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The propose of this paper is to generate a research agenda on exploring the possible prospects of cultural exchanges in the context of trade routes along the Belt and Road Initiative by using cha chaan teng (茶餐厅), or Hong Kong style café, which has been a "by-product" of inter-cultural experiences in the 1950s in Hong Kong. Thus, the theoretical framework used for researching cha chaan teng , and constructing the research agenda are informed with the concepts of food, culture, and mobilities. Ethnographic in-depth interviews, systematic participant observation of cafes, content analysis of selected cha chaan teng websites were used to gain understanding of this cultural practice. Drawn on the past development of cha cha cheng , this paper suggests that Belt and Road Initiative can be seen as one of the many trade initiatives at the current time, and food consumption, adaptation, and invention along the routes are businesses which go along well with the movements of people and projects. It is reasonable to expect intriguing business opportunities and products through cultural exchanges, something similar to the development of cha chaan teng started in the past in Hong Kong. The research agenda advocate inter- and multidisciplinary theoretical approach and mixed methodologies to explore what new developments will be brought along the routes either something that will emerge as new, or something that will continue to synergize from the past practices. Hopefully, empirical findings will direct toward a culturally sensitive interaction, in which understanding, compassion, tolerance, and respect can be nurtured and developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the discourse on suzhi (human quality) has been imagined, reconstructed, and negotiated by short-term martial arts students and their parents in Dengfeng, a county-level city in central China. Dengfeng was home to 48 Shaolin martial arts schools and more than 70,000 full-time students in 2012. Aside from the full-timers, who board throughout the year, short-term students are provided martial arts learning for several weeks to months. They are sent to learn martial arts for several reasons: for example, misbehaviors, obesity, or poor people skills. Their parents want them to either get fit or improve their social skills. Highlighting such diverse motivations and expectations, this paper suggests that sending children to learn martial arts is rooted in the widely influential discourse on human quality (suzhi) in China. This social discourse provides both parents and students narrative structures, through which people create their own strategies of and meaning system for legitimizing their decisions, expectations, and desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social movement theories, particularly emerged since the late 1960s and the empirical studies informed by these theories occupy a decisive space in the current sociological studies of social movements. Often, the theories that emerged in the American and European contexts overlooked the significance of 'political sociology' as a theoretical terrain while conceptualizing contemporary social movements. Thus, this paper attempted to reinvent the significance of political sociology in two-ways: a) it critically engaging with the classical tradition of political sociology; b) critical scrutiny of the major trends appeared in the sub-field of social movements within the disciplinary domain of sociology in India since the 1980s has been undertaken. Given this, the paper recognizes the theoretical urge for a new framework to understand social movements in reference to the specificities of the non-Western societies like India, and thereby proposes an approach termed as the postcolonial political sociology of social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social adaptation of 157 former Khmer Rouge (KR) cadres. The cadres lived in relative isolation in the former KR stronghold, the semi-autonomous Anlong Veng, under the leadership of their commander, Chhit Chhoeun (alias Ta Mok). With the help of survey analysis, the paper presents findings regarding the cadres' traumatisation, their views on assigning responsibility for actions during the genocide (1975–1979), as well as the cadres' feelings of shame and lack of trust. The cadres demonstrated avoidance and a lack of self-confrontation and, similarly, manifested limited reflection about their individual and collective participation in the genocidal regime of the KR. The paper concludes with the long-lasting impact of thought reform and obedience to authority. Community re-building in post-genocide societies requires efforts at collective rehabilitation of collaborators of genocidal regimes and survivors alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claiming and representing "True" Islam has been a major preoccupation among the Muslim groups in Kerala in recent times. In a way, this has augmented the Muslim public sphere in which active debates happen, and also breaks with the general understanding of Islam as monolithic in its ideology and practice. This paper attempts to bring precisely this dynamics of Muslim public sphere in Malabar where prominent groups like the Sunni, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen debate constantly over the representation and following of what is called "True Islam." The claim towards a true Islam is done by each of the groups by claiming authenticity over what they preach and practice. This paper highlights these debates in the context of the academic debates over "True" and "Authenticated" Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality-of-life research leans toward measuring placed-based attributes of a locale while less attention has been given to understanding what people mean by quality of life. This paper reiterates that quality-of-life research is intrinsically about juxtaposing life conditions and life evaluation, thereby unveiling critical issues immanent in a society (Castells, 1983). This paper draws on interviews conducted in public housing neighbourhoods in Singapore to examine the colloquial meanings of quality of life and the normative connotations that people attach to it. It unveils the efforts to reconcile fast and slow and discusses the different temporalities underpinning life domains and how spatial planning could engage with the issue of time to improve quality of life. The Singapore case is insightful to contemplate the challenges of reconciling the increasing needs of going slower amid an accelerated pace of life, which is a contradictory yet pervasive characteristic of life in contemporary capitalist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on an ethnographic study conducted in a public hospital in Bangladesh. The study shows how the social dynamics necessary to deal with the structural realities of the hospital give this cosmopolitan institution a local character. In this paper, we describe this local character by focusing on the lower-level hospital staff, such as ward boys, cleaners, and gatemen. Social inequality and exclusion are rampant in Bangladeshi public hospitals. Doctors and nurses are unwilling to communicate with patients and their relatives, while the latter are unable to approach the former for specific help or information. Our research, shows how low-level support workers fill the void between the two "factions" and act as brokers transporting information and activities between these factions. By doing so they do not only make a crucial contribution to the functioning of the ward, but also gain considerable influence in spite of their low position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, a great deal of the scholarly research on Indonesia focuses on the processes of Islamisation. This paper will discuss a phenomenon that seems to point in a different direction, namely the contemporary reconfiguration of dukun /spiritual experts called paranormal. These mystics indicate a peculiar form of pluralism. They are an assemblage of tradition and modernity, locality and translocality, religion and mysticism, spirituality and business, and global esotericism and popular psychology. Most of them belong to the urban middle class, are highly professional, and make extensive use of modern mass media to advertise their supernatural skills. Yet, how do they position themselves in Indonesian and global cultural contexts? This paper identifies the ongoing ambivalence between cosmopolitan ideas and their rupture in polarising, orientalist, and occidentalist imaginaries. Finally, a new understanding of cosmopolitanism is suggested that expands the reference beyond the world of humans by also including a plurality of supernatural powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant children are an unintended consequence of the widened rural-urban gap in China. In Dengfeng, a county-level city in central China, many of the 70,000 full-time martial arts students were rural-to-urban migrant children 'floating' with their parents from one place to another. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores why these migrant children 'migrated' to martial arts schools for educational purposes and how they and their parents seek to establish a new value system within which different forms of capital can be accumulated, disseminated, and transformed as society expects. This paper argues that the (imaginary) transition between and flow of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital construct a path to an aspirational future used by both these martial arts students and their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays "equally" amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state's allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on the Singaporean Hindu community. The paper traces the journey of Tai Pucam as a declared public holiday in colonial Singapore to the 1950s when the Hindu community had two gazetted public holidays to 1968 when Tai Pucam was removed from the list of public holidays, a situation which persists into the present. The "making and unmaking of Tai Pucam as a public holiday" remains a controversial issue for Singaporean Hindus who express unhappiness over the fact that their religious community is granted only one religious holiday, when the norm in Singapore is such that each ethnic community has two holidays. This inequality is cited by Hindus and Indians in Singapore as a discriminatory practice. In 2015, a recent case, Vijaya Kumar s/o Rajendran and Others v. Attorney General , the controversial ban on musical instruments during a Tai Pucam celebration triggered yet again the sensitive issue of Tai Pucam as a "non holiday". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between a region's cultural inclusion and its residents' social trust. Based on the individual-level survey data from China, we find a positive correlation between cultural inclusion and average levels of social trust at the city level. When instrumenting culture inclusion using government spending on the construction of culture and fixed assets, we find a consistent positive correlation between cultural inclusion and social trust. We also find that higher levels of cultural inclusion are positively correlated with the happiness and optimistic social attitudes of residents and are negatively correlated with the probability of misperception and conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines livelihood strategies of Tanchangya culantro cultivators of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, in relation to their subsistence, risk-taking, and reciprocity practices, who have been embroiled in compulsive market participation due to paternalist state policies. It puts forward two propositions. First, the objectives of protecting subsistence and of improving familial situation drive Tanchangya peasants to employ flexible strategies in relation to risk management and income generation. Second, it proposes that reciprocity practices provide minimum security to village households in times of crises and exigencies, and work as a safeguard against the exploitation of capitalist Bengali traders. It concludes that subsistence struggles lead peasant families to choose most suitable crops and farming methods and remain open to diverse income sources. Village reciprocity practices, either as dynamic and evolving relationships between two actors or involving the larger community, having different forms, supplement this struggle of peasants for survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores women workers' experiences of gender discrimination at work in Vietnam and whether labor law might enable them to challenge discriminatory practices. Interviews with workers reveal how discrimination is generated and entrenched through seemingly neutral workplace rules and culture. The coercive and intensive nature of assembly work has deterred or prevented working mothers from enjoying fair and decent work. Survey findings on female workers' mobilization of the law suggest that women who have experienced discrimination in the past are less inclined to choose a legal means when faced with future discrimination. In most cases, women would choose not to take any action or opt for a non-legal means to raise their voices. In conclusion, even though women workers in general do not consider law a potential tool to tackle discrimination, they have absorbed and appropriated the language of the law to make sense of unfair practices at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the impacts of participatory video used in digital training on the empowerment of sex-trafficking survivors in the Philippines. For survivors of online sexual exploitation involved in this study, technology played a critical role in their abuse, making it necessary to understand how technology-supported communication can also play in their recovery and personal development. Drawing upon the thematic analysis of data collected from debriefing, interviews, and participants-generated videos, the findings have shown that the participatory video as a tool to support communication, as a mirror for reflexivity and voicing, and as a mediated space to connect and gain support, affords a communicative platform for survivors to participate, to interact, and to take control of the technology. We argue that the use of Information and Communication Technology for empowerment is subject to the personalized needs, autonomy and participation of the users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the development of the Belt and Road Initiatives that comprises 6 BRI corridors. It explores the reasons behind the launching and promoting of the BRI by the Mainland Chinese government. The initiative by President Xi Jinping is, in part, the fulfillment of the China Dream and his focus on the "Community of Shared Future for Mankind." In this sense, BRI provides a platform for Mainland Chinese business community and individuals to move out of the comfort of Mainland Chinese society and embark on economic and cultural connectivity with business community and the Chinese Diaspora in the global world. At the same time, BRI also serves as a platform for the global business and Chinese community to reach into China. As such, BRI could be regarded as a soft power and a cultural power that facilitate people-to-people connectivity and enhance sociocultural and economic activities along the BRI flowscape. The papers in this volume each provides a case study of how BRI serves as a soft and cultural power that enables the individuals and the business corporations to expand in their sociocultural and economic connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013, President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a global strategy to catapult China onto the global stage through port and infrastructure development, financial, technological, trade and cultural connectivity. The BRI embraces six corridors, one of which is the Southeast Asian corridor. Among the BRI portfolio, the Chinese government has identified traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as an important health commodity for the global and Chinese Diaspora market. It is also promoted as part of the cultural and intangible Chinese heritage. This paper explores TCM as an important cultural power - a variant of soft power - that connects Mainland Chinese and global Chinese communities and enables the formation of regional social and economic networks that assist in the development of trade, leading to the formation of collaborative cultural basins between TCM institutions in China and Southeast Asian nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new generation of Southeast Asian Chinese society, who were locally born and grew up, have largely weakened their interaction with China. However, the growing business opportunities presented from the Belt and Road Initiative (the BRI), which was launched in 2013, serve as a big impetus for the new generation entrepreneurs to reengage China. Drawn upon an empirical case study of the new generation of Malaysian Chinese entrepreneurs, this paper argues that, the entrepreneurs regard institutional embeddedness as a critical channel to enhance their abilities to accumulate transnational social capital and strengthen their socio-economic networks with China. The transnational networks facilitate them to seize business opportunities from the BRI, and simultaneously reinforce their Malaysian national identity. Moreover, this study demonstrates the emergence of knowledge networks in the transnational space. It not only reflects the increasing interests of the new generation entrepreneurship in China's innovation and technology, but also reveals the developmental strategies of both the Malaysian and Chinese states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guangzhou's dynamic time-honoured businesses, commonly known as laozihao 老字号, while grounded in a locality, have nevertheless been caught up in the economic and cultural flowscapes of their times as they have followed the migration trajectories of the mainland Chinese. As these traders, businesspeople and migrants have moved and relocated from their hometown to overseas locations, they have also brought along their understanding of their culture, including the cultural elements that are associated with the businesses that they are involved in. This paper will explore the flowscapes and transformation of Guangzhou's laozihao that involved the mainland Chinese and Chinese diaspora communities during two periods. The first period stretched from the 19th century through to 1949 when mainland China came under Communist rule. The second phase started after the 1978 Open Door Policy and has continued through the introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 till today. The Belt and Road Initiative has provided a strategic and opportunistic moment for these time-honoured businesses to reinvent and realign their business to suit the modern needs of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how institutional dynamics among regulatory institutions affect the governance of the recruitment of Indonesian low-skilled migrant workers. Two institutional reforms have been made to create better governance for Indonesian migrant workers in the post-authoritarian era. One was the establishment of the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) while the other was the granting of greater responsibility to sub-national governments to supervise migrant worker recruitment. In spite of these institutional reforms, little progress has been made in the protection of Indonesian migrant workers. The paper reveals that the restrictive regulatory framework for the recruitment of migrant workers, which curbs private recruitment agencies, does not create better migrant worker governance. This regulatory framework does not take into consideration the horizontal relationship between the old and new institutions, and the vertical relationship between the central and sub-national governments. Horizontally, the institutional design of the proposed new regulatory framework has created institutional rivalry between the newly established regulatory actor and the old one. Vertically, the reluctance of central government to decentralise authority to sub-national governments has curtailed the ability of sub-national governments to perform a supervisory role in the recruitment process. These two inter-related factors have hindered the efforts to create a better recruitment process for Indonesian migrant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, a specific form of Korean popular music--k-pop--has enjoyed huge success around the world. Previous explanations have mostly focused on the demand side, such as intra-Asian cultural relations. This paper shifts the focus onto the supply side. Firstly, it presents new evidence on the scale of k-pop's success in markets--with price-tags or no price-tag. Secondly, it argues that k-pop firms have been successful because they have made the "right product selection": They have delivered the performances that have best exploited the comparative advantages that Korea has in global entertainment markets. Finally, this paper examines three major factors explaining the rapidity of this success. Two of them--level of competition and online prices relative to cd prices--have taken place in Korean markets, but have had indirect effects on k-pop's attractiveness in foreign markets. By contrast, the third factor has taken place directly in foreign markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last three decades have witnessed campaigns in India by the women's health movement against provider-controlled contraceptives, i.e., long-acting contraceptives, non-surgical sterilisation and anti-fertility vaccines. These campaigns are examined to understand and analyse the engagement of women's groups with contraceptive technology in opposing the entry of these contraceptives into the Family Planning Programme (FPP) of the country. The rise of social movements challenging scientific knowledge and scientific institutions is attributed to the "scientisation" of politics; however, we argue that the politicisation of contraceptive technology and its research was the result of women's collective action in India. The paper explores collective action strategies and intersecting frames of overpopulation, development and technology used by women's groups to consistently oppose the provider-controlled contraceptives from entering the FPP of the country. The paper uses the internal documents of women's organisations, media reports and personal interviews to explore the engagement of women's collective action with contraceptive technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative data is now increasingly used within public health research, and domestic violence widely is recognized as a serious public health problem. India is one of the most socio-economically diverse nations in the world, where language, culture and customs differ from place to place within the country. In order to carry out research on domestic violence in a multi-centre cross-cultural environment, it is imperative to pay attention to methodological issues. This paper aims to understand how domestic violence is addressed in research and identifies lessons from the methodological gaps in understanding health research. These gaps are analyzed at four levels; conceptualization, setting, ethics and cross-cultural adaptation of research instruments. The research was a multicentre study covering 18 states of India. A wide range of methods were used to narrow the methodological gaps. Despite the inherent difficulties in defining domestic violence in a cross cultural set up, the paper reflects the cumulative efforts of investigators to recognize and systematically deal with the methodological gap in addressing multi-centre research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia is gaining prominence as a destination for millions of migrants, totaling to about one-third of total international migrants. The privileged migrants (highly skilled and affluent) make up a large part of this group. They remain a fertile ground for scholarly examination owing to the fact that extremely scarce research attention has been paid to this group. Within this context, this paper focuses on the sense of belonging of this migrant group in the host countries. We argue that professional hierarchy; socioeconomic and sociocultural factors contribute to the privileged migrants' positionality as an insider or outsider in the host country. In this research, four Southeast Asian countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and Thailand) are selected. Via multiplex communication (WhatsApp, email, and phone calls), a total of 27 interviews were conducted. Findings suggest that most of the privileged migrants position themselves as an outsider for multifaceted factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores experiences and perspectives of women from poor rural areas of Pakistan regarding their choice to get higher education and pursue their individual identity. It is based on the narratives of three women from different villages of Sindh, the southern province of Pakistan. Participants' narratives indicate that they faced gender discrimination since their birth at home. When they showed a wish to get higher education, they were permitted with an unwritten contract with their families that their education would never be a hurdle in performing their duties as women. Society stifled their motivation to move ahead and grow out of the accepted social norms. Yet once they realised themselves as individuals, they strive for their place and make space in society. The study suggests further research in the lives of women who refuse to be overwhelmed by social challenges and continue their pursuit for identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the well-publicised risks, millions of Indonesian women labour abroad as domestic workers, where they face significant risks. By offering community education and current information on migration, Indonesian non-governmental organisations (ngos) attempt to mitigate these risks. Yet, interviews with migrant workers and ngos reveal that rather than seeking out migration information from government or ngo sources, women instead rely on fate and the information they receive from the middlemen who are paid to recruit women for work abroad. This paper, which is based on ten months of fieldwork in Java, focuses on the centrality of fate in women's migration narratives. This paper examines how women's belief in fate helps them explain their position in the migration industry and their ability to control the outcomes of their migration decisions. In addition, this paper analyses why migration authorities take up the language of fate and the challenges this presents to education and activist projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper characterises the celebrity culture in the Philippines as a symbolic function of parasociality ("illusionary intimacies") where interpersonal meanings are constructed upon celebrities in the context of consumption and political endorsements. By looking into accounts of focus groups and online social media communities, it qualitatively elaborates such sociocultural and political inclinations of celebrity parasociality that characterise the Philippine political and commercial systems. Through the discourses on how ordinary people, industry actors and celebrities themselves interact to negotiate the celebrity social meanings, the paper concludes that celebrification is an embedded trait of Philippine democracy and consumption ideals. Furthermore, such parasociality is nuanced by the notion of habitus where celebrities mirror spaces of social classification. The study implies that while celebrity culture is an important element in social connection and social identity sustained by traditional and social media use, it is also a component in citizens' own accounts to issues of public concern, democratic exercise on political election matters, and in the everyday consumption decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the transition to adulthood in East Asia by exploring the experiences of single women between the ages of 25 and 45 years in the cities of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. The paper argues that single women encounter difficulties negotiating marriage in the three cities due to problems in marriage markets, expectations of fertility upon marriage, and conflicts between educational and employment opportunities and marital roles. It also finds that in the three cities, women articulated two models of marriage, namely, a gender duty model based on expectations of gendered role fulfilment and a companionate model. The paper suggests that the specific configuration of marriage models differs in the three cities due to differences in the historical and social backgrounds of the cities and the larger national and regional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the wari as a discursive terrain produced by the interface of folk and Hinduised cultures. We focus on socio-religious interactions and divergences as crucial sites for the production of a discourse on the economy of worship, devotion and social equality. Popularly understood as a procession to Pandharpur, wari is understood here as a social force mediating the transmission of ideas and practices through the interface of various publics. We interpret wari as a process generated through the reflexivity of productive castes interacting with Brahminical Hinduism, and the articulation of social ethics reflecting specific realities and aspirations of allied communities with an emphasis on worldly relationships. The wari's grammar of devotion subverts abstract notions of the spiritual by embedding them in the local and everyday. Its emergence from regional counter-hegemonic agitations reflects the existential crises and agency of Maharashtra's productive castes, and the instrumentality of local parlance in demystifying Brahminical representations of society. The term discursive comprises a vocabulary of devotion addressing cultural material alienation, social disparity, agency and the formation of intentional publics in constituting sites for social reform. This paper relies on field data and existing literature to consolidate its argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity of Banaras was once again back in the limelight with the Bhartiya Janta Party (b j p) Prime Ministerial candidate Mr. Narendra Modi choosing to represent the city. Known also as Kashi and Varanasi, Banaras indeed played a strategic role in representing the politics the incumbent party believed in. With the overwhelming majority to Modi, the city of Banaras is further idealized as an archetypal city of the Brahminical Hinduism with the spectacular images of temples and ghats that remain teeming with Pandas and devotees. This particular Hindu identity of the city has been constructed through the selective images over time from the colonial period onwards in the 19th century. Identity formation, whether of a community or a city, social or symbolic is spatially situated process and spatial centrality is important in understanding the identity of a city in general and Banaras in particular. We in this paper argue that how in case of Banaras some spaces were mobilized and centralized to create this hindutva identity. In this representational mobilization of identity, the city of Banaras represents a spectacular space removed from its own spatiality. Proclaimed space of Banaras seems not to be a product of social practices rather it is symbolic spaces generated through the trajectories of ideologies of certain groups. This process of formation of identity is not a radical departure, rather it as a culmination of reemerging Hindu nationalist movement during 19th and 20th century. In this paper, we bring forth the celebration of Ravidas Jyanti as the performance of possibilities and we try to identity the spaces of hope amidst the overarching outcry. Thinking through the categories of space and performance and their interpolations in Banaras, this article attempts to reconfigure the identity of this city beyond the Hindu right-wing rhetoric and pretension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on research on landslide risk reduction in Nepal and the impacts of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 in southern Thailand, this paper considers how risk, in the context of natural hazards, is produced by processes of social and economic transformation; understood and experienced by vulnerable groups; and framed by governments and experts. In so doing, we propose an agenda for more effective disaster risk management. We open the discussion by exploring the spatiality of risk, vulnerability and opportunity in the two research contexts, in particular, why people live in hazardous places and the processes that explain the intersection of human settlement and livelihoods on the one hand, and risk on the other. The paper then turns to consider the way that "risk"-and the framing and prioritisation of risk(s) by governments, experts and by vulnerable groups themselves-plays a role in setting the disaster risk management agenda. Underpinning this is the hidden question of what evidence is used-and valued-in the identification and delineation of risk. In order to understand disaster vulnerability, we argue that it is necessary to look beyond the immediate "hazardscape" to understand the wider risk context both spatially and structurally. Effective disaster risk management requires not only an appreciation of the different framings and understandings of risk, but a true integration of knowledge and expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the Elite Network Shifts (ens) project to the Asian Studies community where computational techniques are used with digitised newspaper articles to describe changes in relations among Indonesian political elites. Reflecting on how "political elites" and "political relations" are understood by the elites, as well as across the disciplinary boundaries of the social and computational sciences, it suggests ways to operationalise these concepts for digital research. It then presents the results of a field trip where six Indonesian political elites were asked to evaluate the accuracy of their own computational networks generated by the project. The main findings of the paper are: (1) The computational identification of political elites is relatively successful, while much work remains on categorising their relations, (2) social scientists should focus on capturing single dimensions of complex social phenomena when using computational techniques, and (3) computational techniques are not able to capture multiple understandings of social concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philanthropic organisations are engaged in diverse welfare and development works including community development in India. A substantial number of these organisations are faith-based organisations (FBOS). While religion impacts people in many ways, religious tenets and practices have shaped, and in many cases strengthened, much of philanthropic activity. This paper focuses on the socio-economic change impacted by a philanthropic organisation called Bettiah Parish Society, successively managed by two FBOS since 1745, for the development of a Christian community, located at Bettiah, West Champaran District, in the State of Bihar, eastern India. The two FBOS were the Capuchin Mission Society (1745-1921), and the Patna Jesuit Society (1921-2000). The paper explores the influence and impact of these two external, goal-oriented FBOS on the 265-year-old Bettiah Christian community in Bihar. Aside a brief discussion on the missionary agents and their religion-induced ideologies, vision and motivations that seem to have goaded them engage in philanthropic works, the main discussion will be on the second aspect, namely the impact of their philanthropic action on the recipient community. The overall impact was (1) the construction of a Christian community (the Bettiah Christians) from among disparate convert groups, formerly belonging to different Hindu castes, and (2) changes in the socio-economic structures of the community through development aid and education. I have used an inter-disciplinary method for this study, relying much on historical, sociological and anthropological data, collected during a field study in 1998, and again in 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to the study of the role of women Buddhists in the delivery of Buddhist compassion and the micro-politics of volunteerism from a feminist perspective. It sets out to ask a simple question: What attracts and motivates the Chinese women Buddhists to become actively engaged in religious volunteerism and commit their time, energies and resources into doing philanthropic works for the greater needs of their local and transnational communities. Ethnographically, I want to explore how through their understanding of the Buddhist teachings, these women Buddhists interpret and integrate their status, role and actions within their local socially-engaged Buddhist community. At the same time, to understand how, in today's globalised world, these women focus and frame themselves as performers of emotive compassion in the local and global societies. Through this study, this paper argues that using a feminist perspective will shed light on the micro-politics of women's involvement in Buddhist volunteerism in three areas: empowerment, social visibility and emotive philanthropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to answer the question of how the sultanates of Malaysia maintained their authority in the current nation-state era as almost all of Indonesia's hundreds of sultanates (except for the Sultanate of Yogyakarta in Java) lost formal power. It proposes three findings. First, Dutch and British colonialism had different legacies in Indonesia and Malaysia, respectively. Second, following their independence, Indonesia and Malaysia adopted different government systems, with the former becoming a unitary republic and the latter becoming a federal state; consequently, the sultanates of Indonesia had to submit themselves to the central government in Indonesia, whereas those in Malaysia were given broader space to exercise their authority within a federal state. Third, the sultanates of Malaysia have a two-layered identity, resulting from the convergence of ethnic Malay and Islamic identities that eventually strengthened the Sultanate's authority and legitimacy in the eyes of the people and the federal state; conversely, convergence between ethnic and religious identity was limited in Indonesia's sultanates, subsequently undermining the sultans' ability to uphold authority and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the shared cultural dimensions between Filipinos and Koreans through cross-cultural comparison. Filipinos identified and assessed potential cultural similarities and differences with Koreans and vice versa. A survey was designed and was used to dimensionalise cultural fit in terms of general values and practices integrated in their consumption behaviours. The study involved Filipinos who have substantial exposure and experience with Korea and Koreans who are living in the Philippines. Using a proposed constructed framework on comparative relativism or the idea of "comparisons of comparisons," findings suggest that power distance and family orientation dimensions are shared by both cultures. In addition, the two cultures share consumer values and practices, such as emotional consumption, reference to social influences, and epistemic consumption (adherence to functionality). Implications are positioned on the practical and policy-oriented contextual motivations as well as potential alternatives and updates on existing cultural dimensions and intelligence models through the paradigm of comparative relativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis is gaining popularity as a tool for interrogating political problems. This paper applies the three fundamental diagnostic categories of neurosis, psychosis and perversion to Malaysian socio-political discourse. This endeavour is urgent given the political upheavals in the country since the 2008 general elections where the ruling National Alliance regime lost its two-third majority in parliament, a result repeated again five years later at the thirteenth general elections. Nevertheless, democratic abuses and religious extremism remain strife (and has arguably grown worse) in the country. Political action is thus rendered even more urgent and thus, arguably, the need for fresh lenses with which to view the present (and even past) injustices perpetuated by the reigning administration. As such, this paper will analyse issues and events like the Allah' controversy, Mahathirism, Ops Lalang and cronyism in Malaysian politics, and seeks to do so using conceptual tools of a Lacanian-Žižekian nature. If the nature of the problem can be reviewed and rethought, perhaps a new way of thinking about the solutions may also arise, leading even to a reimagining of the very idea of the political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamic boundaries of Chinese identities and the role of family narratives in their formation. It examines the interplay between history and memory, focusing on traditions regarding ancestors of the Fujian Guo lineage of Muslim descent in China, Taiwan and the Philippines, over six centuries. Existing scholarship approaches these traditions in ethnic terms, corresponding to the ethnic discourse prevalent in the P.R.C., focusing solely on mainland groups, but overlooking other variations found overseas. Hence, scholars portray the changing narratives as reflecting a linear process: from past sinicisation, to today's more "historically authentic" Hui identity. The present analysis offers a broader socio-cultural overview, showing how the pan-Asian Guo lineage re-imagines familial history across time and space by highlighting the forced assimilation narrative in which their early Ming ancestors falsely adopted Guo Ziyi, a Han-Chinese national hero, as their ancestor. The paper follows the narrative's continuous transformations, analysing different interpretations of assuming Chinese identity among Muslims' descendants within different contexts of contemporary Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although religious diversity is legally supported in Indonesia, incidents of attacks on religious minorities and anxiety towards the practice of religious pluralism have continued to plague the country. This paper will analyse factors limiting the practice of religious diversity in post-Suharto Indonesia with a focus on two types of important grass-roots religious institutions. The first type is religious philanthropic organizations, which provide social services for natural disaster victims and the poor. The second type of religious institution is traditional Islamic schools known as pesantren salaf, one of most the important educational institutions for Islamic scholars. This paper will show that increased religiosity has contributed to the growth of socially-engaged religious organizations being used to address social problems, but these religious institutions are naturally developing their operational links within their own religious affiliations and communication beyond their religion is restricted because of mutual anxiety. This paper will also examine the challenge presented by traditional Islamic educational institutions. In order to protect Islam from secularism, these institutions are promoting theologically conservative Islamic teachings that curtail the practice of religious diversity at the grassroots level. Our case studies show that religious education has unintentionally limited the development of religious diversity in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on Christianity in Malaysia has been dominated by denominational church history, as well as the study of urban, middle-class and English-speaking church congregations in the post-Independence period. In focusing on the vernacular Chinese Protestant church in Malaysia, and one of its most prominent para-church organisations, called The Bridge, this paper draws attention to the variegated histories of Christian conversion and dissemination in Malaysia, and the various modes and meanings of Christian identity as incorporated into different local communities and cultures. The history of the Chinese Protestant church suggested in the first part of the paper takes as its point of departure the distinction between mission and migrant churches, the latter being the origin of the vernacular Chinese churches in Malaysia. The second part of the paper traces the emergence of a Chinese para-church lay organisation called The Bridge, and the Chinese Christian intellectuals behind it, in their mission to engage the larger Chinese and national public through literary publications and other media outreach activities. In so doing, these Chinese Christian intellectuals also drew on the resources of an East Asian and overseas Chinese Christian network, while searching for their destiny as Chinese Christians in the national context of Malaysia. By pointing to the importance of regional, Chinese-language Christian networks, and the complexity of vernacular Christian subjectivity, the paper hopes to fill a gap in the existing literature on Christianity in Malaysia, as well as make a contribution to on-going debates on issues of localisation, globalisation and authenticity in global Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an ethnographic account of the self-formation experiences of Mainland Chinese undergraduate students as "foreign talents" in a Singaporean university. While extant scholarship often points out that international educational sojourn has transformative effects on the student-sojourners, detailed empirical examination of how such transformations take place is still lacking; this paper furnishes a microscopic case study in this vein. By looking at Chinese international students in the (Southeast) Asian city-state Singapore, the paper is also an effort to offer a relatively rare glimpse into the subjective dimension of intra-Asia student mobility. Furthermore, with regard to the Singapore local context, this account seeks to throw some new light on the hotly-debated "foreign talent" issue from the perspective of the scholarship-receiving students ("scholars"). With the title being a playful riff on G.W.F. Hegel's philosophical canon, this paper uses Hegelian notions such as self-consciousness, the "other", desire, and negation to narrate and analyse those aspects of the Mainland Chinese scholars' self-(trans)fonnative experiences revolving around the idiom of "very China"-ness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Granovetter, weak ties link individuals to other social circles that place them in strategic positions to gain access to job information and opportunities otherwise not available in their innate networks. This paper affirms that weak ties, as a form of social capital, matter and that they assist in explaining variations in status attainment between ethnic groups in Singapore. I show that access to weak ties affects status attainment differently across ethnic groups and that the Malay's weaker performance in the labour market is partly due to their lower access to weak ties. This paper would be of interest to scholars concerned with the intertwining of social stratification with social capital and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating and guarding boundaries is one of the pervasive features of modern states. Many boundaries have been contested in the Southeast Asian region between states, and boundaries are always locations of great insecurity for states, and for the people who live on them. The case to be explored in this paper is about boundaries that are not international, but local boundaries between districts within the nation state of Indonesia, in the eastern region of western Flores. The years of political change in Indonesia have created considerable attention to the creation of new boundaries, with the "pemekaran", or "flowering" of new districts. This has caused the revival of concern over the actual boundaries of western Flores districts, resulting in various extreme instances of boundary contestation and protection. One contestation revived a much older dispute of the eastern boundary of the western Flores district of Manggarai, which dates from the time of the beginning of the Indonesian modern state. In this paper it will be queried what makes internal, domestic boundaries important, including how they are complicated by issues of ethnicity, foreign investment in natural resources, and religion, all of which can create considerable insecurity for the local communities who live near and on these contested borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the emphasis placed on response capacity building to strengthen health security in this region, no comparative data exists to look into the determinants that drive the capacity. For public and private managers, the ignorance of capacity development and failure to assess it, by and large, points to highly ambiguous and flawed methodological approaches. This paper therefore reports on a qualitative interview study into capacity building around health security and explains the emergence of response capacity against the fight of influenza A H1N1 pandemics in Singapore and Taiwan in 2001. This paper further provides empirically grounded evidence to identify prerequisites for capacity development towards health security in response to (the same type of) public health crises in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that existing approaches to Indonesian media hypostatise what may be more imaginatively understood as a rapidly changing assemblage of arguments and practices. A series of intellectual manoeuvres creates the appearance of a relatively stable, knowable and measurable system. These include confusion over the precise object of study, omission of anything that does not fit the theory and rigid techniques of closure that prevent these weaknesses being evident. Critiques of Eurocentrism raise broader questions of processes of power/knowledge by which the discourse of Indonesians is culturally translated into the hegemonic language of an élite of experts, producers and politicians. The paper proposes instead to approach Indonesian media as assemblages of practices of production, distribution, engagement and use by different people in different situations. Such practices constitute performances, which may be differently articulated by different participants on different occasions. The paper concludes by rethinking key genres of Indonesian television broadcasting as performances. Indonesia emerges less as a stable, coherent entity than as the shifting object of antagonistic representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines US-China trade disputes under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and argues that Chinese leaders are increasingly resorting to the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism to target issues of most critical concern to domestic constituencies. The following overview of the WTO disputes initiated by China suggests that China's WTO disputes tend to be dominated by cases involving anti-dumping duties (ADs) and countervailing duties (CVDs). The disproportionate share of such trade remedy cases in China's WTO cases needs to be viewed in light of the fact that China has become the leading target of such cases worldwide in the past decades. The above pattern of China's WTO initiation is explicable within the leader cost-benefit analysis, which would lead us to expect Chinese leaders to use the WTO DSM either to open foreign markets for Chinese businesses or to shield domestic firms from perceived unfair foreign trade practices. This paper further argues that the significant expansion of bilateral trade relations in the past decades has provided opportunities for Chinese leaders to identify or threaten retaliation against anti-protectionist groups in the other country in order to mobilise them against the disputed measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Korean wave, which is the popularity of Korean entertainment outside Korea, is a fairly new phenomenon. Encompassing Korean dramas, films, and songs, it has been highlighted by international media outlets and scholars. Several prestigious newspapers and scholars attempted to explain the competitiveness of the Korean wave, but they have remained biased by missing, over-emphasizing, or overlapping important success factors. To provide a more comprehensive and accurate analysis, this paper conducts a rigorous study on the competitiveness of Korean entertainment industry focused on Korean dramas and films with a comprehensive analytical tool, the generalized double diamond model. The results of this study provide evidences that the Korean wave is not a temporary phenomenon but a sustainable industry segment. For further enhancement of this important industry, this paper suggests useful implications, including international cooperation with other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly four decades after the Khmer Rouge genocide, the Cambodian people have found some solace to a tragic past that forever has defined their personal and collective identities. The first of five defendants on trial in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (the ECCC), Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch, Chief Warden of S-21) was found guilty of crimes against humanity and Grave Breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and sentenced to life imprisonment on 3 February 2012. Aside from his criminal reputation as the head executioner of S-21, what other legacy does Duch leave behind? In particular, what psycho-emotional legacy does he leave his children? This paper focuses on the social and political legacy passed on to Duch's eldest son as it affects the possibilities for his contributing to reconciliation, forgiveness, and 'healing justice' in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. The paper also warns against casting perpetrators' children as bystanders to their own history or as being guilty of their parents' crimes, and provides an alternative Khmer Rouge narrative: that of the children of perpetrators and how their identities fit within the larger Cambodian national identity and search for justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]