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Organizer and Chair: Charles Hirschman, University of Washington, Seattle
Discussant: Hy Van Luong, University of Toronto
Keywords: Social change, modern Vietnam, family, sociology.
This panel will present new empirical research based on a large household sample survey of 1,855 households (and 4,464 adults in the selected households) in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. The 1995 Vietnam Longitudinal Survey, based on a stratified probability sampling design, covers the old province of Ha Nam Ninh (currently three provinces), one of the largest and most populous areas of the densely-settled Red River Delta. The sample design includes the three largest towns in the province and seven rural communes, stratified by distance from major highways. The papers presented in this panel will cover a range of demographic and sociological topics on contemporary social change in Vietnam, including mortality decline, arranged marriage, educational stratification, and occupational attainment. In addition to presenting baseline description of social and demographic change, each of the papers will test a major hypothesis about the sources of social change. The presenters on the panel are recent Ph.D.’s and graduate students who represent a new generation of international researchers with both strong disciplinary skills and in-depth knowledge of Vietnamese society. Professor Hy Van Luong of the University of Toronto, a distinguished scholar of Vietnamese society, will discuss the papers.
Mortality Decline in Northern Vietnam following Independence
M. Giovanna Merli, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Jonathan London, University of Wisconsin, Madison
This paper uses an innovative approach to reconstruct historical trends in adult mortality by using data on the birth and death dates of parents and siblings of the respondents in the 1995 Vietnam Longitudinal Survey. Vietnamese survey respondents appear to give very accurate demographic reports of dates, perhaps because birth and death dates have significant cultural importance. This analysis documents the rapid decline in mortality following independence. Even with the rise in deaths due to war-related causes in the 1960s and early 1970s and slow economic progress in the 1970s and 1980s, Vietnam has maintained low levels of mortality by international standards. Explanations of mortality decline are evaluated in light of Vietnam’s distinct historical stages since 1954.
From Traditional to Modern Marriage and Mate Selection
Huu Minh Nguyen, Institute of Sociology, Vietnam
One of the most dramatic changes in Vietnamese marriage patterns has been the shift from traditionally arranged marriages where the marital partners were matched by parents to the modern practice where young marriageable adults select their own spouse. For the oldest marriage cohort in the Vietnam Longitudinal Survey, the majority of respondents report arranged marriages, while "free choice" of spouse is almost universal among the youngest marriage cohorts (freedom is usually tempered by parental approval of marriage choices). Education is the most important factor explaining the historical change of mate choice during the last 50 years. The Marriage and Family Law of 1959 and broad policies aiming at restructuring socioeconomic structure after 1960, as well as religious affiliation also appear as important factors in shaping the patterns of mate selection. Catholics are more associated with arrangements by their parents in mate selection process. Family influence also remains significant as measured by the continued role of family participation in the introduction of prospective marriage partners. The most important new source for the introduction of couples is "friends." These results are similar to findings on marriage selection from other East and Southeast Asian societies—perhaps suggestive of an Asian style of limited courtship with only one person prior to marriage. This Asian style of courtship is different from both the Asian past and the Western present.
Educational Opportunity and Stratification in Socialist Vietnam
Lan Phuong Nguyen, University of Washington, Seattle
Although socialist ideology claims to promote equality and to reduce the impact of family background on life chances, this study shows that patterns of educational stratification are very similar to those of most other countries. Urban residence and parental socioeconomic status (father’s and mother’s education and occupation) have significant effects on educational attainment in northern Vietnam. Having a parent who is a member of the communist party has a significant positive effect on education, net of other family status variables. This study, based on the 1995 Vietnam Longitudinal Survey, was able to trace the trend in educational attainment for successive birth cohorts of Vietnamese who reached school-going age from the 1950s to the 1990s. Following independence in the 1950s, there was a significant increase in average levels of education as primary school became universal. The traditional gender gap in schooling has all but disappeared. Over the last few decades, there has been little further progress in average levels of schooling, and some signs of declining rates of secondary schooling, particularly for boys.
The Impact of Social Origins, Human Capital, and Political Capital on Occupational Attainment: A Test of the Market Transition Hypothesis
Kim Korinek, University of Washington, Seattle
Although the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese men, and especially women, continue to work in the family agricultural economy, there is an increasing minority who work in household non-agricultural enterprises, employees for private businesses, and as government workers. As Doi Moi, the policy of economic reform, takes root in the countryside, more individuals will respond to emerging opportunities in market economy. Victor Nee, a specialist on China, has proposed "market transition theory" to explain emerging patterns of social stratification in post-socialist societies. Nee predicts that human capital (education) will become a more important predicator of socioeconomic attainment relative to traditional status in the socialist system (communist party membership). This hypothesis has met with only mixed support in China, but it has stimulated considerable research in other post-socialist societies. I will test the market transition hypothesis for Vietnam with the VLS data in a preliminary fashion. The survey analysis will be supplemented with in-depth accounts of occupational careers based on interviews conducted by the author in a rural and urban community in the Fall of 2000.
Organizer and Chair: Kenneth M. George, University of Wisconsin, Madison
State, Appropriation of Cultural Symbols, and Peasant Resistance Movements to the Timber Industry in East and West Kalimantan, Indonesia
Mariko Urano, Georgetown University
Based on eighteen months of field research (1998–1999) in East and West Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia, this paper discusses the appropriation of cultural symbols by peasants in resistance movements. Through interviews and participant observation, I will question the deterministic argument of many New Institutionalist scholars, who argue that the state subordinates opposition not only by physical coercion, but also by completely monopolizing symbolic resources via ideological incorporation.
Threatened by state-promoted timber development projects, peasants in Kalimantan began to assert their land rights in the early 1990s with the aid of environmental NGOs. Although peasants in East and West Kalimantan shared same economic interests in the resistance movements, their tactics showed a marked difference.
In predominantly Catholic West Kalimantan, peasants fully exploited the animist tradition that highlighted their emotional attachment to their land as the ideological basis of their movements. The Catholic Church was tolerant of local animist tradition. By contrast, peasants in predominantly Protestant East Kalimantan were restrained by the churches’ stricter position on animism: they could assert their rights only by statist notion of land tenure.
The different religious affiliations that influenced the strategy of peasant resistance are in part the product of state policies that forced the peasants to choose one of the officially recognized religions in the 1960s. Due to the colonial legacy, a large number of peasants chose Protestantism in East Kalimantan, Catholicism in West.
The research finding modifies overly-structuralist New Institutionalist views on how the state controls symbolic resources. The state is not always successful in ideologically incorporating subordinates, as the peasant elites acted rationally to advance their economic interests. However, the state still exerts influences on the range of cultural symbols that social actors can appropriate in the strategy for action. In short, I argue that long-term state building legacies create constraints on peasant action, but differences within such legacies can widen or narrow the space for the creation of collective action.
The Political Economy of Decentralization in Thailand and the Philippines
Gavin Shatkin, University of Michigan
This paper will present a comparative analysis of decentralization initiatives in the Philippines and Thailand focusing on the following questions: Why have reforms for decentralization been undertaken in the two countries? And, what historical, socioeconomic, and political factors explain the extent and nature of decentralization initiatives undertaken, and the issues that have emerged in each place? Decentralization of authority from central governments to local governments, the private sector, and organizations of civil society is a pervasive phenomenon in developing countries. Yet such initiatives have often been undermined by conflicts between these various entities. The existing literature on decentralization focuses almost exclusively on identifying the optimal roles for various institutions under decentralized governance, and on approaches to building the capacity of these institutions, as the main approaches to improving the outcomes of these reforms. This paper will argue that these approaches are inadequate because they ignore the political contexts in which decentralization occurs. Specifically, it will argue that the problems that have emerged in decentralization reflect country-specific socioeconomic, political and cultural forces that have deep roots in history. The paper will draw on the extensive literature on the political economy of local governance in Thailand and the Philippines to demonstrate how such country-specific factors have influenced the course of decentralization in each place.
Humour as a Tool of Political Marketing in Reformasi Indonesia: A Case Study of President Wahid’s First Appearance in a Variety Show
Arndt Graf, University of Hamburg
President Wahid’s first appearance in a variety show, shortly after he came to power in 1998, marked the beginning of a new era of presidential rhetoric in Indonesia. In contrast to the high-minded, serious style of his predecessors, Sukarno, Suharto, and Habibie, President Wahid now presented himself to the Indonesian public as a thoroughly humorous personality who would entertain the audience in an almost clownesque way.
This paper departs from a rhetorical analysis of the typical strategies of humor of President Wahid in this variety show. Questions asked include the techniques of funny statements, as well as matters of content. This analysis leads into broader questions of the place of humor in contemporary Indonesia and its use as a tool of political marketing in the reformasi era.
National Investigations into Human Rights Violations in East Timor, 1999–2001
Kumiko Mizuno, Australian National University
This paper analyzes Indonesian government responses to domestic and international concerns over human rights problems in East Timor. Particular focus is placed on the problems resulting from the UN-sponsored referendum of 30 August 1999. The underlying question examined is why have human rights reform initiatives been proceeding so slowly and often taking steps backward in post-authoritarian Indonesia? Habibie put many human rights agendas in place—most significantly, the decision to give East Timor self-determination. However, in spite of these reforms, developments since his decision on self-determination have been very negative. We have seen serious human rights violations in East Timor on a scale that infuriated the world community. The Abdurrahman Wahid government also failed to address many human rights problems. Some studies argue that Habibie’s agenda was so drastic that it naturally caused backlashes from anti-reform forces and anti-Habibie forces. Others stress that the failure to address human rights issues is a cost of democracy, a result of the loosening of the central government’s grip. However, such arguments do not sufficiently explain why the government response varies across time. Through analyzing the nature of elite political competition; degree, credibility, and source of international pressure; and the role of extra-state actors, this paper suggests that the role of international pressure is critical. But it is critical because of the way in which the pressure is digested. in domestic politics and then manifested as a government response toward the problem.
Organizer: LeeRay M. Costa, Hollins University
Chair: Vincent J. Del Casino Jr., California State University, Long Beach
Discussant: Jim Glassman, Syracuse University
Keywords: Thailand, NGOs, local-global relations.
Scholars have for a long time examined Thailand from a "local" perspective. Village level studies, for example, have been vital to our understanding of contemporary Thai politics, culture, and economics. Few scholars however, have taken time to examine non-governmental organizations (NGOS) in Thailand, despite their grounding in and contribution to local practices. Moreover, those that have privileged NGOs as sites of analysis have failed to do so from critical perspectives. Thus, participants in this panel will argue that NGOs provide valuable sites through which to understand both how the "local" is socially and spatially organized and how it contributes to the circulation and practice of power. NGOs are meso-level organizations that work in and through the local, making direct connections to broader flows of global discourses, capital and culture. In this panel, therefore, participants will discuss the theoretical arid methodological implications of studying NGOs as a means for better understanding Thai society. Conversely, they will explore how theorizing particular NGO practices in Thai contexts illuminates NGO practices and local-global tensions in other Asian contexts. This will be achieved first by working across and through the disciplinary boundaries of anthropology and geography, and second, by drawing on a diverse body of fieldwork with Thai NGOs engaged in a variety of projects including AIDS-related outreach, the elimination of child prostitution, environmental conservation, and peasant social movements. Ultimately, the panelists seek to open up a broader, more critical and empirically grounded theoretical and methodological discussion of NGOs that will be of interest to scholars working throughout Asia.
People Politics in Mediascape: The Assembly of the Poor and Media Contestation in Thailand
Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, National University of Singapore
This paper attempts to interrogate the Assembly of the Poor’s political struggle as it unfolds in the realm of media representation. Marginalized groups abandon the unavailing struggle within conventional political institutions and enter a novel political terrain under an umbrella organization named the Assembly of the Poor (AOP), a nationwide rural-based movement in Thailand. The AOP brings the politics of the rural poor to the public arena, within which it manifests the poor’s grievances and concurrently proposes an ideological critique of state-imposed asymmetric development and articulates oppositional visions of alternative bottom-up development.
I contend that news visibility is a sine qua non for the AOP to mount its struggle, for media coverage permits the marginalized and other sympathizers to enter public discussion and articulate their causes. Besides, media attention pressures the state into confronting with the AOP’s appeals and creates a condition that is conducive to negotiation and heightens the possibility of change. I also argue that, while the AOP is an active player adept in making itself high-profile news as a device to forge a channel of public communication, the extent to which its political project could be achieved is significantly contingent upon media institutions and journalists. In a routine process of news manufacturing, journalists, consciously or otherwise, exercise their autonomy, albeit not absolute, in constructing the AOP’s media representations and framing a larger controversy arising in the wake of AOP demonstrations. Media is a contested site of consciousness construction, one that is instrumental for the AOP in bringing about social change.
Operating at the Center and the Margins: Analyzing the Geography of NGOs in Northern Thailand
Vincent J. Del Casino Jr., California State University, Long Beach
In Thailand, NGOs have increasingly become important social actors in the practices of development. Today, NGOs work in a number of sectors such as public health, environmental change, and resource management, to name a few. As neither fully ‘private’ nor fully ‘public’ organizations, however, NGOs operate through a number of other organizational spaces when conducting their outreach, from the international to the local level. Thus despite claims of "independence" and "autonomy," NGOs tend to function in a number of other spaces that do not fall under their direct auspices. They work in and through state-run spaces, such as hospitals and health centers, for example, as well as in community spaces, such as village and sub-district administrative organizations and other community-based organizations. Sometimes they even operate in international spaces, such as international workshops arid meetings. Tracing an NGO’s geography, therefore, is a challenging task, since it social and physical boundaries are often ambiguous and fraught with tension. Thus, one cannot simply map the extent of an NGO’s outreach on a Cartesian grid. Instead, one must analyze the ways in which organizational boundaries and outreach are structured both across time and through space in relation to other organizations and individuals. In this paper, I examine some of the complications one faces when trying to trace the geography of one NGO, AIDS Organization, in its outreach context. I look specifically at how ‘locally-focused’ research provides insights into the day-to-day geographies of AIDS Organization’s outreach as well as insights into the complicated organizational connections that mediate so much of an NGO’s work. It is argued that in the current Thai context we must consider not only what NGOs do but also how their activities are organized through a number of overlapping spaces, all of which are mediated by both global and local socio-cultural and political-economic relations.
Particularizing NGO Development Practice and Outcomes: A Case from Northern Thailand
LeeRay M. Costa, Hollins University
In this presentation I privilege local structures and practices in my analysis of the development work of one non-governmental organization (NGO) in northern Thailand, the Project for Tomorrow (PFT). Specifically, I consider how the pre-existing social relations between NGO members, their "target" communities, and local officials, as well as notions of reciprocity and merit-making, shape NGO practice among PFT members. However, recent inquiries into processes of globalization have demonstrated that aspects of the local are always inevitably shaped by their relationship to national and global forces. Thus, I also analyze how these specific social and cultural dynamics intersect with and are reinforced and/or challenged by broader national discourses of self-reliance and Thai identity, shifting national and economic arrangements, and the aims of the donor organization, Protect Our Youth (POY). In exploring how these various structures and practices manifest at the site(s) of one community-based development organization, PFT, and its project to eliminate child prostitution, I argue for cultural and historical specificity in analyzing NGOs and their outcomes in particular locations. At the same time, I consider some well-known aspects of "Thai culture" in relatively new contexts, i.e. NGO development work.
Time Crunch: The Pull of Multiple Field Sites in the Study of Asian NGOs
Henry D. Delcore, California State University, Fresno
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are creatures of transnational connection, tending to concentrate—in discrete institutions—a range of people, resources, and ideas drawn from local, regional, national, and transnational sources. How to study them? In anthropology, broad disciplinary interest in globalization and related calls for innovative conceptualizations of "the field" imply that a kind of "multilocale ethnography" (Marcus and Fischer 1986) is particularly suited to the study of NGOs. Indeed, a researcher from any discipline could justify devoting time and resources exploring, at various sites, the local and extra-local connections of the organizations and actors under study. One implication of such a strategy is that a single researcher would spend less time in a single community—i.e. students of Asian NGOs would not conduct "village studies." This paper explores both the costs and benefits of different forms of multi-sited fieldwork in the study of Asian NGOs, taking my personal experiences in northern Thailand and the experiences of other Asianists as examples. I propose that the key constraint on new forms of field practice remains "time." A multi-sited approach requires significant time away from an NGO’s local area of activity, perhaps costing adequate understanding of the social and cultural commitments of the organization. But rather than suggest the village study as an adequate approach to NGOs, I propose a middle ground of multi-sited research in related communities where NGOs are active, combined with a mix of participant observation, interviewing, and secondary or "long distance" research on other relevant sites.
Organizer and Chair: David I. Steinberg, Georgetown University
Discussants: Hazel Lang, Australian National University; Christina Fink; Josef Silverstein; Martin Smith, Chao Tsang Yawnghwe, University of British Columbia
The minority issues facing the successive Burmese governments since independence in 1948 remain the most intractable of national problems. Questions of the distribution of power and authority, levels and scope of administrative autonomy, the fruits of economic development, social mobility, status, and cultural survival have bedeviled all administrations and peoples; they have resulted in profound national traumas, including internal rebellions, continuing poverty and depravation, refugees, and economically, politically, and religiously motivated emigration.
These issues remain unresolved in spite of a series of tenuous ceasefires; they must be addressed in any new constitution and resulting political framework formulated by any successive government. No more enduring issue faces the state in spite of being obscured by the continuing political debate between the military and the opposition in that country.
The effects of minority unrest reverberate across borders, affecting the flows of refugees into Thailand and Bangladesh, illegal workers estimated at some 700,000, the trafficking in narcotics, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and smuggling of extensive but unknown proportions.
Professor Josef Silverstein, in his pioneering studies of minority issues in the Shan State in the 1950s, has led a generation of scholars in exploration of these issues. No other scholar of any nationality has contributed so much to the debate on these questions. This panel honoring Dr. Silverstein is designed to examine a variety of contemporary unresolved questions in their historical contexts.
The panel is composed of four individuals, all of whom have worked with and published on minority issues, and all of whom at this writing are outside of the United States. They are: Hazel Lang, in East Timor, Martin Smith in the United Kingdom, Chao Tsang Yawnghwe in Vancouver, Canada, and Christina Fink in Thailand. Professor Silverstein will be respondent on the panel.
Organizer: Kenneth M. George, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Chair: Katherine A. Bowie, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Intermarriage, Benefits, and Identity in Melaka, Malaysia
Timothy P. Daniels, DePaul University
In postcolonial Malaysia, the "classic" structures of the plural society have been breaking down and diverse social groups are mixing and combining. Patterns of segregation and exclusion co-exist uncomfortably with patterns of integration and inclusion. Government policies and political rhetoric and changing social structures, such as schools, businesses, and residential neighborhoods, have promoted greater social interaction among members of Malaysia’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious categories. In this paper, I focus on intermarriage as a site of such interaction and consider the negotiations that go into such unions and the resulting implications for the distribution and access to special privileges and benefits. Many local and outside observers assume that non-Malay partners obtain access to Bumiputera benefits through intermarrying with Malays, but to the contrary access to these resources are more problematic. The principle of patrilineality limits the flow of Bumiputera special privileges, although in some cases there are still opportunities for negotiation. Locals generally perceive intermarriages between people of two non-Malay categories as easier to negotiate than intermarriages with Malays. Religious and cultural similarities and differences are calculated and experienced in the on-going processes of intermarriage. In many respects, local interpretations of Malay privilege and exclusion in combination with non-Bumiputera identity and inclusion shape negotiations of intermarriage in Melaka.
On the Historicity of the Vietnamese Goddess Princess Lieu Hanh: A Prostitute or a Saint?
Olga Dror, Cornell University
Princess Lieu Hanh is one of the most famous "Mother" deities in Vietnamese popular religion. Her cult ostensibly originated in the sixteenth century in Northern Vietnam. The scope of the paper is to investigate the origins of her cult, its development and its transformation since the sixteenth century, considering the factors which played a decisive role in Lieu Hanh’s deification, such as personalities (her biography written by the eighteenth-century woman writer Doan Thi Diem), events (the internecine wars and dynastic recognitions of her cult) and popular religious tradition, in which context Lieu Hanh’s cult is now placed. The paper will address the contradictory accounts of Lieu Hanh’s cult, namely accounts written by European missionaries claiming Lieu Hanh to be a prostitute and the legends and literary works created in Vietnam sanctifying Lieu Hanh’s virtues. I will suggest some preliminary considerations to diminish this outward contradiction in the context of the process of deification in Vietnam. One more point which will be analyzed is the local or indigenous character of the cult in comparison with possible borrowings from neighboring cultures and similarities found between customs connected to Lieu Hanh’s cult and those among the Chinese and the Cham peoples.
The Problems of Kadazan Cultural Identity: Implications for National Development in Sabah, Malaysia
James F. Ongkili, University of Malaysia
The paper discusses the growth of ethnic and cultural awareness among the multi-tribal Kadazan (dusun) people of Sabah. A reconstruction of how Kadazan identity came to be is given based on local and colonial sources. Kadazan cultural consciousness is discussed by looking at the beginnings of inter-tribal interactions in the late 1880s and the attainment of formal education through British colonialism. The work of the Christian missions is discussed as a contributing factor in encouraging Kadazan cultural identity and ethnic awareness. Out of this new consciousness, local leaders emerged to promote a greater feeling of racial oneness among Kadazans. Consequently, the development of a sense of kadazaness among the non-Malay/Muslim bumiputra population of Sabah, became an important factor in Sabah politics. As the state moved towards independence via Malaysia, Kadazan cultural societies and political bodies emerged. Inevitably culture and politics became inseparable as the Kadazan elite allowed itself to be manipulated by forces beyond its control. The Kadazans would feel their cultural and political survival threatened within a predominantly Muslim Malaysia and thereon attempted to consolidate their position in the state. Although Kadazan unity did not prevail towards the end of the twentieth century, crucial challenges in this new millennium might stimulate an ethno-political revival advantageous to Malaysians in Sabah today.
‘Centre and Periphery’: The Ambiguous Life of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom in Postcolonial Southeast Asia
Marc Askew, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
This paper investigates the construction and representation of ethnicity and place among the Khmer Krom minority of Southern Vietnam and its diaspora. The "Kampuchea Krom" as a territory, has played a crucial symbolic role in Khmer nationalist (fundamentally anti-Vietnamese) narratives (from the Sihanouk period through to the Pol Pot regime). But the people of this territory have occupied an ambiguous place in the postcolonial histories of Cambodia and Vietnam. The Khmer Krom, who occupy the Mekong Delta region, are a particular socio-cultural fragment of a larger cultural-territorial formation which was progressively appropriated into the neighboring states of Vietnam and Siam (17th–19th centuries), taken over by a European colonial power (France 19th century–1954), a post-colonial Vietnamese republic (1954–1975) and then a socialist state (1975 to present). Khmer Krom political and cultural mobilizations in the twentieth century (from covert everyday resistance to overt politico-ethnic opposition) were cumulatively shaped both by the pre-colonial past and developments during the period of French administration and then a combination of mounting local and external changes and pressures generated by the post WWII politico-ideological environment. French decolonization, the various nationalist independence movements, the establishment of the states of Cochinchina (1949) then South Vietnam (1954) and the escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia from the late 1960s, have all resonated through the communities of the Kampuchea Krom and, its growing diaspora. This paper focuses on the critical period spanning 1945–1975, when Khmer Krom ethnonationalism was militarized and fictionalized in the context of South Vietnamese and Cambodian politics and U.S. intervention.
Organizer and Chair: Charles F. Keyes, University of Washington
Discussant: Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University
The volume, Social Suffering, edited by Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock (first published in 1996), began with the recognition that many modern experiences entail a fundamental problem of meaning that has traditionally been left to religion to address. In the words of Arthur and Joan Kleiman in their introduction to Social Suffering "suffering is one of the existential grounds of human experience; it is a defining quality, a limiting experience in human conditions." The rise of modern societies organized around secular institutions, science, and rationalized action have not only failed to provide people with adequate means to address the suffering that pushes humans to the ultimate conditions of their existence but they have also generated new forms of social suffering. Those who conceived of and contributed to the book Social Suffering have redirected the attention of social scientists to what "political, economic and institutional power does to people and, reciprocally how these forms of power themselves influence responses to social problems" (from the introduction to the volume).
Understanding social suffering always requires situating such suffering in particular cultural contexts. This panel has been conceived of as a forum for reflections on the innovative work on social suffering initiated by Kleinman and others. The presenters take up three contemporary experiences of peoples in Vietnam and Thailand who confront very modern manifestations of social suffering—abortion, the impact on humans of the use of defoliants, and the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. While each case is distinctive, each also deals with deep existential problems that underlie all manifestations of social suffering as Kleinman and his associates have shown.
Second Trimester Abortion in Contemporary Vietnam: Social Vulnerability and Moral Responsibility
Tine Gammeltoft, University of Copenhagen
With an annual number of 1.4 million induced abortions, Vietnam has the world’s highest abortion rate. Pregnancy terminations can be legally performed until the 22nd week of gestation and around 1% of abortions take place in the second trimester of pregnancy. Nearly all women obtaining late abortions are young and unmarried. In the spring of 1998, as an element in a larger study on premarital sexuality and abortion, I conducted a series of in-depth interviews with young women who had recently undergone an abortion in their fourth or fifth month of pregnancy. These women told me about how it feels to kill one’s own child—this was what they felt they did—sometimes under brutal circumstances. Having to decide to terminate the life of another human being, and a human being that could have lived to become one’s own son or daughter was deeply existentially shattering. The pain suffered by these young women was moral at its core, stemming from having to inflict pain on another, from feeling forced to act against one’s own deepest moral convictions, from failing to act in accordance with one’s intentions to do good, from doing something that makes one feel inhuman.
In this paper I shall consider moral dimensions of the suffering experienced by these young women. First, seeing induced abortion as a moral practice rather than as an abstract ethical issue, I shall examine the young women’s moral deliberations as they opted for a late abortion as the most viable response to an unwanted pregnancy. Second, arguing that the most urgent ethical issue at stake here concerns the social conditions which compel women to opt for a late abortion rather than the act of abortion itself, I shall analyze the social forces which motivate young Vietnamese women to undergo a second trimester pregnancy termination, in spite of their moral qualms in doing so. Finally, throughout the paper I shall reflect upon my own role as a researcher and as a fellow female human being, as I listened to and recorded the young women’s accounts.
Agent Orange and Narratives of Suffering in Viet Nam
Diane Fox, University of Washington
"For the anthropologist, an inquiry into the meanings of illness is a journey into relationships," writes Arthur Kleinman in The Illness Narratives. In this paper, I consider relationships encountered in the process of trying to understand the ways Vietnamese have confronted illnesses and suffering that many believe may be traced to the effects of defoliants dropped by the United States from 1961 to 1971.
During that period, American forces sprayed 19 million gallons of chemicals over the south of Viet Nam, destroying twenty percent of the forests, three percent of the cropland, and causing an unknown and perhaps unknowable number of human health problems. What have been the human responses to these consequences?
Families living with the illnesses and disabilities thought to be caused by the spraying tell stories that are at times reflective, at times angry, at times inspiring as they define their experiences in terms of religion, science, or irreducible uncertainty.
The United States government, after thirty years of official silence and denial, has haltingly begun to engage in preliminary discussions with Viet Nam, though the two sides have yet to find a common language. While the U.S had insisted on scientific discourse, Viet Nam has refused to speak if humanitarian concerns are not considered simultaneously.
This paper is one step in a search for a language adequate to the subject. It is based primarily on interviews carried out in 2000 and 2001 with 38 families from the north, center, and south of Viet Nam, and with the community workers who have supported them these last twenty to thirty years.
Suffering, Community, and Self-Governance: HIV/AIDS Self-Help Groups in Northern Thailand
Shigeharu Tanabe, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
The AIDS pandemic since late 1980s in Thailand had led to greater surveillance and control through the promotion of preventive medicine. Even with this attention, a great number of people living with HIV/AIDS have been unable to receive effective and affordable treatments of their illness and have often been confronted with severe social handicaps and discrimination. The necessity for more autonomous self-governance of their own health has opened up a contested space around ways of coping with the pandemic.
This paper will examine the activities of this new type of community/association that have emerged since the early 1990s in which people with HIV infection acquire knowledge and organize practices for survival given the prevailing social discrimination, and the overwhelming influence of the established medical power of the state and its discourse. Self-help groups that have been formed in Northern Thailand by those who have publicly identified themselves as having HIV or AIDS urge other infected people to participate in their activities; especially providing counseling and conducting negotiations with medical institutions, administrative authorities, and other forces. The activities of these groups is perhaps best defined by what J. Lave and W. Wenger call the ‘community of practice,’ a matrix of learning and organizing social practices through participation.
The self-help groups have developed an open-ended identity through negotiations for survival with the practitioners of external sources of knowledge. This particular feature of identity formation, which enables the members to cope with their ever-changing, uncertain and contingent circumstances, results in a multiplicity of subject positioning. However, the emergence of such a negotiable, therefore non-identical, subject is only possible at the contested space at the interface between, on the one hand, their attempts to assert the validity of their own personal experiences, and, on the other hand, the dominating discourses and practices of the medical institutions of the over-growing nation-state. In this contested space the people living with HIV/AIDS have developed self-governance involving alternative, self-fashioning styles of practice by means of continuous assessments of whatever medical information and expertise they have access to.
This paper thus highlights the ways in which the people living with HIV/AIDS can widen their survival activities in a newly-opened maneuverable social space between individual suffers, the state-defined medicine, and their home communities to which they intend to return. Finally, I will consider the ‘governmentality’ involved in the current position of the people living with HIV/AIDS as negotiating subjects, who are situated between the state-defined technologies of public health and their own technologies of the self.
Organizer and Chair: Harry W. Blair, Yale University
Discussants: Harry W. Blair, Yale University; Steven Rood, The Asia Foundation; Julkipli M. Wadi, University of the Philippines; Gwendolyn Bevis, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Vincent G. Boudreau, City College of New York; Paul Hitchcroft, University of Wisconsin, Madison
By mid-2000, the Philippines gave every appearance of having established itself as a functioning democratic polity. Some tarnish remained, to be sure—excessive power in the hands of a long-entrenched elite, pervasive corruption in the public sector, questionable electoral behavior in many areas, unresolved minority grievances in the Muslim southwest, etc.—but the positive signs seemed much more persuasive to most observers. The country had passed successfully through two well-contested presidential elections since its "People’s Power Revolution" had overthrown dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, civil society exuded a powerful vibrancy, the media exercised an unfettered liberty, a bold democratic decentralization program had made great strides in devolving power to lower levels, and the last official component of the colonial era had ended with the closing down of the American military bases in 1991. The multifold attempted coups of the immediate post-Marcos years had evidently faded irretrievably into the past. Perhaps most impressively, all the major players in the polity—business elites, the landed oligarchy, the leading politicians and their parties, the military, trade unions—seemed to have accepted the fundamental idea of a constitutional democracy as "the only game in town" to be played. In sum, the Philippines had navigated a democratic transition and seemed well on the way to consolidating its democracy as the country’s permanent political structure.
The dramatic events surrounding the ouster of President Joseph Estrada in early 2001 have cast this picture into serious doubt. The huge demonstrations characterizing "People’s Power II," the sudden shift in the business community’s allegiance, the military’s extra-constitutional withdrawal of support for the president, and the Supreme Court’s ex-post ratification of the sudden change all indicated that the earlier picture of the polity’s smooth passage along a democratic trajectory was at best incomplete. For many Filipinos, observing that chaos and coup were averted and that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ascended peacefully to office with Supreme Court approval, these events demonstrated that the country had risen to the challenge posed by the Estrada regime’s corruption and mismanagement, and had proven itself a true democracy indeed. For other observers focusing on the transition process, these same events raised very grave doubts regarding any Philippine claim to be a functioning democracy; for them, too many players went too far outside the rules of a democratic game.
Can we say that in 2001 the Philippines is in fact a democratic system? Should it be removed from the ranks of acceptably democratic systems? Or perhaps has the country shown us a different kind of democracy, one in which civil society and direct mass action count for more and the constitutional branches of the polity count for less? In various ways the "EDSA1 Revolution" offered a powerful model to other peoples yearning for democracy in the late 1980s and 1990s; could it be that EDSA2 will do so as well? (The attempted counter-revolutionary "EDSA3" in May and then Indonesian events in July 2001 with the military and police defying the president may be indicators here.) These are the questions to be addressed by this panel. It will include a number of different viewpoints and should be of interest to both Southeast Asianists and an audience beyond.
If you expect to attend this panel, please plan on downloading and reading in advance the brief answers to this question by roundtable members Robert Cribb, Don Emmerson, A. Malik Gismar, Mohamad Ihsan Alief, Lesley McCulloch, and Goenawan Mohamad. These statements, each no more than two pages long, are accessible at http://aparc.stanford.edu/roundtable
Organizer and Chair: Donald K. Emmerson, Stanford University
Discussants: Robert Cribb, University of Queensland; Rizal Mallarangeng, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Lesley McCulloch; Goenawan Mohammad, Tempo
Keywords: nationalism, Indonesia, history, politics.
Tumultuous events in Indonesia since 1997 have raised serious questions about the nature and future of "Indonesia." Perhaps the most basic of these questions is a deceptively simple one: "What is Indonesia?" The question implies two others: "What has Indonesia been?" and "What will Indonesia become?" This "paper roundtable" (explained below) will explore the historical background, present status, and future prospects of Indonesian identity.
Each of the five members of the roundtable will write an answer to the core question. The answer will not exceed two single-spaced pages. The five answers are available at http://aparc.stanford.edu/roundtable. Hard copies of the answers will be available on a literature table at the convention. The roundtable will convene on the assumption that those present have already read the answers (or are scanning them as the event gets underway). Each member of the roundtable will speak very briefly. She or he will not summarize her or his own answer, but will instead comment only on the answers of the other members. The floor will then be open for an extended discussion.
Goenawan Mohamad, the founder of Tempo magazine, has written eloquently on the roundtable question. So has historian Robert Cribb, whose essay-in-progress, "A Good Idea at the Time," compares the idea of "Indonesia" in 1945 and now. Rizal Malarangeng, a recent Ph.D. in political science from Ohio State University, may represent the "new nationalism" that has grown popular among some younger Indonesians. Lesley McCulloch is completing her dissertation on the military and business in Indonesia while teaching in Australia. Her field experiences in Aceh will be particularly relevant to our discussion, for it is there among all the provinces that centrifugal pressures are strongest. Don Emmerson, the chair of the roundtable, is now writing an essay entitled "What is Indonesia?" Alongside differences of age, specialty, and gender, the roundtablers’ residence in three different countries should further assure a diversity of views.
Organizer and Chair: Kimloan Hill, University of California, San Diego
Discussant: Keith Weller Taylor, Cornell University
Keywords: World War I, Vietnamese diaspora, transnational identity, France, Indochina.
In World War I, due to a shortage of manpower, France had to turn to its neighbors and the colonies in Africa and Asia to recruit volunteers for its army and factories. In effect, this practice opened a floodgate that had previously kept the people in the colonies from entering France. Since then, the Vietnamese immigrants have arrived in France in many waves for different reasons and with different purposes.
In France, these immigrants were given a glimpse of the constraints and potentials of the French social, political, and legal institutions. They utilized such knowledge to advance their economic interests, to serve their political agenda, to preserve their culture, and to build the country they had left. In doing so, the Vietnamese immigrants have actively participated in the making of both countries’ history and have constantly redefined their identities in order to find their places in both societies. As a result, Vietnamese identity in diaspora has taken many forms and meanings to fit the immigrants’ visions and images.
Hence, this panel seeks to examine the developments of Vietnamese diaspora in France and its contribution to history. It focuses on France and Viet Nam from the point of view of sociology, literature, anthropology, and military, social, and economic history. Kimloan Hill examines the labor markets in France and Indochina (Viet Nam) and the participation of the Vietnamese soldiers and workers in World War I to argue that the war was a watershed in the history of French colonialism and Franco-Indochinese relationship. For the first time, people from Indochina could enter the French labor market en masse and joined the French people and members of the Allied Forces in a "sacred union" against the Germans. The war experiences, however, changed their lives and altered the course of the colonial enterprise in postwar period. Marie-Eve Blanc analyzes how the Vietnamese immigrants in France utilized a Southeast Asian tradition, the associative practice, to re-establish their identities, rebuild their communities, and maintain many cultural practices in diaspora. The function of this practice, she points out, changed with social and political developments and the immigrants’ visions and needs. Henri Eckert studies the experiences of Vietnamese soldiers who came to France in the 1920s. The military leaders in Paris wanted the people from Indochina to assume a greater share of the "national" defense burden. This attempt, however, backfired. Although the experiences of the sojourn in France turned the men from Indochina from "peasants to Frenchmen," like the Frenchmen at the time, they engaged in many anti-colonial and anti-government activities. Finally, Dan Duffy offers a different way to examine the transnational identity of Vietnamese immigrants and the culture of Vietnamese diaspora in France; that is, through the examination of Vietnamese literature and the organization of libraries and bookstores in Paris. His recent research reveals that although these institutions differ in goals and operations, their activities have facilitated the diversity of Vietnamese culture, provided the immigrants with community support, and contributed to the foundation of the modern nation of Viet Nam.
World War I and the Developments of Indochinese Colonies in France: A Historical Perspective
Kimloan Hill, University of California, San Diego
During World War I, to meet the demand for more manpower on the battlefields and in the factories France had to turn to its neighbors and its colonies in Africa and Asia to enlist volunteers. In Indochina, poverty, social disorder, and economic crisis prompted nearly 100,000 men to volunteer. In France, they adopted many French values (i.e. the value of labor) and exercised many rights that did not exist in the colonies (i.e. the right to protest and to form political associations). Their experiences also changed their worldview. In their eyes, France was no longer a superpower and the French people were no longer a superior race. When the war was over, while most of these men returned to Indochina, a few hundred remained in France to get married, to work, and to pursue a higher education. In the 1920s, as France continued to recruit more manpower from Indochina, Indochinese colonies began to appear on French soil; and the immigrants formed a significant political bloc. They utilized the existing political and legal practices to establish their place in the Metropole and remove French yoke from Indochina.
In short, this paper examines the economic conditions and the labor markets in France and Indochina before and after the outbreak of World War I to argue that the war was a watershed in the history of French colonialism. It set the stage for the downfall of the colonial enterprise in Indochina. The Vietnamese diaspora, on the other hand, contributed to its downfall.
Indochinese Soldiers in Europe, 1920–1939
Henri Eckert, Lycée de Crépy en Valois
In 1920, General Charles Mangin, a military leader of the colonial army felt that the colonies should have had contributed more troops to the defense of the "Greater France." Starting in 1922, small groups of Indochinese troops were sent to Europe on a three-year duty. Some served in the colonial infantry units in the remote Vosges Mountains. Others went to Lebanon or Morocco and helped local troops to put down native revolts. Several thousands, however, were employed as military workers in the metropolitan army.
To help these military workers cope with their new living and working conditions, military leadership in Indochina gave them lessons in French language and culture and some professional training in clerical work, truck driving, health services, and some other special skills before sending them to Europe. As a result, during their sojourn in France, these Indochinese soldiers were accorded a better treatment and enjoyed a greater freedom than the men who served France in the First World War. They had more opportunities to participate in French social life and to make contacts with the communities of Indochinese civilians in France. Their participation in French way of life and their contacts with other Indochinese immigrants changed their perceptions about France and Indochina and led to their participation in anti-French activities.
In the end the leaders of the Metropolitan Army decided to replace these Indochinese military workers with French civilian workers when it realized that the Indochinese soldiers had become a political liability.
Vietnamese Immigrants’ Associations in France: A Tool for Shaping Identity
Marie-Eve Blanc, Institut de Recherche sur le Sud-Est Asiatique, Marseille
In most Southeast Asian societies, associative practice is a common tool to organize the community, not only to foster religious, cultural and political life but also to build solidarity among the members of the association. During the colonial period, the French changed the law concerning the right of association to control associations with political aims. But the practice forming association continued to flourish, especially among those who left their native villages to work overseas or to live in new resettlements. This practice was particularly prevalent among northern immigrants who resettled in South Viet Nam during the colonial era.
In the 1920s and 1930s France, the Vietnamese immigrants’ associations were the places to manufacture nationalist identity and breed anti-colonialism activities. After 1954 and more so after 1975, Vietnamese immigrants have accepted the idea that they will never return to their native country. In that sense, their associations have been tie places to preserve their memories and "real traditions," and to build a polyvalent identity—the identity of a Viet Kieu.
In summary, this paper will first show how in the first period of the immigration into France "association" is a tool to promote democracy and shape nationalist identity. It then will explain how, after the war, "association" is a tool for the immigrants to re-establish and maintain their identities.
Strands and Contexts in Vietnamese Identity in the Diaspora: Vietnamese Literature in the Libraries and Bookstores of Paris
Dan Duffy, University of North Carolina
The presentation investigates Vietnamese identity in the diaspora by focusing on libraries and bookstores, institutions of Vietnamese literature in Paris, France. Vietnamese books, and the institutions that bring them into being and pass them around, are material evidence of the activity of Vietnamese identity. Paris is a site of Vietnamese diaspora that pre-dates the modern nation of Viet Nam.
Searching for Vietnamese literature in the bookstores and libraries of Paris reveals the diverse institutions that came together to found the modern nation of Viet Nam. There is a store in a Buddhist temple, two lending libraries in Catholic churches, stores sponsored by the Vietnamese government and others by exiled nationalists. Meanwhile, French research libraries and mainstream bookstores locate Vietnamese literature firmly in the Orientalist discourse that governed the French conquest of Indochina.
However, in the diaspora, diverse Vietnamese cultural institutions stand alone and articulate separately with the world outside of Viet Nam. One store that came into being as a place to rally Western support for Ha Noi against the United States’ intervention now sells crafts to help artisans in the homeland succeed in the liberal economy. Other sites engage with the discourses of social welfare and cultural diversity within France.
To recapitulate, looking at the Vietnamese books of Paris brings attention to different strands in Vietnamese national identity. Looking at the social life around these books shows different contexts in which Vietnamese identity now makes itself in the world outside of the nation.
Organizer: Teri Yamada, California State University, Long Beach
Chair: Patricia B. Henry, Northern Illinois University
Discussant: Mary S. Zurbuchen, University of California, Los Angeles
Keywords: Southeast Asia, censorship, cultural studies, modern literature, press.
Although Southeast Asia, as a geographic entity, has been loosely linked through ASEAN’s sputtering attempts at economic integration, the disparities among its ten member nation-states often seem more remarkable than their commonalties. This panel "Censorship and Culture in Modern Southeast Asia" seeks to examine through a case study approach of four SEA nations—Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia—some common patterns of censorship, and the impact of censorship on cultural production and politics in Southeast Asia.
The paradigm of censorship examined by the panelists has modalities ranging from conscious self-censorship to violent governmental suppression of artistic freedom of expression, often highly politicized in Southeast Asia. Panelists will present research that explores this range, the political economy of power that nurtures and enforces censorship, and the impact of censorship on the "form and content" of literary and artistic production in popular culture. The methodological approach is a cultural studies model. This model analyzes cultural productions—music, song lyrics, art, literature, comics, newspapers, etc.—as "artifacts" interactively produced within a nexus of power relations in a specific cultural context and historical moment.
Finally, the panel format will be organized according to the AAS guidelines encouraging "creative" panels. The discussant will provide a comparative overview of the papers’ issues at the onset, and panelists will present a synopsis of the highlights of their research to allow time for an anticipated lively discussion. A copy of panelists’ papers will be made available over the World Wide Web.
The Pen, the Press, and Politics: Censorship in Suharto’s Indonesia
John H. McGlynn, Lontar Foundation
Censorship in Indonesia did not begin with Suharto’s New Order government (1966–1998). It has much deeper roots—in the country’s feudal past, in Indonesian reticence towards dispute, and in colonial strictures on freedom of speech. Nonetheless, the New Order government refined censorship to such an art that almost all opposition to the government and its policies during most of its tenure was effectively silenced.
Early forms of protest against government censorship generally came from individuals, many of them literary writers. But as the years progressed, even the once cowed press began finally to air public grievances against the government’s blatant suppression of freedom of expression. It was reports in the mass media on nepotism among government officials, massive corruption by government leaders, and human rights abuses by the police and military, which led to a crack down on the mass media itself.
In this, the banning of Tempo weekly newsmagazine in 1994 can be seen as one of, if not ‘the’ most pivotal event in the demise of Suharto’s New Order government. Thus, whereas previous acts of censorship by the government could generally be seen as instances of the State against the individual, the censorship of Tempo (and other magazines) was a case of the State against the very institutions that had built up the government’s legitimacy. By cracking down on Tempo, Suharto’s New Order government effectively undermined public support of its policies. Eventually, this led to Suharto’s resignation and the ouster of the New Order Government in May 1998.
Open Secrets, Hidden Meanings: Censorship and Contemporary Literature in Burma
Jennifer Leehey, University of Washington
Strict and repressive censorship has been in place in Burma for nearly four decades. The main legal instrument, the Printers and Publishers Registration Law of 1962, was promulgated shortly after the military coup, which brought General Ne Win and the Burma Socialist Program Party to power. Under the present SLORC-SPDC government, state censorship works in concert with techniques of surveillance and intimidation to stifle political debate and suppress criticism of government policies, as the regime seeks to impose on the populace its own particular vision of the "Myanmar" nation.
This paper details the peculiar dynamics of Burma’s labyrinthine censorship system and explores the impact of censorship on literary and intellectual life. I discuss the complex negotiation of meaning which goes on among Burmese writers, readers, and the censors, and the role of literary devices such as ambiguity and irony which invite multiple interpretations and leave meaning open and unfinalized. I also discuss the so-called "post-modern" writing, which has gained popularity during these past twelve years of SLORC-SPDC rule. I view this new writing with its chaotic syntax and fantastic imagery as an expression of disillusion with the older "socialist realist" literature of the 60s and 70s, and an ironic, almost desperate, response to monologic state propaganda and the absurd rigidities of the censorship system.
The relation between censorship and literature in Burma ultimately opens on to larger questions of political culture—the "open secrets and hidden meanings" of everyday life under military rule. The paper presents Burma under the SPDC as a place where the shared meanings that constitute social life are profoundly in flux.
Denial and Re-Invention: Censorship and Thai Literature
Susan F. Kepner, University of California, Berkeley
The Thai experience of censorship in the twentieth century differs in several respects from that of neighboring countries, where the issue of censorship and the struggle for independence from British and French colonial rulers were inextricably linked. This paper will demonstrate how the development of a Thai nationalist paradigm during the twentieth century, and the tastes of the reading public, have produced a "censorship of denial and re-invention."
At the onset, censorship under the absolute monarchy of King Vachiravudh (1910–1925) consisted of a diffuse, disorganized, and vague collection of assumptions, rather than a policy of any kind. It was only during the administrations of military leaders Phibul Songkhram and Sarit Thanarat that the subject of censorship was viewed seriously, and addressed in a purposeful and orderly matter.
Censorship during the Phibun administrations (1938–1944 and 1948–1957) operated both to deny aspects of Thai history and social interaction that were disapproved, and to promote the leadership’s view of the Thai future. During the administrations of Sarit Thanarat (1957–1963), and the subsequent administration of Thanom Kittikachorn (1963–1974), government censorship laws mitigated against fiction displaying inequities and injustices in Thai society.
During the past two decades, writers have generally censored themselves, not only because certain taboo subjects are automatically avoided, but because of the small market for works of fiction and poetry. Thailand is no more a "reading society" than it ever was. Most writers write what readers want to read—another variety of "censorship."
Violence and Ideology: The Censorship of Literary Arts in Modern Cambodia
Teri Yamada, California State University, Long Beach
A violent form of official censorship during the Khmer Rouge era (1975–1979) devastated the comparatively delayed modernization process of both Cambodian language and literature. This paper will examine the impact of this censorship on the literary arts of Cambodia, predominately narrative (short story and novel) and song lyrics.
During the Khmer Rouge era, all songs from the 1950s and 1960s—theoretically contaminated by French colonial and other Western influences—were banned while the Khmer Rouge created a new style of song and dance performance promoting the glories of Angka (The Organization). In the area of narrative writing (short story and novel), there was an absolute prohibition of "uncontrolled" prose concomitant with the development of a new literary genre for Cambodia: forced confessions. I suggest possible influence from the censorship ideology deployed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1965–1975), with its similar pattern of struggle sessions, forced confessions, and stipulated songs and performance. A comparatively similar pattern of social-realist censorship was also deployed in Vietnam during the post-1975 period.
After the Khmer-Rouge era, Cambodia’s culture of song quickly returned to its creative vibrancy whereas the nascent literary culture did not. This paper traces the lingering impact of Khmer Rouge censorship on contemporary Cambodian literary culture, where violence and self-censorship continue to suppress literary development, along with a literacy rate of less than 30%. In contrast, the culture of critical song continues to develop under the guise of anonymous lyricists as popular oral culture.
Organizer: Elizabeth Coville, Hamline University
Chair: Nancy M. Lutz, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Discussant: John A. MacDougall, Indonesia Publications
Keywords: Indonesia, media, journalism, literature, Internet, online communities.
The Internet, like the newspaper and novel of an earlier generation, is associated with the "imaginings" of new forms of social; political, and intellectual identity, communication, and community. In Indonesia today, in particular, a key issue is what Benedict Anderson has called "the common project" of the nation.
One resource for scholars of Southeast Asia is the large mailing list and website known informally as ‘apakabar,’ moderated by John A. MacDougall. This started in 1990 as a ‘regional newsgroup on Indonesia’ (reg.indonesia) and carries current events, opinion, fiction, policy documents, analysis, etc., in Indonesian and English. The site’s homepage (http://www.indopubs.com) currently provides access to ten mailing lists, three databases, and three modules consisting of links for investigative and scholarly research on the Internet.
With a wide and varied international readership, the core community of active users of ‘apakabar’ is Indonesian, in Indonesia and abroad, writing about what they see as their country’s serious problems. For academics, this ongoing online conversation offers a privileged look at a complex society as seen from the inside out. Since one of the goals of ‘apakabar’ is the expression of democracy and pluralism (kemajemukan BI) as Indonesia emerges from three decades of authoritarian rule, these themes are central to our panel. In these papers, journalists, writers, and researchers show some of the reasons why Indonesians have turned to ‘apakabar’: to circumvent media control, to broach sensitive subjects, to educate themselves and each other, and to engage in the ordinary give and take of pluralism.
From the Inside Out: The Public Discourse of Apakabar
Elizabeth Coville, Hamline University
One of the central questions raised by a globalized Internet is whether the groups of users that flourish through this medium are, on the one hand, narrowly based, specialized, and homogenous, consisting of people with largely converging and overlapping interests, or, on the other hand, are broadly based, pluralistic, and heterogeneous, inclusive of diverging interests, positions, and values, and oriented toward a larger universe of discourse?
This paper, based on selected past and current postings on the interactive mailing lists of ‘apakabar’ (i.e. INDONESIA-L and INDONESIA-VIEWS), and on e-mail correspondence with some of the netters about why they read and write on this list, argues that, in the face of forces that tend to draw people into smaller, more narrowly focused groups, ‘apakabar’ has maintained a relatively heterogeneous discourse. These posters generally employ what the sociolinguist Basil Bernstein has termed ‘elaborated’ (or outsider-oriented) codes as compared to ‘restricted’ (‘condensed’ or insider-oriented) codes (see also Clifford Geertz on ‘experience-distant’ and ‘experience-near’ terms). These posters’ reflections on their involvement in what some have called ‘forum apakabar’ show one way in which contemporary Indonesian Internet-users (many of whom are past, present, or future students) come to think of themselves as readers, as writers and as participants in a culture of democracy.
The implication of this paper is that such a style of public discourse—characterized by verbal explicitness and explication, in which messages are relatively autonomous of particular local situated contexts of communication—embodies a culture of pluralism with its attendant benefits and risks.
The Economic Crisis of 1997–98, Journalism, and the Internet
Andreas Harsono, Pantau Media and Journalism Review
At the height of the economic crisis of 1997–1998, information channeled to the Internet played a crucial role in shaping elite opinion in Indonesia. Many journalists sent their reports to Internet-based news organizations like www.indopubs.com. They did this because their reports could not be printed in their respective newspapers due to the tight media control during the authoritarian rule of General Suharto.
Internet users in Indonesia were relatively few, but that did not discourage journalists from using the Internet. The news created its own multiplier effect through the distribution of print outs and their display in public spaces like bus stops, university campuses, etc. The idea of using the Internet was especially to let those in power know that someone was watching.
It was rather difficult to control these journalists as most of them were operating behind the official credentials of their mainstream news organizations. They also operated in secrecy, and their anonymous reports required self-discipline in order to verify each published report.
Journalists knew that the influence of their works increased after counter-information produced by the Suharto regime appeared on the Internet. Officially, Indonesia’s foreign office produced and responded on the Internet. And, unofficially, many secret arms of the regime also used the Internet to propagate their views on the crisis. People close to the aging president also used the net to circulate their interpretation of the crisis as a conspiracy by the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, Jewish bankers, and overseas Chinese businessmen to bring down the Suharto regime.
The Internet Factor in Indonesia: Was that All?
Waruno Mahdi, Independent Scholar
If the 1997–1999 developments in Indonesia were a revolution, it was the first revolution in world history to be ushered in through the Internet, which was instrumental in breaching the wall of total censorship. The initial "heroic" phase has given way to a sobering "post-heroic" phase, in which the country is still not recovered from the economic and political crisis with which everything began.
Meanwhile, the Internet has become a normality even for the lighter genres, including sports, fashion, and gender-specific gossip; the conventional media use it to maintain contact with reader/listener circles. Since restoration of freedom of the press, the main use of the Internet for activists has shifted from an informational medium to an organizational medium for sociopolitical movements. The Internet has become important as a source of enlightenment, particularly for a younger generation that suffered greatly from the deterioration of education during the last three decades.
John MacDougall’s ‘apakabar’ project—having played a seminal role in the earlier period—undertook a timely reorganization that anticipated these developments, offering a more variegated range of mailing-list services. The potential pluralism of the Internet in general makes it a particularly suitable medium for acclimatizing a generation that grew up under an autocratic regime to the democratic normality of pluralism in public opinion. This lets ‘apakabar’ contribute to enlightenment not only through the factual content of transmitted information, but also through the liberal character of the medium in which this is transmitted.
East Timor, Aceh, and the Cybermedia
Aboeprijadi Santoso, Radio Netherlands
Drawing on the author’s experience as a journalist covering the conflicts in East Timor and Aceh, this paper explores the changing role of information technology in the development of these two conflicts. East Timor, for example, became the object of an international campaign when the Santa Cruz massacre of late 1991 was internationally publicized at a time when the Internet had just been introduced in many countries. The net helped many activists acquire information through the networks of both foreign and local NGOs, human rights organizations, and individual activists.
In contrast, by the time Aceh and its the past horrors and sufferings started to come into the open following the downfall of President Soeharto in 1998, the Internet had become more sophisticated and widespread, with e-mail exchanges and online conferencing common even in small towns in many areas of conflict such as Aceh, the Moluccas and Papua.
‘Apakabar,’ too, has changed following these trends: in the early period, it was a facilitator of underground debate and stimulated challenges to power while, in recent years, it has become a reservoir of ideas and an archive of data of varying significance. This database may facilitate analysis of particular aspects of conflict situations. The paper will ask how these changes in public discourse affect the roles of the state and civil society, and, inversely, how changes in the roles of the state and civil society affect public discourse? And what are the challenges faced by reform in newly-born democracies like Indonesia?
Internet Literature: A Way Out for "Wandering" Writers
Sobron Aidit
This paper will discuss the significance and development of the ‘Internet literature’ that emerged as an outlet for post-1965 Indonesian exiles in Europe. When the New Order outlawed the communist party and banned the circulation and publication of all literary work accused of being communist or leftist, no newspapers, magazines or publishers in Indonesia were willing to publish their work. Hampered by these policies and laws, and marginalized (terpinggirkan) from artistic and intellectual circles inside Indonesia, these exiles turned to the Internet, because it is free of licensing, ideology, and censorship. Mailing lists such as ‘apakabar,’ ‘mimbarbebas’ and others have thus become a forum and an arena for Indonesian writers who have been ‘wandering’ (kelayaban) for over thirty-five years.
Since the end of the New Order, the author has been able to travel to and from Indonesia, incorporating these experiences into his writing. Having recently published two collections of short stories in Indonesia—Cerita Dari Tanah Pengasingan (Stories from a Land of Exile) (Pustaka Pena, Jakarta, 1999) and Kisah Intel dan Sebuah Warung (Stories of Intelligence Agents and a Sidewalk Restaurant) (Garba Budaya, Jakarta, 2000), he continues to both contribute to, and reflect upon, this Indonesian literature of exile (sastra eksil).
Organizers: Frank Proschan, Smithsonian Institution; Hjorleifur R. Jonsson, Arizona State University
Chair: Vinh Quoc Nguyen, Harvard University
Discussant: Frank Proschan, Smithsonian Institution
Keywords: Vietnam, ethnicity, representation, tourism, ethnography.
Ethnographic representation has never been the exclusive province of academically credentialed anthropologists. Rather, ethnicities constantly represent themselves to others and are just as constantly represented by others in diverse forms. Some of those representational forms approximate the forms of knowledge production employed by anthropologists: monographs, articles, or essays. Others take the form of tourist guides, military memoirs, paintings, advertising billboards, internet web sites, policy documents, or political tracts, to name but a few representational genres. How are Vietnam’s diverse ethnicities—both minority and majority—represented by themselves and others today, and how have they been in the past? How do these forms of ethnographic representation compare with the canonical representational genres of academic ethnography? And what are the effects and consequences of these representational acts on the people who are their subjects?
This panel draws together Nora A. Taylor and Hjorleifur Jonsson’s examination of how contemporary visual culture in Vietnam—billboards, posters, and paintings—depicts minorities as backwards contributors of diversity to the overarching unity insisted upon by the state; Duong Bich Hanh’s comparison of how Hmong in northwestern Vietnam are represented in international touristic literature and ephemera, and how they choose to represent themselves to those tourists; Jean Michaud’s discussion of the French military officers and missionaries who served to represent Vietnamese highland groups prior to the professionalization of ethnography as a science; and Philip Taylor’s consideration of how both ethnic groups and religious sub-cultures in the Mekong Delta are perceived and represented vis-à-vis state projects of defining national identity.
Other Attractions in Vietnam
Hjorleifur R. Jonsson, Arizona State University; Nora A. Taylor, Arizona State University
What is the attraction of Vietnam’s Others, representations of ethnic minorities and of pre-national populations that signify different regions of the now unified country? Our examination of this issue concerns the place of ethnic and regional diversity in Vietnam’s visual culture, particularly billboards, posters, and paintings, and the recent international tourist interest in highland minorities. For decades, artists have appropriated markers of ethnic difference in propaganda posters about national unity and progress. Contemporary Vietnamese notions of ethnic groups draw on a historical trajectory that involves colonial racial classifications as well as the anti-colonial notion of "the people." The inclusion of ethnic minorities in official portrayals of the people has roots in the historical conditions of Vietnam’s nation-building and the armed struggle for independence. Equally important, the visual appropriation of the markers of ethnic and national difference projects national unity and progress through the mapping of variety and backwardness on highland ethnic groups. We argue that the visual emphasis on ethnic and regional diversity in the Vietnamese public sphere is in fact about national unity and state control. The recent traffic in minority artifacts and in paintings of ethnic minorities, and the emergence of minority culture shows are fuelled by Western tourists’ interest in encounters with non-modern and non-Westernized peoples. We argue that the transnational traffic in culture reinforces the Vietnamese projection of backwardness on highland peoples, and suggest that the facilitation of cultural exchange is simultaneously about state officials’ control of the practices of identity.
Lonely Planet Comes to Sa Pa: Seeing the Hmong Through Others’ Eyes and Their Own
Duong Bich Hanh, University of Washington, Seattle
Not until the early 1990s was Sa Pa in northwestern Vietnam opened up again to visitors, after almost fifty years of no outsiders other than lowland Kinh (Viet) migrating into New Economic Zones in the 1960s and government officials enjoying subsidized holidays. But nowadays, due to its magnificent landscape, favorable climate and diverse minority communities, Sa Pa has once again become one of the most popular destinations within Vietnam. It is featured in every tourist guidebook, and dozens of tour agencies in Hanoi provide color brochures with detailed information and pictures of the Sa Pa area. In this paper I explore how Sa Pa and especially its ethnic minorities are represented in the recent tourist literatures, by analyzing a wide range of guidebooks, tour agencies’ materials, web sites, postcards, and other documents.
While outsiders are actively engaging in the new strategy of using ethnic minorities to draw tourists to Sa Pa, how do the Hmong in the area represent themselves to tourists? In many similar situations elsewhere, scholars claim that local people use "staged authenticity" or "constructed identity" as a way to attract tourists. Is this conclusion valid to the case of Sa Pa as well? Do the Hmong in Sa Pa wear Hmong clothes because they think that is what tourists look for, or simply because they are Hmong? The paper will discuss this question using young Hmong girls who have left their home villages to go live in town as a case study.
French Military and Missionary Ethnography in Upper Tonkin, 1885–1925: A Critical Assessment
Jean Michaud, University of Hull, England
At the time of France’s conquest of Tonkin at the end of the 19th century, the Third Republic was busy back home promoting republican values, pushing the aristocracy out of military command, and seriously curtailing the Church’s prerogatives. The professionalization of French ethnography had begun only with the 1789 Revolution, despite earlier systematic and prolonged contact of French observers with the ‘savages’ in New France (Canada). Through the course of the 19th century, while the evolutionist movement triggered further formalization of French anthropology as a discipline, political turmoil prevented it from reaching beyond academic circles. Even after a century of development, French ethnography in the colonies of Indochina still had to be incidental and instrumental.
Men without specific academic formation in observing unfamiliar cultures were pushed to the forefront of France’s encounter with the Other, and asked to record their observations. In Upper Tonkin, these ‘incidental ethnographers’ were diplomats, military officers from middle-class families, and missionaries with peasant backgrounds. The way they conceived and represented the populations in upland northern Vietnam and the texts they produced bear the marks of their individuality. I argue that understanding the biographical details of these early ethnographers is the first step in evaluating the intellectual context of production of their writing and methods in order to critically assess their texts as ethnography, test its validity today, and measure its contribution to current debates on colonial missionary and military ethnography.
The Predicament of Local Cultures in the Mekong Delta: Representing Colonialism and Ethnicity
Philip Kenneth Taylor, University of Western Australia
The Vietnamese portion of the Mekong delta is home to a number of ethnic groups and religious sub-cultures with a distinct history of settlement in the area. Members of these groups identify serious threats to their way of life, which include the erosion of cultural heritage, the undermining of human capacities and social marginalization. The state is often represented as in opposition to local ethnic and religious cultures, leading some to describe it as colonialist in nature. Yet the predicament of local cultures may not be as bleak as is sometimes presented, for the fonts of identity in the Mekong delta are particularly subtle, resilient and diverse. This parallels considerable flux and diversity in portrayals of the ‘national essence’ by the state and Vietnam’s social scientists.
Underlying these considerations, the majority of those living in the Mekong delta are poor and economically marginalized, environmentally vulnerable and subject to class and gender distinctions. The metaphor of colonialism, with its rich resonances in Vietnamese history, may be an apt way to describe the relations of domination to which local cultures are subject, but this process is best understood as multiple and overlapping. This brings into consideration not only inequalities within and between groups and their historically layered relationship to the state, but also the potent local effects of other distant loci of power such as large cities, distant centers of economic power and development projects along the course of the Mekong river, which further undermine the precarious conditions of life in the delta.
Organizer and Chair: Sharon A. Carstens, Portland State University
Discussant: Dru C. Gladney, University of Hawaii
Keywords: Malaysia, Singapore, anthropology, contemporary identities.
This panel explores the impact of transnational and global influences on cultural and ethnic identity constructions within contemporary Malaysia and Singapore. As a product of both colonial and post-colonial policies, ethnic divisions between Malays, Chinese, and Indians have come to be viewed as core features of these societies and a major source of personal and group identities. In Malaysia in particular, with the specific ethnic quotas of the New Economic Policy (NEP), considerable scholarly attention has focused on the perception and manipulation of ethnicity in economic, political, and cultural fields. Even when challenged by alternative theories that argue for the greater relevancy of social class analysis, ethnic identifications have usually been construed as a more primary determinant of social beliefs and actions within the Malaysian and Singaporean settings.
Identity theorists maintain that identities are defined in terms of perceived differences with "the other." Those who view ethnicity in more instrumental terms argue that ethnic identities shift in accordance with ongoing changes between groups at the local/state/ national level. This perspective, however, ignores the potential impact of global cultural influences on personal and group identities. In fact, the increasing exposure to transnational media, travel, business, and educational experiences has presented new possibilities for identity formation that transcend the ethnic categories of the Malaysian and Singaporean states. Such influences, however, are not uniformly available to people of all ethnic and social class backgrounds. Based on recent ethnographic research, the papers on this panel present case studies that explore diverse processes of cultural construction and identity formation in contemporary Malaysia and Singapore.
The Politics of Heritage: New Identities and New Strategies for Social Transformation in Malaysia
Judith Nagata, York University
Since Independence, the Malaysian state has cultivated and perpetuated a system based on ethnic and religious identities, as central to its own political agenda. In practice, official classifications do not always correspond with popular self-identifications or interests on the ground. Since 1998, following concerns over issues of development, urban land use, housing, good governance, political accountability and transparency, and human rights at all levels, have given rise to new alliances and formations, including a Justice Party, and a burgeoning array of tenants,’ environmental, women’s and heritage organizations. One of the most potent, yet seemingly innocuous, multi-purpose organizations operates under the rubric of "heritage," and serves as a center for a series of local, regional and global networks, addressing the above issues, while also highlighting the internal fragmentation between elites and other members of the traditional religious and ethnic communities. Illustrations will draw upon the realignment of identities in the rapidly changing urban development scene of Penang, Malaysia.
Strategic Ecumenism or Dialogic Process (?): Boundary Crossing and Hindu Reformism in Malaysia
Andrew Willford, Cornell University
Participant and scholarly representations of religious and artistic institutions in Malaysia often coalesce in ways that ultimately characterize the production of culture within them as extensions of ethnic identity within the political field, or, more conservatively, as conduits of tradition within state-sponsored modernity. While such approaches are not entirely invalid, given the highly charged politics of culture and ethnicity in Malaysia, they often belie both a more complex and syncretic history of boundary formation, and perhaps more significantly, of boundary permeability. Whether viewed as symbolic appropriation in a strategic sense, or as dialectically and dialogically produced ethnic subjects within a larger discursive terrain, the poetics and performance of identity in Malaysia is less stable and bounded than most culturalists assume, and yet more salient than many political economists grant.
In this paper I argue that Hindu reform-inspired movements and artistic organizations, particularly the much respected Temple of Fine Arts/Shiva Family, produce a multicultural and multiethnic narrative for Malaysia that simultaneously asserts difference while challenging both the state-sponsored and stereotypical boundaries of ethnic demarcation. The specifically ecumenical pan-Malaysian themes that they produce, as interpreted through the prism of a Hindu modernist philosophy, speak to a process of intensifying diasporic displacement among elite Hindus in addition to an ambivalence of the stigmas attached to the "Indian" ethnic label. In turn, I suggest that this process is instructive of the local contingencies of identity formation. The inter-ethnic, dialectics and intra-ethnic class ambivalences that Malaysian Hindu reformism reveal lead us to question the validity of the tripartite ethnic classification system in Malaysian politics and studies.
The Impact of Transnational Chinese Media on Chinese Malaysian Identities
Sharon A. Carstens, Portland State University
This paper examines the influence of Chinese transnational mass media, in particular television, videos, and films, on the creation of transnational Chinese identities among Malaysian Chinese. Drawing on ethnographic research and surveys of adults and high school students in four Malaysian cities in 1998, I argue that Malaysian Chinese audiences distinguish clearly between the various forms of transnational Chinese media produced in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. Differences in viewer preferences that correlate with gender, age, educational background, and geographic location suggest that there is no single Chinese Malaysian audience, and that identity formation linked to media consumption and preferences remains fluid and open to change. However, the relative popularity of Hong Kong productions among a majority of viewers is striking, and similarities between the experiences and perspectives of Hong Kong and Malaysian Chinese are examined as possible explanations for this preference.
The paper concludes with the argument that while transnational media may not create specific attachments between Malaysian Chinese and the Chinese of Greater China, they are capable of enriching their identification with modern cosmopolitan Chinese cultural forms. Over reliance on transnational media can also, however, threaten support for more local productions that might explore and illuminate the more particular features of Chinese culture in the Malaysian setting.
Operation World: Singaporean and Malaysian Christian Evangelists at the Millennium
Jean E. DeBernardi, University of Alberta
In Southeast Asia, Christianity is one among many global cultural flows that have shaped personal and group identities. As a universal salvation religion, Christianity transcends national boundaries and ethnic differences, thereby offering a "supracultural" identity that (ideally at least) is not defined on the basis of race, language, and culture. But these "primordial" aspects of identity together with state-imposed restrictions on their activities remain significant obstacles to evangelical Christians’ goal of world evangelism.
While once a destination for Western missionaries, Singaporean and Malaysian Christian churches now support missionaries in all parts of the world (including North America and Europe). They also support missions work at home with immigrant workers, while their members enthusiastically join "vision journeys" that combine tourism in less developed areas of Asia (including Burma, China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam) with short-term efforts at evangelism. Singaporean and Malaysian Christians’ missionary and evangelical efforts sharpen reflexive awareness of the differences between themselves and those whom they seek to proselytize, but also lead them to reflect on their own identity as a small minority in societies where significant ethnic and religious revivals (some state-supported) have occurred among non-Christians.
Organizer: Frank Smith, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Chair: Carol J. Compton, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Discussant: Thomas W. Gething, University of Washington
The fact that certain Southeast Asian languages (Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, Javanese, Balinese and assorted Tai and Austronesian languages) are written in non-Roman alphabets of Indic origin poses several obvious problems for native speakers of languages (such as English) which are written using the Roman alphabet. A new alphabet must be learned, students must adapt to a syllabic (or semi-syllabic) system of representing words in various combinations of discrete consonantal and vowel units, and the unfamiliarity of reading phrases where no spaces are provided between words must be overcome. However, learning to read and write what is already a very foreign (phonologically and lexically) language in a script totally unrelated to one’s native language can be an advantage as well, as students cannot rely on highly imprecise assumptions and preconceptions about sound-symbol relationships based on a given symbol’s value in English—a problem that is present for students learning, say, Indonesian, Vietnamese or Pilipino. Both of these issues are further complicated by the use (or avoidance) of a phonetic transcription system in the teaching of literacy in the non-Roman script language.
This panel will examine both the above impediments/advantages to learning to read and write in a non-Roman alphabet and also specific techniques and methodologies which have been devised by teachers of Southeast Asian languages written in non-Roman scripts to facilitate efficient and productive learning of those languages in the university foreign language classroom and elsewhere.
Sight Words and Captured Birds: Multi-Methodologies in the Teaching of Khmer Literacy
Frank Smith, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Research into the nature of reading and trends in literacy education over the past quarter century has left a generation of language teachers well-schooled in and committed to a contextualized, "whole language" approach to literacy instruction. Teachers trained in whole language instruction present written language in close conjunction with students’ current level of spoken language. The decoding of meaning at the word and phrase level is stressed, as are proven strategies of good readers such as prediction and use of background knowledge. The "phonics" or "phonetics" approach conceives of and presents written language as functioning primarily at the level of the phoneme. A phonics-based approach is a hallmark of traditional Southeast Asian literacy teaching. A fundamental conflict therefore exists when teachers trained in the whole language tradition attempt to coordinate instruction alongside those trained in a phonics-based approach.
In the Khmer Program at SEASSI, on and off for the past 8 years, I have tried to blend these two approaches, since each provides something of value to students. The whole language method makes students efficient readers more quickly, and the phonics method both introduces them systematically to a very foreign script and imparts important Khmer cultural knowledge.
Here I will outline some of the issues involved with the above dichotomy and its resolution. I will describe in detail how we ensure that these two often contradictory approaches to literacy instruction function side-by-side and complement each other.
Reading and Writing Thai at Michigan
Montatip Krishnamra, University of Michigan
Introducing the Thai alphabet from the first day of the introductory Thai class at Michigan, albeit on a small scale, culminates into the students’ ability to write a letter to their imaginary Thai host families at the end of the 16-week semester. Students are also able to write about themselves, their families, various aspects of their lives, and their classmates. Students with non-linguistic backgrounds find the phonetic transcription system to be more confusing than helpful in their endeavors to learn the non-Roman script language. Therefore, they are introduced to the alphabet and the different tones in the early part of the semester. Students learn to write and read the basic consonants in each of the three consonant groups, as well as the 32 vowels and four tone marks. Students are soon able to read Thai words based on this knowledge.
Authentic Thai materials are constantly provided for students. By the tenth week, they are able to read meaningful texts. Coupled with their ability to speak and listen, they apply these texts to their own situations. At the end of the first semester, students can read and write approximately 300 words. In the second semester, all texts are in Thai except for translation of unknown words. Supplemental materials are customized to relate to their campus surroundings. Written homework is given everyday to reinforce the speaking and listening skills they acquired in class. By the end of the second semester, students can read and write more than 1,000 meaningful words.
Decoding the Dying: Scholarly Resources for Minority Tai Scripts
John F. Hartmann, Northern Illinois University
There are a number of traditional Tai minority scripts for languages of the Southwestern Tai branch of the Tai family. These include Shan of Burma; Lue of Sipsong Panna, Yunnan; Black, White, and Red Tai of Upper Vietnam and Laos. This list may also include Lanna Thai and Ahom (a Tai script found in the buranjis [chronicles] of the Tai of Assam).
The purpose of this paper is to provide a regional overview of the scripts, the appearance and arrangement of letter shapes on a page of text, their historical source, and present vitality. In addition, a list of sources for studying these writing systems will be provided. For the most part, these scripts are dead or dying and can only be read with difficulty for several reasons: the minority Tai, the younger generation in particular, are largely minority bilingual speakers schooled in a majority, prestige language, the language of the state: Chinese, Burmese, Vietnamese, Central Thai. However, where Buddhism has survived, there is something of a revival of interest in preserving and promoting the scripts by local communities as a mark of ethnic identity and religious and esthetic reasons as well.
Support from governments and foundations have been instrumental in preserving these textual traditions. Video clips of efforts at preservation and promotion of the scripts of Tai Lue and Tai Noi will be used to illustrate the presentation.
Syllable Structure Interference: Persuading Learners of Burmese Not to Read What They See
Justin W. Watkins, University of London
Burmese spelling reflects the phonology of Burmese several centuries ago. Syllable-final stops and nasals have disappeared, leaving behind them final glottal stops (analyzable as ‘killed’ tone) and nazalised vowels, respectively, though preserved in written Burmese. Additionally, syllable-final stops and nasals were involved in conditioning sound changes in the vowels preceding them, so that vowel quality is indicated in spelling by the identity of the final consonant letter.
Learners reading a syllable written with a final consonant letter have to suppress their knowledge of the letter’s syllable-initial value, instead using it and its context to determine vowel quality, and nasality or ‘killed’ tone. Learning to reanalyze the string of symbols in a syllable rime poses two specific problems: (1) Written CVC is commonly pronounced CVC, yielding bad forms (e.g. /hout/ for /hou?/; /lan/ for /la~/). This is exacerbated by transcriptions which typically represent ‘killed’ tone and nasalized vowels with a stop consonant letter and ‘n,’ respectively; (2) Written final consonants obstruct learners’ recognition of well-formed rimes. Burmese orthography normally uses only a small subset of the possible vowel+consonant rime spellings. The implications for teaching which follow from the above are: (1) Emphasize the difference between phonological and orthographical syllable structure, structure; (2) Reinforce recognition of well-formed written syllables by delimiting the matrix of well-formed vowel+consonant letter strings and portraying syllable rimes as unanalyzable.
Organizer: Wynn Wilcox, Cornell University
Chair: Michele Thompson, Southern Connecticut State University
Discussant: Peter C. Phan, Catholic University of America
Keywords: Vietnam, Christianity, 17th and 18th centuries, culture.
Existing historical studies have tended to interpret Christianity in Vietnam as inextricably tied to the presence of Europeans in Vietnam. Therefore, Christianity has typically been depicted as something imposed upon unsuspecting Vietnamese from the outside. Not surprisingly, this perspective has oriented studies of Vietnamese Christianity toward European bringers of the religion, and away from Vietnamese practitioners of the faith. Consequently, we still know relatively little about the concrete realities of Vietnamese Christianity, particularly in the precolonial period, a gap the papers in this panel propose to address.
The papers in this panel suggest that both the development and the practice of Christianity in Vietnam were far more complex than has been previously understood. Christianity, as it developed in Vietnam, was very much the product of local adaptations, reflecting existing social and cultural realities. These papers explore these adaptive processes, both at the popular cultural and the elite political levels, revealing the complex negotiations that shaped emergent Christian practices in Vietnam. More specifically, the papers in this panel examine the relationships between missionaries and mandarins, catechists and ordinary Christians in Vietnam in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In looking at these relationships we hope to be able to contribute to a more balanced and more nuanced understanding of Vietnamese Christianity in this period, and of the political and cultural context in which it developed.
Reassessing Vietnamese Christianity in the Tay Son Period, 1771–1802
George Dutton, University of California, Los Angeles
Christianity in Viet Nam has roots dating to the early seventeenth century, yet few studies have examined this religion in its local context or looked closely at pre-nineteenth-century aspects thereof. This paper will examine Vietnamese Christianity in a particular political context, that of the Tay Son uprising of the last three decades of the eighteenth century. Scholars of European missionary activity and of Vietnamese peasant movements have both examined this period in some detail, but the accounts of each have substantial flaws. Scholars of the missionary movements have too frequently ignored Vietnamese Christians as they focused on the spiritual struggles and occasional martyrdoms of European clerics. Vietnamese historians of the Tay Son uprising have equally distorted the realities of this period by portraying the rebels as very sympathetic to the new faith, when in reality Tay Son attitudes toward Christianity were far more complex, vacillating between tolerance and forceful repression.
My paper will consider both the constantly shifting actions and attitudes of Tay Son leaders toward this religious minority, and the responses of members of Vietnamese Christian communities during this period. In doing so, my paper will show that Tay Son actions with regard to Christianity most frequently reflected political and military calculations rather than ideologically-motivated suspicion of the faith. Moreover, the paper will demonstrate that rather than constituting an exceptional period in Vietnamese history in terms of attitudes toward Christianity, the period of the Tay Son regime was one of continuity, offering obvious parallels to regimes that preceded and followed it.
The Bishop and the Prince: A New Look at an Overblown Relationship
Wynn Wilcox, Cornell University
This paper examines one of the most analyzed personal relationships in Vietnamese history. It suggests that the relationship between Ba Da Loc (The Bishop of Adran, Pigneau de Behaine) and Crown Prince Nguyen Phuc Canh has become overemphasized in colonial and nationalist historiography because of the use of both figures as prototypical stereotypes of the French colonizer and the Vietnamese collaborator. In fact, neither figure can be seen as prototypically French or Vietnamese, because neither seems to be concerned with their respective ethnicities or national states. This relationship has also been used to generate a foundational myth about the connection between Christianity and the French colonization of Vietnam. Pro-colonial authors use the Bishop as an example of the French Catholic civilizing mission in Vietnam, while nationalist authors claim that the Bishop demonstrates the clear link between Christianity and the imposition of French colonial domination. Because of their desire to use the relationship between the Bishop and the Prince as an allegorical device, these interpretations make the relationship out to be more dramatic than it appears to have been. The relationship between these is best understood as an extended relationship between teacher and student. Canh, like many students, was at times in awe of his mentor; at others, he rebelled against the Bishop. This relationship saw many of the vicissitudes of a relationship between a middle-aged teacher and a bright teenage student, including resistance and the distraction of the temptations of sex and drugs.
The Outlook of Native Catechists in Jesuit-Led Christian Communities in Vietnam, 1629–1665
Brian Ostrowski, Cornell University
The existence of a well-trained corps of commissioned spiritual leaders, or catechists, has often been credited for the success of the early Jesuit mission in seventeenth-century Vietnam. The writings of both Jesuit missionaries and native catechists themselves suggest ways in which the catechists conceived of their role in the Jesuit community and a wider world Christendom. The catechists thoroughly enmeshed themselves in the international Jesuit community. They devoted themselves to the maintenance of spiritually fervent Catholic communities, were open to international travel for education and other purposes, and came to share many of the missionaries’ attitudes toward affairs not only religious, but political and social as well. At the same time, the catechists maintained a deep intimacy with Vietnamese customs, local geography, administration, and a popular sense of the past. Their ability to straddle the intellectual and emotive worlds both of Jesuit Christianity and of Vietnamese tradition uniquely qualified them to communicate the spiritual instructions of the missionaries to native Christians, and in turn to Vietnamese tradition, uniquely qualified them to communicate the spiritual instructions of the missionaries to native Christians, and in turn to communicate the needs and aspirations of the local faithful to the Church hierarchy.
Organizer and Chair: Teri L. Caraway, Northwestern University
Discussant: Greg Talcott, Independent Scholar
Keywords: Labor, Non-Governmental Organizations, Southeast Asia.
Workers in Southeast Asia, facing the constraints of authoritarianism, capital mobility, and labor surplus, have had great difficulty organizing in conventional ways. As a result, traditional measures such as union density and the number of dues-paying members would lead us to believe that little is happening on the labor front. The obvious weakness of trade unions does not, however, fully reflect the state of the labor movements of all Southeast Asian countries. While trade unions remain the main organizational vehicle for workers in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, labor activists in other countries in the region have devised innovative modes of organizing both inside and outside the factories.
As labor movements become more active, they face global market pressures and capital mobility, with employers threatening to move to other countries if workers exert their collective power. Capital is not, however, the only actor with global reach. Local labor NGOs, church-based labor organizations and newly-formed trade unions are linked into a global network of funding and activism, encompassing organizations as diverse as the AFL-CIO’s American Center for International Labor Solidarity, European churches, and international human rights-based NGOs. The papers in this panel will explore how workers have organized under these less than favorable conditions, paying particular attention to the new forms of labor organizing that emerged over the last two decades, and the impact of globalization and democratization on the labor movements of Southeast Asia.
The Squeaky Wheel’s Dilemma: New Forms of Labor Organizing in the Philippines
Steven McKay, University of Wisconsin, Madison
"In a labor surplus economy like the Philippines, the squeaky wheel doesn’t get greased, it get replaced." (see note 1)
Workers in the Philippines and other developing countries have always had a difficult time organizing due to the disciplining effects of high levels of unemployment. Organizing has become even more onerous with the decline in traditional union power and the concentration of many new manufacturing jobs inside mushrooming anti-union Export Processing Zones (EPZs). Workers thus face a labor control regime in which employers, national policies and local actors work in concert to actively thwart unionization. Under such conditions, workers and their supporters have had to take up new tactics to organize.
This paper will trace the rise of alternative, community- rather than factory-based strategies to organize young female factory workers laboring in EPZs. Based on participant observation in a church-based workers’ assistance center, the paper will detail how, despite repressive local conditions, a local workers’ organization went from providing workers’ masses and disco parties to becoming a full-fledged and militant labor federation with ten affiliated unions and over one thousand members in a span of just five years.
The combination of worker-centered, community-based tactics, ties to established labor federations and international linkages proved a potent and effective method in organizing individually vulnerable workers. The lessons from this case study have wider implications both for labor organizing and for sociological theories of social movements in other industrializing, labor surplus economies.
1. Richard Szal, International Labor Organization Country Director for the Philippines, 3-9-99.
The Place of NGOs in the Organized Labor Movements of Indonesia and Malaysia
Michele T. Ford, University of Wollongong, Australia
Labor-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are playing an increasingly important role in labor affairs worldwide—in particular, in the labor movements of South and as a vehicle for the relationships between labor activists in the North and the South. As yet, however, they have no theoretically recognized place of their own in the organized labor movement.
This paper provides a schematic overview of the activities and orientations of local labor-oriented NGOs in Indonesia and Malaysia. It also examines their relationships with trade unions in their res