this way, human rights ideals in Thailand emerge less from global-local translation and more as a matter of negotiation within everyday forms of sociality, morality, and politics. Nicholas Bequelin is a human rights professional with a PhD in history and a scholarly bend. He has worked about 20 years for Human Rights

Who are the Wa of Myanmar and how, in three decades, have they built a force that is now the largest non-state military actor in Asia-Pacific? How does China’s economic, political, and military support for the Wa factor into the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative? What role might the Wa play in the unfolding political crisis in the wake of the February 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar, and Covid-19 pandemic? In this episode, Bertil Lintner discusses these topics and more, related to his recent book The Wa of Myanmar and China’s Quest For Global Dominance from NIAS Press (2021). Bertil is Swedish journalist who has lived permanently in Thailand since 1979. He is a full-time correspondent for Asia Pacific Media Services and writes regularly for Asia Times, The Irrawaddy and other publications. He has written 20 books on Asian politics and history. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the Univer

In Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration (Routledge, 2021), Carlos M. Piocos explores the politics of gendered labor migration in Southeast Asia through the stories and perspectives of Indonesian and Filipina women presented in films, fiction, and performance to show how the emotionality of these texts contribute to the emergence and vitality of women's social movements in Southeast Asia. By placing literary and filmic narratives of Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore within existing conversations concerning migration policies, he offers an innovative approach towards examining contemporary issues of Asian migration. Furthermore, through rich ethnographic accounts, the book unpacks themes of belonging and displacement, shame and desire, victimhood and resistance, sacrifice, and grief to show that the stories of Filipina and Indonesian migrant women don't just depict their everyday lives and practices but also reveal how they mediate and make sense of the

Youth Culture and Identity in Northern Thailand (Routledge, 2020) examines how young people in urban Chiang Mai construct an identity at the intersection of global capitalism, state ideologies, and local culture. Drawing on over 15 years of ethnographic research, the book explores the impact of rapid urbanisation and modernisation on contemporary Thai youth, focusing on conspicuous youth subcultures, drug use (especially methamphetamine use), and violent youth gangs. Anjalee Cohen shows how young Thai people construct a specific youth identity through consumerism and symbolic boundaries – in particular through enduring rural/urban distinctions. The suggestion is that the formation of subcultures and “deviant” youth practices, such as drug use and violence, are not necessarily forms of resistance against the dominant culture, nor a pathological response to dramatic social change, as typically understood in academic and public discourse. Rather, Cohen argues that such practices are attempts to “fit in and stick

How is childhood experienced in the slums of Bangkok and how does it relate to socio-political processes in Thailand? What role do mothers play in the leadership of the slums? And how can we understand recent mass protests in Thailand through the lens of children’s activism? Giuseppe Bolotta gives insights into his recently published book Belittled Citizens: The Cultural Politics of Childhood on Bangkok’s Margins (NIAS Press, 2021). This study explores the daily lives, constraints and social worlds of children born in the slums of Bangkok. It examines how slum children define themselves – and are defined by others – in relation to a range of governing technologies, state and non-state actors, and broad cultural politics. To learn more about the book, visit the NIAS Press website. Giuseppe Bolotta is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Research Associate at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. The Nordic

Cambodia’s Tonle Sap is the largest inland lake in Southeast Asia. Each year, during the monsoon, this freshwater lake experiences an incredible hydrological phenomenon, in which it is inundated with swelling waters from the Mekong River, causing it to rise by up to tenfold in some places, before returning to its pre-monsoon level as the dry season returns. But Tonle Sap is facing a triple environmental threat: climate change, the damming of the Mekong River, and over-fishing, with devastating impact not only on the wildlife, but also on local floating village communities. To share more, Dr Josephine Gillespie joins Dr Natali Pearson on SSEAC Stories and invites us to rethink global environmental protection regimes in Southeast Asia. Taking Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake as a case-study, she argues that in order to maintain the ecological, cultural, and economic integrity of the most important river and delta system in the world, environmental management projects and policies must take into account people-place dy

The massacre of student protestors at Thammasat University on 6 October 1976 is one of the most infamous incidents in modern Thai political history. It is also among the most problematic for historians, who have struggled with the silences and ambiguities enveloping events of that day, not to mention survivors and families of the victims, who have had to carry on with their lives or grieve for lost loved ones without acknowledgement of what happened back then, let alone why it happened. Now a remarkable new book, by one who has thought and felt about October 6 as both an historian and a survivor, comes to terms with the massacre and with the “unforgetting” that followed it. The book is Moments of Silence: The Unforgetting of the October 6, 1976 Massacre in Bangkok (University of Hawai’i Press, 2020). Its author, Thongchai Winichakul, joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies for a very special episode on the power of neither remembering nor forgetting. Thai-language readers can visit the Documentation of Oct

In this episode I chatted with Leslie Barnes and Joseph Mai, two scholars of film, about their new anthology The Cinema of Rithy Panh: Everything Has a Soul out with Rutgers University Press, 2021. As a child Rithy Panh survived the Khmer Rouge regime yet lost his immediate family during those awful years. He was fortunate enough to emigrate to France where he studied film and became a prolific director. Rithy Panh is now the most important film maker in Cambodia and in the Khmer diaspora. Committed to mentoring a new generation of Cambodian storytellers, he helped found the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center which trains young Khmer film makers. The essays in The Cinema of Rithy Panh: Everything Has a Soul cover his diverse offerings but focus on the memory of the disaster of the Khmer Rouge years, as well as the 1976-1975 civil war and the Vietnamese occupation of the 1980s. Rithy Panh also engages the history of French colonialism and the explores social difficulties of workers caught in neo-liberal devel

Why do Southeast Asia specialists get tired of explaining that the politics of the region cannot be reduced to a zero-sum game of Chinese-US great power rivalries? How do relatively small Southeast Asian states negotiate their relations with these major powers in an increasingly antagonistic environment? And why has the idea of the Indo-Pacific become so popular in recent years, and where does that leave the region most of us still call ‘Asia’? Prominent Singaporean political scientist Joseph Liow Chin Yong discusses these and other questions in conversation with NIAS Director Duncan McCargo. Joseph Liow Chin Yong, is the Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, where he also serves as Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Joseph is well-known for his work on the politics and international relations of Southeast Asia. He is the author of several books, the most recent of which are Ambivalent Engagement: The United State

Why do Southeast Asia specialists get tired of explaining that the politics of the region cannot be reduced to a zero-sum game of Chinese-US great power rivalries? How do relatively small Southeast Asian states negotiate their relations with these major powers in an increasingly antagonistic environment? And why has the idea of the Indo-Pacific become so popular in recent years, and where does that leave the region most of us still call ‘Asia’? Prominent Singaporean political scientist Joseph Liow Chin Yong discusses these and other questions in conversation with NIAS Director Duncan McCargo. Joseph Liow Chin Yong, is the Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, where he also serves as Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Joseph is well-known for his work on the politics and international relations of Southeast Asia. He is the author of several books, the most recent of which are Ambivalent Engagement: The United State

In September-October 2021, SSEAC Stories will be hosting a mini-series of podcasts exploring the role that research plays in understanding and advocating for human rights in Southeast Asia. For the final episode in the series, Dr Thushara Dibley is joined by Emeritus Professor Peter Windsor who brings to light how research improving animal health and production is intrinsically linked to human rights issues. Reflecting on his extensive field-based research on transboundary livestock disease in the Greater Mekong Region, he argues that through training on biosecurity practices, animal vaccination programs and nutritional interventions, rural households were able to prevent disease transmission and increase their livestock productivity, making farm production more sustainable. With higher income levels, local families’ livelihoods were improved. This enables better access to human rights, such as access to safe housing, access to healthcare, and access to knowledge and education, amongst others. About Peter Win

How can we best understand ethnic armed organizations on the borderlands of Myanmar? Why did the Karen embrace the military-initiated peace process in 2012, shortly after the Kachin had rejected ceasefire proposals? How can ethnographic fieldwork inform studies of insurgent movements? And what does the February 2021 military coup mean for the future of ethnic conflicts in Myanmar In this wide-ranging conversation, David Brenner – a lecturer in global insecurities at the University of Sussex – discusses these questions with Duncan McCargo, director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. He makes the case for an understanding of insurgent groups based on their specific internal political dynamics, which cannot be readily reduced to rational, economics-related incentives and obstacles. Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands (Cornell UP, 2019) analyzes the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar,