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The paper presents a case study of art activism in Nang Loeng, a historic neighbourhood in Bangkok, Thailand. Long recognised for its rich cultural heritage from food to architecture, Nang Loeng has established its name as a site of cultural tourism, drawing interest from tourists, artists, and professional experts. Like many neighbourhoods nearby, Nang Loeng today is being threatened by looming gentrification and eviction, as the inner city is transforming itself into a tourist destination. In particular, the upcoming underground construction has put their housing security under pressure. The paper first discusses the context of rail‐led urban transformation in historic Bangkok, fuelled by the discourse of transit‐oriented development. Then, it introduces Nang Loeng and their series of art‐based programmes. Disappointed by their failure to secure housing tenure from the landlord, Nang Loeng residents have turned to activism as a tool of resistance. Here, the paper pays particular attention to the role of community architects who creatively translates neighbourhood concerns into artistic forms. Through the case of Buffalo Field Festival, the paper illustrates how the community architects, artists and local residents collaboratively use Nang Loeng's cultural assets to make subtle political statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on assemblage theory to propose a new theoretical understanding of modernity. While the conceptual framing is meant for modernity at large, this paper locates its conceptual discussion in the context of tourism in Macao and illustrates how plasmatic thinking, the new conceptual framework proposed, advances analysis of aspiration, exploitation and freedom of its tour guides. Plasmatic thinking helps examinations of tourism labour to engage with the fragile and fluid nature of the sociomaterial environments. Instead of structures, networks or fluidities, plasmatic thinking sees the world as composed of 'plasmas' – 'charged' sociomaterial clustering of objects, humans and the processes between them. Plasmas are a form of charged matter falling outside solid, liquid and gaseous states and metaphorises the fragility and impermanence of sociomaterial situations for plasmas disintegrates when discharged. The attention to charges and fragility of plasmas helps describes both pandemic levels shocks and everyday disruptions. Through a plasmatic analysis of the falling apart and coming together of such plasmas and how they bring about significant consequences to Macao's tourism, I showcase plasmatic thinking as a theoretical approach which vividly uncovers the fragility and fluidity of modernity and the workings of power in our sociomaterial worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Chinese transnational investments, as (re)framed in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), contribute to changes in urbanisation processes in Southeast Asia. On the ground, the BRI becomes contextualised and intersects with local and national development trajectories. The growing presence of Chinese actors in the region intensifies urban dynamics, especially in secondary cities and emerging urban sites, where the BRI is used as a lever for local internationalisation strategies. The heterogeneous nature of the links between the BRI and various large urban projects is demonstrated on the basis of case studies involving changing consortia of private and public Chinese and Southeast Asian actors. A regional approach allows us to identify connections and shared processes across Southeast Asian countries. It provides a historically grounded understanding of how the BRI incorporates long‐term interactions with China and more recent partnerships in Southeast Asian countries. The paper paves the way for a research agenda that contests the image of China as a monolithic actor implementing the BRI uniformly and consistently. Further analyses are needed to examine systems and networks of actors as well as the local urban politics that affect the BRI on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A referendum to decide on Bougainville's future political relationship with Papua New Guinea was held in November 2019. The deferred, non‐binding, referendum is a key milestone contained in the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA), which sought to reconcile a violent conflict from 1988 to 1998. Although the Bougainville peace process has been deemed a success and significant milestones have been reached towards implementation of the BPA, the conflict continues to have enduring impacts. Particular concerns have been raised about Bougainville's large youth population, often referred to as the 'lost generation'. This paper documents observations of the 2019 referendum from the perspective of four university students born during the conflict in Siwai District, South Bougainville, whom participated officially in the referendum as an observer group. While trauma and a disrupted education have contributed to youth unemployment and substance abuse in Bougainville, the paper offers a stark contrast to negative narratives of young Bougainvilleans as lacking capabilities to contribute to social and political life. As Bougainville embarks on yet another period of political uncertainty, the paper calls for greater attention to finding avenues to support these young voices to ensure that their generation is not 'lost' forever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal‐fired thermal power has recently become one of the most pressing issues in Vietnam's development agenda. The country's economic development, industrialization and modernization, and population increases have put increasing pressure on energy demands. The Vietnamese government sees coal‐fired power as a way forward in ensuring energy security, which had led to the planning and construction of plants nationwide, particularly from 2016. Simultaneously, a growing anti‐coal power development movement argues that coal‐fired power adversely transforms local people's lives and livelihoods, and negatively impacts the ecological balance in plant locations. Through the lens of environmental justice, this paper examines the development of Vietnam's power sector with a focus on coal‐fired thermal power and its impacts on local livelihoods, food production and water resources. The paper argues that Vietnam's development of coal‐fired power is about much more than energy. It speaks to the state's rule over resources, and how this very process of power generation disproportionately affects local communities in the Mekong Delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Originated in southern China, nanyin (南音) is regarded as 'the sound of motherland' (乡音) performed and loved by the Hokkien dialect speakers in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and diasporic populations living in Southeast Asia. Having thrived in transnational spaces, nanyin is now celebrated as a shared heritage in China and Southeast Asian countries, such as Singapore. This paper explores the process of heritage‐making, that is, the ways in which the art form and cultural practice of nanyin have been re‐shaped and re‐appropriated by the diasporic communities and the native place to articulate different understandings of the Chinese identity in their distinct nation‐state frameworks. In this ambivalent entanglement, China has re‐appropriated the diasporic history of nanyin to gain international recognition and build soft power through United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In Singapore, the Siong Leng Music Association has actively engaged in the heritage‐making of nanyin, leading to the creation of a unique Singapore brand that speaks to hybridity and cosmopolitanism, in the same way as the re‐construction of their Chinese identity. Examining the two processes of heritagisation of nanyin along the China‐Singapore 'heritage corridors', the paper argues that the two ends are connected in important ways but always seek to maintain distance to articulate their own cultural representations at international stages. Thus, nanyin through a comparative perspective enables a critical examination of issues of centre versus periphery, authenticity, and hybridity in the Sinophone world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews progress towards the establishment of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Power Grid (APG) and the key barriers to multilateral cross‐border electricity trade in ASEAN. An analysis across political, technical, institutional, economic, environmental, social and time dimensions is employed. Using a policy sequencing framework, the paper concludes it remains premature for ASEAN to pursue a strong form of power sector market integration on account of the sizeable barriers that currently remain, especially economic and institutional barriers. Focusing on bilateral power purchase agreements and large‐scale investments in solar and wind power over 2022–2030 would help to develop stronger foundations for ASEAN to make steps towards deeper regional integration in the electricity sector in subsequent years, while also being consistent with renewables adoption goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no such thing as a neighbourhood. But neighbourhoods are everywhere. Neighbourhoods are regularly described as things, but we cannot touch them. We typically understand neighbourhoods as places, but we can neither see them nor find their edges. The more one stares at a neighbourhood, the more it seems impossible to see it. Nevertheless, there is something—an often intangible and indescribably social something—compelling us not only to imagine but to experience the neighbourhood being stared at as a real thing. In social science analysis, one important thing that we stare at but cannot see is 'the social'. To more properly understand the neighbourhood, then, this paper takes the social seriously. It places people and their relationships at the centre of a project to develop a working understanding of the neighbourhood. Instead of asking, 'What is a neighbourhood?' the paper suggests that we must always begin by asking, 'Who is a neighbourhood?' The empirical basis for the paper's conceptual reflections on the neighbourhood emerge out of a collaborative research project conducted under the auspices of a multicity research project called the Southeast Asia Neighbourhoods Network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhoods are places of social encounters on a daily basis, but they are getting insufficient attention from policy makers and urban studies in conceptualising the city. While the city is often the unit of analysis and boundaries of data collection, social constructions of the city are mostly from neighbourhoods. By shifting the analysis to the neighbourhood scale, we are moving scholarship and research on two fronts. First, we need to think about city building knowledge at a pedagogical and methodological level. Second, we want to examine processes and amenity creation at the neighbourhood scale and make visible the ways these add to city politics, economy, and culture. Articles in this special issue contribute to urban scholarship in the following ways: (i) neighbourhood as a method of urban studies; (ii) understanding urban politics and government; (iii) the role of urban informality and small businesses; and (iv) the role of traditional neighbourhood institutions in the social life of the city. Neighbourhoods can be poorly resourced and inward‐looking, but in many cases localised interests, relationships and organisations are capable of collective action, networking beyond their localities, and inspiring its residents with aspirations of the city's future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sponsored by the Asia Pacific Viewpoint, this paper was originally delivered as a keynote address at the New Zealand Geographical Society (NZGS) conference in November of 2020. Building on the conference theme, 'Embracing Diversity: Expanding Geographies', it argues that any consideration of our diverse, layered and growing environments must consider the sacred. Rather than focus solely on what are often deemed 'sacred' sites – or those places marked by physical signposts, particular rituals or sanctioning – it encourages us to think deeply about the everyday sacred though recognising how places feed. Flowing between places and times, between Kumutoto Stream in Te Whanganui‐a‐Tara and Pōhakuloa in Hawaiʻi, this paper is a call to stand on whenua and see it, smell it, taste it and love it. It is an invitation to relate to place on an intimate level. It is a prompting to be critical of the urban and colonially constructed spaces that have become naturalised in our daily lives and to uncover the stories, histories and peoples they work to displace and erase so that we can plant collective roots of resistance and solidarity for better futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based upon a literature review, this paper first identifies and articulates the importance of studying physical activity and sport (PAS) engagement of new Asian migrants within a particular geographical location – New Zealand. A pilot study with a series of in‐depth interviews highlights some challenges that New Zealand Regional Sports Organisations (RSOs) and new Asian migrants face in terms of PAS engagement. Findings from the pilot study interviews indicate that RSOs in New Zealand are well aware of these challenges, and these challenges mainly stem from a lack of understanding of the needs of new Asian migrant communities. These findings also indicate that ethnicity plays a significant role in influencing migrants' PAS engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global pandemic has adversely affected tourism globally, particularly in small island states heavily dependent on tourism. The closure of borders to regular flights for over a year in places such as Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands and Vanuatu, where this research was undertaken, has resulted in massive job losses. Many tourism employees have left the once‐bustling tourist hubs, returning to villages and family settlements. Such clear urban to rural migration behaviours do not dominate movement patterns in the Pacific, but are an important and enduring strategy when shocks strike. In the case of the pandemic‐induced migration to villages, former tourism workers have had to engage in a complicated process of adapting to the communal setting, employing new – as well as traditional – strategies to sustain a livelihood. Thus, this paper will discuss how the pandemic has influenced return migration patterns in the Pacific, and the implications of this shift. Findings suggest that, despite their financial struggles, people have adapted to life in their ancestral homes by rekindling their relationships with kin and increasing their engagement on their customary land. They have relearned about traditional Indigenous knowledge, diversified their skills and reconnected with their social and ecological systems. This spiritual homecoming observed in the Pacific ultimately shows that there can be silver linings to the dark clouds of the current disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instances of civil unrest and disorder have pockmarked the mainly peaceful functioning of multiple Pacific states in recent decades. This paper examines factors which can be seen as fault lines for predicting and mitigating such unrest, with a particular focus on Fiji and Solomon Islands. Drawing on data collected through interviews with youth advocates and activists, it becomes clear that the common justification of 'ethnic tensions' for past unrest and fears of future unrest being necessitated by a 'youth bulge' oversimplifies the complexity of factors that lead to disorder. Issues of land rights, uncertain livelihood futures and public perceptions of inequality provide more salient framings for understanding why citizens engage in unrest. Indeed, it is perceptions of injustice and inequality which may well prove to be the greater indicator of the likelihood of any future destabilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Vietnam's capital city Hanoi, the growing popularity of application based (app‐based) motorbike taxis has offered many inhabitants new opportunities to pursue a mobile livelihood with ride‐hailing platforms. Nonetheless, as this influx of app‐based drivers has hit the city's streets, specific livelihood and mobility frictions have emerged, notably with informal, 'traditional' motorbike taxi drivers, or xe ôm. In this paper we analyse these evolving sites and moments of friction and their impacts on driver livelihoods and mobilities for both driver groups. We draw conceptually on debates regarding mobility, platform economies, and urban livelihoods, while specifically interrogating the concept of friction to highlight three possible analytical applications. Methodologically, we interpret static and ride‐along interviews completed with over 130 drivers. We highlight a range of tactics 'traditional' and app‐based motorbike taxi drivers have employed to respond to rising frictions, defend their 'turf', and maintain their street‐based livelihoods. Driver responses reveal differing access to distinctive forms of social capital and social networks, and contrasting levels of agency regarding their mobilities. By conceptually teasing apart the notion of friction, we wish to expand and deepen understandings of the experiences of vulnerability, precarity, and other impacts of platformisation for different motorbike taxi driver cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss how community relational economic practices in virtual spaces are effective in building resilience because they are borne of and sustained by familiar traditional Fijian values of collective work and social interdependence. The researchers adopted a pandemic‐induced methodology, conducting online‐based talanoa (fluid conversations between two or more people) with a number of people leading, or involved in, these initiatives. We also engaged with online community groups behind a number of initiatives. Examples are provided of online crowdfunding, livestreaming of concerts to solicit donations, and bartering facilitated by social media sites. To conclude, we stress the enduring nature of communal bonds and traditional systems which Pacific people readily adapt and translate into different forums and forms in the face of challenges such as the restrictions and financial hardships caused by COVID‐19. The findings highlight that solesolevaki – a tradition of working together for a common cause – can also occur in the digital era: this demonstrates the deep connection of Fijian peoples and their sense of obligation to one another and to their culture, regardless of where they are in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mainstream development agenda highlights how important access to health care is for poorer regions of the world. In the area of maternal health, this is expressed in a concern to drive down rates of maternal morbidity and improve access to maternal health care services. While important, the focus on metrics misses the way that relations of care are fundamental to good health. This paper takes an example of a project which is offering a different approach to health and development in the resource scarce environment of Luang Prabang Province, in northern Laos. Here, a group of antipodean midwives has partnered with provincial health authorities to offer a midwifery training programme to health workers posted in remote rural health centres. Supported by the analytical tools of diverse economies, this paper explores how this programme centres relationality, collectivity and an ethic of kindness, and discusses the advantages of being relationship based, small and informal. The paper concludes that this training programme can be understood as an example of a community economy of care: based on global networks of care instead of formal development programmes built on global networks of bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into rural peasants' livelihood‐related agrarian changes revolving around their three major livelihood strategies in Qinghai. These strategies include peasant agriculture, seasonal migrant labour and caterpillar fungus harvesting, the latter two of which have been adopted since the mid‐1990s. The research particularly focuses on rural Tibetan peasants' lived experiences in their efforts to achieve sustainable livelihoods through these three strategies in a specific village context. In doing so, the paper highlights resources, qualifications, opportunities, changes and challenges in rural peasants' livelihood realities. The empirical evidence from this paper suggests that rural Tibetan peasants' diverse ways of making livelihoods have a greater potential to imagine and build sustainable and equitable livelihoods. I argue that sustainable livelihoods approaches must be pursued in tandem with a diverse economies framework for analysing rural peasants' present way of making livelihoods. This new and critical way of studying rural peasant livelihoods can particularly highlight non‐capitalist economic relations and practices that are the major contributors to sustainable and equitable livelihoods for Tibetan peasants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has attracted wide scholarly attention. However, discussions among social scientists on BRI have largely premised on the academic infrastructure in English language contexts. Academic research on BRI in China has often been only briefly mentioned as background information in English language publications. This disjuncture between scholarship on BRI inside and outside China reflects the multiple geographies of BRI. Thinking through BRI in English and Chinese scholarship, this paper considers how existing and future factors such as funding sources, language politics, political framing of the research and institutional surveillance may yield different intellectual spaces for understanding the knowledge production of BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social support of Timorese workers under the Australian Seasonal Workers Programme (SWP). The SWP, which allows citizens from Pacific Island countries and Timor‐Leste to work in Australian agriculture for six to nine months, has become the major source of remittances for seasonal workers from Timor‐Leste. The paper describes how access to the internet and the availability of social media devices can help to maintain long‐distance family relationships, support migrants' well‐being and alleviate the effects of socio‐spatial segregation to some extent. However, the need to earn remittances in a fixed period of time forces them to accept a trade‐off in the quality of their social and personal lives in rural Australia. According to the New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM), isolation and separation from families are part of a rational household strategy to accumulate remittances. This paper argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the social costs borne by workers and left‐behind households and that the sustainability of the SWP depends to a large extent on the ability of workers to find ways of meeting their needs for social support. The analysis is based on data from participant observation and semi‐structured interviews with 50 Timorese seasonal workers in Australia and Timor‐Leste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of climate change in the Pacific and worldwide have prompted researchers and practitioners to find ways to define, assess and support community resilience. This paper presents a community resilience framework to help meet this challenge. While traditional framings of resilience in scholarship are often based on deficit models that focus on vulnerability and gaps, this framework draws on strengths‐based principles and systems thinking approaches to support a holistic and integrated perspective of community resilience. Pacific community resilience literature underpins the framework, which values and prioritises diverse community insights to support locally defined pathways towards adaptation and resilience building. We offer examples of future application of the framework in a range of contexts such as research, programme design, strategic policy, programme implementation or evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Solomon Islands, women's groups play an important role in promoting socially inclusive development and women's empowerment. In this paper, we summarise the experiences of a 5‐year participatory action research partnership to enhance rural livelihood activities based on aquatic foods. The women's savings groups that participated in this research identified solar‐powered freezers as an innovation suitable to their skills and environment. The 12 freezers we used in our partnership to pilot this innovation had tangible benefits. More than 700 unique users accessed the freezers, 3900 kg of fish was stored and over USD6,000 was saved in total; however, accumulation of savings varied greatly between groups. The women's groups demonstrated that operating solar‐powered freezers can be financially viable, and the innovation integrated well with their livelihood activities. This conclusion provides an alternative to dominant development narratives, which tend to focus on building large‐scale infrastructure, and often exclude women. Existing marketing skills and cooperation were strengths on which the women built. Poor‐quality technology was the biggest impediment to success. Solving this basic problem should be a priority for any future cold‐storage initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Later‐life migrants, as older people living away from their home nations, occupy multiply‐precarious positions in relation to national COVID‐19 pandemic responses. Concern has particularly centred on this group's increased risk of social and linguistic exclusion. We explore the perspectives of later‐life older Chinese and Koreans living in New Zealand during the nation's COVID‐19 lockdown of 2020. This paper presents a sub‐analysis of culturally‐matched interviews conducted with 3 Korean and 5 Chinese later‐life migrants. These participants are a sub‐sample of a larger qualitative interview study comprising 44 interviews. A social capital approach has been used to aid conceptualisation of participants' experiences and a reflexive thematic approach guided analysis. Despite their underrepresentation in national response efforts, Chinese and Korean later‐life migrants resourcefully participated in ethnically‐specific pandemic initiatives. Three themes identified were: (1) taking it seriously (2) already digitally literate (3) challenges and difficulties. Older Asian migrants engaged in a range of creative strategies to stay connected during COVID‐19 lockdowns which drew heavily on pre‐existing social capital. Future pandemic responses should seek to improve connectedness between the national government COVID‐19 response and older Korean and Chinese later‐life migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tourism industry has long been recognised for supporting women in achieving economic empowerment and social freedom through entrepreneurial and employment opportunities. Widely recognised as a women‐dominated sector, tourism is deemed to be a facilitator of women's development following the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the existing literature suggests, women's involvement in tourism activities supports local economic growth and development, while facilitating social transformation that enables them to create their own identities. Despite these achievements, several studies noted the persisting issues women face in participating in tourism. With the goal of contributing to existing discourses, this paper aims to analyse their experiences in community entrepreneurship by examining several community‐involved tourism enterprises in the Philippines. The findings of this study reveal that women have been largely involved in tourism activities in that country, yet their experiences working in these enterprises vary. The opportunities and challenges identified in this study can serve as a springboard for further analysis of the experience of women working in the Philippine tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change education (CCE) can be an important tool to increase local community resilience. In 2017, the Pacific Community ratified the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific (FRDP) aiming to equip local communities with skills needed to become more climate change resilient. In 2018, Fiji implemented the Climate Change Resilience Programme (CCRP) at the University of the South Pacific (USP), the first of its kind in the South Pacific. This paper evaluates (i) the orientation and aim of the programme and (ii) how different stakeholders influenced the curriculum development process. Tribe's concept of curriculum space is used to highlight the overall aim of the CCRP. Freeman's stakeholder theory allows to identify key stakeholders and their influence on the curriculum. Results indicate that the programme seems to foster climate resilience in the workplace rather than the local community. Unfortunately, current and future community leaders, the notional targets of this course, were almost completely unrepresented in the process to accredit the course, with the body responsible for accreditation being dominated by industry representatives. This study helps to inform the current review of the Regional Certificate Programme to realign it with its initially envisioned community focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the influence of mobility on place attachment has received attention in the literature, this relationship varies between groups. Unlike those who move to enjoy their retirement, for example, older migrants arriving in Shenzhen come to the city 'passively,' drawn by the needs of their children. This paper advances understanding of the concept of place attachment by illustrating the relationships between its components. Analysis of interview and questionnaire responses revealed the following relationships between three focal components of place attachment. Place dependence first directly influenced affective attachment and then indirectly affected place identity. Leisure involvement had a positive impact on place dependence and affective attachment but no direct effect on place identity. Residential satisfaction was an antecedent of all three focal dimensions of place attachment. No direct relationship was found between leisure involvement and residential satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using China Migrants Dynamic Survey Project data from 2012 to 2018, this paper evaluates the causal impact of equalisation of basic public health and medical services on the long‐term urban settlement intentions of internal migrants by the difference‐in‐differences approach. The results reveal that the equalisation of basic public health and medical services has a negative impact on the long‐term urban settlement intentions of internal migrants of 4%. Male, middle‐aged, and unmarried internal migrants have a much stronger negative response, in terms of long‐term urban settlement intentions, to changes in basic public health and medical services. Moreover, more recent internal migrants, those in first‐tier cities and those in cities in eastern regions also have a much stronger negative response. Mechanism checks imply that the negative impact on the long‐term urban settlement intentions of internal migrants is caused by social integration decline after implementation of equalisation of basic public health and medical services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities of the Global South constitute a wide band in terms of their integration into the global economy. For cities like Hanoi, the sustained influx of foreign direct investments has propelled them into playing increasingly important roles as manufacturing centres. Along with this new role is the influx of expatriate managers who watch overseas manufacturing subsidiaries. Our paper focuses on Korean expatriate neighbourhoods and their impacts on Hanoi. More specifically, we show how the presence of such communities has resulted in important changes in the host city, firstly in housing typology (such as the introduction of high‐rise mixed‐use complexes), and secondly, in cultural consumption. We argue that Korean privilege, cultural consumption practices, and the desire for support and solidarity within the Korean social network in Hanoi work to create new forms of city‐building knowledge, one that originates from the neighbourhoods of these new and rich settlers in the city. Such forms of knowledge subsequently go on to reshape the economic, cultural and social spaces in the globalising city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores neighbourhood‐based projects such as "local project" (Magnaghi, 2005), the strategic scenarios that set out a process of mobilisation and promotion of local resources, planned and run by local people. It focuses on two residential communities in Wua‐Lai neighbourhood, namely Chumchon Wat Muen‐Sarn and Chumchon Wat Sri‐Suphan. The analysis deals with three local projects: Wua‐Lai Walking Street and Saturday Market, Lanna Arts Study Centre and community museums. It seeks to understand how the residents use silver handicraft, Buddhist temple and local marketplaces for shaping their projects and for connecting the neighbourhood to the city. This study allows us to identify the key elements in place on which the local projects are premised and how these elements reproduce sense of belonging and sociability that create the potential for collective action. It intends to highlight on the neighbourhood capacities, and its limits, to carry out local initiatives and to challenge more economic forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhood gastronomy, the agglomeration of restaurants and smaller eateries in residential urban areas, contributes to the lives of residents and visitors economically, culturally, and socially. Since winter 2020, neighbourhood gastronomy in Asian cities has been severely disrupted by COVID, compounded by many other long‐term stressors. In urban Japan these stresses include gentrification, the aging of proprietors, urban renewal, and corporatisation of gastronomy. Empirically, this paper discusses how independent restaurants in Tokyo contribute to community life by supporting grassroots creative industries, small business opportunities, meaningful artisanal work, convivial social spaces, local cultural heritage, and a human‐scale built environment. The study uses intensive single‐site urban ethnography to discuss how restaurateurs face immediate and long‐term crises at the community level. By using the "neighbourhood as method," a concept of sustainable neighbourhood gastronomy is developed that should be applicable in other urban contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agrotourism in Vietnam has been identified as one of the strategies used to achieve green growth and countryside modernisation, and it is often included as part of the national and local agenda. In this paper, we examine agrotourism in a village in the periphery of Hội An city (an international tourism hub in central Vietnam) to question tourism's interaction with ongoing development processes. More specifically, we aim to understand the impact of fast peri‐urbanisation on agrotourism and the impacts of agrotourism on people's daily lives, specifically when it comes to physical changes in their living environment, tensions in their social life and their concerns about the future. Our analysis is supported with data generated from interviews with farmers, local officials, tourism workers and tourists. We find that agrotourism products lacked authenticity and farming was not of great interest for tourists, yet the state's investment in the village tended to favour spaces and infrastructure that could attract more tourists and generate profit, to the detriment of cultural infrastructure. Land speculation and an unequal distribution of income were the main tensions in the village along with farmers' concerns about their rural heritage, income diversification and environmental quality. As such, agrotourism in the village has been driven by rapid urbanisation and mass tourism, creating a competition between a consumption activity and a productive activity. Those are important parameters that future policymakers need to take into consideration in order to sustain the city's food production and tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tertiary education scholarships for individual students from developing countries, including those in the Pacific Islands, are a key pillar of Australia's development policy. Understanding students' experiences of these scholarships are important in identifying both positives and challenges, which can help foster improved future opportunities. This is especially the case for Pacific Islander students engaging in the Australia Awards Scholarship programme for which there is limited understanding of experiences. As such, this paper identifies that although educational mobility programmes can offer a wealth of opportunities for students, the COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges of such programmes which can inhibit students from reaching their full potential. Educational mobility programmes that effectively address the needs of students and empower them to achieve their goals are required to better facilitate transformative development pathways for Australia's Pacific Island neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which the religious subject can be a contingent position that is responsive to the broader socio‐religious context within which it is expressed. These contingencies are acutely observed among short‐term missionaries (STM), who seek out encounters with difference in pursuit of a more cosmopolitan subjectivity. Yet, while spaces of missionary encounter are inherently relational, the missions literature has tended to downplay the effects of relationality on the realisation of these subject positions. By focusing on the experiences of Singaporean missionaries working among Christian communities in Southeast Asia, I contribute a more nuanced and less pre‐determined understanding of the dynamics that underpin intra‐Asian missionary encounters. Drawing on interviews conducted with Singapore's STM community, I explore how materiality and new media can structure encounters and subject positions within relational missionary space. I also emphasise the limits of relational space by highlighting its untranslatability beyond the missionary terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eka Nari Sanghathan (ENS), an Indigenous single women farmer's collective in Odisha, India and Norco Dairy in regional NSW, Australia are cooperatives undertaking collective action to 'survive well', securing agrarian livelihoods in the face of climate change. Striking differences in affluence and poverty separate these place‐based cooperatives while other things connect them: an Earth unsettled by climate change and extractivist/capitalist interventions. Both cooperatives transform place in practice by engaging similar survival strategies and non‐exploitative forms of cooperation. In this paper we seek to articulate the transformative nature of these places and practices in a way that goes beyond easy binaries of local/global, while enabling recognition of different affiliations between lands, related climate crisis and sustainable and shared surviving mechanisms. We develop a 'two‐thirds' perspective building upon Bruno Latour's third attractor, the Terrestrial, together with another third, Chakrabarti, Dhar and Cullenberg's idea of the World of the Third (WOT). Their interventions open our thinking to the ecological particularities, uncertainties, and postcapitalist possibilities of surviving well in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change poses huge challenges to humanity. The frequency and magnitude of extreme weather is increasing. As more attention turns to disaster preparedness and recovery, it is worth recognising that many communities have a long history of living with the flux of planetary dynamism. They are experienced in negotiating collective well‐being with one another and with the earth. Other communities have less experience and know‐how and have had to adopt more experimental approaches. In this paper we draw on planetary social thought and critical disaster studies to re‐think disaster recovery. We present stories of communities in the Philippines differently negotiating collective well‐being in the face of climate uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a resurgent interest in the study of 'urban commons' in critical geography scholarship as a way to reimagine cities beyond the pervasive neoliberal framing. Inspired by this body of work, this paper explores the processes through which marginalised groups, despite their many socio‐economic limitations, negotiate and transform their sparse urban resources into 'commons' to survive in cities. We use qualitative interviews and participant observations to examine two case studies of informal settlements in Dhaka and Khulna city in Bangladesh. The 'commons identikit' is used to analyse how informal settlers negotiate survival by enacting particular social relationships among themselves and beyond, ensuring access, use, and exchange of materials and ideas, as well as distributing care, benefits, and responsibility of their commons. By bringing a commons perspective to the pre‐existing and emerging local tactics, we highlight the logics and relationality that help these communities make efforts of collective survival and aspire to a better future. We argue that there are significant practical benefits to recognising the self‐organising logics of the precariously positioned communities in the city. Furthermore, commoning the city constitutes a major extension of the theorisation of urban informal settlements and the city as urban commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid expansion of urban development in Asia over the last 50 years has seen a rise in demand for building materials. From large construction companies to squatter settlers seeking to improve their housing, concrete is the building material of choice. In the Philippines there is plentiful supply of the limestone and aggregate (sand and gravel) required for concrete production. Alongside the large quarries owned by major corporations are small, often illegal quarries, supplying aggregate to the construction industry. In these shadow places informal miners scratch out a precarious livelihood. They are members of a vast artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM) workforce that is global in extent. This paper situates informal aggregate mining in the diverse economy of concrete in the Philippines and within the context of global ASM studies. With a detailed study of one quarry on the edges of Metro Manila, it reveals how mining contributes to the survival portfolio of poor households. Without romanticising the lives of quarry labourers, we identify a range of negotiations by which informal miners create a community of commoners in a contested quarry site. This research provides insight into the capacities that informal miners could bring to designing more sustainable development pathways within and beyond the extractive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a diverse economies account of fish 'waste' that revalues it as 'surplus'. We examine 'Kai Ika', a community marine conservation experiment in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa New Zealand. Kai Ika rescues fish heads, frames and offal that were previously 'going to waste' and redistributes them to fish eaters who would otherwise struggle to access these foods. It involves fishers and community sector and Indigenous actors in an initiative that converts would‐be waste into surplus. We examine the case as a diverse economic project that nourishes humans, enhances respect for fish as living beings, and potentially conserves marine resources in the face of global‐to‐local fisheries depletion. The research is based on community‐gathered fish parts collection data, and virtual and email interview data. We analyse this data to produce an account of diverse 'object values' and fish‐related surpluses that derive from surplus labour and other socio‐cultural and environmental surplus. We argue that reframing fish economies in this way encourages new and diverse economic subjectivities and a more connected, relational and cooperative community economy of fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of spatial imaginaries and as physical infrastructure, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) spurs new geographies of comparative urban study. Irrespective of whether it is the primary driver for developments carried out in its name, 'the BRI' is a label that serves to bring previously unassociated project sites and non‐place‐based infrastructural developments into comparative relation. This paper considers some of the possibilities presented by the BRI for comparative urban studies in – and from – Asia. Building upon insights from postcolonial urban studies, planetary urbanisation and inter‐Asia cultural studies, I sketch two key possibilities of the BRI as (comparative urban) method. The first concerns the BRI as a series of openings to much (spatially) wider and historically deeper forms of comparison. Second, I argue that BRI as method impels forms of urban comparison beyond conventionally territorialised units of analysis at a variety of scales, including both the city and the (area studies) region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can contribute to more cosmopolitan forms of theory‐making and the diversification of knowledges. It focuses on emerging Chinese narratives of the Digital Silk Road (DSR) that cast the initiative as emblematic of an improved BRI 2.0 in the (post‐)pandemic era. With subterranean fibre‐optic cables and satellite systems constituting important components of the DSR, I argue that these Chinese discourses fundamentally expose the 'horizontal' bias in infrastructure debates, thereby forcing an analytical re‐orientation towards the notion's volumetric possibilities. Reconceptualising infrastructures in volumetric terms opens up opportunities for interrogating issues of representational politics, power and sovereignty that matter for the DSR and beyond. Using Chinese perspectives of the DSR for the purpose of theory‐building, however, does not equate to endorsing Sinocentrism or privileging the BRI as a totalising framework for interpreting the world. Rather, it signifies an effort to 'provincialise' the BRI – ensuring that different voices and subjectivities can co‐exist in the ongoing and unfinished project of rethinking/reconstructing the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impacts of the 2015 New Zealand (NZ) All Black rugby test match with Manu Samoa in Samoa: the 'Game that stopped two nations' (henceforth referred to as 'the Game'). Outlining key concepts as well as events and experiences surrounding the Game, this paper reflects on how the Game aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals as well as NZ's current Pacific Reset Agenda, an agenda which aims to increase understanding, friendship, mutual benefit, collective ambition and sustainability (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017). A Likert‐styled questionnaire, a 15‐category ranking exercise, semi‐structured interviews, analysis of relevant media and other sources, informal discussions and participant observation help to provide insights into how sport for diplomacy and development functions. The Game was viewed as providing an opportunity for income generation, most participants felt excited to have shared in the experience, and many were hopeful as to what this might mean for future NZ/Samoan relations. However, we argue that, overall, this event represented a missed opportunity. If sport diplomacy events are to authentically contribute to diplomatic and development goals, more needs to be done to create meaningful and enduring engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oceania includes sovereign states as well as overseas territories of metropolitan powers. In both cases, contemporary geopolitical borders are legacies of colonialism. As in many (de)colonised places, materialisations of spatially anchored social imaginaries and practices of self and otherness, play a role in the everyday politics of Oceania's communities and states. Notably, cultural intimacies (Herzfeld, 2016) in this region are also shaped by tensions between islands in an archipelagic unit. Characterised by plural identities, Oceania's communities must navigate solidarities within the colonial borders of unitary sovereign states or non‐sovereign island territories. Given this context, we ask whether spatially anchored identities within archipelagic contexts are politically engaged, playing a role in the politics of state (dis)cohesion across the region. This paper presents findings from 73 interviews across four pairs of Pacific islands – Wallis‐Futuna, Tahiti‐Mangareva, Rarotonga‐Manihiki, Pohnpei‐Chuuk – exploring how communities define their own identities and the identity of those on 'the other island'. We find both sides in agreement on six complementary and rather respectful identities. We therefore suggest that while political tensions and calls for secession in archipelagos are real, it is unlikely that identity politics at this point in time inflames political break ups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a leading threat to sustainable socio‐economic development in Bangladesh. Adverse impacts of climatic disasters including flash floods, recurrent cyclones and erratic rainfall patterns are already causing hardship for both rural and urban people and are expected to accelerate into the future. The aim of this research note is to identify the core contributing economic sectors to climate change in Bangladesh, and to consider effective mitigation strategies. Following the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (2014), in this paper, we argue that comprehensive mitigation measures are required in the energy, transport, buildings, industry and land‐use sectors to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Our findings indicate that it is crucial that government and non‐government mitigation efforts engage with community knowledge practices in order to most effectively reduce GHG emissions and combat the adverse impacts of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative economic indicators are becoming policy in Vanuatu, particularly focusing on what national policy calls traditional economy. Although this acknowledges livelihoods and customary land in rural areas, urban places receive less attention. This article advances an argument that cities are also home to traditional economies. We draw on concepts of diverse economies and translocality to examine how economic practices typically associated with community activities on customary land are also found in cities where households lack direct access to customary resources. Empirical data come from the authors' fieldwork and participation in community‐based organisations in Port Vila, Vanuatu, from 2017 to 2020. The case study presents surveys of agrobiodiversity in 27 urban backyards and livelihood practices of 24 households; and accounts of co‐authors' participation in community‐based disaster to distribute disaster relief supplies from urban to rural, create urban markets for rural crops and build urban resilience following Ambae Island's Manaro volcano eruptions and COVID‐19‐related unemployment. This study demonstrates how traditional economies are part of everyday urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Indonesia, state and non‐state actors frame youth attrition from agriculture as a food security concern and propose policy solutions focused on 'modern' farming techniques. Using a critical framing analysis of five national Indonesian news media sources from 2010 to 2020, we examine how government, development and private sector actors portray youth in agriculture, and the underlying assumptions that inform related policy and development agendas. Our analysis reveals contrasting portrayals of youth in agriculture. Youth are often depicted as averse to farming, while also being innovative adopters of modern farming techniques, equipment, and digital technologies. We argue that media frames reflect and reinforce the dominant discourses of state and non‐state actors, which have a productivist orientation, proposing technical, capital‐intensive agricultural solutions to food insecurity and related issues. News media pays comparatively less attention to structural barriers to youth entry and success in agriculture, such as limited access to land and finance and unfavourable terms of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article seeks to understand the different types and sources of politicisation as well as the consequences for Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects. It is argued that while the personalised insulated type of foreign policymaking is conducive to intra‐system politicisation, the institutionalised responsive type is associated with extra‐system politicisation. While the former type is contingent on political turnovers and brings about abrupt shocks, the latter oftentimes generates societal pushback from socio‐economic groups. The article focuses on two flagship Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects in Malaysia and Indonesia. Based on fieldwork interviews and process tracing, the article finds that the East Coast Rail Link project in Malaysia has suffered from high risk of political interruption owing to Malaysia's personalised insulated type of foreign policymaking, whereas the Jakarta–Bandung High Speed Rail project in Indonesia has encountered sustained obstacles from Indonesian society and brought about substantial delays under Indonesia's institutionalised responsive type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well‐being is increasingly being promoted and used to describe social progress. However, tension exists between framings that focus on enhancing individual well‐being (living well) and societal or collective framings of well‐being (living well together). Well‐being is central to Aotearoa New Zealand's COVID‐19 response and recovery. The COVID‐19 pandemic reopened debates about what kind of society people want to live in. Our research explored the 'shared typical' or commonality of experiences of the first wave of COVID‐19 response in Aotearoa New Zealand. Semi‐structured interviews provided insights into a wide range of concerns participants faced and what that meant for their well‐being and the well‐being of Aotearoa New Zealand. We found that well‐being is both multidimensional and hierarchical, and while people talked about their own well‐being, it was often in the context of broader social well‐being. These findings support research showing that well‐being is relational. We suggest that Indigenous models of well‐being are well placed to inform policy strategies enabling holistic well‐being, but this needs to be done in ways that pair Indigenous and Western knowledge, rather than integrating or assimilating this knowledge into Western science approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodied goods like cosmetic surgery comprise a unique and growing consumer industry, most of all in the Asia‐Pacific, yet the rationalisation processes motivating their purchase are less understood. Addressing this lacuna, this article builds upon open‐ended surveys and semi‐structured interviews of consumers in Seoul, South Korea to articulate a relational approach to examine the rationalisation of purchases of cosmetic surgery as an embodied good. Theorised through the conceptual lens of Bourdieusian capital, participant accounts point to macro‐level economic anxieties that inform a micro‐level cognitive logic of competition through which consumers rationalise the purchase of embodied goods as a form of aesthetic capital. When performed, this capital is believed to offer actors social distinction that provides workplace and social networking advantages by impressing gatekeepers and alters. Participants are shown to reconceptualise their bodies in a means‐end orientation for upward mobility but stress their resignation and powerlessness in being forced to adopt this instrumental reconceptualisation as a response to intensifying economic hardships in contemporary capitalist South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the North Korean defector phenomenon by approaching YouTube as an internet forum for public discourse, using the novel analytic approaches of social network analysis, text mining and semantic analysis. The research produced three main findings. First, individual YouTube content creators are most influential in the video networks pertaining to the subject of North Korean defectors. Second, on YouTube space, the image of North Korea tends to be negative because of the prevalence of defectors' testimony of their life experiences. Finally, such negative narratives of North Korea on YouTube might have a negative influence by blocking the reunification of Korea. In conclusion, this study suggests the South Korean government and other relevant global actors should conduct thorough and continuous examinations of North Korean defectors' perceptions of South Koreans and vice versa. This study calls for the international community to take further action to formulate proper policy instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a consensus among small Pacific islands that the extent to which they benefit from international tourism largely depends on how much of the value created by tourism remains in the local economy. This study examines how the value created in the hotel industry is distributed among the key stakeholders in a small Pacific island context. We used aggregated income statements of full‐service and limited‐service hotels from the STR Inc., a hotel industry data company, to calculate the value distribution among the key stakeholders in the hotel industry of a small Pacific island. We found that labour and owners captured most of the value created, whereas hotel management companies and franchisors captured a small share of the value. Our results suggest that tourism workers' ability to take united action and hence to negotiate higher wages will result in higher value capture by local labour and less value leaking out of the local economy. Our results also reveal that foreign ownership in the hotel industry is the single largest cause of economic leakages. The study has several implications for the tourism‐based growth policies in small Pacific islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As COVID‐19 has caused unprecedented social change, governments are implementing several social measures to control transmission. Among them, social distancing is being enforced in almost all countries and is effective in preventing infection. Based on the importance of social distancing, this study identifies factors influencing the intention towards social distancing. The research model was developed by introducing risk perception in the theory of planned behaviour. To examine the proposed model, a survey was conducted with 339 university students from two countries, South Korea and Vietnam. The data were analysed using the partial least squares method. The results show that social distancing attitude and perceived behavioural control significantly influence social distancing intention. The findings indicate that both affective risk perception and cognitive risk perception serve as imperative factors in the formation of social distancing attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. However, subjective norms and nationality do not affect social distancing intention. Based on the results, suggestions are made for policymakers to establish effective social measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]