SPRING 2017

75

NO.

Contents
003

Editorial

004

Announcement	  Re-organization of Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
	  Kono Yasuyuki
005

Acceptance Speech for Honorary Doctorate from Kyoto University
Aung San Suu Kyi

007

Danger Underfoot: Humanitarian Mine Action in Myanmar
Kenneth MacLean

010

Comparative Gender Issues Series, No. 1

	  Claiming Spaces: Experiences of Indigenous Women of Sarawak for Space in Climate Change Dialogues
	  Sunitha Bisan
014

Bookstores, Beauty Parlors, and Weapons: Philippine Book History and the Japanese Occupation
Vernon R. Totanes

018

ReportVisual Documentary Project 2016
Mario Lopez
022

The Yangon Film School (YFS)
Lindsey Merrison

025

Report40th Southeast Asia Seminar:
The Promise and Challenge of Democracy in 21st Century Southeast Asia
Mario Lopez
028

Publications

030

Fellows

031

Cherry Trees in the Courtyard and My Memory at CSEAS
Nishibuchi Mitsuaki

Front Cover: Aging (Bronze and Gold Leaf 187 × 52 × 225 cm)
From the series, Circle of life 2010–2011 by Kami Lertchaiprasert
Source: MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum
Back Cover: Photo by Nishibuchi Mitsuaki

Editorial
For over 50 years, CSEAS has dedicated itself to cutting edge research on contemporary issues facing Southeast
Asia through interdisciplinary research based on fieldwork. Over this time, the Center has undergone a gradualevolution, identifying developments in Southeast Asian societies through ongoing empirically grounded
research. To date CSEAS’ main focus has predominately been on Southeast Asia. Our researchers span thedisciplinary divide and have explored social, cultural and eco-agricultural diversity in one of the world’s mostdiverse regions. This has allowed CSEAS to learn about its latent potential, its cultures, diverse peoples,
religious dynamism, and plural co-existence. And in line with the exigencies of a rapidly evolving anddynamically globalizing region, researchers have been collaborating closely with other institutions within theregion and around the world to accumulate new knowledge. This has allowed for theory-building and thepromotion of perspectives that are attuned to the region’s diversity.
In order to further its mandate, CSEAS has undergone a reorganization and renewed its mission integratingwith the Center for Integrated Area Studies (CIAS). This is significant in that it will allow CSEAS to refineknowledge from a truly comparative inter-regional perspective. Whereas to date we have focused on looking at
the region, this reorganization will allow us to look through and from the region and compare with other world
regions. This, of course, will be quite a challenge. However, with this reorganization comes expansion. CSEAS
will be able to combine and share the expertise of colleagues who work in Latin America, Central Asia andNortheast Asia. CSEAS welcomes Professors Hara Shoichiro, Wil de Jong, Hayashi Yukio, Kishi Toshihiko,
Associate Professors Murakami Yusuke, Nishi Yoshimi, Obiya Chika, Yamamoto Hiroyuki, Yanagisawa
Masayuki, and Assistant Professors Kameda Akihiro and Nakayama Taisho. Through this expansion we hope tostrengthen and deepen collaboration among our researchers to create a robust academic community: those that
can adapt and respond to the challenges that face society globally but who can work locally.
In this issue, we are pleased to carry a range of articles from current fellows and invited writers. On November
3, 2016, CSEAS was graced with a special guest. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (State Councilor), in recognition ofher advancement of democracy in Myanmar was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kyoto University andtraveled to CSEAS to receive it. We offer her acceptance speech that she gave to a packed audience. Ken
MacLean writes about the humanitarian efforts that are underway to clear landmines in Myanmar and theurgent need to establish landmine-free areas for displaced persons who want to rebuild their lives in former
conflict areas. In our ongoing desire to have a dialogue on gender issues in Southeast Asia, Sunitha Bisan,
Chairperson, Environment and Climate Change, National Council of Women’s Organisations, was invited tovisiting fellow details the history of publishing, book destruction and survival that occurred during the Japanese
occupation of the Philippines. Mario Lopez reports on the 5th Visual Documentary Project that was successfully
held in December 2016. Finally, Lindsey Merrison, founder of the Yangon Film School (YFS), an innovativeand rising film school based in Yangon, offers an overview of the challenges the school has faced during thiscurrent period of democratic transition in Myanmar.
The Editors
Mario Lopez
Shitara Narumi

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

write about climate change and its impact on the lives of women in Sarawak. Vernon Totanes a historian and003

ANNOUNCEMENTAt the opening ceremony: From Left to right, Assoc. Prof. Nathan Badenoch, Prof. Hara Shoichiro, Dir. Kono Yasuyuki, Prof. Nagahiro Minato(Executive Vice-President of Kyoto University), Assit. Prof. Shitara Narumi, Assoc. Prof. Myint Thida (Visiting Research Scholar)

Re-organization of Center for Southeast
Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
Kono Yasuyuki
Director, CSEAS

As of January 1, 2017, Center for Southeast AsianStudies (CSEAS) merged with the Center for­Integrated Area Studies (CIAS) and restarted as a
new research center. Its Japanese name slightly
changed to Tonan Ajia Chiiki Kenkyu Kenkyusho, but
the English name remains unchanged.

NEWSLETTERCSEAS was established in 1963, charged withcoordinating Southeast Asian Studies, and officiallyapproved as the first university-attached research
center in 1965. For over 50 years it has carried out
multidisciplinary fieldwork in the region. Due to theefforts of previous and current faculty, affiliatedresearchers and related agencies, CSEAS has grown
to become a leading global research institute. Since
2006, CIAS also carried out extensive researchthrough a fusion of Area Studies and Informatics,
fostering both area studies communities and putting
efforts into building an Area Informatics system.

No. 75004

The aim of this reorganization is to bring together
our strong fieldwork expertise, interdisciplinary areas
studies and area informatics approaches to allow

us to have a broader perspective, develop a larger
academic network, and strengthen research that
responds to the needs of contemporary societies.
We are now coming to the end of an era that hassolely pursued industrial expansion and economic
growth. Present day societies face complexly intertwined problems that threaten our security; global
environmental issues, economic inequality, religious
and cultural friction, large-scale natural disasters, andthe spread of epidemics. CSEAS aims to continue
world-class research to close in on these issues bymaking use of the wisdom found in local societies
in the world in general, and of Southeast Asia in particular, and weave together reality-based and globallycomparative perspectives.
To do this we require a diverse disciplinary mix. To
produce any kind of innovative ideas we also need
to work with civil society and the private sector.
These require a wide range of people and our own
efforts. CSEAS will continue to look forward to working closely at all levels to further solutions to current
and near-future regional and global issues.

Acceptance Speech for
Honorary Doctorate
from Kyoto University
Aung San Suu Kyi

On November 3, 2016, her Excellency, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (ASSK) visited the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) and
was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor for her contribution to the advancement of democracy in Myanmar and the world as a whole.
ASSK, a previous fellow at CSEAS, resisted the Burmese military government through non-violent means and led the National
League for Democracy (NLD) while under house arrest for over 15 years. During the historic elections of 2015, the NLD was supported by a great majority of Burmese and the country made a peaceful transfer of power and is currently working toward a morecivilian-based political system.
Between 1985–86, she was engaged in research at CSEAS, focusing on her father, General Aung San. In 2013, ASSK visited Kyoto
University and was awarded the title of Honorary Fellow of Kyoto University. To date, Kyoto University has conferred 13 Honorary Doctoral degrees to outstanding scholars for their scientific contributions in various fields. This is the first time that the university has conferred such an honorary degree on an individual for their commitment to freedom, democracy, and human rights.
This article is a synopsis of ASSK’s conferral speech and her discussion with Kyoto University students.

005

in a civilized society, is fundamental for the promotionof other scholarly works. Without peace and without
freedom we will not be able to achieve academic
excellence. We need peace, we need freedom. We
also need the affluence that will enable us to do thekind of research that will push the world forward, andthat will elevate the status of human society. When I
was told that I was going to be awarded an honorary
doctorate, I wondered whether it was going to be inLaw. But this is an unusual doctorate because it isfor what I have done for the advancement of democracy in my own country, and as President Yamagiwa
Juichi has kindly said, in the world at large. Advancement is the correct word because we have not yet
reached our goal. In a sense, with democracy we
can say that we will never reach our goal. Our goal
has to be beyond reach because we have to keep
working towards it. Once we stop working for
democracy, it will fade away. It is like an unused muscle. We have to keep it exercised all the time. I keep
reminding our people how important it is for us, notjust to claim our democratic privileges, but also toCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

ASSK: I would like to say it is indeed a great pleasure to be back here in the city of Kyoto and thisuniversity. When I came to Japan for the first time
30-years ago, it was almost to the day because I
came in October 1985. My young son and I werewelcomed by this city and by this university. It waswonderful how quickly we felt we were part of the life
here. And it is amazing that even now, after 30 years
when I was in Tokyo, I found out I had forgotten all
my Japanese. But when I came to Kyoto, there is
magic about this place: its beauty, its history, its culture, and with regard to the university its academic
excellence, and its international reputation. Its international reputation is based to a large extent on its
capacity to engage with and to absorb the manyscholars from all across the world who visited thisuniversity. I know what a rare prize it is to be awarded
an honorary doctorate from this university, especiallysince this is the first that somebody with no realachievements in science has been awarded such a
degree. But of course, the science of politics, whichis really the science of people trying to live together

discharge democratic duties, that we may be able to
make our society a vibrant one: politically, socially,
and culturally.
Kyoto is a great center of culture and before wecame into this room the chairperson, Dr. Inaba Kayoand I were discussing the importance of culture andcultural exchanges. Culture is something we cankeep alive only if people believe in it. You can’t force
people to preserve a culture. You can force them
only externally, you can lay down rules and regulations, you can promulgate laws that force people tokeep to a certain type of culture. But it will be just a
dead visage, it will not be alive, it will be not real or
genuine. So to keep culture really alive we have tokeep the human spirit alive, which is why I say thatthe science of politics is the most important science,the science of people living together in peace and inharmony, that the human race might progress. It is
not for me to lecture academics because I myself
am not an academic. And it is a very dangerous
thing to try to do. So I am simply putting to them myviews on how we think that academia can cooperate
and work together with not just students that cometo the university but with people in general, with different countries, with different systems, with different
cultures, to make sure our world is moving in theright direction. Well the world is round because it isgoing around and around and we never really know
where we are going sometimes. And this is a mystery and a challenge. We hope that we are going in
the right direction. We can never be sure. Of course,
I think that the positive aspects of human nature­outweigh the negative because if this were not so I
think we would still be running around in caves. I am
not sure, but I think so. And it is the opposite. The
positive aspects of our nature have brought us forward to this point where people from all over theworld can meet together. I think predominantly in thisroom there are Japanese and people from Burma.
But I believe that perhaps there are a few from othercountries as well. And for people from different partsof the world to come together, to be able to communicate with one another, that in itself is a truly amazing achievement. When we think that just 100 years
back this would have been almost an impossibility
for people of all ages, from different aspects of life,
from different countries to meet in one room and notthink this is extraordinary at all. This is the achievement of our world and democracy, also the achievement of the human race. The belief that people cangather together and come to a wise, common decision. That is indeed an act of faith. And it is based on
this faith that we have struggled for democracy in
Burma and for peace, because there can’t be peace
without democracy and there can’t be democracy
without peace. We have just started out on the roadto stabilizing our democratic roots, and to achieving
peace which has long eluded us for our country. We
hope that the time is not far when we can say wehave achieved peace for our country and we havestrengthened the democratic roots of our society sothat coming generations may be secure in the knowledge that their country will be shaped as they wish it
to be. And for this we would like to thank our friends
from all over the world who have helped us in various
ways and among those friends who have helped us
is Kyoto University. When I came here in 1985, themovement for democracy had not yet started. Yet
Kyoto University was kind enough to welcome me
and to treat me with no less consideration than I am
treated today. In fact, I think I was treated more
warmly and more as a human being 30 years ago
than I am now as a representative of a government. I
don’t know why people want to be representatives ofgovernments because I think it is much better to bejust yourself. I have always found that people aremuch warmer towards you and the way in which thepeople of Kyoto took me to their hearts 30 years ago,that could not be bettered in any way. So I would liketo conclude by saying thank you to the university andthank you to the people of Kyoto.
A full version of the acceptance speech and Aung
San Suu Kyi’s speech and her discussion with Kyoto
University undergraduate students can be at Kyoto
University’s OpenCourseWare site: http://ocw.kyotou.ac.jp/ja/international-conference/59/video
A full transcript of her discussion can be found on
the CSEAS home page at https://newsletter.cseas.
kyoto-u.ac.jp/nl75/75_00_assk.html

NEWSLETTER
No. 75006

Danger Underfoot:Humanitarian Mine Action in Myanmar
Kenneth MacLean
Former Visiting Research Scholar, CSEAS

M

007

good because it contributes to new harms even as it
reduces others.
DS carried out a stakeholder consultation process
in mid-2013, during which they spoke with nearly one
hundred individuals representing landmine-affected
communities, civil society organizations, and community-based groups, as well as local and international NGOs involved in HMA and some NSAGs. (Thecountry’s armed forces did not participate.) Basedon its findings, DS outlined the 14-step sequence for
operationalizing land-sensitive HMA in accordancewith its eight core principles. The “Do No Harm”
approach, one of the co-authors of the report toldme, wrongly assumes that the risks associated withmoving forward with landmine clearance can be
managed, even without having the procedural andpractical mechanisms in place to adjudicate conflicting property claims or provide legal recourse topeople who have had their land seized.
One Humanitarian Disarmament Program Manager, for example, noted that the report’s emphasis
on housing, land, and property rights, although critically important for the success of HMA, was premature. Some NSAGs, such as the Karen National
Union (KNU), recognize customary or traditional land
rights in areas they administer. However, the government currently does not, he explained. Consequently,
people in (former) conflict-affected areas do not
enjoy adequate protection under the law, and organizations involved in HMA do not have the expertiseor authority to assist them. More pressing, he
explained, was the Myanmar Mine Action Center’s
apparent reluctance to authorize and to coordinate
MRE, much less mapping and signposting hazardous areas. “There’s been dialogue with the Myanmar
Peace Center and there was complete agreement
on everything, right down to the number of cleaningladies that needed to be hired. But again, it didn’t
happen. The money is just sitting there.” The Peace
Center, he reported, provided some vague statements indicating that, “it was not yet appropriate tobegin discussing operational plans,” but it took thema full year before they stated directly that it would“have to wait until the Tatmadaw and the NSAGs had

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

yanmar is the third most landmine-contaminatedcountry in the world after Afghanistan andColombia. According to Displacement Solutions(DS), an organization that employs a rights-based
approach to assist forced migrants around the world,
perhaps as much as five million acres nationwide arecontaminated, the most heavily affected areas being
the country’s border regions due to nearly 70 yearsof low-intensity armed conflicts (Displacement Solutions 2014). The rugged terrain, tight travel restrictions, the almost complete absence of systematic
data on the location of known hazardous areas, aswell as the frequency of accidents, mean that the­actual scale of the problem is not accurately known,
however. These uncertainties present varying degrees
of risk to everyone living in landmine-contaminatedareas, but especially for the country’s estimated370,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and
480,000 refugees (UNHCR 2015). There is widespread recognition there is a need to clear travel corridors and to establish landmine-free areas for forced
migrants who wish to rebuild their lives in former
conflict-affected areas. But a range of actors currently
oppose humanitarian mine action (HMA), which entails risk education, clearance victim assistance,­advocacy, and stockpile destruction, on the grounds
doing so now presents a threat to the on-goingpeace process.
Mine Rise Education (MRE) consists of educational activities designed to raise awareness andpromote behavioral change to reduce the risks landmines pose. To my surprise, nearly all of the NGO
representatives that I interviewed in Thailand andMyanmar stressed MRE remains a “very sensitive
topic,” so much so that the political space for implementing it is extremely limited at present. The question is why given that rural populations in landminecontaminated areas obviously face direct risks totheir physical wellbeing. I found that other actors,
such as government entities, state and non-statearmed groups (NSAGs), development agencies,
NGOs, and business enterprises bear other kinds ofrisks. When the interests of these actors are taken
into account, MRE ceases to be a universally desiredFig. 1 Foot prosthetics for landmine victims, Mae Sot Thailand

NEWSLETTER
No. 75008

buy-in post-ceasefire.”1) No one is officially allowed
to do anything beyond MRE for this reason, he stated.
Many people share his frustration with view that
MRE is “very sensitive.” A national MRE coordinatinggroup consisting of government and non-governmentorganizations exists, and it is reasonably effective interms of data collection regarding landmine accidents, as well as the number of workshops held andtraining materials distributed. But there is significant
disagreement on the content, which is emblematic of
the broader problem: the people most in need of
MRE are not able to easily obtain it. For example, theChief Minister for Karen State announced that all
ongoing MRE activities had to stop immediately on
the grounds that “it was not yet the right time,” buthis office did not provide any further details, one­foreign MRE trainer told me. It later turned out that aphotograph in the MRE materials, which UNICEF
and DanChurchAid Mine Action had prepared usinga photograph from Cambodia, was the source of the
problem. The photograph depicted a soldier, wearing a nondescript uniform, laying a landmine. In the
Minister’s opinion, the image “might harm the peoples’ respect for the [Myanmar] government.”2)
MRE also remains a problem on a practical level.
A MRE trainer for the Committee of Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP), the humanitarian wingof the KNU, told me that the existing curriculum,

based on the one used in Cambodia, encourages
rather than discourages risky behavior. “I teach manythings that are not in it, and I do not teach everythingthat is.” He explained, “booby traps are common in
Cambodia, but in Burma/Myanmar they are not. One
time I taught villagers about them [after theyexpressed desire to learn more about the pictures on
the flipcharts]. They thought they were great. They
wanted to make some for defensive purposes!”
Mutual suspicion is a significant problem as well.
“Marking hazardous areas is a non-starter at thenational level,” a technical expert with the Mine Advisory Group said. In fact, MMAC “is downright hostile
to the idea,” the expert continued. So, too, are NSAGs,
which assert that doing so makes them vulnerable
tactically. (NSAGs currently regard systematic mineremoval and destruction, like disarmament moregenerally, as “surrender.”) Consequently, local Karenorganizations that for safety reasons want to identify
suspected hazardous areas and signpost known
ones in non-strategic areas regularly face accusations that are government collaborators, even thoughmany of them have provided invaluable humanitarianassistance to their conflict-affected communities for
decades.3)
Many domestic NGOs, civil society organizations,and community-based groups are also concerned
about the tremendous increase in foreign assistanceFig. 2 Landmine warning sign, Karen Statearrangements. Yet, these key decision-makers resist
labeling this crisis a “crisis” in the name of furthering
the peace process.6) Armed parties regard any effort
to change the status quo, including MRE, as having
the potential to undermine the “new” normal, which
is neither resumed war nor a genuine peace, butsomething in-between. Consequently, landmines
possess potentiality, one that enables them, even as
lie underground, to exert form of agency—albeit one
without intent or directionality, which is what makes
their removal currently so explosive in contemporary
Myanmar.
References
Displacement Solutions. 2014. Land Rights and Mine Action in
Myanmar. Geneva: Displacement Solutions.
UNHCR. 2015. UNHCR Country Operations Profile.

Notes
1) Interview, Aksel Steen-Nilsen, Norwegian People’s Aid
Humanitarian Disarmament Program Manager.
2) Interview, Anonymous, Committee of Internally Displaced
Karen People staff member.
3) Interview, Eh Thwa, Mae Tao Clinic Mae Sot Prosthetics
Clinic Director.
4) Interview, Pippa Curwen, Burma Relief Center Director.
5) Interview, Saw Greh Moo, Salween Policy Institute analyst.
6) Interview, Nilar Myaing, The Border Consortium-Yangon
Director.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

to Myanmar. They assert the assistance supports theproliferation of government networks in areas where
they previously had little or none and undermines
already existing local ones that provide social services, especially health and education, to theirrespective conflict-affected communities. The Directorof the Burma Relief Center, a cross-border humanitarian organization, describes this increase as an “aidoffensive.” “The current situation is now critical,” shestated. “Aid is drying up here, and the funds, which
are going inside, are supporting government structures in one way or another. In the process, they are
undermining the structures that community-basedorganizations built up over the years, and that is aserious problem. The ethnic movement is in greater
danger.”4) A Karen research analyst for the Salween
Policy Institute calls it the “development offensive.”
He cited the blueprint for development in Southeastern Myanmar the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and the Ministry of Border Affairs
released relatively recently.5) The blueprint emphasizes the construction of economic corridors, agroindustrial clusters, as well as free trade zones andindustrial estates with the assumption that conflictaffected populations will want to work in them. (Asizeable percentage of them will have to passthrough landmine-contaminated regions to do so, hepointed out.) Not everyone shares this assumption,
however. More than 30 civil society organizations
that operate in the target region quickly issued adetailed critique of the neoliberal model for bordereconomic development, which they claim was prepared without input from people living in it and without public consultation afterwards. This is why economic development poses a threat to its own
realization. Economic development, which requires
demining in conflict-affected areas, will be impossible without HMA. But HMA, even if carried out inaccordance with international best practices, may
destroy what decades of military offensives did not:the possibility for these communities to makeinformed decisions about what form their own futures
should take in post-conflict Myanmar.
The urgent need for HMA in Myanmar is the product of an enduring crisis. Living conditions in mostconflict-affected areas are such that organizations
are urging donors, the government, and NSAGs totake immediate action to address the humanitarian
emergency that exists in the country’s border regions
rather than wait for a nationwide ceasefire agreement, much less one regarding post-conflict political009

Comparative Gender Issues Series, No. 1

Claiming Spaces:
Experiences ofIndigenous Women of
Sarawak for Space in
Climate Change
Dialogues
Sunitha Bisan
Chairperson, Environment and Climate Change,
National Council of Women’s Organisations (NCWO)

Women are at the frontline of Climate Action. They are the true champions.

T

NEWSLETTER
No. 75010

he effects of climate change can no longer be­ignored or denied. Asia Pacific, as a region, is
most vulnerable to natural disasters as it accounts
for 91% of global deaths, 49% of global total d­ amagein the last century (IFAD 2009), and it is estimatedthat about four billion people will be affected by water shortages at least one month in a year, with nearly
half residing in China and India (Mekonnen and
Hoekstra 2016).
In 2014, a scoping study was undertaken withindigenous women leaders of Sarawak to promote
community participation in climate related decisionmaking and discussions. The scoping study for
Malaysia is part of a regional study initiative of the
Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for
Women (ARROW) and her partners in both Southand Southeast Asia regions. The other participating
countries were Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Indonesia,
Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
The regional initiative found that climate change
discussions still lack a participatory and inclusive
process of inclusion. The usual reasons offered werethat climate change issues are highly technical andthe public has a limited understanding to allow formeaningful participation. Our collective challenge
was to create as well as claim public spaces to allow
for the voice of the people, especially that of women
who are directly impacted from climate-related andenvironmental impacts, to be heard and be part ofdecision making processes.
Arnstein (1969) has rightly argued that not all par-ticipation is created equal in her “ladder of partici­
pation” model. The scoping studies evidenced how
the allocation of spaces actually reinforce gendered
power relations. Spaces and opportunities for citizen
participation in policy processes, legal frameworks
and programs in general were seen to remain at a­rhetorical level. The greater need of inclusion if practiced is a mere token gesture that does not respectcommunity viewpoints. This gendered power-relation
permeates the global discussion of Climate Changeeven within discussions that were held during theParis Agreement (where I was present). The greaterrisk of reinforcing status quo and patterns of exclusion, intended or otherwise, increases social
injustice.
The commitment for inclusion in decision-making
is particularly important as the Asia-Pacific region is
one of the most vulnerable regions where more than
100 million people are affected by climate-related
natural disasters annually (ADB 2011). Historicalresearch over the last 40 years shows the number ofpeople affected by flooding increased significantly
from 29.5 to 63.8 million, compounded by an estimated 120.7 million people living at the frontline of
cyclone-hit areas (ESCAP and UNISDR 2012). The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
reaffirms this in their Fifth Assessment Report stating, “differences in vulnerability and exposure arise
from non-climatic factors and from multidimensional
inequalities often produced by uneven development
process” (IPCC 2014).

The Scoping Study

Carving a Path

A scoping study for Malaysia was embarked upon toinvestigate the possible linkages and opportunities
for action on climate change in connection with sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). In
Malaysia, the decision was to focus on the voices of
the indigenous women of Sarawak based on theircurrent challenges as a result of changes in land-use
patterns and increased climate events. This study
began with an overall review of climate change and
SRHR issues in Malaysia, then explored how climatechange and SRHR impact upon indigenous communities with feedback from indigenous women’s leaders in Sarawak. The study’s further aim was to discuss key implications for policy development andconduct advocacy on the issues raised.
This initiative was undertaken as research into theimpacts of climate change on SRHR is only justemerging. Recent studies have found that women,
particularly the poor and marginalized, suffer disproportionately more than men from the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is related to a lackof access to information, health care, social, natural,
physical, financial and political resources to respond,
adapt and cope to during and after natural disasters
and environmental crisis. (Dankelman 2011). As aresult, women need to do hard labor for the wellbeing of their households and communities, facehardship due to difficult access to food, water andlivelihood, and are more likely to suffer from ill healthand poor nutrition.
Importantly, the scoping study showed that there
is a multitude of discourses; for example, how population is linked to degradation, fossil fuel dependence, reducing carbon emissions and natural
resource management issues. These, in turn, influence how the inter-linkages between climate change
and SRHR are viewed and acted upon by both government and communities. This is significant as thestudy is not only seeking to analyze what is visible inrespect to climate related issues, but on existing historical as well as highly invisible institutional imbalances that discriminate women and communities.
Our findings affirmed that there are inter-linkages
between climate change and SRHR revealed that thedifferent views impede attention to include SRHR
issues into climate change debates and dialogues
and are greatly seen in how disaster reduction planning is advanced. The study has highlighted theneed to enhance community resilience through therecognition of women’s leadership and participation.
This is significant as existing institutional imbalances
have “cloaked” issues and made women’s needs
invisible in climate change discussions and related
actions.

Advocacy is critical to highlight these grounded realities. The first step in this process was to encourage
local conversations around the issues of climatechange and its impact. These conversations areimportant especially at a time where our development pathways promote clashes with our naturalenvironment through consumerism and intense globalization. Conversations, including story telling,
become critical to unite people in a world that divides
and marginalizes.
The regional scoping studies evidenced that­climatic changes are already impacting participating communities. In Malaysia, the women leaders in­Sarawak shared how their communities increasingly
bear witness to more intense, frequent and persistentclimate-related natural disasters and human-induced
environmental degradation. They further shared risks
in areas experiencing logging and corporate farming
on women’s sexual safety and rights.
“Before we were free to plant. Now this is limited
and we have no place to find food. (Dulu Orang
Asal bebas bercucuk-tanam. Sekarang sudahterhad tiada tempat cari makan lagi.)”
Participants’ Feedback
Key findings from our Malaysia study mirrors thatof the other seven participating countries that include
non-accessibility to life-sustaining resources such as
food and nutrition, clean water, healthcare services,
infrastructure and livelihood. There is a serious needto prioritize SRHR as a focus to build resilience inchanging climate conditions. It is important toemphasize strengthening capacity and sustainability
livelihood of communities through the recognition of
women’s leadership and participation on management of natural ecological systems to buffer climate
impacts.
The pathway forward is to ensure gender responsiveness to address existing institutional imbalancesthat make women’s needs invisible in climate change
discussions. A review of policy documents and relatedCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University
011

Fig. 1 Floodings are a growing and frequent challenge for local women at
Ulu Baram as a result of deforestation.

Fig. 2 “Why it is important to safe our forests.” A success by thecommunities at Baram that stopped the building of the Baram Dam.

NEWSLETTER
No. 75012

documents in the Malaysian context has also shownthat climate related policies tended to be genderneutral. There is urgent need to reexamine andtransform governance structures to apply gender
responsiveness in climate change adaptation andmitigation actions.
Gender responsiveness also brings recognition to
the fact that men and women are not, and should not
be treated as homogenous groups. In fact, individuals
are influenced by age, ethnicity, locality, education,and income. Therefore, any solutions towards adapting to climate change need to take a closer look at
the intersections within the lived lives of women,men, girls, and boys. This call is echoed in the
ASEAN Gender Mainstreaming Guidelines for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation adopted in 2016.
Gender sensitivity helps increase the ability tobridge community needs within policy discussions.
These conversations are a means to aid policy­makers and to ensure the design of adaptation andmitigation plans towards reducing carbon emissions,reversing biodiversity loss, and alleviating poverty.
There is a need to reduce disparity and provide
mechanisms for women to gain resources that
include tenure to forestlands for their livelihoods andsubsistence, as well as improve their participation in
adaptation decision-making processes. In consultations and conversations, we saw that women are at
the frontline as key providers of households. Interviews and discussions further showed that womenand their households are contributing to adaptation
through a variety of strategies including diversification of income source and social networking.
When disaster strikes, women and girls bear thebrunt. In a landmark study from the London Schoolof Economics, Neumayer and Plümper (2007) foundthat the higher the magnitude of disaster, the larger
the gender gap. Their analysis of 141 natural disasters between the years 1981 to 2002 revealed thatwomen have lower chances of survival, and those
who survive are less resilient. In the 2004 tsunami in
Banda Aceh, Indonesia 55 to 70% of the victims

were women. Women who were already impoverished lost their meager livelihood and fell into greater
depths of poverty.
The same empirical study also showed thatwomen and girls are more likely to be exposed togender-based violence and trauma during theseoccurrences. In the aftermath of disasters, womenlack access to essential services, including obstetricand gynecological services. This makes them more
vulnerable to sexual and reproductive health risks
and injustices, such as sexual violence and sexuallytransmitted infections; other communicable diseases(during and after pregnancies) such as malaria anddengue; pre- and postnatal complications (during
and after disasters); and unwanted pregnancies due
to forced marriages and prostitution. (Neumayer andPlümper 2007).
An Accidental Outcome
While undertaking the regional scoping study program, the country partners, confronted by the challenges of engaging with policy makers, felt there
must be a better way and more engaging manner todraw the attention of policy makers to recognize
women’s commitment and contributions for reducing
impacts of climate change. At the regional researchmeeting in Manila 2015, a decision was made toapply for a small grant from the Danish Family Planning Association to produce two documentaries outof the eight-country study. Due to fund size and geographical proximity, the Philippines and Malaysia
were selected to pilot this initiative with Path Foundation as the key initiator and project leader. The visual
documentary project was undertaken with the support of young Filipino filmmaker Inshallah Montero.
The success of this visual documentary initiative
is beyond expectation. Both the Malaysian and­P hilippine documentaries were shown at various
key conferences and policy meetings including theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) meetings at Paris (2015) andMarrakesh (2016).
In the documentaries the findings of the scoping
studies were made visible and told in the voices of
the women. Stories told by the women in Sarawak
were shown to other local communities (including
indigenous communities) to motivate climate-related
action. The visual documentary helped widen theoutreach of understanding gender discrimination,
women’s contribution and climate impacts. It has
also helped build solidarity and united the womenleaders to articulate their concerns and stories inrelation to natural environment and peaceful living.
The eight-country studies and the two visual­d ocumentaries have helped strengthen advocacy

and building the context for the ASEAN Gender
Mainstreaming Guidelines for Climate Adaptationand Mitigation (2016). This is a significant contribution towards policy advocacy.
We found that the process of filming had resulted
in increasing the confidence of the participating
indigenous women leaders as they told their stories
and articulated their concerns. Secondly, the voicesof the participating indigenous women leaders areheard in spaces that they would not be present due
to limitations of access and mobility. Thirdly, the process significantly helped us celebrate the contribution of women at a grassroots level in building­climate resilience of their respective communities.
Even women themselves neglect to recognize theroles and achievements made to strengthen community resilience against climate impacts.
It is undeniable that the visual documentary helped
breakdown many barriers and ensure that voices
and stories are heard the way they are told. The recognition came in December 2016, as one of the top
four best documentaries selected by the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
and the Japan Foundation Asia Center helped
strengthen the efforts to promote more attention on
how environmental ­governance impacts rural as wellas indigenous communities. This visual documentary
as well as the scoping studies helped highlight theneed for greater understanding, solidarity, inclusionand peaceful co-existence with our naturalenvironment.

References
Arnstein, S. R. 1969. A Ladder of Citizen Participation. Journalof American Institute of Planning 35(4): 216–224.
Asian Development Bank (ADB). 2011. Accounting for HealthImpacts of Climate Change. Available at http://www.adb.org/
sites/default/files/publication/28976/heath-impacts-climate-change.pdf. Accessed February 12, 2017.
Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women(ARROW). 2014. Identifying Opportunities for Action on­C limate Change and Sexual and Reproductive Healthand Rights in Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Available at http://arrow.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/
Climate-Change-and-SRHR-Scoping-Study_WorkingPaper_2014.pdf. Accessed February 12, 2017.
——. 2016. Malaysia Advocacy Brief on Climate Change andSexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Available at http://arrow.org.my/publication/malaysia-advocacybrief-climate-change-srhr/. Accessed February 12, 2017.
Dankelman, I. 2011. Climate Change is Not Gender-Neutral:
Realities on the Ground. Public Hearing on “Women and­Climate Change,” European Parliament, 11 October 2011,
Netherlands. Available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
document/activities/cont/201110/20111019ATT29752/20111
019ATT29752EN.pdf. Accessed January 10, 2017.
Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific (ESCAP);
and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction(UNISDR). 2012. Reducing Vulnerability and Exposure to
Disasters: The Asia Pacific Disaster Report 2012. Bangkok:
ESCAP; UNIDSR.
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). 2009.
Climate Change Impacts in the Asia Pacific Region.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth
Assessment Report 2014. Available at http://www.ipcc.ch/
pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf.
Accessed February 10, 2017.
Mekonnen, M. M.; and Hoekstra, A. Y. 2016. Science Advances2(2). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1500323.
Neumayer, E.; and Plümper, T. 2007. The Gendered Nature of
Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the
Gender Gap in Life Expectancy 1981–2002. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 97(3): 551–566.
Philippines, P. F. (Producer); and Montero, I. (Director). 2015.
Women of the Forest: The Hidden Burdens of Climate
Change [Motion Picture]. Available at https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=2PrRN5YLa_U. Accessed January 10, 2017.
UN Foundation. n.d. Briefing Cards: Sexual and Reproductive
Health and Rights (SRHR) and the Post-2015 Development
Agenda. Available at http://www.unfoundation.org/whatwe-do/campaigns-and-initiatives/universal-access-project/
briefing-cards-srhr.pdf. Accessed January 10, 2017.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University
013

Fig. 3 Young Filipino
Filmmaker Inshallah Montero(seated fourth from left).

The most valuable booksof the Silliman University
Library were hidden in avault, but were eventuallyfound by the Japanese andflooded with water. Photofrom Wilson Library
Bulletin, October 1945.

Bookstores, Beauty Parlors, and Weapons:
Philippine Book History and the Japanese Occupation
Vernon R. Totanes
Visiting Research Scholar, CSEASMNEWSLETTER
No. 75014

any, if not most, Filipinos are not avid readers.
In 1935, former National Library Director Eulogio
Rodriguez noted that trains in the Philippines were
often noisier than their counterparts in Japan because Filipino passengers tended to chat with theircompanions, while Japanese passengers usually
read newspapers or other publications (Rodriguez
1935, 3). In 1942, members of the Japanese Propaganda Corps made no such comparisons during
their first few weeks in Manila, but they did observethat Filipinos seemed to value beauty parlors morethan bookstores. The former were everywhere, but
the latter were very few, and many of them—approximately 85 of 125—were selling all sorts of merchandise, not just books (Terami-Wada 1991, 180).
Yet the publication and distribution of newspapers
and books was heavily regulated by the JapaneseMilitary Administration from 1942 to 1945. Publishers
were required to obtain permits prior to the publication of books and other printed matter, bookstoresand libraries had to submit their holdings for examination, and even owners of mimeographing machines
were ordered to register their equipment with theproper authorities. The seemingly benign businessof textbook publishing and distribution was notspared. Within a few months, classes resumed underJapanese rule and many textbooks adopted during

the American period were used once again, but
pages depicting the United States in a favorable
light were eliminated or, if they were deemed proAmerican in their entirety, banned completely (ibid.,
187–188; Agoncillo 1965, Vol. 1, 439–442).
More often than not, professional or scholarly
appraisals of Philippine libraries during or after theJapanese Occupation have highlighted the quantityof printed matter destroyed during the Battle of
Manila in 1945. According to Gabriel Bernardo, thelibrarian who led the effort to rebuild libraries after
the war, the National Library of the Philippines and its
branches “salvaged about 36,600 volumes out of its
aggregate collection of 733,000 volumes and pamphlets,” while the University of the Philippines librarywas “completely destroyed, with the exception of
about 3,000 volumes [of about 147,000 volumes]
returned by borrowers after the liberation” (Ocampo2004). Approximately 5% and 2%, respectively,
remained of two of the largest library collections in
the Philippines after the Battle of Manila. All otherlibraries and bookstores, whether large or small,
public or private, were probably lucky if they wereable to save that many books.
This article, however, does not focus on the books
that were lost during the Japanese occupation of thePhilippines. Instead, this article attempts to recon-struct the field of book production—or, more accurately, book destruction and survival—from the pointof view of authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers. Based on the limited sources available, this preliminary study puts together fragments from official
documents, contemporary accounts, and othersources that mention the Americans and Filipinos
involved in the publication, manufacture, distribution,
reception, and survival of books and other printed
matter (Adams and Barker 1993) as a first step
toward assessing the negative and, perhaps surprisingly, positive effects of the Japanese Occupation on
Philippine book history.
Destruction

015

Fig. 1 Hugo Miller, Philippine
representative of Ginn andCompany, was beheaded by
Japanese soldiers in 1943. Drawing
courtesy of Rotary Club of Manila.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Despite the Filipinos’ relative lack of enthusiasm forreading, the Japanese regulation of books and otherprinted matter was not entirely unjustified. After all,then-US President Franklin Roosevelt did declarethat “No man and no force can take from the world
the books that embody man’s eternal fight against
tyranny of every kind. In this war, we know, books areweapons” (Manning 2014, 48). This assertion eventually turned the Philippines into a stockpiling location for copies of overseas editions that the US published for post-liberation distribution. And while
copies of the armed services editions, which wereintended to keep soldiers occupied during downtimes (ibid.; Hench 2010, 104), undoubtedly madetheir way into the hands of some Filipinos, there is­little evidence that these books made much of an
impact on the conduct of war against the Japanesein the Philippines.
More evidence is available that Americans viewed
books not as weapons, but as products to be sold toFilipinos. In 1943, Publisher’s Weekly (PW) reported
that the Philippine Education Co. (or PECO)—“thelargest book and stationery firm in the Philippines,
and the largest American firm in [that] business in
the Far East” (Tribune 1939, 46)—had been “strippedand padlocked and never reopened” (PW 1943, 29).
In 1947, PW proclaimed that the Philippines was theNo. 1 importer of US books, and noted that while thiswas due in part to textbook purchases for publicschools, almost 75% of recent orders were for trade
books, not textbooks. The same article goes on tolament the destruction of Manila’s publishing facilities during the war, lauds PECO’s successful reopening, and notes the great conditions in the Philippinesfor American publishers, including favorable trade
regulations and the widespread use of English.
Perhaps most striking of all, in hindsight, is that all
except one of those quoted in these stories, as wellas the names of those reported as missing, were
Americans. Of the five PECO officials alluded to in

the 1943 article, three were mentioned again in the1947 article: Verne Miller, who was on vacation in the
US when war broke out, was PECO’s president when
he died of illness in 1943; and David Gunnell andRobert Miller, who were among the Americans
interned at the UST prison camp in Manila, resumed
work at PECO as president and vice president,
respectively, after the war ended.
Not all American civilians in Manila, however, werebusinessmen. Leila Maynard, another internee at
UST, later wrote about her experience during the war
as one of the few given the opportunity—in addition
to their camp assignments—to review and catalog
previously uncatalogued books that were found in
UST’s Library, and how the library served as a sanctuary from “semi-starvation, monotony, and petty
persecutions” (Maynard 2001, 562). The books she
catalogued were among the few that survived thewar. Outside Manila, Edith Carson, the wife of Silliman
University’s president, recalled fleeing to the mountains of Negros, and—along with the Americans andFilipinos with their group—found comfort in the few
books they were able to bring with them. She later
learned that books from the Silliman University
Library, which had been hidden in a vault, were “subsequently found by the Japanese and flooded withwater” (Carson 1945, 139).
Perhaps the most tragic book-related story wasthat of Hugo Miller, who began working in the new
US colony as a teacher in 1906 and worked his way
up the hierarchy in the public school system, while
also writing textbooks. In 1917, Miller joined Ginn
and Company as its Philippine representative, andwas responsible for hiring the first Filipino authors
who wrote textbooks specifically for the Philippine
market. Since the textbooks were tailored for Filipino
students, their adoption for use in all public schools,
as well as Ginn’s subsequent dominance, was practically guaranteed. After the war broke out, Miller

joined the US Navy, and in 1944 was captured,beheaded, and buried in a shallow grave by Japanese soldiers. No one witnessed his execution, but
the facts were established later by those whorecalled that after Miller disappeared, dogs wereobserved digging holes near a tree and dragging
bones away (Supreme Court 1958; Testimony 1946).
Reconstruction
Sources that establish how Filipinos involved in thebook trade died during the war have not been found,but there are a few that tell us what happened to theFilipinos who survived. A Brief History of the Philippines
by Leandro Fernandez, published by Ginn and commissioned by Miller, was one of the first textbooks
written by a Filipino that was adopted for use in all
public schools. It was also one of the few titles that
the Japanese Military Administration specifically prohibited Filipino students from using. Fernandezbegan teaching at the University of the Philippines(UP) in 1914 and was its history department’s first
Filipino and longest-running chair, serving from 1922
to 1948. What Fernandez did during the war is
uncertain, but it is clear that his house—along withhis collection of rare books—burned sometime

NEWSLETTER
No. 75016

Fig. 2 Placido Urbanes, Jr., escaped a massacre in 1945 and went on to
become a successful publisher of trade magazines. Photo by Albert
Ravenholt, courtesy of UP Diliman Main Library.

before 1945, and that he died of hypertension in1948 (Totanes 2012, 97, 108). His educational background and contacts as a UP professor probably
helped shield him from Japanese aggression. Manyothers had no such luck.
In January 1945, Jun Urbanes was 16 years oldwhen he and about 300 other men in La Union wererounded up, tied with rope, and marched to thebeach, where the Japanese began bayoneting theFilipinos and using their swords to behead them.
Urbanes recalled that “When the man in front of me
was bayoneted through the stomach, the blade
came out behind and cut the rope on my wrists. I
jumped aside and ran toward the sea. A Jap officer
chased after me, chopping me with his sword like I
was an animal.” He fell into the water and lost consciousness, which probably saved him because
when he awoke, the Japanese officer was gone andhe was able to run and hide (Ravenholt 1968, 4–5).
Collecting his father’s life insurance and some war
damage payments from the US made it possible for
Urbanes to finish his schooling, and get into publishing as a messenger, proofreader, correspondent,
and eventually a successful publisher of trade magazines. War reparations from Japan later helped him
acquire offset presses and other equipment. The
article ends with him saying, “there are enough ordinary people who have confidence, who remember
how we have risen since the war, and who believethat this country can keep moving” (ibid., 15).
While the Japanese Occupation was devastating
for Filipinos in many ways, the reconstruction thattook place after the war made it possible for Urbanes
and other survivors like him to enter businesses likepublishing, which were previously dominated byAmericans. Perhaps the most successful of theFilipinos who ventured into the book business after
the war were Jose and Socorro Ramos. Before war
broke out, the Ramoses met at what would eventually be known as the original National Book Store(NBS), which was not really a store, but a rented corner in a larger shop (de Manila 1977). Theirs mayvery well have been one of the bookstores that theJapanese Propaganda Corps observed selling not
only books, but many other kinds of merchandise as
well.
While Socorro Ramos does not attribute her success to the Japanese, the NBS story that she tells
always goes back to her experiences during the war,
when she learned to sell her goods by approaching
Japanese shopkeepers who tended to shout at her,and negotiated a deal with a Japanese wholesaler
that paid huge dividends after liberation. When
asked why she works so hard, she has been known
to reply that “Maybe it’s the fear of being poor again…” (ibid., 27).

NBS was not mentioned in either of PW’s 1943
or 1947 articles on the Philippine book industry, but
50 years later, PW reminded its readers that thePhilippines was again the No. 1 importer of Americanbooks, recognized the family-owned NBS as “thecountry’s biggest chain” (PW 1997, 17), and named
Socorro, her children, and grandchildren (Jose diedin 1992), along with other Filipinos, as the leaders of
the book industry in the Philippines. In contrast to the1947 article, neither PECO nor the names of any
Americans are mentioned in the 1997 update. This,perhaps, was a sign that the Philippine book industry
had developed significantly over the past five
decades.
However, it is also worth noting that PW had also
become more sensitive to local concerns. Instead ofhighlighting reasons for American publishers to consider the Philippines as a market for their books, thearticle observes that the local publishing industry
was struggling to “gain a foothold against an avalanche of U.S. titles” (ibid.) which were imported
duty-free and sold for less than their cover price indollars, unlike local titles, which could be printed only
on heavily-taxed imported paper and were thus more
expensive than their foreign counterparts of similar
length and print quality.
Conclusion

References
Adams, Thomas; and Barker, Nicolas. 1993. A New Model for
the Study of the Book. In A Potencie of Life: Books in Society,pp. 5–43. London: British Library.
Agoncillo, Teodoro. 1965. The Fateful Years: Japan’s Adventurein the Philippines, 1941–45. 2 vols. Quezon City: R. P.
Garcia.
Carson, Edith. 1945. Books in the Philippine Jungle. Wilson
Library Bulletin 20(2): 137–141.
De Manila, Quijano. 1977. Super Salesgirl: The “Nanay” behinda Miracle of a Firm. n.p.
Fernandez, Leandro H. 1919. A Brief History of the Philippines.
Boston, New York: Ginn and Company.
Hau, Caroline. 2000. Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literatureand the Nation, 1946–1980. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press.
Hench, John. 2010. Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing,
and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Manning, Molly Guptill. 2014. When Books Went to War: The
Stories That Helped Us Win World War II. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt.
Maynard, Leila. 2001. Dusty Sanctuary. In Catalogue of Rare
Books, vol. 1, pp. 557–562. Manila: University of Santo
Tomas Library.
Ocampo, Ambeth. 2004. The Enemies That Books Face.
Philippine Daily Inquirer. April 14. Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/web/20060525193055/http://www.inq7.net/
opi/2004/apr/14/opi_arocampo-1.htm. Accessed February
20, 2014.
Publisher’s Weekly (PW). 1943. Fate of Manila Booksellers. January 2, pp. 29–30.
———. 1947. The Philippine Republic as a Market for American
Books. June 14, pp. 2938–2940.
———. 1997. The Philippines: No. 1 Asian Market for U.S.
Trade Books. April 21, pp. 17–18.
Ravenholt, Albert. 1968. Placido Urbanes, Jr.: The Making ofa Publisher. New York: American Universities Field Staff.
Rodriguez, Eulogio. 1935. Do the Filipinos in General Read
Much or Little? Manila: Santo Tomas University Press.
Supreme Court. 1958. G.R. Nos. L-9456 and L-9481, 6 January
1958. The Lawphil Project, http://www.lawphil.net/judjuris/juri1958/jan1958/gr_l-9456_1958.html.
Terami-Wada, Motoe. 1991. The Japanese Propaganda Corpsin the Philippines: Laying the Foundation. In Japanese
Cultural Policies in Southeast Asia during World War 2,
pp. 173–211. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Testimony. 1946. Pablito Kawabata, December 26. In Allied
Operational & Occupation Headquarters, World War II,“Miller, Hugo – 201 file,” Box 1848, Record Group 331.
National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
Totanes, Vernon. 2012. History of the Filipino History Book.
Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto.
Tribune XIV Anniversary. 1939. Philippine Education Company,
Incorporated. June 17, pp. 46–47.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Many, if not most, Filipinos are not avid readers, so
why did the Japanese Military Administration crack
down on books and other printed matter—as well as
the Americans and Filipinos who published, distributed, and read them—during World War II? Were theJapanese just being paranoid? Perhaps. But it isalso quite possible that they understood Filipinos ina way that has yet to be fully explored by scholars.
Caroline Hau argues that the influence of Jose
Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere—the best-known work by aFilipino ever to be banned by any government—
stems not so much from its impact on the few who
understood it, but its effect “on those who could not
and did not read it” (Hau 2000, 51). Hau elaborates
further by asserting that the controversy surrounding
the book, while effectively limiting the distribution of
Rizal’s novel, actually encouraged the disseminationof Rizal’s ideas in the form of rumors.
By regulating the distribution of books and otherprinted matter, the Japanese effectively limited thenumber of Filipinos who could read them, as well as
the number of Filipinos whom they could tell about
what they read. And with the Filipino penchant forchatting on trains, as Rodriguez observed in 1935, orfor going to beauty parlors (and chatting there), as
the Japanese noticed in 1942, an unauthorized pub-lication read by one Filipino could very well—andprobably did—prove that Roosevelt was right when
he asserted that books are weapons.

017

REPORT

Visual Documentary Project 2016
Mario Lopez
Associate Professor, CSEAS

Audience watching Mr. Zero (2016, Dir. Nutcha Tantivitayapitak) in Chiang Mai, ThailandO

NEWSLETTER
No. 75018

ver the past couple of years, the Visual Documentary Project (VDP) has gone from strength
to strength. Originally set up as a small project in2012 to create a bridge between academia andfilmmakers based in Southeast Asia, the VDP has
developed into platform that is invigorating discussions on how documentaries can help us to rethink
the ways issues are framed within the region. Since
2015, CSEAS has not only screened documentaries
submitted to the project, but become a hub helping toraise the profile of young and upcoming filmmakers
trained and practicing in Southeast Asia. The project
has submitted documentaries to the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival providing past selections
for viewing to the general public, hosted talks by­international renowned documentary filmmakers
such as Rithy Panh, and increasingly linked up withfilm institutions and universities in the region to sharethe fruits of this unique endeavor.
In December 2016, CSEAS held its 5th Visual Documentary Project screenings in Kyoto and Tokyo incollaboration with the Japan Foundation Asia Center
under the theme of politics in everyday life. Scholars
have long engaged in the ways that people construe,
perceive, and participate in politics in Southeast
Asia. This year we wanted to know how Southeast
Asians represent political issues of interest to them.
What kinds of everyday interactions shape the very
ideas of politics people aspire to? What politicaldreams do they have? We frequently see publicdemonstrations in Southeast Asian countries on our
televisions screens and newspapers, but these areoften fleeting and cursory. How then do documentary
filmmakers engage with current issues and what can
we learn from them on a deeper level?
The project received an unprecedented 75 documentaries from around the region. Topics in the­documentaries ranged from human rights violations;urban protests; war and memory; human trafficking;propaganda in education; satire and its limits; political critique of regimes; and the illegal dispossessionof land. All of these issues stretch across Southeast
Asian societies, ranging from the intimacy of thehome and everyday politics of human relations, tohow states have reacted to people’s demands for
greater political representation. What stood out thisyear was 32 submissions from Myanmar, all of
exceptionally high quality which made selection achallenge.
Since democratic reform in the late 2000s, change
has been swift in this Southeast Asian nation with an
ethnically diverse population of just over 50 million.
This change has led to not just a political “opening,”
but we are now witnessing a new milieu in whichpeople have urgent stories to tell. What was a trickle
of submissions in the first year of this project, has
now substantially increased. This caught everyone
by surprise, but reaffirms our convictions in offering

a platform for Southeast Asians to present politicalissues on their own terms.
This year’s selection was from Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand and all engaged the politicalfrom an intimate through to a public level. Women of
the Forest: The Hidden Burden of Climate Change(2015, Dir. Inshallah Montero), focuses on The Punan
and Kayan indigenous peoples living in the forests ofSarawak, Western Malaysia (North Borneo). Over the
past 20 years, they have become the victims of environmental degradation brought about by massive
logging induced by the development of large-scale
palm oil plantations. This film is a unique collaboration with Sunitha Bisan (see this issue) who trained in
gender and development studies, and is a graduate
from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand. Sunitha’s work on gender and sustainable development focusing on community based
gender education, advocacy and knowledge bridging was a fundamental guide for Inshallah who wasleft to fend for herself in the community she lived andfilmed in. The interaction between film and academia
can be a compelling format to raise attention towardhow ­climate change, flooding, droughts, crop failures can have very explicit gendered impacts.
Women of the Forest allows us to consider the
impact of ecosystem functions and their impacts oncommunities when they are damaged. It also brings
into relief how communities can be seen in terms ofclass, economic background, resilience and fragility,
and sexual and reproductive health. Bringing theseissues to the screen lets us visually engage in bodypolitics, and who has rights to bodies and this is
made starkly clear through the focus on the influx oflogging companies, migrant worker men and thepressures they place on women in the community.
What is clear is that as human-induced climatechange reorders the environment, women are verymuch on the front-line.
Vein (2015, Dirs. Htet Aung San, Phyo Zayar Kyaw,
Ko Jet), shot in the Kachin state, focuses on the livesof migrant workers on mining sites searching forjade. Along with Myanmar’s ongoing transition todemocracy, its abundant natural resources havebecome a source of economic hope and tension.
With no clear figures on how many corporations andillegal mines are active in the region, jade is a tensesource of income for both the Kachin Independence
Army and Burmese state forces. As Myanmar has
opened up, we also see its veins exposed and thisvisceral documentary presents the viewer with thesense of a “gold rush” and a stark portrayal of theeveryday risks miners face. Opening with a landslide,
we are confronted with raw phone footage of workers being dug up after being buried by a landslide
while attempting to dig for their livelihoods. The doc-

umentary tracks a number of persons and presents
their narratives within the broader context of natural
resources exploitation and ensuring human tragedy.
Attempting to capture the precariousness of work at
the mines, the directors—at some risk to themselves—take long panoramic shots up cliff faces on
the verge of collapse; track the flickering torches ofworkers scrambling over mined rock dumped into
midnight quarries dwarfed by colossal dump trucks;
and train the viewer’s senses on the cascading rocks
that threaten life. Jade has recently caught theattention of other Burmese directors (Taiwan based
director Midi Z [2016, City of Jade]) but this documentary is unrivalled in bringing home the brutal
reality of migrant workers living on the edges of thenation state.
Mother and Son (2016, Dir. Thwe Myo Nyunt, YFS
see this issue) presents the sensitive story of Thet
Win Aung (1971–2006), a young man who became
involved in pro-democracy demonstrations in 1998.
He was arrested, sentenced to 52 years, and died inconfinement. It relates the sacrifices made by a generation and the burden placed upon those that survived them. The mother, Mya Mya Win relates her
experiences and reflects upon their personal anguishbringing home the very heavy costs of political activism. The uniqueness of the documentary rests in the
detached narrative; viewers are transported into theroom as the mother speaks of her son, sharing­p hotos and memories, while her husband, Win
Maung sits silently in the background. Viewers are
asked to meditate on the meaning of death for political convictions. Interspersed with film footage fromthe Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) archive fromthe 1988 protests, the documentary moves backward and forwards from 1988 to the present weaving
a narrative that joins us to the past. In one scene weare confronted with the former Burma Socialist

Fig. 1 Directors at the Tokyo Women’s Plaza, Tokyo, December 17, 2016.

Fig. 2 Scene from Vein (2015, Dirs. Htet Aung San, Phyo Zayar Kyaw, Ko Jet)

NEWSLETTER
No. 75020­ rogramme Party Chairman General Ne Win, defiantlyP
stating the Burmese army will show no mercy if riots
continue. The documentary finishes in 2015 at theheight of student protests against the 2015 national
education bill and ties into another submission
selected from Myanmar, 60 Days.
60 Days (2016, Dirs. Htut Ye Kyaw, Sett Paing
Aung, Pyay Maw Thein), deals with the recent 2015
student protests that arose after the transition todemocracy from Thein Sein’s government. Enacted
in September 2014, the Burmese national education
bill led to protests from students who felt it would
infringe on their academic freedoms. Even thoughamendments were made to the bill, students intensified their protests dissatisfied with the government’s
stance. This led to harsh police crackdowns whichwere denounced in the West and cursorily coveredby the media. The crackdowns were impetus for students to galvanize and organize themselves andenhanced their cause within Myanmar. Viewers arepresented with actual footage of the activist students
organizing and planning for their march and follow
Ko Zayyar Lwin, then student president of the Yangon
University, Economic Student Union narrating theirreasons for protesting. 60 Days offers a balanced
take on what was at stake with in-depth discussions
with representatives from the National Network Education Reform (NNER), Myanmar’s Teacher Federation, and Dr. Yin Yin New, Chief Education Advisor to
the President of the Republic. This documentary is alabor of love that captures the tensions that existed
at the time between students and the government.
The final scene captures a tense standoff with armed

forces leading to the arrest of students (who were all
subsequently released) and reminds us of the excessive crackdowns of 1988. The political message inthis documentary and the others from Myanmar area clear indication that a new milieu prevails with
documentary filmmakers at the vanguard of witnessing and capturing changes in country.
A final mention must go to Mr. Zero (2016, Dir.
Nutcha Tantivitayapitak). Originally scheduled forscreening at CSEAS, due to political uncertainty in
Thailand the screening of this documentary had to
be delayed. Mr. Zero is a poetic, calm meditationon the conflict between human rationality and theunreasonable reign of power. With a close focus on
Aneeya’s personality, the documentary hovers on theborder of reality and fiction. What happens when aperson’s life and thoughts become bodily subjected
to political pressures? In subtle fashion, Mr. Zerodirectly tackles this year’s theme: how to document
politics in the midst of a person’s life. The documentary shot through Aneeya’s everyday life provides us
with an intimate portrayal of an elder intellectual who
poses as and narrates through the voice of John
Lennon. Aneeya talks interspersing his own private
life through every day scenery and juxtaposing hislife with his inner self (through John Lennon). However, the episodes he narrates are harsh. In 1973, he
was involved in the democracy movement, and hassince been arrested many times, during which time
he was tortured/treated by electrocution, which hedescribes in graphic detail. In a longer unedited
version of the documentary, Aneeya reenacts thiswith the camera hovering directly over his head.

Fig. 3 Scene from Mother and Son (2016, Dir. Thwe Myo Nyunt)­ ultiple hands reach into his nose and mouth, trying
M
to force it open in a scene of intimate bodily violence.
This can read as a metaphor of futility against power,
but also resistance against it. Part way through thefilm, discussing the possibilities of democracy at abar, the documentary slips into self-censorship. A
goldfish and the sound of water slowed down, provide
a metaphor on the limits of speech and a suggestive
icon of oppression. Through this disconcerting documentary, the camera traces Aneeya not just in voice,but in body: at one point he submerges his head in awater cistern and starts to sing, “the more I look at
the world, the greater its complexity . . . it is like a play,”
his muffled yet projected voice reflecting the tension
implicit in what can be said and where. Mr. Zero provides us with the opportunity to think about the multiple layers from larger Thai modern history to individual life history.

Through its links and deeper ties with film schools,
institutes and universities in the region, CSEAS willcontinue to promote dynamic documentary filmmaking
in the region, raise the profile of young filmmakers,
and continue to develop productive interfaces
between academia and visual documentary inSoutheast Asia.

For more on the Visual Documentary Project
Site
https://sea-sh.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/vdp2016/
Viddsee Visual Documentary Channel
https://www.viddsee.com/channel/visualdocumentaryprojectCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University021

Basic training at YFS with Sound Tutor Kyaw Ko Ko (center)

The Yangon Film School (YFS)
Lindsey Merrison
Founder, Yangon Film School

F

NEWSLETTER
No. 75022

ounded by Anglo-Burmese filmmaker Lindsey
Merrison in 2005, the Yangon Film School (YFS)
is an award-winning non-profit organization registered in Myanmar that was created in order to train
and support a diverse community of young filmmakers
and media workers in Myanmar, thereby promoting
the country’s transition to a democratic nation. Since
its first pioneering residential workshop in 2005, thetrainings, and the cinematic output, have gone fromstrength to strength.
In 11 years of activity and, in spite of numerous
constraints under the previous military government,
YFS has held more than 70 training courses andworkshops and provided solid skills free of charge toalmost 200 students from 11 different ethnicities.
Over 70% of YFS alumni are still working in the media
and/or using film in their development work. In thelast decade YFS has produced over 180 films, manyof which have screened at 220 festivals at home andabroad and 24 of which—including Lady of the Lake,
Tyres, Missing, Last Kiss, Behind the Screen, The
Bamboo Grove and Myanmar’s first feature-length
documentary Nargis: When Time Stopped Breathing
have won some of the first awards ever bestowed on
films from Myanmar.
Recent award-winning titles filmed in eight ofMyanmar’s states and regions by multi-ethnic crews
explore such diverse topics as living with HIV (TheMusic Lover), the personal consequences of politicalactivism (Mother & Son, A Political Life), the challengesof the rural poor (Sugar & Spice, Slate, To School),the rights of people living with disabilities (Lovely
Bones) and climate change (The Crocodile Creek).
The YFS Approach
YFS regularly brings together experienced filmmakers
from around the world and young Myanmar men andwomen from all over Myanmar, some of whom havelittle or no prior experience in media, for intensive,
often residential film trainings held primarily in Yangon,
on many aspects of filmmaking—but with a particular emphasis on documentary.

Fig. 1 YFS students Khin Warso (on camera) from Mon State
and Arrow Luck from central Myanmar during basic trainingFig. 2 YFS editing trainer Zaw Naing Oo (left) introduces Kayin YFS student
Saw Eh Doh Poe to non-linear editing software. They are observed by fellowstudents Ngwe Ngwe Khine (right, from Rakhine State) and Sai Naw Kham(left, from Shan State).

023

In 2008, the School added screenwriting and documentary-influenced fictional filmmaking known as“True Fictions” to its curriculum. This approach has
already resulted in award-winning and high profile
short films, such as Missing. One of the first cinematic works to broach the wrongs of the previous
military government in Myanmar, this film has had adeep effect on audiences.
An 8-part drama series about the rule of law, The
Sun, the Moon and the Truth, which was edited andpost-produced by YFS, was seen by over five million
people in Myanmar; YFS was recently commissioned
to create the 12 x 30-minute scripts for Season Two of
this series. Thanks to a train-to-teach programme
begun in 2009, many YFS graduates are now passing on their skills to their peers. Several courses are
now taught jointly by international and local trainers,
in English and Myanmar language.
Conscious of the parlous state of the country’s
archive holdings, the School cooperated with theGoethe Institut and Memory! Cinema Heritage Film
Festival to train a film archive researcher to assess
some of the nation’s tangible cinematic heritage. The
School made its own first foray into film restoration in2013 when it joined forces with the Goethe Institut
and German company Arri to digitally reconstruct
Maung Wunna’s charming 1972 film Chè Phawa Daw
Nu Nu (Tender are the Feet). The completed restoration opened the Berlinale’s Forum section in 2014
and also enjoyed screenings at festivals in Phnom
Penh, Brisbane, Singapore and Tokyo. A special
Museum Edition DVD containing essays about thefilm and the restoration is due to be released in 2017.
Having begun trainings in participatory video in
2014, the School launched its Travelling Cinema
Programme in the same year. This program sees
students travel to remote and/or rural areas where
they facilitate participatory video workshops to help
local communities create their own short videos
about a topic which affects their lives. YFS students
have since facilitated Travelling Cinema placements
in Chin, Kachin, Rakhine, Shan and peri-urban Yangon,

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

YFS students come from all walks of life—including
film, journalism, literature, photography, fine arts andIT, but also the health and development sectors.
From the outset, the school has been committed totraining members of Myanmar’s many different
ethnicities (40% of students are non-Bamar) andreligious groups and to reaching out to remote communities, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged.
The School operates a policy of gender parity on
courses; many YFS alumni—especially women—
have achieved prominence as filmmakers and are
now spearheading a new generation of cultural andsocial actors, contributing to a more open society.
In 2014 the School joined forces with Search forCommon Ground and Shalom Foundation to delivera six-week documentary training for 12 youths from
Kachin, Kayah, Kayin and Mon, with participants
traveling to these four states to film short documentaries on the topic of identity. Of the four films produced, one—My Leg, about a prosthetics workshop in
Kayah—has screened to acclaim at seven inter­nationalfilm festivals and garnered a Special Mention award.
Having grown steadily over the last decade, theSchool now provides a fully-fledged three-year study
program offering, besides introductory courses indocumentary filmmaking and editing, classes in film
history, analysis, sound design and postproduction,screenwriting, fictional filmmaking and production.
Students are taught to develop a broad range ofskills—creative, ethical, technical, managerial—in
both documentary and fictional filmmaking. They
also learn how to prepare verbal presentations or“pitches” of their projects for YFS fellowships andother grants which may be used towards the production of graduation films in their third year.
In 2006, YFS graduates founded the School’s
production arm, Yangon Film Services, a social
enterprise within the School which produces films for
local and international non-governmental organizations among others, providing students with invaluable opportunities for vocational training in a professional context.
Among almost 40 tailor-made documentaries, promotional films, television series and other audiovisual content produced by Yangon Film Services in
the last decade are films about HIV/AIDS (My Positive
Life, Stigmatize This!), community forestry (Our Forests,
Our Future), vocational training (Rays of Hope, Earnas You Learn), safe migration (The Long Way Home)and children’s rights (Let’s Get on the Bus), as wellas initiatives in rice growing (Fields of Dreams), irrigation (Stepping Up), disaster preparedness (Morethan a Tree) and child-centerd education (the awardwinning A Bright Future). An eye-opening film on
midwifery Myanmar Midwife is now helping to promote better primary health care.

thereby giving a voice to thousands of people in marginalized communities. Topics addressed in theseoften-moving community videos include drug abuse,water contamination as a result of mining, discrimination, the hope of a better life for children; betterworking conditions for tea planters and PLWD, andthe challenges of recovery following flooding.
During the School’s first course in Docu-animation
held at the end of 2016, students learned how to
combine audio-documentary testimonials with animation to create three powerful one-minute spots
against gender-based violence. The School is currently cooperating with a number of partners including the Gender Equality Network (GEN) and theDepartment of Social Welfare to launch these spots
nationwide across a number of platforms on international women’s day on March 8, 2017.
Going Beyond the Film School
In September, 2015 the School was honored toreceive the Japan Art Association’s Grant for
Young Artists Award as part of the prestigious
Praemium Imperiale. This major accolade reflects the
School’s significant achievement in training young
Myanmar filmmakers to world class standards. The

pursuit of artistic freedom and identity is at the heartof the YFS remit. What makes Yangon Film School
unique however, is its ability to work at the interface
between art and development. The School’s activities have far-reaching impacts that go far beyond
film trainings to support many of Myanmar’s needs
as the country transitions to democracy—from bridging divides via cultural expression, strengthening
democratic practices, technological proficiency and“best practice” in the film industry, to expanding economic opportunities and international cooperation,
especially for women and the disadvantaged, andcreating awareness for human rights, including gender and environmental issues.
The School is currently expanding its curriculum tomeet the growing demand in Myanmar for scripted
and non-scripted content. YFS is also restructuring
and strengthening its local management workforce
as part of an exit strategy designed to facilitatetransfer of the School’s operations to a Myanmar-run
administration.
One key to the success of this handover will be
the identification and funding of a permanent home
for the school—a goal for which the school would
like to enlist the support of partners willing to shareits vision including, it is hoped, the new government.

1

2

4

5

3

Fig. 3
1

A Political Life

2015, Dir. Soe Akhar Htun
2

Behind the Screen

NEWSLETTER

2012, Dir. Aung Nwai Htway
3

Missing

2015, Dir. Khin Myanmar
4

Sugar & SpiceNo. 752016, Dir. Mi Mi Lwin
5

Tyres

024

2013, Dir. Kyaw Myo LwinREPORT

40th Southeast Asia Seminar:
The Promise and Challenge of Democracy
in 21st Century Southeast Asia
Mario Lopez

Associate Professor, CSEAS

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Mapping democracy
in group presentations025

Fig. 1 Participants at the regional parliament, Yangon

S

NEWSLETTER
No. 75026

outheast Asia faces uncertainty in its political­development, and central to any discussion onwhat paths countries and the region can take isdemocratic governance. Since the 1980s, a wide
range of experiences with democratic transition havehighlighted the difficulties that characterize the region to this day. While we see increased public participation in democratic processes and the clamoring
for them, this has been accompanied by opposing
trends towards more authoritarian rule. For Southeast Asian citizens, government accountability has
become an increasingly de facto demand despite
the inability of some nations to provide this. However,the number of full-fledged democratic states inSoutheast Asia is still limited. The majority can be
categorized as different types of hybrid regimes
whereby democratic and non-democratic elements
exist side-by-side in the same political system. Thereis great hope for a future of more democratically oriented politics, yet at the same time there is little
ground for optimism about democracy and democratization in twenty-first century Southeast Asia.
To explore these issues, between November
19–22, 2016, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies(CSEAS) and the University of Yangon held a seminar in Yangon. For one week, students from acrossthe region came together to discuss the challengesof democracy in politics, society and natural
resource management, and explore the possibility,
potentiality and probability of democracy in Southeast Asia. Discussions on democracy usually homein on and identify series of political institutions, suchas free and fair elections, national parliaments with
sufficient authority, and competition among politicalparties. However, these do not function without otherbroader conditions such as state governability, therule of law and accountability; a shared sense ofequal citizenship, common and public knowledge ofcivil rights and freedom of speech; economic stability, economic inclusiveness, and physical safety.
Over four days the participants explored the contoursof democracies in the region, discussed the different
meanings citizens ascribe to politics, conceptualizations of what constitutes democracy in the region
and how variegated practices play out in the politics
of natural resources management, social movements, and civil society.
In the opening session his honorable Thura U
Shwe Mann, Chairman of Commission for theAssessment of Legal Affairs and Special Issues at
Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and a Former Speaker of Pyithu
Hluttaw, gave a speech on democratic reform, institutions building and reform processes that were carried out between 2010–16. While Myanmar still hassome way to go, capacity building, fomenting confidence in the competence of the Hluttaw and democratic transformation, accepting criticisms andsuggestions from both the media and the public,
highlight the many challenges ahead.
The seminar worked through three broad sessions,on politics in and of democracy; natural resourcesmanagement; and social movements and civil society. The first session, examined and worked throughinteractions between formal institutions such as elections, the constitution of parliaments and politicalparties, and the increasing pressure for more democratic institutional reforms from inside and outside ofruling elites. The three speakers, Ehito Kimura (University of Hawai‘i), Min Zin (Executive Director of
Institute for Strategy and Policy, Myanmar) and UkristFig. 2 Participants at a group discussion at the
National League for Democracy (NLD)
headquarters speaking to NLD political activists

Fig. 3 Participants listening to group presentations027

social movements in Cambodia and Indonesian’s
government anti-corruption mechanisms and citizens’ responses to them. Both speakers, Sar Mory
(Cambodia Youth Network) and Okamoto Masaaki(CSEAS) critiqued optimistic views on democracy,
and through their case studies highlighted the ongoing complexity of democratization and challenges
toward its implementation.
The Southeast Asia seminar is never complete
without a fieldtrip and a mobile workshop was or­
ganized to deepen students’ understandings of contemporary politics in Myanmar. Participants had theopportunity to talk about the current challenges todemocratization with the Chief Minister of Yangon region and a visit to the regional parliament. This wasfollowed by a visit to the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters to speak to NLD politicalactivists, some of who had been imprisoned for their­activities during the period under military rule. Students also visited Irrawaddy, one of the most active
internet-based media groups in Myanmar to learn
about how news from within Myanmar during the military dictatorship period was broadcast from outside
the country. Holding this kind of seminar in Myanmar
would have been unimaginable five years ago. However this is a testament to the ongoing politicalchanges taking place, that allow open political discussions at an academic level to take place. Although the transition to democracy is a process stillplaying out, CSEAS hopes that it can deepen theseexchanges and continue to foster dialogues withpartner institutions, academics and young students
in the spirit of free open exchanges on Southeast
Asia’s evolving political situations.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Pathmanand (IAS, Chulalongkorn University) all highlighted the real challenges that Southeast Asian
democracies face through a macro-regional perspective while keeping their analytical lens firmly on
the current contexts, conditions and dynamism ofindividual countries.
The second session explored how both development and deterioration of democratic governancehas affected natural resources. The past few
decades have seen governance regimes increasingly
exploit and extract resources from within nationalboundaries not only under the remit of development
agendas focusing on economic growth, but also forexport both within the region and further beyond.
Where natural resources are utilized to further these
agendas, local communities have borne the brunt ofchange and often struggle to resist—often violent
displacements—deforestation, and agrarian management. Political expediency thus, weighs heavily
on identifying “resources” and their subsequent
extraction and the inevitable impact on communities.
In this session, Win Myo Thu (co-founder and managing Director of EcoDev) and Dr. Lye Tuck-Po(School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia)
both detailed the changing political ecologies ofMyanmar and Malaysia and how human societies
interact and impact on the rapidly changing ecopolitical landscape of Southeast Asia.
The final session on social movement and civilsociety scrutinized and questioned the relationshipbetween democracy and the state in Southeast andprovided a detailed examination through case studies from Cambodia and Indonesia. Themes covered
included the increasingly important role of youth

Fig. 4 Former political prisoner Daw Lai Lai relating her
stories to students at the NLD headquarters

Publications

http://www.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/edit/

Kyoto Area Studies on Asia (in Japanese)
Nao Sato.

Akihiko Ohno.

“Memay” Widows Living in
Rural Cambodia: the Social
System Preventing from
Poverty

Weaving the Market:
Traders and Contract
The Rural Hand-weaving
Industry in Laos2017. Kyoto University Press.

2017. Kyoto University Press.

Kyoto CSEAS Series on Asian Studies
Wataru Kusaka.

Lisandro E. Claudio.

Moral Politics in thePhilippines: Inequality,
Democracy and the Urban
Poor

Liberalism and
the Postcolony: Thinking
the State in 20th Century
Philippines

2017. NUS Press and Kyoto
University Press.

2017. NUS Press and Kyoto
University Press.

Frontiers of Area Studies (in Japanese)Vol. 6

Manabu Sengoku, ed.

Yukio Hyashi.

Era of Post-neoliberalism?:
Searching a New Order for
the Future

Capturing Culture
Embodied in People
Information and Field
Science Series 52017. Kyoto University Press.

2017. Kyoto University Press.

Books by Staff

NEWSLETTER

Noriyuki Osada, Yoshihiro Nakanishi, and Toshihiro Kudo.

Toshihiko Kishi.

Myanmar,s 2015 General Elections:
How Aung San Suu Kyi Came to PowerA Handbook of Chinese Past and Present, vol.1-1

2016. University of Tokyo Press. (in Japanese)

2017. Kamogawa Publishing Company. (in Japanese)

No. 75028

Books by Staff
Akira Fukutani, Liang Wu, and Taisho Nakayama, eds.

Yusuke Murakami, ed.

Proceeding of Kyoto University— Nanjing University Sociology and Anthropology
Workshop 2015, KUASU Project Report 11

Development, Integration and Cooperationin Latin America and Asia Pacific2017. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

2016. Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit (KUASU).
(in Japanese and Chinese)

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, ed.

The Blooming Years: Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia
2017. Bangkok: Parbpim Publishing Company.
The Blooming Years brings together articles published from 2013 to 2016 to showcase
the achievements of the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia (https://kyotoreview.org/)
and to celebrate the study of Southeast Asian. The book deals with critical issues
facing the region, from Buddhism, homosexuality, inequality, monarchy to historicalpasts. It also includes short essays written by up and coming scholars who work on
various aspects of Southeast Asia in the column, “Young Academic’s Voice.”

CSEAS JournalSoutheast Asian Studies
https://englishkyoto-seas.org/

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

In 2012, we re-launched Southeast Asian Studies as an all-English journal, alongside its Japanese sister journal, Tonan Ajia Kenkyu. Intended for a regional as well
as global readership, Southeast Asian Studies is published three times a year. The
new journal aims to promote excellent, agenda-setting scholarship and provide aforum for dialogue and collaboration both within and beyond the region. Southeast
Asian Studies engages in wide-ranging and in-depth discussions that are attuned tothe issues, debates, and imperatives within the region, while affirming the importance of learning and sharing ideas on a cross-country, global, and historical scale.
An integral part of the journal’s mandate is to foster scholarship that is capable ofbridging the continuing divide in area studies between the social sciences andhumanities, on the one hand, and the natural ­sciences, on the other hand.

029

Fellows
Visiting Research Scholars, Guest Scholars, and Guest Research
Associates at CSEAS

E

ach year CSEAS accepts applicants about 14 positions for scholars and researchers who work on Southeast Asia, or any one of the countries in that region, tospend 3 to 12 months in Kyoto to conduct research, write,or pursue other scholarly activities in connection with theirfield of study. Since 1975, more than 350 distinguishedscholars have availed themselves of the Center’s considerable scholarly resources and enjoyed the invigorating­atmosphere of scenic Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japanand the main repository of the country’s cultural treasures,to pursue their interests in Southeast Asian area studies.
The Center’s multi-disciplinary character and the diverse
research interests of its faculty offer visiting scholars an
ideal opportunity for the exchange of ideas and the cultivation of comparative perspectives. The highly competitive
selection process has brought to the Center in recent
years researchers from Southeast Asian countries, Bangladesh, China, Korea, and western countries including theUnited States and France. The visiting fellows represent
various basic disciplines in their study of Southeast Asia,and their official posts in their home institutions include

Name

Periodteacher, researcher, librarian, journalist, and NGO worker.
Information and Technology (IT) experts who conduct­research on Southeast Asia are also joining the Center, notonly to manage various database systems but also to construct academic networks for area study throughout theworld. Successful applicants receive an appropriate­stipend to cover international travel, housing, and living­expenses in Kyoto. Research funds will also be provided
to facilitate his/her work. Funds will also be allocated fordomestic travel, subject to government regulations, and anumber of other facilities are available to visiting scholars.
Fellows will be expected to reside in Kyoto for the durationof their fellowship period. Fellows are normally invited todeliver a public lecture during their term at the Center andencouraged to submit an article for possible publication in
the Center’s journal, Southeast Asian Studies and to­contribute to the online journal Kyoto Review of Southeast
Asia. CSEAS also received researchers, both Japaneseand foreign, who visit on their own funds or on external
fellowships.

Position/Affiliation

Research Title

Vernon del Rosario Totanes

2016/11/1–2017/4/30

Director, Rizal Library, Loyola Schools,
Ateneo de Manila University

Promoting the CSEAS Library as a Venue for
Research on Philippine Studies

Claudio Sopranzetti

2017/1/10–4/9

Researcher and Lecturer, All Souls College,
University of Oxford

Fragility of Power in Thailand: The Unravelingof Royalism in Contemporary Thailand

Saiful Umam

2017/1/10–4/9

Associate Professor, State Islamic University
Jakarta

Other Javanese Islam: Pegon Books and the
Localization of Islamic Orthodoxy in Java

Wan Abdul Manan Bin Wan Muda

2017/1/10–7/9

Professor, School of Health Sciences,
Universiti Sains Malaysia

Obesity and Ethnicity in Malaysia andThailand

Kevin John Hewison

2017/1/10–7/9

Editor-in-chief, Journal of Contemporary Asia

Cold War Alliances: The U.S.,­Counterinsurgency and the Making of theModern Monarchy

Weera Ostapirat2017/3/1–8/31

Associate Professor, Research Institute for
Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol
University

Linguistic Past and Present of the Palaung
People of the Myanmar-China Border Area

Robert Henry Taylor

2017/3/13–6/12

Professorial Research Associate, School ofOriental and African Studies, University of
LondonArmies in the Politics of South East Asia

NEWSLETTER
No. 75030

Cherry Trees in the Courtyard
and My Memory at CSEAS
Nishibuchi Mitsuaki
Professor, CSEAS

E

confirm solid year-by-year growth of the trees thanks
to the efforts of very good caretakers; they still keep
growing day and night and show up very nicely evenin the rain and snow. Not only has the size of thetrees, but also the change in the morphology of theblossoms shown sign of growth and early maturationof the trees. The picture illustrated on the back over
was taken in the early morning in 2014; the plates ofthe blossoms became dense enough to change theircolors in a fascinating fashion in harmony withchanging background colors of the sky during themorning – day – night shifts. Two years later, last
spring, they became voluptuous and stimulated me
to shoot their very beautiful figures in the depths ofnight with the aid of artificial illumination. I cannot
imagine how much more fabulously they will blossom this coming spring.
Of the two big cherry trees, the one planted near
the Inamori building is more appealing to me, but theother one which looks a little younger, but is growing
more vividly, may appear more attractive to others.
I am tempted to compare this ever-growing pair to
our newly inaugurated CSEAS. I therefore decided in
my mind for them to be the symbolic trees of CSEAS
and encourage my laboratory members to keep
growing with an aim of going “beyond the boundaries” just like the pair of ever-growing cherry-trees.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

very year, the cherry trees growing the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies (CSEAS) courtyard of
the area study building complex located to the eastof the Inamori memorial building entertain us when
the cherry blossoms bloom in spring. However, it was
no so long ago when the cherry trees were planted.
Twenty years ago, when I first started at CSEAS,
there was a big incinerator in their place. The chimneyof the incinerator discharged dense clouds of blacksmoke when a cleaning lady threw our garbage into
it on an almost daily basis. Sometime after I settled
down enough at the center, I was appointed as chairof the building management committee of our centerand my first big mission was to fight to stop theblack smoke from the chimney and the white smokefrom tobacco lovers for the health of CSEAS members in general. My long-lasting struggle against theblack & white smoke ended when we found a reliable garbage-disposal company and establishednon-smoking rules. The cherry trees then successfully occupied “the incinerator slot.” I still believe theend results are my best contribution to the center. Ona peaceful day and/or on a dreaming night in springwhen I can confirm that the growth of the cherrytrees has more beautiful blossom than the previous
year, it diminishes my smoky memory and prompts
me to record the growing cherry trees on film.
A comparative observation of the pictures can

031

Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 46 Shimoadachi-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
Tel: +81-75-753-7302 Fax: +81-75-753-7350
京都大学東南アジア地域研究研究所 〒606-8501 京都市左京区吉田下阿達町46 Tel: 075-753-7302 Fax: 075-753-7350
Editors: Mario Lopez, Shitara Narumi
Date of Issue: Spring 2017

〈編集〉マリオ・ロペズ

設楽 成実

ISSN 2185-663X