Land and Loyalty: Security and the Development of Property Rights in Thailand

Domestic and international development strategies often focus on private ownership as a crucial anchor for long-term investment; the security of property rights provides a foundation for capitalist expansion. In recent years, Thailand’s policies have been hailed as a prime example of how granting formal land rights to poor farmers in low-income countries can result in …

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Migration and Diversity in Asian Contexts

This volume makes an important and unique contribution to scholarly understandings of migration and diversity through its focus on Asian contexts. Current scholarship and literature on processes of migration and the consequences of diversity is heavily concentrated on Western contexts and their concerns with “multiculturalism”, “integration”, “rights and responsibilities”, “social cohesion”, “social inclusion”, and “cosmopolitanism”. …

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More than Maoism: Politics, Policies and Insurgencies in South China

India’s ‘Maoist movement’, erupting in the village of Naxalbari in 1967, claims to struggle for the rights of exploited tribal people and poor peasants. To Indian governments, however, the movement is fomented by crazed ideologues exploiting vulnerable citizens. Since 2003 when a landmine nearly killed the Chief Minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, hundreds …

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WPS 185 Prosperous State, Prosperous Old? Growing Social Stratification among Elderly Singaporeans

For many years, Singapore was believed to be a middle-class society. However, recent statistics and studies reveal growing stratifications within the middle-class bulge. This paper shines the spotlight onto a specific group of Singaporeans – the elderly – and examines the extent and implications of social stratification among them. Drawing upon life-history interviews with elderly persons …

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WPS 184 Ceylonese Buddhism in Colonial Singapore: New Ritual Spaces & Specialists, 1895-1935

This paper provides the first detailed account of the development of Ceylonese Buddhism in colonial-period Singapore. It tracks the development of Buddhist spaces in Singapore oriented towards Pali-language authoritative texts and liturgy, focusing on Ceylonese Buddhism but alert also to the activities of Thai, Burmese, and Chinese Buddhists. In contrast to Burma and Ceylon, British …

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Sharma Pantanjala; A Saiva Scripture from Ancient Java Studied in the Light of Related Old Javanese and Sanskrit Texts

The book presents a thoroughly revised edition, English translation, and study of the Dharma Patanjala, an Old Javanese-Sanskrit Saiva scripture transmitted through a single palm-leaf codex of West Javanese origin dating back to the 15th century AD. The cultural and doctrinal background of the text, as well as its codicological and philological aspects, are introduced …

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WPS 183 Asian Urbanisms and Mallness in ‘Recording the Future’

This working paper is an article that complements my short film, A Day in the Life of a Mall (http://www.youtube.com/user/kitlvrtf). The short film is compiled from footage from the Recording the Future project – an ongoing audio-visual archive by KITLV (The Netherlands and Indonesia), Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (Jakarta) and Offstream (Jakarta). This article and …

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WPS 182 Begging for Babies: The Sacred Geography of Fertility in Thailand

Couples experiencing infertility in Thailand visit a range of sacred places and shrines to seek supernatural intervention to improve their karmic status, propitiate wronged spirits or intervene in their fate. Based upon ethnographic observation and interviews with 31women and 13 men couples undergoing assisted reproductive treatment in four Thai clinics in 2007-8, this paper describes …

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WPS 181 Twenty-First Century Thai Art Practices: Common Themes and Methodologies

Over the last decade, young Thai artists seem to have developed a variety of visual interests and methodologies through which they express their artistic inclinations. New media (digital and computer-based artwork) is used alongside traditional mediums such as leather carving, a comparatively vernacular practice. Figurative paintings are produced at the same time as technically sophisticated …

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