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Asia Fluid jurisdictions: Colonial law and Arabs in Southeast Asia By NURFADZILAH YAHAYA Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. Pp. xi + 251. Tables, Figures, Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi:10.1017/S0022463422000066 [...]

Religious Pluralism in Indonesia: Threats and Opportunities for Democracy. Edited by Chiara Formichi. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021. Softcover: 261pp. Pancasila is often described as the ideological glue [...]

The British territories of greater Southeast Asia were administratively connected to London and Calcutta, and while local censuses show that these centres could exert some influence at the furthest peripheries of the Empire, a close analysis of the ways in which race and religion were approached in the classification of colonial subjects in Southeast Asia shows peculiarities specific to the region. In this article I argue that the demographic and socio-political contexts of British Burma and Malaya (with references to Hong Kong) led to a framing of 'race' that challenged European 'scientific' definitions and embraced instead the interweaving of multiple aspects of an individual's identity, most prominently religion. This shift, potentially empowering as reflective of local understandings of belonging, and an improvement from the period's anthropometric framework, was to backfire, however. With the emergence of nationalism, majoritarian identities came to be homogenised in these ethno-religious intersectional communities, marginalising and excluding those who did not fit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

S.M. Kartosuwiryo, famed leader of the long and bloody Darul Islam rebellion which began in West Java in 1948, was a strong supporter of the Indonesian independence struggle and a champion of the Indonesian Republic proclaimed in 1945. This article seeks to understand how it was that Kartosuwiryo came to oppose that very Republic with such violence in 1948-49. Many scholars have sought to explain the origins of the Darul Islam movement in terms of Kartosuwiryo's fanatic Islamist ambition. However, a detailed examination of the circumstances of the revolt's gestation and outbreak indicates that it was a consequence of a complex interplay of historically contingent circumstances rather than any ideological fixity., Introduction The Darul Islam movement, established in West Java in 1948 to contrast the Dutch occupation of the area, is well known for its transformation in 1949-50 into an anti-Republic [...]

The end of innocence? Indonesian Islam and the temptations of radicalism By ANDREE FEILLARD and REMY MADINIER. Trans. by WONG WEE Singapore: NUS Press and Institute de Recherche sur l'Asie [...]