WPS 99 Narratives of Faith: Buddhism and Colonial Archaeology in Monsoon Asia

In this paper, largely based on archaeological data, I argue that colonial intervention in 19th – 20th century South and Southeast Asia, a region that the French scholar Paul Mus termed Monsoon Asia, not only altered our understanding of monuments, essentially religious structures, from being abodes of god to objects of artistic and aesthetic appreciation, …

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Elections as Popular Culture in Asia

Conventional political science depicts legitimate elections as rational affairs in which informed voters select candidates for office according to how their coherently presented aims, ideologies and policies appeal to the self-interest of the electorate. In reality elections, whether in first world democracies, or in the various governmental systems present in Asia, can more realistically be …

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Global Body Shopping : An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry

How can America’s information technology (IT) industry predict serious labor shortages while at the same time laying off tens of thousands of employees annually? The answer is the industry’s flexible labor management system–a flexibility widely regarded as the modus operandi of global capitalism today. Global “Body Shopping” explores how flexibility and uncertainty in the IT …

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History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past

Under the New Order regime (1967-98), the Indonesian military sought to monopolise the production of official history and control its contents. The goal was to validate the political role of the armed forces, condemn communism and promote military values. In this detailed examination of the Indonesian military’s image-making efforts, Katharine E. McGregor explores the formulation …

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Islamic Legitimacy in a Plural Asia

A global debate has emerged within Islam about how to coexist with democracy. Even in Asia, where such ideas have always been marginal, radical groups are taking the view that scriptural authority requires either Islamic rule (Dar-ul-Islam) or a state of war with the essentially illegitimate authority of non-Muslims or secularists. This book places the …

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WPS 98 Interethnic Relations and Shared Cultural Idioms: A Case Study of the Xiu Gu Gu Festival in Mainland China and Overseas

By using distinct epistemological frameworks, the instrumentalist, transactionalist and constructionist theories of ethnicity emphasize the analysis of inter-group relations. They neglect however the conflation of ideas and values structuring these relations, and notably the idioms of shared cultural meanings which underlie the cooperation and/or competition between interacting groups.  The present paper explores this kind of …

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WPS 97 Adjusting to Globalization: Japan and the Mobility of Asian Technical Talent

The purpose of this paper is to understand the transition that Japan must make to regain its global economic competitiveness. It examines the significance of foreign technical talent to the Japanese high technology sector, specifically, the information and communications technology (ICT) industry.  Japan is the second largest ICT market in the world. And since ICT services such …

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Population, Space and Place- Special Issue: Migration and the ‘Left-behind’ in Asia Vol. 13 No. 3

Population, Space and Place aims to be the leading English-language research journal in the field of geographical population studies. It intends to: Inform population researchers of the best theoretical and empirical research on topics related to population, space and place Promote and further enhance the international standing of population research through the exchange of views on …

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Population Review- Special Issue: Population Changes and Violent Conflicts in Southeast Asia Vol. 45 No. 1

As is well known in all demographic text books, population dynamics is attributed to changes in fertility, mortality, and migration. The change in fertility will immediately change the number of the young population, particularly those below five years old. Change in mortality can affect any age group of the population. In developing countries, change in …

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