You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book pursues the theoretical aim of shedding light on the old question raised by Max Weber about the relation between capitalism, (religious) ethos and society. The empirical study consists of a description of the social structures, their embodiment in the habitus and world-views in Laos against the background of a critical revision of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology. To achieve these aims, the author develops a qualitative methodology as neither Weber nor Bourdieu explained how to empirically study habitus and ethos.
Since colonial rule, the island of Java served as Indonesia’s imagined centre and prime example of development, while the Outer Islands were constructed as the state’s marginalised periphery. Recent processes of democratisation and regional autonomy, however, have significantly changed the power relations that once produced the marginality of the Outer Islands. This book explores processes of political, economic and cultural transformations in Indonesia, emphasizing their implications for centre-periphery relations from the perspective of the archipelago’s ‘margins’. Structured along three central themes, the book first provides theoretical contributions to the understanding of mar...
A number of UN conventions and declarations (on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the World Heritage Conventions) can be understood as instruments of international governance to promote democracy and social justice worldwide. In Indonesia (as in many other countries), these international agreements have encouraged the self-assertion of communities that had been oppressed and deprived of their land, especially during the New Order regime (1966-1998). More than 2,000 communities in Indonesia who define themselves as masyarakat adat or “indigenous peoples” had already joined the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the A...
This book examines the history of nation-building and national identity in Timor-Leste, and the evolution of a collective identity through two consecutive colonial occupations, and into the post-independence era.
The villages on Bali & rsquo;s north-east coast have a long history. Archaeological findings have shown that the coastal settlements of Tejakula District enjoyed trading relations with India as long as 2000 years ago or more. Royal decrees dating from the 10th to the 12th century, inscribed on copper tablets and preserved in the local villages as part of their religious heritage, bear witness to the fact that, over a period of over 1000 years, these played a major role as harbour and trading centres in the transmaritime trade between India and (probably) the Spice Islands. At the same time the inscriptions attest to the complexity in those days of Balinese society, with a hierarchical social...
The making of modern Thailand is grounded in specific political institutions, Brahmanical tropes, and sacred Buddhist traditions stylized with Hindu rituals. Over and above these mysterious practices and ancient customs, modern Thailand is a product of the late Great Rama IX Bhumibol Adulyadej. Most Thai people have only known one King. Born in Europe and educated during World War II, Bhumibol was the son of a Harvard medical doctor who had a penchant for jazz music and fast cars. When he returned to Thailand in 1951 to assume his royal duties, he could hardly speak Thai but his French and German were remarkable. Bhumibol had inherited an impoverished country with nothing but a symbolic role...
The collective research effort of senior and junior scholars from Indonesia and beyond, The Road to Nusantara: Process, Challenges and Opportunities examines the political, economic, socio-cultural, security and environmental implications of President Joko Widodo’s historic plan to move Indonesia’s national capital from Jakarta to Nusantara, East Kalimantan. This volume will be of interest to policymakers, Indonesia’s neighbours near and far, prospective investors, and students of Indonesia who wish to understand the complex challenges underlying this megaproject. "The chapters in this book are important contributions to the study of Indonesia today …. Ground-breaking and meticulously documented using post-independence archival material and contemporary essays on new capitals …. Essential reading for a better understanding of the impetus behind Nusantara, made even more critical as the future of Nusantara hangs in the balance.” -- Edward Lee Kwong Foo, Chairman of Indofood Agri Resources Ltd and former Singapore’s Ambassador to Indonesia, 1994–2006
Social change affects all quarters of life and human society whether in individual neighbourhoods, communities or nations, or in the world as a whole – encompassing many issues of gender, age, social class and ethnicity. This book examines both the conceptual as well as operational aspects of social transformation and social development. It examines societal transformation at the individual, group, community, national and international levels using a range of case studies from Singapore, Asia and around the world. The four parts of this book highlight the challenges of social development; issues concerning workforce and migration; welfare, women and social care; as well as, community development and capacity building. Social development and social transformation are presented as intertwined concepts that affect citizens in profound ways from social care to social well-being, construction of social relationship as well as community life, capacity building and nation building.
ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has made slow progress in defining a regional policy for the protection of migrant workers. This book examines the normative structures within the institutions at play at both state and regional level of ASEAN, which influence the making of a migrant workers' protection policy.The author puts forward a novel alternative policy analysis tool – the Two Level State and Regional Analysis – that enables satisfactory explanation for policy-making cases, whereby normative institutional structures are involved and social policies are considered. The author argues that the formulation of a working coherent migrant workers protection policy has no...
This book adopts a neo-Marxist and Gramscian approach to studying the political economy of the agricultural and food system in Thailand (1990-2014). The author argues that hegemonic forces have many measures to co-opt dissent into hegemonic structures, and that counter-hegemony should be seen as an ongoing process over a long period of time where predominantly counter-hegemonic forces, constrained by political economic structural conditions, may at times retain some hegemonic elements. Contrary to what some academic studies suggest, the author argues that localist-inspired social movements in Thailand are not insular and anti-globalisation.