Ethnic groups and multicultural studies Books

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisHailed on its first publication as 'an outstanding contribution to Southeast Asian ethnography - highly recommended not only for specialists in traditional hunting and fishing but also for those readers who wish to gain some insight from the native's point of view - into a fascinating tribal minority culture of highland Southeast Asia' (Roland Mischung, Asian Folklore Studies).This reproduction of the 1991 edition is augmented by new material on food cultivation and its preparation among the Kammu by Kam Raw (Damrong Tayanin) and an essay by Hakan Lundstrom.

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Book SynopsisWhen France laid claim to the territories that became French Indochina, its beleaguered trading posts on the east coast of India gained a new purpose, sending Indians to help secure and administer its newest possessions and to assist in their commercial expansion. The migrants were among those peoples of France's overseas empire who gained the rights of French citizens following the French Revolution. This volume explores the consequences of their arrival in Indochina just as France was testing a new approach to its colonised peoples, an approach less enamoured with the idea of colonial citizenship and more racially ordered. This book offers an analysis of the fate of Republican ideals as they travelled between different parts of the French Empire and raised contentious issues of citizenship which engaged Indians, French authorities, and Vietnamese reformers in debate. It considers too the distinctive French colonial social order that was shaped in the process. A lively story, it is at the same time an important addition to scholarship on the French empire, on colonial society in Vietnam specifically, and on migration to Southeast Asia.

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Book SynopsisWith contributions from leading scholars in their field, this collection of fourteen essays offers wide-ranging but incisive perspectives on East and Southeast Asian Studies. Apart from informing and enlightening the reader, the essays offer a tribute to Professor Takashi Shiraishi, the renowned Japanese scholar, for his many contributions across continents and disciplines as well as his personal qualities as a long-time colleague, teacher and friend. Now Professor Emeritus of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, Shiraishi-sensei has had an outstanding career as a teacher, scholar, administrator and policy advisor, his many roles including Deputy Director of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University and president both of GRIPS and the Institute of Developing Economies, Japan. Often with Japan at their nexus, the essays speak to three enduring themes in the research interests that spanned Shiraishi's half-century career, namely, political movements in Southeast Asia; national and regional politics in China and Japan; and the links between ideology, networks and policies at critical junctures of state formation. An introduction by the editors reviews Shiraishi's contributions to many areas of scholarship (these are documented in the back matter, in a bibliography of his publications and writings in English and Japanese). Among authors of the fourteen essays that follow are Patricio Abinales, Chris Baker, Caroline Hau, Peter Katzenstein, Pasuk Phongpaichit and Thongchai Winichakul. In a concluding lengthy interview Shiraishi speaks for the first time, in a frank if light-hearted tone, of his diverse experiences in academia, as student, faculty and administrator, his thoughts on area studies and their connections with official policy-making, and his initiatives for building regional networks of research and intellectual exchange. A festschrift in English being a rarity for a Japanese scholar, this collection offers valuable if indirect insights into the links and influences that have animated a burgeoning community of international academic exchange and expert cooperation. This has been facilitated by Shiraishi's position, time and again (even if an accidental one, as he likes to say), as a transnational intersection point for colleagues, students and friends in their many various research pursuits. A rich and rewarding collection.

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Book SynopsisWith contributions from leading scholars in their field, this collection of fourteen essays offers wide-ranging but incisive perspectives on East and Southeast Asian Studies. Apart from informing and enlightening the reader, the essays offer a tribute to Professor Takashi Shiraishi, the renowned Japanese scholar, for his many contributions across continents and disciplines as well as his personal qualities as a long-time colleague, teacher and friend. Now Professor Emeritus of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, Shiraishi-sensei has had an outstanding career as a teacher, scholar, administrator and policy advisor, his many roles including Deputy Director of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University and president both of GRIPS and the Institute of Developing Economies, Japan. Often with Japan at their nexus, the essays speak to three enduring themes in the research interests that spanned Shiraishi's half-century career, namely, political movements in Southeast Asia; national and regional politics in China and Japan; and the links between ideology, networks and policies at critical junctures of state formation. An introduction by the editors reviews Shiraishi's contributions to many areas of scholarship (these are documented in the back matter, in a bibliography of his publications and writings in English and Japanese). Among authors of the fourteen essays that follow are Patricio Abinales, Chris Baker, Caroline Hau, Peter Katzenstein, Pasuk Phongpaichit and Thongchai Winichakul. In a concluding lengthy interview Shiraishi speaks for the first time, in a frank if light-hearted tone, of his diverse experiences in academia, as student, faculty and administrator, his thoughts on area studies and their connections with official policy-making, and his initiatives for building regional networks of research and intellectual exchange. A festschrift in English being a rarity for a Japanese scholar, this collection offers valuable if indirect insights into the links and influences that have animated a burgeoning community of international academic exchange and expert cooperation. This has been facilitated by Shiraishi's position, time and again (even if an accidental one, as he likes to say), as a transnational intersection point for colleagues, students and friends in their many various research pursuits. A rich and rewarding collection.

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Book SynopsisFor many years, fieldwork was impossible in Laos due to the wars and then because of the overthrow of the royal power and the establishment of a revolutionary regime. Yet this country – where, to this day, very diverse ethnic minorities make up more than half the population – has long been considered by ethnologists as a quite unique place of study. Although limited in number, several good ethnographies were conducted during colonial times and after independence until the 1960s, both among certain ethnic minorities and among Lao villagers. But, with rare exceptions, they adopted a narrow focus, producing ethnic monographs or even village studies. It was not until the 1990s that some international researchers were able to return to the field in Laos, often in difficult and precarious conditions. While recognizing the value of some early ethnographies, their approach deliberately turned towards anthropological questioning with new theoretical perspectives. The book brings together several of these anthropological studies representative of a new generation of researchers engaged in fieldwork, often in collaboration with Lao researchers in joint projects. Among other aspects, their research demonstrates the value of studying the political role of the state in the management of multi-ethnicity as well as in the management of religion. But they also re-situate the study of a particular ethnic minority in the broader field of interethnic relations at the regional or national level. Published in collaboration with the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), the book is a tribute to the late Grant Evans, whose work remains emblematic of this “anthropological turn” in Lao studies.

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Book SynopsisWritten by an exiled former Secretary General of the Chin National League for Democracy, this study contains valuable data on the Chin and their role in the history of Burma, and provides a clear analysis of the close relationship between religion, ethnicity and nationalism.Table of ContentsPart one - the Chin background: who are the Chin?; the Chin traditional ways of life - Phunglam; rituals, power and status in Chin society. Part two - Colonial power, Christian mission and the Chin response: the British annexation of Chinram; the coming of Christianity to East Chinram; the Chin response - towards the Anglo-Chin War and its aftermath. Part three - the Chin towards independent Burma: the repercussions of the Burma Act and World War II; the joining of the Union of Burma; the Chin spirituality in the new context. Part four - The role of the Church in the struggle for liberation: the Chin in Buddhist Burma; the Chin churches under military dictatorship rule; conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to this volume were asked to think about a panic involving race and migration of immediate concern to them. The results are a collection of essays which deal with the fabrication of an idea of race and its historical dimensions.

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