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The Legend of the Golden Boat provides a new approach to the study of Southeast Asia’s northern borderlands. Based on extensive travel in the upper Mekong hinterland, it is a fascinating account of the lives of the transport operators, traders, entrepreneurs, and government officials. This ethnographic study is set against an intriguing background of war, revolution, and reform, providing one of the most detailed histories of the upper Mekong borderlands ever written. Contemporary developments in the upper Mekong region are often interpreted in terms of the emergence of a trans-border Economic Quadrangle, characterized by liberalization, integration, and cooperation. This book seeks to go beyond this promotional rhetoric and explore the ambiguities and contradictions in the Quadrangle’s development.
Nature Across Cultures: Views of Nature and the Environment in Non-Western Cultures consists of about 25 essays dealing with the environmental knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Indian, Thai, and Andean views of nature and the environment, among others, the book includes essays on Environmentalism and Images of the Other, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Worldviews and Ecology, Rethinking the Western/non-Western Divide, and Landscape, Nature, and Culture. The essays address the connections between nature and culture and relate the environmental practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both environmental history and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.
In this far-reaching examination of environmental problems and politics in northern Thailand, Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker analyze deforestation, water supply, soil erosion, use of agrochemicals, and biodiversity in order to challenge popularly held notions of environmental crisis. They argue that such crises have been used to support political objectives of state expansion and control in the uplands. They have also been used to justify the alternative directions advocated by an array of NGOs. In official and alternative discourses of economic development, the peoples living in Thailand's hill country are typically cast as either guardians or destroyers of forest resources, often depending ...
During the 1990s, the Thai provinces saw the rise of a frequently violent competition for business and political leadership. This examination of economic change focuses on this middle ground between metropolis and countryside, an arena being transformed by capitalist development.
These essays chart the emergence of a new chapter in an ancient faith - the rise of social service and political activism in Buddhist Asia and the West. Engaged Buddhists have sought new ways to comfort society's oppressed communities.
“Southeast Asian Affairs, first published in 1974, continues today to be required reading for not only scholars but the general public interested in in-depth analysis of critical cultural, economic and political issues in Southeast Asia. In this annual review of the region, renowned academics provide comprehensive and stimulating commentary that furthers understanding of not only the region’s dynamism but also of its tensions and conflicts. It is a must read.” –Suchit Bunbongkarn, Emeritus Professor, Chulalongkorn University “Now in its forty-fifth edition, Southeast Asian Affairs offers an indispensable guide to this fascinating region. Lively, analytical, authoritative, and acces...
Contributed articles.
Completely revised since its first publication in 1996, this book is about the transformation of a country over one roller-coaster decade. It is about the econoics of boom and bust, but also about politics, social changes, and popular culture. "Digs much deeper than the superficial analyses of business trends . . . to explain how a whole society is being transformed by an industrial revolution of unprecedented speed."--Financial Times of London
India has the largest tribal population in the world. A major factor that can bring transformation in the overall condition among tribal population is education. Education is the only primary agent which can help individuals overcome income barriers, and expand the horizon of the community when it comes to making career choices, personal growth, build confidence, and a sustained development. Education alone is a chief avenue that will upgrade the economic and social stature of the Scheduled Tribes. Indian state has taken measures to raise the literacy levels among Scheduled Tribes; however, there are many miles to reach out as the issues and challenges faced by them remain unaddressed in terms of attaining education and development. This book tried to fill the gap and made a modest attempt to understand the concerns and problems faced by them in accessing the state sponsored modern educational system.