The long and uneasy relationship between Ahmadiyah and mainstream Muslims took a turn during the period between 1980 and 2005 when the MUI (Indonesian Ulama Council) issued edicts (fatwa) on the heresy of Ahmadiyah. After these consecutive edicts were publicly declared, the Ahmadis became the major target of persecution, and violent attacks. In Lombok in …
Beriberi was widely viewed in the early twentieth century as one of the principal threats to public health in South, Southeast and East Asia. As its connection with the consumption of milled (“white”) rice became scientifically established, international attention turned to how this “tropical disease” might be eradicated: the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine, …
WPS 116 Tropical Governance: Managing Health in Monsoon Asia, 1908-1938 Read More »
Local waterfronts have acquired increasing relevance to the economic development of cities, and in turn afforded themselves as key nodes in globalization processes and tourism development. A crucial aspect of the competitive repositioning of Asian cities in the global arena is the capacity of post-industrial waterfronts for urban and environmental regeneration. As these cities shift …
Final Report: NUS Research Report: Water Margins 01 Read More »
This is the most comprehensive book devoted to Sumatra in more than half a century. It summarizes earlier studies, and provides a huge amount of new knowledge for the first time in readily accessible form. Sumatra is one of the world’s largest islands, rich in flora and fauna, minerals and timber, and located at the …
From Distant Tales: Archaeology and Ethnohistory in the Highlands of Sumatra Read More »
Ties between Southeast Asia and the Middle East have been extremely important for well over seven hundred years, but historical linkages between the two regions have attracted little attention, and assessments of their significance are curiously lacking. Southeast Asia and the Middle East addresses this omission by exploring political, economic, familial, educational and religious bonds …
Southeast Asia and the Middle East: Islam, Movement, and the Longue Durée Read More »
This paper examines the influences of gender identity on individual ability to exercise agency in migration decision making through a case study of Thang Loi Village in Vietnam. Women and men exert agency with reference to prevailing social norms in order to negotiate for or against their own migration and that of others. It has …
WPS 115 Gender and Agency in Migration Decision Making: Evidence from Vietnam Read More »
Thailand’s prolonged crisis has increasingly distracted attention from both the deep roots of the present crisis and its implications for the country’s future. That future is very much at issue, in not only its political dimension but also in its social, economic, and cultural dimensions. Six decades into His Majesty King Bhumibhol’s long and successful reign, Thailand …
This working paper shows how place-making, community formation and collective decision making are forged as part of the lesser known aspects of the larger Singapore’s story of urbanization and multiculturalism. Through a case study of a local public housing community which spans from the late 1980s until today, it shows how dimensions of inter-ethnic and other …
WPS 113 A Neighbourhood in Singapore: Ordinary People’s Lives `Downstairs’ Read More »
How is it that today in the diverse, multi-ethnic polity of Malaysia (where government figures give a population breakdown of 65% Bumiputra, 26% Chinese and 8% Indian), a single ethnic group completely controls – and occupies virtually all positions in – the judiciary, public administrative organs, the police, the armed forces and increasingly the universities? …
WPS 112 The Origins and Evolution of Ethnocracy in Malaysia Read More »
Tea-drinking is a major feature of the ethnography of Japan. The art of the tea ceremony evokes questions of identity and identification. In New York in 1906, Okakura Kakuzo (Tenshin) wrote The Book of Tea, the quintessential publication that introduced Japan’s culture to America and the West through the medium of the Japanese tea ceremony. …
