(Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia


Book Description

This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): How have diverse states hung together and stabilized relations in the face of competing interests, divergent preferences, and arguably weak cooperation? How has a group of lesser, self-identified Southeast Asian powers gone beyond its original regional purview to shape the form and content of Asian Pacific and East Asian regionalisms? According to Alice Ba, the answers lie in ASEAN's founding arguments: arguments that were premised on an assumed regional disunity. She demonstrates how these arguments draw critical causal connections that make Southeast Asian regionalism a necessary response to problems, give rise to its defining informality and consensus-seeking process, and also constrain ASEAN's regionalism. Tracing debates about ASEAN's intra- and extra-regional relations over four decades, she argues for a process-driven view of cooperation, sheds light on intervening processes of argument and debate, and highlights interacting material, ideational, and social forces in the construction of regions and regionalisms.




Culture, Religion and Conflict in Muslim Southeast Asia


Book Description

By examining the sometimes surprising and unexpected roles that culture and religion have played in mitigating or exacerbating conflicts, this book explores the cultural repertoires from which Southeast Asian political actors have drawn to negotiate the pluralism that has so long been characteristic of the region. Focusing on the dynamics of identity politics and the range of responses to the socio-political challenges of religious and ethnic pluralism, the authors assembled in this book illuminate the principal regional discourses that attempt to make sense of conflict and tensions. They examine local notions of "dialogue," "reconciliation," "civility" and "conflict resolution" and show how varying interpretations of these terms have informed the responses of different social actors across Southeast Asia to the challenges of conflict, culture and religion. The book demonstrates how stumbling blocks to dialogue and reconciliation can and have been overcome in different parts of Southeast Asia and identifies a range of actors who might be well placed to make useful contributions, propose remedies, and initiate action towards negotiating the region's pluralism. This book provides a much needed regional and comparative analysis that makes a significant contribution to a better understanding of the interfaces between region and politics in Southeast Asia.




Negotiating Governance on Non-Traditional Security in Southeast Asia and Beyond


Book Description

The threats the world currently faces extend beyond traditional problems such as major power competition, interstate conflict, and nuclear proliferation. Non-traditional security challenges such as climate change, migration, and natural disasters surpass states’ capacity to address them. These limitations have led to the proliferation of other actors—regional and international organizations, transnational networks, local and international nongovernmental organizations—that fill the gaps when states’ responses are lacking and provide security in places where there is none. In this book, Mely Caballero-Anthony examines how non-traditional security challenges have changed state behavior and security practices in Southeast Asia and the wider East Asia region. Referencing the wide range of transborder security threats confronting Asia today, she analyzes how non-state actors are taking on the roles of “security governors,” engaging with states, regional organizations, and institutional frameworks to address multifaceted problems. From controlling the spread of pandemics and transboundary pollution, to managing irregular migration and providing relief and assistance during humanitarian crises, Caballero-Anthony explains how and why non-state actors have become crucial across multiple levels—local, national, and regional—and how they are challenging regional norms and reshaping security governance. Combining theoretical discussions on securitization and governance with a detailed and policy-oriented analysis of important recent developments, Negotiating Governance on Non-Traditional Security in Southeast Asia and Beyond points us toward “state-plus” governance, where a multiplicity of actors form the building blocks for multilateral cooperative security processes to meet future global challenges.




Islam in Southeast Asia


Book Description

"Islam in the Malay world of Southeast Asia or Islam Nusantara, as it has come to be known, had for a long time been seen as representing the more spiritual and Sufi dimension of Islam, thereby striking a balance between the exoteric and the esoteric. This image of 'the smiling face of Islam' has been disturbed during the last decades with increasing calls for the implementation of Shari’ah, conceived of in a narrow manner, intolerant discourse against non-Muslim communities, and hate speech against minority Muslims such as the Shi’ites. There has also been what some have referred to as the Salafization of Sunni Muslims in the region. The chapters of this volume are written by scholars and activists from the region who are very perceptive of such trends in Malay world Islam and promise to improve our understanding of developments that are sometimes difficult to grapple with." — Professor Syed Farid Alatas, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore




The Indonesian Way


Book Description

On December 31, 2015, the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ushered in a new era with the founding of the ASEAN Community (AC). The culmination of 12 years of intensive preparation, the AC was both a historic initiative and an unprecedented step toward the area's regional integration. Political commentators and media outlets, however, greeted its establishment with little fanfare. Implicitly and explicitly, they suggested that the AC was only the beginning: Southeast Asia, they seemed to say, was taking its first steps on a linear process of unification that would converge on the model of the European Union. In The Indonesian Way, Jürgen Rüland challenges this previously unquestioned diffusion of European norms. Focusing on the reception of ASEAN in Indonesia, Rüland traces how foreign policy stakeholders in government, civil society, the legislature, academe, the press, and the business sector have responded to calls for ASEAN's Europeanization, ultimately fusing them with their own distinctly Indonesian form of regionalism. His analysis reframes the nature of ASEAN as well as the discipline of international relations more broadly, writing a narrative of regional integration and norm diffusion that breaks free of Eurocentric thought.




Southeast Asia and the Middle East


Book Description

Acknowledgments p. vii Orthographic Note p. viii 1 Southeast Asia and the Middle East: Charting Directions Eric Tagliacozzo p. 1 I The Early Dimensions of Contact 2 Finding Java: Muslim Nomenclature of Insular Southeast Asia from Sþrvijaya to Snouck Hurgronje Michael Laffan p. 17 3 The Hajj, Islam, and Power among the Bugis in Early Colonial Riau Timothy P. Barnard p. 65 4 The Origins and Contributions of Early Arabs in Malaya Mohammad Redzuan Othman p. 83 II The Colonial Age 5 The Middle East Connection and Reform and Revival Movements among the Putihan in 19th-century Java M.C. Ricklefs p. 111 6 The Skeptic's Eye: Snouck Hurgronje and the Politics of Pilgrimage from the Indies Eric Tagliacozzo p. 135 7 Challenging Inequality in a Modern Islamic Idiom: Social Ferment amongst Arabs in Early 20th-century Java Sumit K. Mandal p. 156 8 Southeast Asian Debates and Middle Eastern Inspiration: European Dress in Minangkabau at the Beginning of the 20th Century Nico J.G. Kaptein p. 176 III The First Half of the 20th Century 9 Topics and Queries for a History of Arab Families and Inheritance in Southeast Asia: Some Preliminary Thoughts Michael Gilsenan p. 199 10 From Golden Youth in Arabia to Business Leaders in Singapore: Instructions of a Hadrami Patriarch Ulrike Freitag p. 235 11 M. Asad Shahab: A Portrait of an Indonesian Hadrami Who Bridged the Two Worlds Mona Abaza p. 250 IV Into Modernity 12 Jihad and the Specter of Transnational Islam in Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Comparative Historical Perspective John T. Sidel p. 275 13 Some Comparative Notes on Three Muslim Rebellion Movements in Southeast Asia (Burma, Thailand, and the Philippines) Moshe Yegar p. 319 14 Political Islam in Post-Soeharto Indonesia: The Contest between "Radical-Conservative Islam" and "Progressive-Liberal Islam" M. Syafi'i Anwar p. 349 Contributors p. 386 Index.




Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia


Book Description

This book brings together material on headhunting from several Southeast Asia societies, examines its cultural contexts, and relates them to colonial history, violence, and ritual.




(Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia


Book Description

This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): How have diverse states hung together and stabilized relations in the face of competing interests, divergent preferences, and arguably weak cooperation? How has a group of lesser, self-identified Southeast Asian powers gone beyond its original regional purview to shape the form and content of Asian Pacific and East Asian regionalisms? According to Alice Ba, the answers lie in ASEAN's founding arguments: arguments that were premised on an assumed regional disunity. She demonstrates how these arguments draw critical causal connections that make Southeast Asian regionalism a necessary response to problems, give rise to its defining informality and consensus-seeking process, and also constrain ASEAN's regionalism. Tracing debates about ASEAN's intra- and extra-regional relations over four decades, she argues for a process-driven view of cooperation, sheds light on intervening processes of argument and debate, and highlights interacting material, ideational, and social forces in the construction of regions and regionalisms.




Southeast Asia and the Civil Society Gaze


Book Description

As developing countries with recent histories of isolation and extreme poverty, followed by restoration and reform, both Cambodia and Vietnam have seen new opportunities and demands for non-state actors to engage in and manage the effects of rapid socio-economic transformation. This book examines how in both countries, civil society actors and the state manage their relationship to one another in an environment that is continuously shaped and (re)constructed by changing legislation, collaboration and negotiation, advocacy and protest, and social control. Further, it explores the countries’ divergent experiences whilst also uncovering the underlying basis and drivers of civil society activity that are shared by Cambodia and Vietnam. Crucially, this book engages with the contested nature of civil society and how it is socially constructed through research and development activities, by looking at contemporary discourses and manifestations of civil society in the two countries, including national and community-level organisations, associations, and networks that operate in a variety of sectors, such as gender, the environment and health. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in Cambodia and Vietnam, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian studies, Southeast Asian politics, development studies and civil society.




Pentecostal Megachurches in Southeast Asia


Book Description

Charismatic pastors, fast-paced worship sessions, inspirational but shallow theology, and large congregations — these are just some of the associated traits of Pentecostal megachurches. But what lies beneath the veneer of glitz? What are their congregations like? How did they grow so quickly? How have they managed to negotiate local and transnational challenges? This book seeks to understand the growth and popularity of independent Pentecostal megachurches in Southeast Asia. Using an ethnographic approach, the chapters examine Pentecostal megachurches in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Each chapter dwells on the development of the megachurch set against the specific background of the country’s politics and history.