Pragmatism is the golden thread running through American social thought and is often seen as the quintessential philosophical tradition of American liberal democracy. Whereas pragmatism was committed to clarity and simplicity of its ideas, European social theory has been seen by its critics as deliberately vague, abstract and obscure. The essays collected in Pragmatism and …
Large numbers of women in Asia engage in paid work, in many cases outside the home. Some of them simply need to support their families. Others, particularly educated women, hope to develop rewarding careers. Many of these women also continue to shoulder the home and family responsibilities that social and cultural norms define as their …
Working and Mothering in Asia: Images, Ideologies and Identities Read More »
Contemporary understandings of class provide diverse interpretations of the concept. This paper proposes a four-part typology to make sense of this diversity, with class rendered as ‘position’, ‘process’, ‘performance’ and ‘politics’. Each highlights a distinct dimension of class, but all are closely related. The paper then examines the ways in which class as position/process/performance/politics is complicated in …
WPS 90 Filipino Migration, Transnationalism and Class Identity Read More »
Diaspora studies have undergone a sea change in recent years. Skilled diasporas as a subset of diasporas have drawn the maximum attention as the developed countries have started to vie for talent from the global supply of human capital rather than relying mainly on the supply of knowledge workers in their home population. As a …
In this collection, public intellectuals and civil society activists discuss Singapore’s public rhetoric about liberalization and its association with the development of a creative economy, focusing on questions surrounding conservatism, national identity and values, civil society activism, and the societal role of the younger generation. Moved by Singapore’s Renaissance City Report, released in 2000 amidst …
Renaissance Singapore?: Economy, Culture, and Politics Read More »
Throughout history the peoples of Asia have been known for their mobility and interactions. The notion of territorially defined nations is historically recent. There was a continuing dialogue between Asian cultures which functioned at both the spatial and the temporal level, propelled by the movement of the great religions of Asia across continents via trading …
Sacred Landscapes in Asia: Shared Traditions, Multiple Histories Read More »
Over the course of the half century from 1865 to 1915, the British and Dutch delineated colonial spheres, in the process creating new frontiers. This book analyzes the development of these frontiers in Insular Southeast Asia as well as the accompanying smuggling activities of the opium traders, currency runners, and human traffickers who pierced such …
Within the framework of a utility maximization model, this paper examines the remittance behaviour of immigrant households in Germany by focusing on changes in their citizenship status. After controlling for endogeneity and taking into account the censored nature of the remittance act (i.e. only 61% of the household observed made remittances and rarely on an …
WPS 89 Citizenship Status and Remittances: Evidence from German Micro Data Read More »
The competing cultures among Thai man have not yet been fully explored in the studies of Thai films released after the economic crisis in 1997. In this article, I purposefully choose to work on a selection of four muai Thai cinemas, entitled, Muai Thai, Nai Khanom Tom [Mr Khanom Tom: A Muai Thai Legend] (2003), …
WPS 88 Muai Thai Cinemas and the Burdens of Thai Men Read More »
Sufism has not only survived into the twenty-first century but has experienced a significant resurgence throughout the Muslim world. Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam offers refreshing new perspectives on this phenomenon, demonstrating surprising connections between Sufism and Muslim reformist currents, and the vital presence of Sufi ideas and practices in all spheres of life. …
