SPRING/SUMMER 2018

76

NO.

Contents
003

Editorial
Mario Lopez

004

The Military in Southeast Asian Politics: Playing or Controlling?
Robert Taylor

007

Thai Popular Culture: A New Player in Asia Media Circulation and Chinese Censorship
Amporn Jirattikorn

010

Conference Summary Report

SEASIA 2017 “Unity in Diversity: Transgressive Southeast Asia”
December 16–17, 2017 Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Christina Warning, Michiko Yoshida
015

SEASIA Keynote Speech

Celestial Axe: On the Politics of Naming
Chaiwat Satha-Anand026

Excavating the Hidden Politics of Land Governance in Laos
Miles Kenney-Lazar

030

The Businessification of Civil Society
Kevin Hewison

034

Research on Women’s Leadership in Indonesia: Women as the Source of Knowledge, New
Narratives, and Existing Limitations (2006–17)
Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi

038

Fresh from the Field:
Translated Media, Trans-regional Encounters: Experiencing India in the Lao Highlands
Nishaant Chokski

042

Publications

Front Cover: Gate Grill at Preah Vihear Preah Keo Morakot (Royal Palace temple), Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Source: Mario Lopez

Editorial
After a brief hiatus the CSEAS newsletter returns in a new digital-only format. In order to evolve and meet thechallenges of reaching out to the global Southeast Asian academic community, our newsletter will bring more
topical research initiatives from our Center, and faculty, as well as fellows and researchers from institutions in
our network. Since CSEAS’s reorganization last year, faculty have been working together on new projects andinitiatives both within and outside of Japan.
As of the end of March 2018, Prof. Kono Yasuyuki completed his four-year tenure as director. During
this time, he oversaw the transition of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) and the Center for
Integrated Area Studies (CIAS) merge together to creater a stronger more internationally outward looking
institution. As of April 2018, we welcome Prof. Hayami Yoko as our new director. Along with our vicedirectors, Mieno Fumiharu and Koizumi Junko, we look forward to deepening our commitments to multidisciplinary research within Southeast Asia and other regions where our researchers work.
In this issue, we introduce a series of articles from recent fellows. Robert Taylor, writes about the
military in Southeast Asian politics and takes a deeper historical look at civil-military relations in the region toquestion to role of military forces that have presided over nations in the region during the 20th – 21st century.
Amporn Jirattikorn (Chiang Mai University), introduces us to the production, consumption and sharing ofThai television dramas within Southeast Asia and China. In recent years a huge fan industry has developed forThai dramas and this article looks over recent trends in their circulation and consumption in China.
On 16 – 17 December 2017, CSEAS was one of the co-organizers of the second Consortium forSoutheast Asian Studies in Asia (SEASIA), held at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. A resounding
success, over 450 participants attended the conference from 29 nations, further cementing SEASIA’s reputation
as a regional and global hub for scholars to come together. Christina Warning and Michiko Yoshida (Chulalongkorn University) offer a detailed overview of this successful event. Prof. Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Department of Political Science, Thammasat University), was honored as one of the keynote speakers at this conference and gave a deeply thought-provoking talk on the politics of naming and the power embodied withinnames themselves. His address is carried in this newsletter.
Miles Kenney-Lazar, a Hakubi Researcher based at CSEAS, is currently conducting research in Laosand provides us with an introduction to his work on politics and power relations among foreign investors, theLao state, and Lao peasants shaping access to land and driving agrarian-environmental change. Kevin Hewison(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), discusses current debates concerning businessification and thevarying processes of managerialism, commodification, privatization and customerization that play out influence
civil society and businesses. Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi (LIPI) has been conducting long-term research on
Muslim women political leaders; in her article she provides us with a detailed overview of her current project on
women’s leadership in Indonesia examining notions people hold of female politicians.
a recent fieldtrip to Luang Namtha province, Laos with Associate Prof. Nathan Badenoch. Nishaant is a scholar
who primarily works in India, however he shares with us how Laotian villagers consume a Thai-dubbed versionof an Indian drama and the broader media circulations taking place between South and Southeast Asia.
The Editor
Mario Lopez

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Finally, Nishaant Chokshi (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow) introduces us to some unique observations from003

The Military in Southeast Asian Politics:
Playing or Controlling?
Robert Taylor

Former Fellow, CSEAS

I

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76004

n the early years of the Cold War, the role of themilitary in politics became a subject much discussed in the political science literature of the day.
This was the result of several factors. One was theenormous growth of the military power of the victorious states, particularly the United States and the Soviet Union, as a result of the Second World War. A
second factor was the spate of military coup d’états
which led to the toppling of many fragile governments in post-colonial states in the 1950s and the1960s. A third was the emergence of military regimes, particularly in Latin America and southern Europe, who were convinced they could govern more
effectively than the allegedly corrupt civilian regimesthat they replaced. Given the anti-Communist foreign
policy proclivities of most liberal capitalist states atthat time, and the rightist political stance of mostarmies, military governments were seen by many political scientists, particularly in the United States, as agood thing as long as they were not in the country
where they lived.
The literature on military-civil relations at that timevery much concentrated on how and why armies
intervened in politics, from constitutionally legitimate
persuasion of their civilian masters, through to various degrees of assuming control of the state apparatus, to the ultimate, a government run solely by thearmed forces of a given country. These phenomena
were all widely found in Southeast Asia. Burma experienced it first coup in 1958. That was in part at leastsemi-consensual, and the military kept to its promise
to hand power back to a civilian government 18
months later, thus winning much praise for its maintenance of constitutional norms. However, two years
later, the army under General Ne Win seized power

in its own name and remained in power, under various guises, until 2011. Thailand, on the other hand,
has experienced a near cascade of coups and constitutions since 1932, at least 20 at last count, and isunder military control today. The Indonesian army
long played the role after independence of proppingup civilian governments until it finally removed thenationalist leader Sukarno and then governed formany years, directly and then indirectly, until it ousted
former General Suharto in 1998. The army in thePhilippines, long held as a paragon of virtue for its
strict adherence to the doctrine of civilian control,
became politicized and highly factionalized during
the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and subsequently attempted at least 13 coups, all of which
failed.
Militaries in other Southeast Asian states have also
been involved in politics but in different ways fromthose of the four states mentioned above. Before its
defeat in 1975, the military controlled the government of the former South Vietnam and in neighboring
Cambodia and Laos right-wing military forces weredeeply involved in politics until their defeat at thehands of revolutionary nationalist and leftist forces.
Under the current governments of these three countries, the army is clearly a major prop of the rulingparty. In contrast, the armies of Singapore andMalaysia have apparently appeared to be without
political ambitions. This perception merely obscuresthe reality that the military leadership is deeply
embedded in the ruling parties of those countries aswell as their dominant ethnic communities and civilian bureaucracies. And, of course, monarchical Brunei’s armed forces are exclusively Malay, but the Sultan maintains a 2,000 man Gurkha unit for his own

President Ebert and suppress the demonstrators.
Groener and the army thus became a silent partnerof successive civilian governments, holding various
ministerial positions until Groener was forced out of
the government in 1932 by General Kurt vonSchleicher. Von Schleicher, like Groener, was not ademocratic and sought to rebuild Germany’s military
power and its army’s badly damaged prestige. However, rather than standing aloof from party politics,
von Schleicher sought to do a deal with members of
the Nazi Party in order to defeat what he perceived
as its radical faction. Adolph Hitler, however, having
promised to make the army with the Nazi Party twinpillars of the state, gradually brought the army under
Nazi Party control, including in its oath of loyalty not
only a pledge to defend the German state but also
the army’s allegiance to Hitler as the Fuhrer in his
personal capacity. From then on, Hitler, who
appointed himself commander-in-chief in 1941, led
the German army to its destruction in a war many of
the officer corps believed they could not win.
Wheeler-Bennett does not define what he meant by
his dichotomy of controlling as opposed to playing
politics but the account he gives of Groener’s 12
years of political success as opposed to vonSchleicher’s and his successors’ failure to control a
man they saw as an incompetent Austrian corporal
makes clear his meaning, though one must concedethat there is no clear line between one form of
behavior and the other. So how does this help us
understand the political role of the military in the fourstates noted above? On the basis of a number ofindicators, both historical and contemporaneous, it iseasy to argue that the Burmese and Indonesianarmies have largely been controlling politics while thearmies of Thailand and the Philippines have beenplaying politics.
The frequency of coups or coup attempts and thenumber of constitutions the respective states haveexperienced is one obvious indicator. Since independence, Myanmar has experienced two half coups, in1958 and 1988, and one full coup, 1962, and threeconstitutions. Indonesia has experienced one coup,
the ouster of Sukarno in the mid-1960s, and one
withdrawal of support from the head of state, when
General Wiranto refused the order of President
Suharto to suppress student demonstrations in
1998. Suharto resigned the next day. In Thailand, on
the other hand, the army has repeatedly intervenedin politics, often in coalition with other political actors
including the civilian bureaucracy, the Democratic
Party, the judiciary, big business, and the monarchy,
ousting governments which it felt were not governingin its interest. The frequency of these interventions
suggests an army leadership which is very much

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

protection.
After the end of the Cold War, the big researchmoney was into the processes of so-called democratization as military governments fell out of favor tobe replaced with civilian-led constitutional regimes.
Reflecting back on the literature on civil-military relations in general and the specific situations in the various countries of Southeast Asia based on an examination of the most recent relevant academic
literature, I have reached the conclusion that there is
not much new to be learned about the political roleof the military from what was known in 1962 when
Samuel Finer published his path finding The Man on
Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics.
Despite many excellent empirical studies of the political role of the military in Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia, usually couched in terms ofthe goal of “democratization,” in conceptual terms,
despite valiant efforts by some political scientists tolaunch into theoretical discussions about structure
and agency, elaborate statistical models, or otherventures into jargon, comparative political studies
have not much more to tell us about civil-military
relations in Southeast Asia or elsewhere now than it
did six decades back.
However, perhaps comparative historical studies
might be more useful for elucidating the different
kinds of civil-military relations we see in the region
today. While reading round some of the literature on
the role of the military in European history, I cameacross this quotation from Sir John Wheeler-Bennett’s masterful The Nemesis of Power: The German
Army in Politics 1918–1945. Wheeler-Bennett wrote
in his introduction that one of the purposes of his
book was, among other things, to show how theGerman army “... when it was mistaken enough tocome down into the arena and to play politics
instead of controlling them, it began a descent which
ended in abject defeat — militarily, politically andspiritually” ([1953] 2005, xxxii). What he was alluding
to was the different relationships that senior German
military officers had with the dominant civilian politicalfigures of their day in the period between the ends ofthe First and Second World Wars.
After the First World War, in 1919, after Kaiser Wilhelm II had gone into exile in the Netherlands, and
the German army was near collapse, Friedrich Ebert,
the first president of the new Weimar republican government, was besieged in his offices in Berlin by
Communists and other radical leftist political forces
which threatened to overthrow the new Social Democratic Party regime almost before it could begin togovern. He turned for support against the mobs inthe streets surrounding his office to General Wilhelm
Groener who ordered the elite Freikorps to rescue005

involved in the day-to-day management of the state,
despite the perception on the part of most observersthat coups were no longer feasible after the debacleof the 1991 coup.
Similarly, coup attempts in the Philippines following
the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship have often
been in collusion with other political actors, mainly
members of the factionalized political elite which has
dominated the country’s politics since before independence. The ability of President Marcos to involve
the army in his regime undermined its institutional
autonomy and its distance from party politics.
Though there have been no coup attempts in recent
years, rumors of coups and discontent in the officer
corps with the behavior of various presidents inrecent years has had an unsettling effect on Philippine politics.
The Indonesian army no longer occupies the positions in government it held both before and after the
1960s. By the time that General Wiranto refusedPresident Suharto’s order in 1998, the army’s position as a central pillar of the President’s government
had been undermined by Suharto’s sultanistic government based on his family and business cronies.
However, now in many ways, the army is stronger as
an institution and as a political actor outside the government today, with its regional commands and economic interests in place, and its hold over foreignand defense policies, than in the final years of theSuharto era. Moreover, as the army has redefined its
role in the Indonesian state, as Jun Honna (2003)
and others have shown, it still maintains the ability toserve as a politically stabilizing force, controlling quietly from the shadows but with direct access to the
President.
In Myanmar, the army, following more than two
decades of direct rule, put in place a constitution
which now allows Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the
National League for Democracy (NLD) that sheheads to govern the country. However, that constitution cannot be altered without the consent of thearmy; the army has a lock on political change. Most
clearly, it controls politics and it maintains the position of being able to intervene in politics in the future
should whatever civilian government comes to power
threaten its interests or the country’s political stability.
Today, on the other hand, the Thai army is in powerand has been so for the past four years. Its mostrecent coup was in coalition with the monarchy andthe death of the popular King Bhumipol and his
replacement with the unpopular Vajiralongkong, andthe apparently continuing political popularity of politics of the kind exemplified by Thaksin Shinawatra,and his elected successors which the army ousted
from power not once but twice, poses a great
dilemma. Can the Thai army once more establish aconstitutional order that will satisfy both the monarchy and the majority of the population? The way forward is far from clear.
So what can we conclude from this effort to examine the question of civil-military relations in Southeast
Asia and elsewhere from Wheeler-Bennett’s dichotomous example? Perhaps it is that armies, like kingsof old, as central pillars of their respective statesshould learn the lesson that successful constitutionalmonarchies learned in order to ensure their longevity.
As summarized by Lord Castlereagh in 1815:
Tyrants may poison or murder an obnoxious
character, but the surest and only means a constitutional sovereign [or army] has to restrain
such a character is to employ him ... theessence of a free state is to manage the party
warfare, so to reconcile it with the safety of thesovereign ... to do this, the King [or army] must
give contending parties facilities against eachother, and not embark himself too deeply in any
way. (Bew 2011, 397)
Playing politics or controlling politics may be a matterof degree as to “not embark ... too deeply” but that
degree may spell success for both the army and thestate it exists to serve and protect.
References
Bew, John. 2011. Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny. London: Quercus.
Finer, Samuel F. 1962. The Man on Horseback: The Role of theMilitary in Politics. London: Pall Mall.
Honna, Jun. 2003. Military Politics and Democratization in Indonesia. London: Routledge Curzon.
Wheeler-Bennett, John. [1953] 2005. The Nemesis of Power:

The German Army in Politics, 1918–1945. 2nd ed. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76006

Thai series shown on website Bilibili whose “bullet-screen” mechanism allows real-time user comments to scroll across the screen.

Thai Popular Culture: A New Player in Asia
Media Circulation and Chinese Censorship
Amporn Jirattikorn

Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai UniversityT

007tion and the need to cater to niche audiences, as
they exhibit less consumption loyalty (Lim 2008).
Growing economies on the receiving end also contribute greatly to the increasing outward flows of Thai
dramas. In Vietnam, for example, the growing cable
television market has fostered a high demand fortelevision content. Likewise, the government’s privatization of television channels (in Myanmar), thegrowth of cable television networks (in Cambodia),
and the advance of mobile technology, combinedwith the ebb of Korean dramas, have contributed tothe increased growth in Thai television dramas inthese countries’ broadcasting scenes. More importantly, the notion of cultural proximity contributes
greatly to the success of Thai dramas in these neighboring countries. As for China, nationalistic fear overdominant Korean popular culture has led the Chinese
censorship board to limit Korean television imports.
This in turn gave way to more Thai imports (Danaithan 2012). In addition, the higher quality of Thai
television dramas over the past decade, and the low
price of Thai drama exports, have enabled them tocompete with the more expensive Korean television
dramas. Danaithan (ibid.) points out that between
2009–11, some satellite televisions in China broadcasted about 8–10 Thai television dramas series per
year.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

hai television dramas, which have been a stapleof the nation’s TV landscape for over four decades, tend to be what Thai people call “lakorn nam
nao” (polluted soaps). The namnao or polluted characteristic lies in their portrayal of unreal life, presenting a visual grammar of lavish and luxurious settings,
over-exaggerated acting, and melodramatic plots. In
the late 2000s, Thai television dramas gradually
started to gain popularity in Asia. Beginning in 2003,
Thai dramas entered Chinese television channels,
followed by the success of many drama series in thefollowing years. For example, Battle of Angels,broadcast on Anhui Satellite TV in 2009, achieved
the tenth highest audience rating of all programs in
the first week it was released and was re-run fourtimes between 2009–10 (Danaithan 2012). Following
the success in China’s television market, the past
decade saw the outward flows of Thai television dramas expanded to Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Besides being
exported for telecast, the phenomenon of subtitles
created by fans in many countries has also madeThai dramas more widely accessible.
The reasons for the new outward flow of Thai television dramas in the region vary. As many scholars
have argued, broadcasters in Asia now operate
under the assumption of greater market fragmenta-

This short essay focuses particularly on China,
exploring the aspects of consumption among Chinese audience who watch Thai television dramas
through streaming sites and the fan-subtitle groups
who translated Thai dramas into Chinese language.
After making its successful entry into China’s television market in the late 2000s, the past decade has
seen the ebb and flow of Thai television dramas in
China. The tightening state controls on broadcasting
foreign media, including limiting the number of foreign imports, tight censorship, and viewers being
able to identify clichéd elements in Thai dramas,
have led to a decline in the popularity of Thai dramas
in China (Chan 2012). While the first wave whichbegan with Battle of Angels waned around 2011,
Chan has argued that Chinese interest in Thai television dramas was renewed through Chinese streaming sites. This recent decade has seen the phenomenon of enthusiastic fans who obtain foreign cultural
products, translate the text, then release subtitles forviewing, without asking for permission from the
copyright holders. Recently, there are more than 10
subtitling groups of Thai dramas on Chinese videosharing websites. Of these, the most popular one is
Tianfutaiju whose translation focuses on Thai boys’
love series, a point I return to later.
It should be noted that the present generation ofChinese audiences that watch Thai television dramas
on the internet today differ from those of the previous
decade who consumed Thai dramas from television.
While audiences of the previous decade tended tobe housewives who may passively receive what
media industry offered to them, the audience of the
new generation are millennials who are young, relatively well-educated and live in urban areas. They do

not passively watch whatever has been broadcasted
but constantly search for global media content notavailable at home. The content which these different
generations prefer also differs. The older generation
tends to like Thai television dramas whose stories
revolved around family relationships with melodramatic plot twists and over exaggerated acting while
the younger generation prefers teen dramas whosestories are more related to their everyday life. However, it is not uncommon to find young audience who
like the melodramatic stories of the Thai dramas. The
younger audience are also drawn to Thai television
dramas for the beauty and attractiveness of Thai
actors and actresses who tend to be of mixed races.
One of the most popular genres of Thai television
dramas among the new generation of Chinese audience is “boys’ love” series. Boys’ love (BL) has typically been identified with Japanese manga whosestories portray two young men as the focus of a loveinterest. Most BL fans are heterosexual women,though it is not uncommon for BL to draw gay men
or bisexual audience. Japanese BL manga became
popular in Thailand around the beginning of the
2000s. Following the popularity of Japanese BL
manga, Thai BL literature in the forms of short stories
or novels has been written and shared both online
and offline. Until recently, television companies began
to pick up this trend by producing BL televisionseries. Fostered by a community of enthusiastic fans
who work to provide subtitles of BL content in manydifferent language communities, BL series from Thailand have increasingly become popular throughout
Asia, particularly in Vietnam, Indonesia, and China.
As BL is considered illegal in China for it poses achallenge to heterosexual hegemony, BL series from

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 1 Thai TV dramas that been translated into Vietnamese language and sold as DVDs.
008

Fig. 2 Chinese fan showing a screenshot of how she watches Thai TV dramas from the fansub version on their phone.

Fig. 3 2Moons the Series is one of Thai BL series which has become popularthroughout Asia.

References
Chan, Brenda. 2012. Social Media and the Rise of Thai Television Dramas in China. Paper presented at the Conference
on Social Media and Cross-border Cultural Transmissions:Technologies, Policies and Industries, June 21–22, 2012,
Asia Research Institute, Singapore.
Danaithan Phongpatcharathornthep. 2012. A Study of Chinese
Audience’s Consumption Taste towards Thai Television Dramas and Thai Films. Chiang Mai: Thai Universities for Healthy
Public Policy, Chiang Mai University. (In Thai)
He, Laura. 2017. China’s Ban on Foreign Content on Bilibili,
AcFun is Not about Piracy. South China Morning Post, July
17. http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2102948/chinas-ban-foreign-content-bilibili-acfun-notabout-piracy (accessed on August 28, 2017).
Lim, Tania. 2008. Renting East Asian Popular Culture for Local
Television: Regional Networks of Cultural Production. In East
Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave, edited by
Chua Beng Huat and Koichi Iwabuchi, pp. 33–52. HongKong: Hong Kong University Press.
Yin, Yejun. 2017. Chinese Video Site Bilibili Takes Foreign Prog r a m m i n g O f f l i n e . h t t p : / / w w w. s i x t h t o n e . c o m /news/1000511/chinese-video-site-bilibili-takes-foreign-programming-offline (accessed on August 28, 2017).

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

009

Thailand have become the main channel for young
audience starved of content which has been banned
at home.
While internet provides a virtual space for a varietyof youthful interest groups in China, the control overwhat citizen can see on the website has always been
exercised by the Chinese state. The latest development happened in July 2017 when the State Pressand Publication Administration of Radio, Film, andTelevision (SARFT) ordered the removal of foreign
movies and TV shows from the two most popular
video-sharing websites, Bilibili and AcFun. Bilibili is ahugely popular site, originating as a video-sharingsite for Japanese anime but gradually became home
to all kinds of TV shows. Featuring more youthfulcontent, Bilibili and AcFun have looser restrictions on
the content uploaded and shared by users. They
have also helped foster a community of Chinese fansubbers who voluntarily translated and subtitledmost overseas content. These websites have thus
attracted more fans than official websites such as
Youku, Tudou, Sohu, and iQiyi. Bilibili also offers features that tend to appeal to a younger audience,such as a “bullet-curtain” mechanism to allow realtime user comments to scroll across the screen (He2017). After the sudden ban, Thai dramas, alongwith Korean series, Japanese anime, and American
TV shows, were pulled from websites. Thai dramafans expressed their disappointment: a vast collection of Thai dramas were wiped out from the websites and the most famous fan-subtitle group, Tianfutaiju which solely translated boys’ love series fromThailand, also decided to stop subtitling. Some fanswere devastated that “without Thai dramas, without
Tianfutaiju, what would life be like?”
The recent ban reportedly came for two reasons.
Some maintain that the ban was part of official efforts

to tackle piracy (ibid.). Recently, many official websites such as Youku, Tudou, Sohu, and iQiyi started
to obtain copyright for online foreign movies and TV
shows. This may be the reason as to why the Chinese government had to act upon those that violated
copyright claims. The second reason has to do withcensorship. The absence of domestic copyrightmeans those videos shared in Bilibili and AcFun did
not pass the government’s content censorship. Right
before the removal of foreign content in these two
websites, in June 2017, the Chinese government
issued new guidelines for online broadcasting, prohibiting unpatriotic and vulgar content. The latter
specifically refers to “abnormal sexual behaviors” (Yin
2017) which include homosexuality, adultery, onenight stands, prostitution, sexual violence, or kissing
and bathing scenes. One of the fansubbers of Thai
dramas lamented that “from now on, we will havenothing to watch but war movies as everything else
is banned.” As boys’ love series were the most popular genre of Thai dramas on Bilibili, they became themain target of the ban.
The recent disappearance of foreign media content
on these two video-sharing sites signifies the continuing struggle over what citizens can see on thewebsites. In China, as well as elsewhere, technology
is changing rapidly, state and businesses also quickly
respond to the transforming conditions. China’s banon the amateur creation by fan communities begs
the question: when the state and businesses are inalliance, can and will netizens, with the help of technology, find ways to escape control?

Conference Summary Report

SEASIA 2017 “Unity in Diversity:
Transgressive Southeast Asia”
December 16–17, 2017 Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Christina Warning
Michiko Yoshida
Chulalongkorn University

T
CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76010

he Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies in
Asia (or SEASIA, pronounced “see-Asia”) wasestablished in Kyoto, Japan, in 2013 as a joint effortof 10 leading Asian scholarly institutions. Following
the successful inaugural conference hosted by Kyoto
University in 2015, the second of its biennial conferences (SEASIA 2017) was hosted by Chulalongkorn
University in close collaboration with the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University.
SEASIA 2017 explored new directions in re-contextualizing and re-conceptualizing Southeast Asia andSoutheast Asian Studies. Given the decline of Area
Studies in many Western universities, this international conference helped establish an alternative academic environment for the study of this highly
dynamic region. It offered a platform to discuss abroad spectrum of topics featuring the latest developments in our region and for further exchange andcooperation among scholars and others to serve thebetterment of our societies.
Over 450 registered participants from Southeast
Asia, Northeast Asia, North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand attended the conference, representing 29 countries and 166 institutions. They
ranged from Masters and PhD students to professors and well-known scholars in various fields. Participants presented 290 papers that covered a staggering range of topics discussed in 58 regular panels
and six special programs. These panels and programs spurred energetic and fruitful discussions andexchanges that advance research and sow theseeds of new approaches to cross-national andNetwork, the Thailand Convention and Exhibition
Bureau (TCEB), and PTT Public Company Limited.
Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony was presided over by the
Guest of Honor, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha
Chakri Sirindhorn. Her Royal Highness reaffirmed inher speech that the Conference was “essential andmeaningful to both academic circles and the development of Southeast Asian countries.” While she
recognized that “Southeast Asians can trace ourbackgrounds to different historical roots while we live
in different geographic and political contexts” and“we have been reared quite differently in terms of ourculture and beliefs,” she stressed that the SEASIA

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Fig. 1 Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

011

cross-disciplinary issues.
Hosting the conference was particularly meaningful
for Chulalongkorn University, since 2017 marked thecentenary of its establishment. Speaking of theimportance of hosting SEASIA 2017, Associate Professor Dr. Nualnoi Treerat, Director of the Institute of
Asian Studies and the Chair of the Chulalongkorn
University Conference Committee (CUCC) remarked,“as Thailand’s first institution of higher learning, Chulalongkorn University’s mission has been to serve thepublic and in this increasingly connected, vibrant,
and evolving world, we have inevitably elevated ouraspirations and endeavors to include international
collaboration and service to the public in a muchlarger sense.”
The conference was organized by the CUCC for
SEASIA 2017, which was formed as a collaborative
effort among three key entities on campus: the Institute of Asian Studies (one of SEASIA’s founding
members), the Faculty of Arts, and the Faculty of
Political Science. The committee worked closely with
the SEASIA Consortium Secretariat at the CSEAS at
Kyoto University and SEASIA Conference
Committee.
The SEASIA 2017 Conference also received considerable support and cooperation from various institutions and funders, including the Japan Foundation
Asia Center (JFAC), the ASEAN Studies Center of
Chulalongkorn University, CH. Karnchang PublicCompany Limited, Kyoto University, Chula GlobalConference was an opportunity for all to learn fromother societies, especially within the region. She concluded that such learning and close cooperation isneeded in order to achieve mutual sustainable progress: “to achieve successful collaboration, we needto know each other well and to understand ourstrength and weaknesses. With this meaningful collaboration, we will be able to join hands in growing
up development plans that will result in unity indiversity.”
Professor Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Director of theThai Peace Information Center at Thammasat University delivered a keynote address on the power
and politics of naming. From Confucius, the Bible,
and the Qu’ran to anti-Communist campaigns andimmigration procedures, he spanned history andcontemporary experience to illustrate how naming,and resistance to being named, lay at the heart ofpower. The address highlighted the importance thatnaming has had to state interventions in Thailand’spolitically troubled southern provinces. In offering a
final example of how one government official owned
his own name, Professor Chaiwat reminded the audience of the brave and clever ways that one can resist
control.
The ceremony ended with an official announcementthat the next SEASIA Conference will be held in Tai-

Fig. 2 Chaiwat Sahta-Anand giving a Keynote Speech012

wan in 2019, and will be hosted by the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies at National Chengchi University in partnership with two other SEASIA consortium members: the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies(CAPAS) at Academia Sinica, and the Taiwan Association of Southeast Asian Studies (TASEAS). The
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) will host theconference in 2021.
Participants had an opportunity to casually mingle
and get to know each other better at a welcome dinner reception following the ceremony. The reception
showcased Thai hospitality with various local delicacies and music. Performances by schoolchildren
from the Chula Demonstration School added a special charm to the evening.
Conference Panels and Special Programs
Under the umbrella theme of “Unity in Diversity:
Transgressive Southeast Asia,” panels were clusteredin 11 sub-themes encompassing a range of disciplines and topics, including history, law, economics,
the environment, politics, innovation and technology,social transformation, literature, media, arts, development work, linguistics and language, religion, archeology, and so on. The panels were organized with aneye toward the socio-economic and political situations relevant in the various countries of Southeast
Asia, but without limiting panels to country-specificthemes. On the contrary, SEASIA 2017 encouraged
and promoted scholars to question boundaries of all
types in their presentations, and participants
addressed various issues and topics keeping regional
diversity in mind.
One panel, entitled “Regionalization and Globalization of ASEAN — Opportunities and Challenges,”
was comprised of senior scholars and specialists
who gathered in memory of the late Professor Seiji
Naya, a key protagonist of ASEAN integration. The
panel discussed the ASEAN Economic Community(AEC), mega-regionalism, Free Trade Agreements(FTAs), investment flows, internal and external migration, and the powerful role that international trade
has played in ASEAN.
Another panel “New Perspectives on Southeast
Asian Pasts,” brought together speakers and participants to discuss a wide range of approaches to history in an attempt to disentangle the history ofancient Southeast Asia from that of the Southeast
Asian nation-states of the present day. Histories inSoutheast Asia are often characterized chronologically in terms of linear historical evidence, or structured military and political achievements by theirrespective rulers, dynasties or political entities. In thiscontext, Professor Sunait Chutintaranond remindedparticipants that it is important to carefully identify ahistorical narrative and its respective interpretations.
He referred to the differences of “colonial centralist
historical writing,” “nationalist historical ideology,” and“local historical writing.” Professor Michael S.H. Heng
argued that academic research papers produced by
Asian scholars rely too much on ideas originating in

Fig. 3 Performance given by the Chula Demonstration School(via a film screening and panel discussion), the rise ofChinese hegemony, and alternative modes of knowledge production and dissemination in the post-democratic era.
In a roundtable entitled “Beyond Extremism inSoutheast Asia,” the discussion explored the concept of religious moderation and the implications oftrends of extremism evident in both Buddhist andMuslim communities in the region today. In the context of the terrorist attacks experienced in a numberof ASEAN countries over recent years, the panel provided an overview of different types of extremism,
which have become more multi-dimensional, and thedevelopment of terminology related to attempts toconfront extremism and promote peaceful coexistence. All speakers confirmed that the issue of
extremism is one that is very complex, and cannot
be seen solely along religious, ethnic, or politicallines. It is necessary to understand the respective
contexts and reasons for the formation of extremistgroups and the use of violence. Panelists also agreed
that it is not sufficient to simply understand the phenomenon — we must also provide a solution. In
order to identify solutions, the structures of violence
within a society leading to oppression — the socialand economic powers which can lead to further actsof violence — must be addressed. The difficulty of
how to deal with former members of extremistgroups, currently a challenge in several Southeast
Asian countries, was also discussed.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University013

the West and draw too little from the cultural-intellectual resources of their own history, cultures, and traditions. He also warned that emphasis on publicationin “quality” scholarly journals, which are inherently
biased towards the West, and the pressure to publish do not contribute to works of enduring intellectual quality and that “quantity works against quality.”
The panel on “Environment and Society” covered aconsiderable variety of socio-political and cultural
aspects related to the change, deterioration, andtransformation of the environment, including, but notlimited to: food and energy security, the concept ofprivate vs. public properties, and heritage conservation. One panel discussed the various challenges tothe future of rural livelihoods in Cambodia, including
labor migration, microfinance, and Chinese agricultural investments. According to Serey Sok, a PhD
candidate at the Royal University of Phnom Penh,
while agricultural development is essential for thecountry, it has also led to wide economic discrepancies, environmental deterioration, and increasing
conflicts between rural communities and the state
revolving around land-grabbing and the granting of
economic land concessions. Such patterns are seen
across the region.
SEASIA 2017 organized special programs that consisted of a wide variety of academic talks and moreaccessible public presentations beyond the regularpanel sessions in order to maximize contributions
from both the presenters and the audience. The
roundtable sessions included discussions on timely
and urgent matters of extremism, human trafficking

Reflection“SEASIA is a great platform to learn about new ideas andapproaches of a diverse spectrum of Southeast Asian topics.”

The enthusiastic response to the Call for Proposals

Linda Kencana, Indonesia

and the diverse range of participants in SEASIA 2017
demonstrated that scholars are eager for, and appreciative of, opportunities to exchange and network
across disciplines at international conferences in theregion. Area studies remain robust. However, do wehave a broader vision of where Southeast Asia, andthe study of it, as a region, is heading within broader
contemporary contexts of globalization? What are
the roles of academics in steering the direction of oursocieties? The collaborative efforts of SEASIA initiatives will continue to drive forward interdisciplinary
approaches to such inquiry and, in the words of one
participant, “produce works that have enduring value
in the service to humankind.”Comments from Participants“This conference is a great opportunity for sharing, learning anddiscussion, to create a development dialogue for a better
ASEAN community.”
Sok Serey, Cambodia“This conference expanded my horizon of Southeast Asia. I
learned a lot of new academic information about this emerging
area in the world.”
Cui Feng, China

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76014

Fig. 4 SEASIA participants listening to the Keynote speech.

“I like the concept of the SEASIA Conference because there aremany diverse research topics and it is a tremendous place for
networking.”
Chansatith Chaleunsinh, Laos“I love attending Southeast Asian conferences because I wantto know how Southeast Asians talk about themselves.”
Maria Florendo, Philippines“The SEASIA 2017 Conference offered a great platform forpeople among or outside ASEAN to share their professional
perspectives in all fields.”
Yan Ting Huang, Taiwan“It is a fantastic forum to update oneself on what is going on indifferent disciplines and the players working on them.”
Cam Tu, Vietnam

SEASIA Keynote Speech

Celestial Axe:
On the Politics of Naming
Chaiwat Satha-AnandPeace Information Center, Faculty of Political Science,
Thammasat University

Confucius

When she left Swataw in Southern China, she waswith her first child and so very happy to travel to theGolden Khersonese at the behest of her beloved
husband. Upon arrival, the twenty something young
Chinese woman encountered the Thai state inhuman form. She was asked a most common question by an immigration officer: “what is your name?”
Most people could imagine the atmosphere of being
asked a question by a representative of the state
when h/she sets foot in a foreign land for the very
first time. The name of the woman was “Khow
Nuang Cheng.” Her husband’s name was “Ung Kia
Siew.” In the presumably confusing exchange that
followed the question, her name was bureaucraticallychanged in an instance at the powerful hand of theSiamese state into “Ung Khow See.” The sovereign
power of the state could be seen on a peron’s identity in the act of naming despite the fact that both“Ung” and “Khow” are family names, and that a Chinese person should have only one family name. And
so the “new” Chinese woman with two family names
was magically born in a land she would call home forthe rest of her life at the hand of the Thai state.
I wonder what Confucius would have said, had hemiraculously witnessed the destiny of this Chinese
woman? Let’s read his Analects together.

When a student asked the Master: if a state ruler
asked Confucius to help rule a dominion, what would
be the very first thing that should be done? Confucius said the state had to deal with “names” first. The
Analects (Book 13, 3) reports this unusual conversation as followed:

015

Zilu said: “if the Lord of Wei were waiting for you
to run the government, what would you give priority to?” The Master said: “What is necessary is
to rectify names, is it not?” Zilu said: “if this were
to take place, it would surely be an aberration of
yours. Why should they be rectified?” The Master said: “How uncivilized you are. With regard
to what he does not understand the gentleman
is surely somewhat reluctant to offer an opinion.
If names are not rectified, then words are notappropriate. If words are not appropriate, thendeeds are not accomplished. If deeds are notaccomplished, then the rites and music do notflourish. If the rites and music do not flourish,
then punishments do not hit the mark. If punishments do not hit the mark, then the people have
nowhere to put hand or foot. So when a gentleman names something, the name can definitely
be used in speech; and when he says something, it can definitely be put into practice. In his
utterances the gentleman is definitely not casual
about anything.”2)Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

A Chinese Woman with Two Names1)

For Confucius, names and naming are the mostimportant aspects of governance because this iswhere all political orders begin. He explained thatwithout attending to “names,” communication is notpossible (“Words are not appropriate.”). If communication fails, then affairs of the state cannot be carriedout. Virtues, civilized practices, and justice will soon
vanish (“Punishment does not hit the mark.”). Without justice, a polis can no longer be a home for citizens because no one would know how to live as
one. In short, with naming flows power and politicalsociety was born. But is this merely a Chinese story?
I wonder?
This keynote address is an attempt to understandthe power of naming things/phenomena/people andargues that the politics of naming is earthshakingly
powerful not unlike the notion of a “celestial axe”
once proclaimed in Thai legal history. I begin bybriefly discussing the academic landscape on “name”
and “naming.” To illustrate how changes in names
engender political reality in terms of the state and its
power/governability, recent research on Southern
Thailand about a seemingly bland government laborproject; the present peace process operation; and alocal shaman’s ritual of communicating with the deadlocally practiced in Pattani, will be examined. Ancient
wisdom namely: the Bible’s narrative of exorcism,and the Qur’an’s creation story will then be used toilluminate how the power of naming works. Thisaddress ends with two stories: the notion of a “celestial axe” as a description of the state’s naming power
and a story of resistance as a critique of the seemingly omnipotent politics of naming.
Dictionary

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76

016

Ashis Nandy is a most prominent intellectual in contemporary India.3) When we met some ten years ago,
I asked him what he was doing. He answered: “I amwriting a dictionary.” I found his strange answer perplexing.4) Then in 2012 while attending another academic conference in Boston, I went to visit anotherold friend, the late Gene Sharp, the world-renowned
pioneer of nonviolent struggle studies. In our luncheon conversation, I asked him casually what he
was doing at the time. Sharp answered with a smile:“I am writing a dictionary.” His answer stopped myother questions.5) Why is it that these noted world
academics have been producing books containing
words called “dictionary”?
When the famous author Jhumpa Lahiri was 20
years old, she went to visit the magnificent Uffizi
Museum in Florence, Italy. When her sister lost a hat
there, she tried to communicate with an Italian guard
to help retrieve the hat using the only book she hadat the time, an English-Italian dictionary. When the
hat was finally found, she felt as if she had successfully ventured into an uncharted territory. She was
grateful because the dictionary had become herguide. It protected and explained everything for her.
It was both authoritative and indispensable, notunlike holy books full of mystery and revelations.6)
Perhaps one of the reasons why these intellectuals
spent their valuable time “writing” dictionaries isbecause the twenty-first century world is different
from its predecessor. While the twentieth century
world framed life struggles clearly as the battle
between the colonizers and the colonized, the superior “race” and those who were dominated, theexploitative elites and those exploited, or even thedeveloped against the underdeveloped, the present
world faces much more ambiguous conflicts. Often itis the tension between those who speak the languages of law and rights to show their caring for theworld and those who cannot or will not accept suchlanguages. As a result, the right to punish anddestroy the whole state identified as “rogue,” “evil,”or “outlawed” sometimes comes from a judgment
made by something called: “the international community.” These languages are used to convey how
one cares for the world.7)
Kasian Tejapira, a prominent political scientist fromThammasat, gives a most succinct rationale why it isimportant to produce a “definitive” book of words.
He explains that a society has a way to put a spellaround some discourse demons as lexica non grata
because it is believed that by controlling words,
meanings, and thoughts, people will also be duly
controlled and in that order. In this sense, writing a
dictionary can be construed as an attempt to fix thewords with meanings endowed by its author, believing that these words dictate people’s thoughts.8)
But there are two other important points. First, thata word is present or absent in a dictionary is by itself
a marker of its power. A word that is absent from anestablished dictionary seems to be weaker in termsof its legitimation function, defined as a right to traditionally exist in such a language, than the one that ispresent. Second, controlling people’s thoughts withwords is different from using laws or force to perform
similar functions. Laws and force with instruments ofviolence are both visible and not unrelated, because
law exists under the spectre of punishment. Failure
to follow laws warrants punishment, oftentimes
through various instruments of violence. Thought
control through words, on the other hand, is bothdifficult to see and easier to accept, sometimes
unconsciously. Through the popular use of words, a
new normality can emerge with little or no possibilityof questioning.

This address is not exactly about “words,” but“names.” Although names are words, they are notexactly the same. In the classic philosophical text on
the issue, Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke developed a theory of reference that significantly distinguished rigid and non-rigid designators, which alsomeans separating the actual (and the singular) fromthe possible (and many) worlds. To say, for example,
that the military stages a successful coup in Thailand
is not necessarily true because there are possible
worlds in which it could be unsuccessful. But Kripke
would argue that a rigid designator or name, such as
the statement “General Prayuth staged a successful
coup in Thailand” inflexibly connects to the same referent in all possible worlds.9) However, here is not theplace to follow Kripke into some metaphysical arguments resuscitating the notion of essence. Let me
follow Hun Sen instead.
Hun SenNecronominalism

017

William Godwin was an atheist who believed that ahuman’s death is final with no heaven or hell waiting
for anyone in the beyond. But when his wife, Mary

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

In May 2016, the Cambodian government
announced that all media in the country must callPrime Minister Hun Sen by his official name: “Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen.”10) The
Cambodian Ministry of Information issued an order inearly July 2016 that it would revoke work permits ofany journalist who failed to follow its order, and did
not call the Prime Minister by his official name especially when first referred to him in the news. However,on July 8, 2016, Hun Sen wrote in his personal
Facebook that journalists were not required to write
the official name of the government leaders in full.11)
Hun Sen must have thought that the “name” hewanted to be called is significant precisely because
he might want to be far more than a common Cambodian Prime Minister. The preferred official nameconsists of four words including the Prime Minister’s
proper name. The three prefixes connect the nameHun Sen to three sources of power in Cambodiansociety, namely: court power (Samdech), bureaucratic power (Akka Moha Sena Padei), and elemental
or supernatural (Techo meaning heat from fire) power.
The question in this keynote address is not why“names” are important, but what kinds of power hidebehind names used, such that an already powerfulcountry leader would dictate that his/her chosenname be used among the state citizens and foreign
media?

Wollstonecraft12) died, he wrote in Essay on Sepulchres: Or, a Proposal for Erecting Some Memorial of
the Illustrious Dead in All Ages on the Spot Where
Their Remains Have Been Interred (1809) that theburial place of the dead should be identified bynames and located in a map not unlike places offamous battles, something like an “Atlas of thosewho Have Lived, for the Use of Men Hereafter to be
Born.”13)
Godwin wrote this at the beginning of the nineteenth century. That century saw an enormous lossof life in the American Civil War (1861–65), claiming
more than 620,000 lives, a number approximately
equal to the total American fatalities in the Revolution, the 1812 War, the Mexican War, the SpanishAmerican War, World War I, World War II, and the
Korean War combined. Twice as many Civil War soldiers died of diseases such as measles, mumps, andsmall pox, among others.14)
But what is important besides the number of deadsoldiers was the manner of their deaths. They werethrown into burial trenches, stripped of every identifying object, blown to pieces by artillery shells, andtheir bodies or what left of them, were devoured bybeasts or time. These soldiers perished without
names and could be identified only with the word
“unknown.” During the war, there were efforts bygroups such as the Christian Commission and the
Sanitary Commission in the North, the Louisiana Soldier Relief Association in the South, as well as individuals who had worked tirelessly to provide information as to whether a soldier was alive or dead. Suchinformation served as a consoling certainty for families caught in endless bereavement. They felt theunrecognized loss intolerable in an age when familyties were celebrated. Faust writes, “At war’s end, theUnited States would embark on a program of identification and reburial that redefined the nation’s obligation to its fallen, as well as the meaning of bothnames and bodies as enduring repositories of thehuman self.”15)
With the atrocities of the nineteenth century andtwo World Wars in the twentieth, as well as deaths at
the hands of governments during the Nazi and otherregimes, the world has entered into a new age somecalled the age of necronominalism. It is an age where
people feel the need to know the names of the fallen
to preserve the memories of the once living. I believethat the age of necronominalism is closely related to
the growing academic interest in memory studies.
It goes without saying that there are several methods of studying names.16) In the twenty-first century,
the internet world has turned out to be an extraordinary social space. Studying names used in cyberspace found that they are markedly different from

CSEAS NEWSLETTER

those used in the non-cyber world. Importantly, thenames used in cyberspace are chosen by their owners while most people’s names are given by theirparents. It is also important to note that since people
in cyberspace are virtually connected, communications among them are not face-to-face. Instead, their
online names become their “faces” in place of identity. Internet name connection works as a mediumthat at once conceals the person’s self while allowing
connection to be possible.17) Importantly, those who
study cyberspace names believe that a name does
not merely function as a superficial word which hasvery little to do with the qualitative existence of thething/person the name refers to. On the contrary,
recent studies on the subject maintain that names
represent profound identities of people and things. A
name works as an object of connection and dependence while reflecting communal values and traditions. Oftentimes names in cyberspace work to identify who are the “in-group” or “outsiders.” In thissense, a name is not merely a referential sign, but thesocial appearance endowed with cultural and linguistic legacy.18)
Since a name represents the user’s identity, namingor erasing a name in a particular context could profoundly reflect cultural politics of the time. Naming aperson or a place is not an innocent labeling act.
Instead, it contains complicated power relations
often times born out of fierce spatial and ethnic identity contestations. For example, while there are morethan 800 streets named after Martin Luther King Jr.
in the US, mostly in Southern states with a sizable
African American population, there has been a vigorous debate about who has the power to name astreet and whose name is entitled to become a street
name in Kenya? The governor of Mombasa, Hassan
Joho who is an opposition leader, named a street
after his son. The government was furious. It claimed
that the opposition has no right to name a street
after the governor’s relatives. But this debate took
place in the context of a political society that saw its
first modern president Jomo Kenyatta named an
important street, a university, a building, a hospital,
and an airport after him. Some were even named
after Kenyatta’s favorite wife’s name. But then thefact that an opposition leader could name a street
after his son’s could mean that the country’s power
relations have indeed shifted.19)
What would the politics of name changing look likein the context of violence such as contemporary
Southern Thailand?

Labor Graduate20)

No. 76

Two years after the new round of violence explodedin the Deep South, governments tried to find ways todeal with it. General Surayud Julanont’s government
approved a special economic development zone in
the five border provinces: Yala, Pattani, Narathiwas,
Satun, and four districts of Songkhla (Jana, Tebha,
Sabayoi, and Na thavi). The Ministry of Labor has
been given a role to care for local people’s wellbeing
by improving human potential among the working
age population. The government has come up withspecific measures both to motivate people to continue living, working, doing business in the restive
areas, and to provide employment assurance toensure steady income for the locals.
The Ministry of Labor has devised a program tocreate jobs and fast track employment in the area.
On April 25, 2007, the cabinet approved a project tohire university graduates to become “Volunteer
Buddy Labor Graduates.” 21) Four years later, theproject’s name was changed into “Labor Graduates.”
The Ministry explained that the name change wasnecessary for the sake of organizational clarity and to
be different from other agencies. In 2013, the area
covered by the project expanded to establish labor
centers in every district. There were “Labor Graduates” working in all 37 districts while the number ofthe graduates increased. Another project to improvelabor service efficiency was also created.
The “Labor Graduate” project exists in accordancewith government policies as well as national strategy.
Government policy at the time followed the Government Administration Plan (2012–15). One of theurgent policies (no. 1.5) is to best try to bring about
peace and safety in human life and property back to
the restive area. One of the national strategies (no. 4)
is to create balance and adjust government sector’s
administration. This is done following principle number 29 on solving the security problems in the local
area as well as in ASEAN. Item 29.1 then directs all
government agencies to integrate security and development operations in the border provinces as
directed by the National Security Policy (2012–16).
To simplify this complex chain of command, I would
say that the name “Labor Graduates” is used to calla project designed to improve labor services in therestive area in accordance with national strategy. The
Ministry of Labor has been assigned to oversee theproject and implement these policies and strategies
using the offices of provincial labor in Pattani, Yalaand Narathiwas. But when the name “Labor Graduate” appears on the administrative lines bureaucratically linking plans, policies, and strategies (ministerial
and national), it was magically transformed into a018

Fig. 1 Graphic Chart of Labor Graduate relations. Prepared by Chaowat Moolpakdi, a research assistant with the Strategic Nonviolence Commission,Thailand's Research Fund.

(Happy) Peace Talk23)

019

The Yingluck Shinnawatra government began an official “talk” between the Thai government and thesouthern insurgents in early 2013. This was generally
known as “Southern Border Peace Talk Process.”
The word “peace” was commonly used after bothsides signed a consensus document. The thenNational Security secretary general, Lt. Gen. Para-

dorn Pattanathabutr signed the document for theThai side, while Hasan Tayyib did so for the insurgent
side. One month after the National Council for Peace
and Order (NCPO) under General Prayuth Chanocha staged a coup d’etat against the Yingluck government on May 22, 2014, a new southern border
operation center designed to solve the “southern
problem” began its first meeting on June 30, 2014,chaired by General Udomdej Sitaputra, assistantarmy commander and secretary general of NCPO.
The meeting decided to change the Thai name of thepeace talk process from “Southern Border Peace
Talk Process” to “Southern Border Peace Talk
Process.”24)
General Prayuth did not want the talk process to becalled the Santiparb (peace) talk. So he ordered theprocess to be changed into Santisuk (peace) talk.
The last sentence in the above paragraph is not a
typographical nor my editorial error, but a curioustranslating fact. This is because the word peace inEnglish could be translated as santiparb or santisuk.
If one is to translate the name of the talk process literally, then santi comes from shanti meaning peaceor tranquility, and suk or sukka is happiness. The
exact new name of the talk process should be“happy peace talk process.”
As a result of this name change, all official documents after that including high level commanders’
orders, or policy papers, the name of the talk has tochange from santiparb to santisuk. All policy, strategic, and planning documents must be synchronized.
The word santiparb was deleted and replaced with
santisuk. For example, the Prime Minister issued aCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

project under supervision by different layers of government agencies, brimming with bureaucratic power(Fig. 1).22)
But what do these Labor Graduates do? Their job
description says they provide services in labor affairs.
But their “real” work is to reconnect the state withthe local people in a trust building project. Violence in
the South during the past decade has significantly
robbed the region of the trust the locals might have
had in the state and its agencies. The researcher ofthis project told me that the labor graduates havebeen quite successful in restoring such trust. Though
there certainly are many factors that could explainsuch success, I would argue that its name is a powerful factor. The people using this name are educated, they are university graduates, and they are
there “to help us better our lives with jobs.” The
name “Labor Graduate” they carry with them is so
bland, so harmless and so very apolitical. In just sucha context, these are perhaps conditions necessary toefficiently undertake a most political function in any
political society, the production of trust between thestate and the people.

Prime Ministerial Order 230/2014 dated November
26, 2014 on “Establishing driving mechanism for theSouthern Border Happy Peace Talk Process.” ThisPM Order, together with the Southern Border Provinces Administrative and Development Policy (2015–17) are considered important policy instruments giving direction to the talk process with those who “holddifferent views” from the state.
There were all kinds of explanations about thispeace talk process name change. The Internal Security Operation Command (ISOC) spokesperson
explained that this change of name from “peace” to“happy peace” was done so that it would fit with thecommon understanding of locals.25) A member of thesouthern civil society groups maintained that thischange of name was necessary for the state “toresume control of the talk so that it won’t fall into theseparatists’ game plan, and turn the local people totalk about their genuine happy peace.”26) But the official explanation for this name change first came 10days later from a high ranking officer attached to
ISOC, Col.Wicharn Suksong. He said the government changed the name of the talk process into
“happy peace” because “Some argue that Barisan
Revolusi Nasional (BRN) wishes to escalate theissue. We want to de-escalate both the problem andthe level of the talk. We maintain that this is ourdomestic problem. There are no warring parties in
the area. There is no country at war. The soldiers
who came to the South, they are doing their jobs inenforcing the law, and not to wage war. Therefore,
we call it ‘happy peace talk.’ But whatever name ittakes is unimportant. Moving the process forward ismore crucial.”27)
If there is anyone who would truly disagree with theabove official briefing, and maintain to the contrary
that “name is so very important,” that person would
be General Prayuth Chan-ocha. The NCPO leader
prohibited people from using the name “peace.” In
an interview with the press on January 28, 2015, hesaid:

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76020“... please do not use this issue to pressure theofficials or the state... it will only put us in a disadvantageous position. We have to solve this problem step by step, leading military measures with
politics. The government formulates policy andthe whole process. The government must be firmand show sincerity in creating happy peace.
Don’t use the word ‛peace’ (santiparb) because
there was no armed fighting. This is only about(people) breaking the laws and (the government)
enforcing the laws. If there is an armed fighting,that’s between two parties... using forces to takeover towns to fight each other. Then it is ‛peacetalking’. Using forces from here and there to put
down (the enemy), to stop the violence. But I
don’t want us to go there. We don’t want foreign
involvement... so do not mix them up.”28)
For General Prayuth, and perhaps for the military ingeneral, the word “peace” is the exact opposite of“war and (armed) fighting.” For the military, “peace” isunderstood as a state of no war. If southern violenceis treated as war, the chance of containing it as internal conflict will be undermined. Most important isthat this change of name of the talk process into
“happy peace” is to limit the problem within the control of the Thai government. Understood from within
the military sector, the exact opposite of “happy
peace” is the state of no laws (and order). Working
towards “happy peace” enables the military to deal
with illegal acts by enforcing the law. The namechange from “peace talk” to “happy peace talk” isnot only a measure to ward off foreign influence on
the conflict, but also to systemically solve the problems, reconceptualized militarily, from the policy levelto the operational, and tactical levels. This is perhaps
his understanding of the once famous “leading military measures with politics” method of conducting
conflict that will put “us” in an advantageous positionas understood by the general. However, I do not see
what currently happens to mitigate deadly conflict in
the South as the “leading military measures with politics” method. I would call the present government’s
way of conducting this deadly conflict as: “leading
military measures with governance using laws as themain instrument.”
What General Prayuth has done was to officiallyrename the peace talk process. This official renaming
indicates a certain amount of symbolic capital alongside hegemonic power to force the advent of symbolic process. His official naming effort is possible
because his support comes from different corners inThai society. But then normally such name changing
will be possible when the effort is collectively supported, backed by some levels of consensus. Moreover, the new name should be in line with people’scommon sense. In this case, the renaming effort
came from someone who many believe to speak onbehalf of the state, the entity that monopolizes legitimate symbolic violence.29)
I am curious about the level of legitimation required
to change the name of the talk process in pursuit ofpeace amidst southern violence. The present government suffers from legitimation deficit, both interms of its authority to manage the precarious
southern space, and its legitimate source of origin
because the government was born from a coupd'etat. Conversely, this name change was done onthe basis of bureaucratic legitimation since the problem of southern violence has long been left in the iron
hand of military bureaucracy, with or without a coup,by governments both civilian and military. It would beinteresting to see how far reaching this bureaucratic
power over names and naming could penetrate into
the socio-cultural fabric of the Deep South. To wrestle with this question, I believe we have to examine
the dark world of spirits.
Name of a Ghost30)“My name is ‘Legion’”021

Since the middle of the third century, the Catholic
Church allowed some priests to perform the rite of
exorcism. The possessed, with an evil spirit inside,curled their bodies violently, exhibited uncontrollable
rage, or vomited profusely because it was/is believedthat the evil spirit entered the human body throughnatural body holes, and needs to be expelled throughthem. In some medieval paintings depicting the rite,
the possession ended when the saints or the priests
successfully performed the rite and “black demon”
can be seen disgorged from the mouth of the possessed.32) In modern times, most people believe thatthese unusual bodily performances are symptoms of
epilepsy. The rite, if carried out, could therefore beappreciated for its symbolic function, which could
help the possessed/sick feel contented. The rite
would sometimes be followed with modern medicinalCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

To study Malay Muslim ethnicity in Southern Thailand
in the context of Islamization and the Thai state
power, an anthropologist chose a 150 year-old fishing community some 50 km from the center of Pattani as his research site. Among his treasure trove of
data, I find a most fascinating episode where herecounted what he saw in the rite to connect the living with the dead performed by a Malay Muslim shaman, Bomoh. He told the story of a woman named
A-isha whose father just passed away. One night her
father came to her in her dream and told her that hewas suffering and could not join Allah because of his
unsettled debt with a friend. A-isha wanted to settle
the debt with this friend to appease her dead father,but she didn’t know the name of this friend. So she
went to see a Bomoh to ask for help in communicating with the dead.
The 60-year old Bomoh asked A-isha about her
father’s life story and his name, as well as his favorite
local folk arts. With the information from A-isha, theBomoh began his rite. His body shook. Then heturned himself into a shadow master. After a while,
he was tired and the spirit did not come to be incommunion with him. People witnessing the ritebegan to talk. Some were worried about what could
have gone wrong since normally the rite did not takethis long. Then the Bomoh concluded that A-ishagave him a piece of wrong information. She told him
the Malay (Muslim) name of her father. A-isha was
asked to write down the name of her father again,
but this time it was his Thai name exactly as in theofficial house registration. With the “correct name,”the exact same rite was performed. This time, thespirit came to the Bomoh very quickly. In the daughter’s conversation with her father, whose spirit was
now in Bomoh’s body, she asked him why he used
the Thai name. The spirit answered: “Ayah (Father)already changed my name. Ayah must be Thai. I did
not come at first because the name in Malay was notmine.”31)
The anthropologist’s explanation about the strange
behavior of the Malay Muslim ghost who preferred tobe called by his Thai name is that in this case theThai name, according to official house registration,
represents state’s power. The state’s power in thiscase is flexible enough to accommodate traditional
Islamic teachings that eventually would make it possible for A-isha to know the name of her father’s
creditor, paid the debt, and presumably sent her
father into his preferred state in the beyond.
For me, this fascinating story of spirit possession
reflects how the hegemonic power of the Thai stateand its presence are represented in the official Thai
name insisted by a ghost. That the official namemust be used in life transaction, economic and otherwise is not surprising. Some would even assess
the success of state power by looking into thedegree to which state power could penetrate into thesocio-cultural fabric of a community. But in this case,
I would say that the long arm of the state is soghostly powerful that it stretched into the world after
death, and made its presence felt within the consciousness of a ghost whose identity as a Malay
Muslim has all but gone, and the official consciousness of being a Thai was burned deep into his self.
Even the power of death could not render the Thai
official name void to allow his original Malay Muslimname to take control. This is an amazing feat of state
power in recognizing a name that is without limit,
certainly not only in the life of its citizen, but also indeath by the dead himself.
Believing that the “correct” name of the spirit is theprimary condition for a successful communication
with those who live beyond the realm of the living is
not a specific case prevalent only in the Malay world.
I would say that such practice has thousands ofyears of history of the occults behind it not only inSoutheast Asia.

treatments.33)
But my interest here is not to ask “what causes
demonic possession? Is it because the evil spirit is atwork, or a result of epilepsy?” I am interested, however, in the ways in which exorcism has been carriedout in Christianity? And how does it work?
To deal with this question, it is important to invoke
the authority of the Bible, specifically the New Testament. In his short life, Jesus’ miracles included how
he healed the paralyzed (Matthew 4, 24–25); theblinded (John 9, 2–11); the leper (Matthew 8, 2–4), or
resurrected the dead (John 11, 37–44). But there
were times when he exorcised the demons possessing humans (Matthew 4, 24; Mark 9, 17–27). Whatfollows is a case which appears in the gospels.34)
When Jesus and his disciples crossed the lake tothe territory of Gerasenes, a man possessed with “anunclean spirit” came towards him. This man lived in
the tombs, and could no longer be controlled bychains since he snapped out of them, and no man
had the strength to hold him down. He would howl
all night and day and gashed his body with stones.
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran
up and fell at his feet and shouted at the top of
his voice: “What do you want with me, Jesus,
son of the Most High God? In God’s name do
not torture me!” For Jesus had been saying tohim, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit”.
Then he asked, “What is your name?” Heanswered, “My name is Legion, for there aremany of us”. And he begged him earnestly not
to send them out of the district. Now on themountainside there was a great herd of pigs
feeding and the unclean spirits begged him,
“Send us to the pigs, let us go into them”. So hegave them leave. With that, the unclean spirits
came out and went into the pigs, and the herdof about two thousand pigs charged down thecliff into the lake, and they were drowned. (Mark5, 2–14; Luke 8, 26–34)

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76022

I am interested in the exchange between Jesus andthe possessed during the rite. Jesus told the unclean
spirit to come out of the man. Then he asked thepossessed: “What is your name?” The possessed
man answered: “My name is Legion, for there aremany of us.”35) It is obvious that Jesus’ question ismost relevant to the present discussion. Why did
Jesus ask for “the name” of the evil spirits? What
does knowing the spirits’ names have anything to dowith exorcism?
In a number of cultures, the connection between
the person and his/her name is profound. Perhaps
this is because a name is a part of the self and needs

to be kept in secret to protect the person from dark
and dangerous magic. A traditional song of the
Hausa tribe contains the words: “Dear God, pleaseforgive me. I have said things in my husband’sname....” In other cultures, especially in families thathave lost many children in childbirths, parents
decided to name their newborns with ugly names toprevent the demons from taking the children’s lives.
In the Grimm Brothers’ Rumpelstiltskin, the tale deals
with the power of name. When the evil sorcerer’s
name is known, he could be called out and his
power evaporated. In other stories, calling out names
can bring about spirits from the dark world lies
beyond.36) In several Hollywood film renditions on
exorcism, the priests who perform the rite must findways to get the evil spirits to reveal their names.
Once successful, the power of possession declines
or simply vanishes. The question is why is (revealing)“name” that powerful?
Adam“Naming/knowing name/erasing name/changing
name” are the ways by which power relations could
be established. In sacred books of the past, “knowing names” is important. But because names may
not specifically relate to the person/thing at the time
it comes into being, it is difficult to guess the correctname of a person.37) At the founding moment whensomeone or something is named, it is done withdespotic authority because the person named is notin symmetric power relations with the one who gives
him/her the name. In this sense, a “name” is an esoteric knowledge that “others” do not know unlessbeing told by the name giver directly, or traces of
information about the name left as clues for thenamed themselves or to those interested to explore.
In Al-Qur’an,38) when God created human, He told
all his angels that “I am putting a successor onearth,” they said, “How can You put someone there
who will cause damage and bloodshed when wecelebrate Your praise and proclaim Your holiness?”but He said, “I know things you do not” (2, 30). He
taught Adam the names of all things, then He
showed them to the angels and said, “Tell me thenames of these if you truly think you can” (2, 31).
When the angels could not because they “haveknowledge only of what You have taught us.” Godsaid to Adam: “Adam, tell them the names of these.”
When he told them their names, God said, “Did I nottell you that I know what is hidden in the heavens
and the earth, and that I know what you reveal andwhat you conceal?” (2, 33)
The verses from Al-Qur’an show that Adam issuperior to other beings God created because Adamhas “knowledge.” Adam’s knowledge is to know “thenames of all things.” Knowing names is importantand powerful for two reasons. First, these names are
not known to anyone but God, the Name Giver. In
Islam, God is the culmination of all knowledge Himself. Second, that God chose to tell/teach Adam thisknowledge through revelation is to establish human’s
hegemonic power over all angels. The Adam who
knows “the names of all things” is a different Adam.
Adam has been changed by the power to know thenames of all things, a power bestowed upon him by
the Name Giver who is believed to be the Sole Creator of the universe.
Celestial Axe... Somdej Phramaha Kasatriya rules the Landbecause he is the assumed god (deva) with thepower to turn the world upside down.41) If Somdej Phramaha Kasatriya passes an edict on any
affair, it is as if a Celestial Axe is thrown. If
touched by its might, trees and mountains will
no longer stand, but destroyed. If an edict proclaimed to prohibit anything, such will come topass... 42)
We are told that the King’s edict in this law should bethought of as the mighty “celestial axe” with enormous destructive power. The “celestial axe” is thesovereign power which could create and destroy,
make something-anything- appear as well as vanish.
A Man Named “Puey”
When Puey Ungpakorn (1916–99), the respected
former governor of the Bank of Thailand and Rectorof Thammasat University, finished his Ph.D. from theLondon School of Economics (LSE), he returned
home to serve then as a Financial Ministry civil servant. That was under the government of Field Marshal Pibunsongkhram who became a Prime Minister
after the 1947 coup d’etat. One day the Field Marshal asked him:
“Khun Puey, you are now a high ranking government official, when will you change your nameinto Thai?”023

The respected economist answered: “My name wasgiven to me by my father. My father was alreadydead so I could not ask him to give me a new name.
Moreover, Your Excellency must have been to Lampang (a province in the North). When you travel bytrain, you must have remembered that there is a train
station there named ‘Paeng Puey.’ So (Puey) must
be a Thai name.” Hearing Puey’s answer, the Field
Marshal fell silent.43)

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

I began this keynote address with the story of how
the state used the power of naming to alter the life ofan individual who might belong to a different cultural
tradition of naming, giving her a new name to begin
a new life. But not only does the state have thepower to alter a person’s life, its naming power could
also be a deadly blow to many.
During the 1970s, there were a series of brutal violent incidents perpetrated by state officials against
communist insurgents in Southern Thailand especially in the province of Pattalung. The most notorious is widely known as the “red barrel” incident.
Government officials would arrest those theyaccused of being communist insurgents or sympathizers. They would be interrogated, then knocked
unconscious and thrown into 200-liter oil barrels.
These barrels were generally red in color. Then theywould be burned inside. Those who were alreadydead would naturally burn quietly, but those who
were still alive would howl with excruciating pain into
the night. The soldiers in charge would drown thevictims’ voice with the noise of their truck engines.
The bodies would later be dumped into a nearby
canal.39)
There are two groups of victims inside these redbarrels. There were the insurgents’ relatives, friends
or acquaintances. These people were interrogated tofind out the whereabouts of those hidden in the jungles. Then there were those whose names appeared
in official lists, oftentimes provided by government
informers. There were two problems with this groupof victims. First, the names which appeared on thelist could belong to insurgents who did take up arms
to fight the government at the time. But there werealso names which appeared on the list because of
personal conflicts with the informers. Second, andthis is most relevant here, there were those who wereinterrogated, tortured, and later killed because theirnames were the same as, or sound similar to, theinsurgents’ on the list. Sometimes there appeared
the same names but with different family names.
Those with these “wrong” names were also rounded
up and ended up dead by being burnt in the red barrels for a crime they did not commit.40)
Put another way, an act of naming by the state
could engender life or death over its citizens. How
could one describe such deadly naming power?
There is an apt description hidden in the legal history
of Ayutthaya.
During the reign of King Borommkot or Borommarachathirat III of Ayutthaya (1733–58), there was aroyal edict with the following description of its power:As a matter of fact, the name “Puey” is Chinese andwas given to him by his father. It means “earth at thebase of a tree.” But I think there are many issues one
could reflect on Puey’s response to the absolute
power at the time.
First, Puey’s answer fixes the power of naming
within a familial relationship, and does not allow outside sovereign power to penetrate, let alone tochange it. That’s why he told the Field Marshal that it
was his father who named him and he was no more.
Second, Puey certainly knew what language hisname was and his answer about the name of a train
station in Lampang named “Paeng Puey” does not inany sense mean that “Puey” is a Thai word as the
Field Marshal might have wondered. Puey’s answer
in fact shows that one does not need to think or see
the word “Puey” only as a Chinese word. But one
could accept that the name “Puey” is a languagethat has long been in existence in Thai society,though it might not be the central Thai language preferred by the state. Third, it could be argued that thereason why Puey refused to change his name isbecause he wished to retain his self autonomy rather
than allowing the person with state power to have
his wish. To insist on retaining the “name” given tohim by his father rather than changing it before theseemingly limitless power of someone holding state
power is an act of resistance of a gentleman who
longed for freedom and peace within himself.
In this sense, the politics of naming has to include
resistance to the naming power sometimes issued
by the seemingly mighty celestial axe.
Notes

Struggle: Language of Civil Resistance in Conflicts (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012).
6) See Tim Parks, L’Avventura, a review of Jhumpa Lahiri’s In
Other Words (2016) translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (New York: Knopf) New York Review of Books Vol. LXIII,
No. 5 (Mar. 24–April 6, 2016), pp. 20–22.
7) Lal and Nandy, The Future of Knowledge and Culture, 2001,
p. xvi.
8) Kasian Tejapira, “Phrai kab Ammat: Peesaj Wathakarma” [TheProletarians and the Elites: Demonic Discourse], Matichon
Daily, April 2, 2010, p. 6. (In Thai)
9) Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2001).
10) In the Thai rendition this name should be: “Somdej Akkra
Maha Senabodi Decho Hun Sen.”
11) Bangkok Post, July 9, 2016.
12) She is the mother of Mary Shelley, the author ofFrankenstein.
13) Cited in John Gray, “They Won’t Rest in Peace,” The New
York Review of Books Vol. LXIII, No. 11 (June 23–July 13,2016), p. 71.
14) Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and theAmerican Civil War (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), p. xi.
15) Faust, This Republic of Suffering: chapter 4 on “Naming:
The Significant Word Unknown,” pp. 102–136. The quoteappears on p. 136.
16) Studying names appears to be popular as evident from thejournal Names: A Journal of Onomastics—published by theAmerican Name Society, established in 1951. http://www.
americannamesociety.org/
17) Katarzina Leksiejuk, “Internet Personal Naming Practices
and Trends in Scholarly Approaches,” in Guy Puzey and
Laura Kostanski (eds.), Names and Naming: People, Places,
Perceptions and Power (Bristol, Buffalo, and Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2016), pp. 3–17.
18) Puzey and Kostanski, Names and Naming, p. xiii.
19) George Kegoro, “A Timely Debate on the Cultural Politics ofNaming,” Daily Nation, February 14, 2016. http://www.
nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/A-timely-debate-on-the-culturalpolitics-of-naming/-/440808/3075636/-/ktnagx/-/index.html(Accessed on July 26, 2016).

* An earlier version of this paper was given in Thai as the keynote address for the 2016 Social Science-Humanities Conference for the Puey Ungpakorn’s birth centenary, at Thammasat University, July 28, 2016. I also gave a keynote
speech based on the idea from this paper at the Asia PacificSociety of Public Affairs 2016 Annual Conference-International Conference on Public Organization VI, at Thammasat
University, August 10–11, 2016.

20) Data on “Labor Graduates” used here come from a
research on “The Role of Labor Graduates in Creating Trustamong People in the Southern Border Provinces” by
Warunee Na Nakorn under the project Malaysia: Implications
for Thailand (2016) funded by Thailand Research Funds
which I have served as a research advisor. Permission forthe data used has been granted by the researcher.

1) This is the true story of my mother-in-law.
2) Confucius, The Analects, Raymond Dawson (trans.) (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 49.

22) This graphic was prepared by my research assistant, Mr.
Chaowat Moolpakdi. I am grateful for his assistance on thisas well as in collecting some data for this research paper.

3) There are several interesting works studying the man and histhoughts. See for example, Christine Deftereos, Ashis Nandy
and the Cultural Politics of Selfhood (New Delhi, Thousand
Oaks, and Singapore: SAGE, 2013); Vinay Lal (ed.), Dissenting Knowledge, Open Futures: The Multiple Selves andStrange Destinations of Ashis Nandy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

23) Data on this comes from Romadon Panjor, “Politics ofWords in Pa(t)tani: Constructing ‛Peace’ in Ethnopolitical
Conflict.” Master’s Thesis, Faculty of Political Science,
Thammasat University, 2015. This thesis will soon be published by Thammasat University Press. (In Thai)
24) “NCPO moves ahead-negotiating southern violence,” Khao
Sod, July 1, 2014, p. 15.

4) The work he was writing was later published as: Vinay Lal
and Ashis Nandy (eds.), The Future of Knowledge and Cul-

25) Ibid.

21) In Thai it is: “บัณฑิตพี่เลี้ยงอาสาสมัครแรงงาน” (Bundit Pi Liang
Asa Samak Rang-ngarn).

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76

ture: A Dictionary for the 21st Century (New Delhi and New
York: Penguin Viking, 2005).

0245) This was later published as Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and26) Issara News Team, “Why ‘peace talk’ has to change to‛happy peace talk’,” August 7, 2014. http://www.isranews.
org/south-news/documentary/item/31925-talk_31925.html(Accessed on December 2, 2017).

27) Southern Border Journalist School, “Southern soldiersannounce radical moving ‘happy peace talk’ forward, dialogue platform challenges (the military about) opening political space,” August 19, 2014. http://www.deepsouthwatch.
org/dsj/6063 (Accessed on December 2, 2017).
28) “The Prime Minister reveals 3 steps, hoping for successful
happy peace talk.” Thai Rath Online, January 28, 2015
http://www.thairath.co.th/content/477689 (Accessed on
December 2, 2017).
29) Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, J.B.
Thompson (ed.) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 239.
30) Data on exorcism comes from Sorayut Aim-Aur-Yut, “‘Payah
not jadi nayu’ [It is difficult to be Nayu]: Ethnicity, Meanings,
and Negotiations of Melayu Muslim in Everyday Life.” Master’s Thesis, Faculty of Anthropology and Sociology, Thammasat University, 2008.
31) Ibid., p. 136.
32) I am thinking of Botticelli’s “The Three Miracles of St. Zenobius” displayed at the National Gallery, London.
33) Venetia Newall, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Magic(New York: Dial Press, 1974), p. 81.
34) This story appears in three of the gospels: Matthew, Luke,and Mark but not in John. The account in Matthew is lessdetailed than what can be read from gospels according toLuke and Mark.
35) The New Jerusalem Bible (London: Darton, Longman &Todd, 1985), p. 1666. In Thai, the language used is incomparable: มันตอบว่า “ชื่อกอง, เพราะว่าพวกข้าพเจ้าหลายตนด้วยกัน”(Mun torb wa “Chue Kong, proh wa puak kappachao lai ton
duay gun”), The Christian Bible Containing the Old Testament and the New Testament (Bangkok: Thai Christianity
Association, 1992), Part Two on The New Testament, p.
103.
36) Newall, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Magic, p. 124.
37) For example in Thailand a person named Moo (Piggy) needs
not be fat. But because the word Moo (pig) is predetermined
to refer to an animal which is generally fat. Naming fat people
Moo therefore follows.
38) The Qur’an, M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (trans.) (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), p. 7.
39) Jularat Damrongvithitham, Red Barrels: Historical Reconstruction and Haunted Memory in Thai Society (Bangkok:
Thammasat University Press, 2016), p. 76. (In Thai)
40) Ibid., p. 77.
41) Here the literal translation would be turning “the superiors
into inferiors and vice versa.”42) Dr. Bradley’s Thai Laws cited in Sombat Chantornvong, Critique of Political Literature and History (Bangkok: Kobfai,1997), p. 326. (In Thai)
43) S. Sivaraksa, Puey Ungpakorn: The Trustful Elder (Bangkok:
Komol Keemthong Foundation, 2014), p. 14. (In Thai)

Chaiwat Satha-Anand
Dr. Chaiwat Satha-Anand is Professor of Political Science at Thammasat University and chairperson of the Strategic Nonviolence
Commission, Thailand Research Fund, a think tank that proposes nonviolent policy alternatives to deadly conflicts in Thai society. He
has written, edited, or co-edited some 40 books published both in Thailand and abroad. Some of his writings have been translated
and published in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean. His most recent publications include
Nonviolent Space/Thailand’s Future (Ed, Bangkok: Protestista, 2016 in Thai); Barangsiapa Memelihara Kehidupan (Jakarta: Mizan,
2016-in Bahasa Indonesia); Nonviolence and Islamic Imperatives (Sparnas: Irene Publishing, 2017). He was named “Thailand’s Best
Researcher in Political Science and Public Administration” by the National Research Council in 2006, the National Sri Burapha Distinguished Writer Award in Bangkok and the International El-Hibri Peace Education Prize (Washington D.C.) in 2012.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University025

Excavating the Hidden Politics
of Land Governance in Laos
Miles Kenney-Lazar

Hakubi Assistant Professor/ CSEAS, Kyoto University

Villagers identify lands expropriated for a pulpwood plantation.

O

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76026

ver the past decade, rural areas of Laos haveexperienced rapid agrarian and environmental
changes as the government has granted land andresource concessions to domestic and foreign investors. Over 1.1 million hectares (ha) of “state” land
have been leased for agriculture, tree plantation, andmining projects (Schönweger et al. 2012),1) equivalent to five percent of the national territory. Such land,
despite being legally managed by the state, is customarily occupied, used, and managed by Lao peasants, especially ethnic minority groups (Dwyer 2007).
Losing access to agricultural and forest lands, aswell as the multitude of resources contained within,
has threatened the viability of their rural livelihoods(Baird 2010; Barney 2011; Kenney-Lazar 2012;
Laungaramsri 2012; Suhardiman et al. 2015).
Development organizations and the popular media
often contend that a lack of state sovereignty or
weak governance enables such transformations as
the Lao government is unable to control its politicallyand economically dominant Chinese and Vietnameseneighbors. For example, in a recent video from Al
Jazeera (Le Gouil et al. 2017) on the impacts of Chinese investments in northern Laos, the narrator
authoritatively states that Laos is “fast becoming a
Chinese province, an unofficial colony.” Similarly, thewatchdog NGO Global Witness (2013, 13) argues
that Vietnamese “rubber barons” establishing plantations in southern Laos operate in a “chaotic andopaque ‘free-for-all’ due to lack of political will andweak rule of law.” While such accounts contain anelement of truth, they are blind to the multitude ofinternal and often contradictory politics and power
relations among foreign investors, the Lao state, andLao peasants that actually shape access to land anddrive agrarian-environmental change.
Hidden Land Politics in Laos
In my doctoral dissertation and ongoing research at
CSEAS, I seek to excavate these politics. Excavationis necessary as Lao politics are oftentimes not readily
observable but lie beneath the surface and must be
unearthed with time, patience, and ongoing engagement. Lao peasants and government officials are in
no way apolitical. Instead, their reticence reflects adeep understanding of the sensitivity and danger oftalking and engaging in politics and thus they do sowith caution. In order to reveal these hidden politics,
I employed a painstaking and oftentimes politically
uncomfortable approach of simultaneously working
and engaging with potentially antagonistic groups,
including government agencies at multiple administrative levels, NGOs and land rights activists,
impacted villages and households, and industrial tree
plantation companies.
Over the course of 20 months of ethnographic
fieldwork, I analyzed the ways in which Quasa-

Geruco, a Vietnamese state-owned rubber plantationenterprise, and Sun Paper, a private Chinese pulpwood plantation company, sought to acquire land fortheir projects in eastern Savannakhet, Southern Laos(see Fig. 1) and how this was resisted by some communities and mediated by the state. I immediately
learned that there were significant variations in eachcompany’s ability to acquire land, especially acrossdifferent types of village territories, due to unevenpower relations among peasant, state, and capital
actors. The remainder of the research was concerned with revealing of what exactly these political
relations were comprised. In the rest of this shortessay, I cover three sites of land politics in Laos: afragmented and contradictory state, the friction ofstate-capital relations, and the blurred boundaries
between village and state land ownership.

is between the central and local (provincial, district,and village) administrative scales of government.
While the central government approves and grants
large-scale concessions, like the 8,650 ha awarded
to Quasa-Geruco and the 7,324 ha for Sun Paper,
this is done largely absent of meaningful consultationor land use and ownership surveys with local government agencies who are most knowledgeable of thesituation on the ground. Yet, such local authorities,
especially at the district level, are the ones responsible for actually finding and securing the land granted
to the concessionaires as well as convincing or
coercing villagers to concede parts of their community territories to such projects. Although district government officials are under orders to fulfill concession
contracts, they are also sympathetic to the concernsof the villagers for whose well-being they are partly

Fig. 1 Map of granted concession areas to Quasa-Geruco and Sun Paper. Source: Author’s drawing.

Internal Politics of a Fragmented StateThe Friction of State-capital Relations

027

Plantation companies can either exploit these internal
state politics to their advantage or be burdened bythem. Quasa-Geruco expertly achieved the former
by developing close relations with the district government, understanding the importance of mobilizing

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

It is a truism of social theory that the state cannot beassumed to be a black box or a unified actor, butthat it must be understood in all of its internal fragmentation and contradictions, external ties, andembeddedness within society (Marinetto 2007). A
Gramscian-inspired approach further views the state
as a social relation and thus also as a site of strategic
action, where class struggles play out (Jessop 1990).
Thus, the state is a site of politics, even in one-party
states like Laos.
One such contradictory relation within the Lao state

responsible.Thus, they often find themselves stuck inthe middle of political pressures from central level
ministries, plantation companies, and wary villagers,
embodying how the state operates as a site of strategic action among multiple actors.

local state power to coercively separate peasantsfrom their land. While bribery was essential to such
mobilization, more important was how they used
corruption to develop personal relationships of reciprocity, such as by establishing a small rubber plantation on the district governor’s land for free andfinancially supporting a land official’s daughter’s studies in Vietnam.
Sun Paper, on the other hand, was caught by thefriction of an awkward relationship with the district
government, the importance of which it failed tovalue. Assuming that the contract they signed withthe central-level government guaranteed their accessto land, they let government officials take the lead in
acquiring land for them. When villagers resisted, thecompany was surprised that district officials would
do little to resolve the issue in their favor. As a district
official aptly summed up, this was partly due to how
they treated local officials. He remarked that “theydon’t take care of us like Quasa does” and that they
are “stingy, they don’t give anything to villagers or
district officials, beyond what is required by the regulations.” Out of frustration, the district government
asked Sun Paper to arrange their own land deals
with communities or enter into contract farming
arrangements with individual households. However,neither of these approaches were attractive to mostvillagers as they lacked the ideological and coercive
weight of state power. Ultimately, Sun Paper could
only plant trees on less than half of the land initiallygranted to them.
Blurred State-village Boundaries

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76028

Villagers also engage with the internal politics of thestate when they wish to defend access to land.
Despite the coercive pressure placed upon villages
that drove many of them to concede their lands, few
if any villages were convinced that it was a good idea
to do so and many sought to resist the expropriationof their lands as much as possible. One avenue available for villagers to engage in a politics of control
over land is to debate the meanings and boundaries
of “state” versus “village” land. The common understanding that all land in Laos is owned by the state(e.g. Lund 2011) misreads the complexity of land
relations in the country. The legal framework statesthat land is owned by the “national community” butis managed by the state. While many interpret this tomean that the state effectively owns all land within
the country, it can also be interpreted in other ways
on the ground to argue that villagers are part of thatnational community and that because the village isthe lowest level of government authority, villagers
have the right to play a role in owning and managing
such lands. One village leader cogently summarized

this complex situation of joint village/state land ownership and its accompanying ambiguities by notingthat “This isn’t only village land, it also belongs to thestate, but we live here, we protect it (pok pak hak sa
in Lao language), we are the owners (hao pen chao).”
The Lao legal framework provides that the state
allocates land use rights to individuals, which are fully
protected when a permanent land title is issued but
can also be partially recognized by other forms of
documentation like temporary land use certificates oreven land tax receipts. Thus, demonstrating that village territory is occupied and in use by households
for agricultural production — and is on a path
towards private ownership — can wrest such landaway from the ambiguous boundaries of state/village
land ownership. While villagers interviewed did nothave formal title to their lands, several villages effectively applied a strategy of discursively framing landcommunal/state lands as individual plots to be usedby the next generation. This type of reserved land (dinchap chong) is a customary form of land management that, although not formally documented, canact as a powerful mechanism for demonstrating avillage’s drive to expand agricultural production in
ways amenable to state concepts of modern development (see Fig. 2).
Politics permeate these three sites — within,between, and at the boundaries of the state, thecompany, and the village — and play a decisive rolein shaping access to land in the face of large-scale
plantation development. They demonstrate that thestructural forces of capitalist expansion via coercive
dispossession, otherwise known as land grabbing,are contingent upon the grounded politics over land
among a variety of involved actors. Unearthing such
politics of land is critically important for understanding contemporary processes of agrarian and environmental change across Southeast Asia. It is alsoessential for identifying pressure points for action andchange that puts greater control over land in thehands of the rural people who live and work there.
References
Baird, I.G. 2010. Land, Rubber and People: Rapid Agrarian
Changes and Responses in Southern Laos. The Journal of
Lao Studies 1(1): 1–47.
Barney, K. 2011. Grounding Global Forest Economies:
Resource Governance and Commodity Power in Rural Laos.
PhD dissertation, Toronto: York University.
Dwyer, M.B. 2007. Turning Land Into Capital: A Review of
Recent Research on Land Concessions for Investment in
Lao PDR: Part 1 of 2 — Existing Literature. Vientiane: Land
Issues Working Group.
Global Witness. 2013. Rubber Barons: How Vietnamese Companies and International Financiers are Driving a Land Grabbing Crisis in Cambodia and Laos. London.

Fig. 2 Agro-forestry lands defended from clearance by the plantation company

Jessop, B. 1990. State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in its
Place. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press.

Marinetto, M. 2007. Social Theory, the State and Modern Society. New York: Open University Press.

Kenney-Lazar, M. 2012. Plantation Rubber, Land Grabbing andSocial-property Transformation in Southern Laos. Journal of
Peasant Studies 39(3–4): 1017–1037.

Schönweger, O., Heinimann, A., Epprecht, M., Lu, J., and Thalongsengchanh, P. 2012. Concessions and Leases in the
Lao PDR: Taking Stock of Land Investments. Vientiane:
MONRE and CDE.

Laungaramsri, P. 2012. Frontier Capitalism and the Expansionof Rubber Plantations in Southern Laos. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 43(3): 463–477.
Le Gouil, G., Lambert, B., Esteve, C., and Arte. 2017. Laos: On
the Borders of the Empire [online]. Al Jazeera. Available from:http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2017/05/laos-borders-empire-170522105221541.
html.

Note
1) This figure only accounts for the land granted, not all of whichis actually developed.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Lund, C. 2011. Fragmented Sovereignty: Land Reform andDispossession in Laos. Journal of Peasant Studies 38(4):885–905.

Suhardiman, D., Giordano, M., Keovilignavong, O., and Sotoukee, T. 2015. Revealing the Hidden Effects of Land Grabbing
through Better Understanding of Farmers’ Strategies in
Dealing with Land Loss. Land Use Policy 49: 195–202.

029

The Businessification of Civil Society
Kevin Hewison
Former Fellow, CSEAS

ACSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76030

vibrant civil society is usually considered a measure of democratization. In assessing democratization and civil society, it is often the nature of therelationship between civil society and the state that is
considered vital. Authoritarian states limit the space
where civil society organizations (CSOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can operate anddemocratically-inclined governments are consideredmore receptive of demands from civil society actors
and allow CSOs considerable space to operate. Thevery notion of an NGO suggests both a relationshipwith the state and a distance from the state and its
controls. In terms of politics, in both democratic andauthoritarian states, civil society and NGOs have often been seen as contesting the state’s control ofpolitical space (see Whaites 2000).
Yet, by focusing on state and civil society, we areneglecting another struggle that involves a contest
for the control of the organizations of civil society.
This contest involves civil society and business.
Business firms are not simply a means to accumulate capital. Rather, they are a “concentration of
power” that is economic, ideological and political(Crouch 2004, 30, 43). As such, like civil society,business exists in a relationship with the state. In
recent decades, business has come to dominate thestate to such an extent that its interests are paramount in shaping the state and its affairs. As states
have confronted declining revenue bases there has
been a “commercialization” of the state and its services. Promoted as “reform” and bringing commercial principles to the “business” of state, the result is
a commodification of state intervention in criticalareas such as education, health and welfare. Such“reforms” are broadly neoliberal, and fundamentally

imbued with anti-democratic and technocratic
notions of managerialism. Firms don’t just dominate
the economy but have become deeply involved in
the “running of government” (ibid., 44). The result isstate services contracted out, a loss of competencies in government, more private sector involvement,
advice and contracts, and the dominance of business models. Business power comes to dominate
government in a broad process of “businessification.”
This corporate makeover is complete when businessification results in the combination of processes ofmanagerialism, commodification, privatization andcustomerization (Wolin 2008, 146–147).
The Struggle for the Organizations of Civil
Society
Civil society is undergoing a businessification thatmirrors the processes seen in the state’s relationshipwith business. Just as that process has been conflicted and contested, so it is in civil society.
The struggle for civil society has at least two significant resonances with the contest for the state. First,
the neoliberal and anti-politics claim that citizens nolonger need the state is echoed in civil society discourses about the threat the state poses to the“grassroots.” And, second, the businessification of
the state is also a part of a process of extending“deep marketization” into the space of civil society
through the control of ideology and the organizationsin that space (see Carroll 2012).
The anti-state/anti-politics rhetoric rings loud in civilsociety. Recently, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, theSecretary-General of CIVICUS, a global alliance of
CSOs and activists from 165 countries, claimed thatjob done. Business is claimed to be an efficient“developer,” having a critical role in poverty alleviation(Wales 2014).
Claims that firms and entrepreneurs can drive
development are now widely accepted in government, international financial institutions and thedevelopment community. Even when faced with contrary evidence, state agencies have been reluctant toreconsider self-promoting private sector claims ofefficiency (ICAI 2015). Norfund, the NorwegianInvestment Fund for Developing Countries, established in 1997, had a portfolio of US$1.7 billion by
2015, all for “business development.” Norfund is now
the Norwegian government’s “main instrument for
combatting poverty through private sector development” and seeks to invest in “profitable and sustainable” enterprises to “promote business development
and contribute to economic growth and poverty alleviation” (Norfund 2015).
This businessification of development, welfare andother services has also seen the faddish growth ofsocial businesses, sustainable markets, social innovation, microfinance, microbusinesses, micro-franchising, social incubators and more (see Wankel2008). Indeed, in some accounts, it is “social business” that will “save” capitalism (Yunus 2007). In
another take, such privatized ventures are seen as alogical outcomes of capitalism’s economic superiorityand political victory (Bernstein 2010).
Social business and social enterprise are coupledwith “social entrepreneurialism” and touted as bringing business and commercial strategies to bear in
improving human and environmental well-being (Ridley-Duff and Bull 2011). Such claims see social
enterprise as a voguish vehicle for philanthropists.
Some of these rich “developers” describe themselves
as “evangelists” for social enterprise, displaying cando, personalized and individualistic approaches tothe business of development (see, for example, Skoll
Foundation 2015). Their wealth and resulting influence allow them to bring together governments, rockstars, venerable educational institutions and othercelebrity developers to promote their not always successful “feel good” causes (see The Economist
November 5, 2016). “Philantrocapitalism” isembraced by both businessified governments andbusiness people (Hobbes 2014, 3). Anyone who has
been through Bangkok’s international airport will
have seen the Thai royal family’s social enterpriseoutlets hawking products from “villagers.” Suchenterprises are commercial but do as much to propagandize for the world’s wealthiest monarchy.
Meanwhile, the grassroots, remain oppressed andexploited by an alliance of tycoons, military and monarchy (Hewison 2014).

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

there is a “renewed period of contestation about theacceptable bounds of civil society, the latest manifestation of the battle to protect citizens against state
power” (CIVICUS 2015, 5, emphasis added). Suchclaims fit neatly with neoliberal exhortations that government is best when operating as a combination of“stakeholder participation” augmented by “problemsolving efficiency” (see Mair 2013, 15). Calls for “participatory governance,” often a kind of anti-politics
declaration, have been widely taken up in CSOs. Yet,
participation is usually defined in terms of “appropriate” decision-making. In authoritarian regimes, thismight be progressive, but in democratizing regimes,
decision-making facilitated by quasi-technocraticNGOs has the potential to undermine elections, representation, delegated power, politicians and politicalparties. Notions of technocratic decision-making
suggest that it is not just states and politicians thatcannot be trusted, but voters themselves.
Interestingly, business is neglected in the civil society fight to protect citizens from state power andvenal politicians. To be sure, there has been an antibusiness rhetoric among NGOs, yet criticism of business is declining as NGOs cooperate with business(and government) on a vast scale and themselves
become more business-like.
As governments withdraw from service provisionand delivery, it is often NGO “partners” that are contracted to deliver these, complete contract researchand deliver other services required by donor andrecipient governments. Often, these “projects” arenot those that NGOs might have chosen if they had
their own funding streams. Increasingly, NGOs findthemselves engaged in competitive markets andwound up in the red tape of accountability requiredby businessified government agencies. This leads toanother trend in businessification: working with private donors, perceived as easier to deal with thanstate agencies.
When CSOs link with businessified government
agencies, businesses and foundations, they findthemselves competing with the private sector on
claims of who is better at implementing projects,
delivering services and doing more for poverty alleviation. As state agencies engage in competitive bidding they become “a shopper for the cheapest
means of delivery, indifferent about whether it contracts a CSO or a business, although businesses
may be preferred because they are less likely to raisedifficult questions” (CIVICUS 2015, 153). Yet business is not just a competing “supplier.” There is an
emerging discourse that argues for the recognition of“the power of the private sector to transform the livesof poor people” (Mitchell 2011). Business executives
proclaim their capacity for getting the development

031

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76

Businessification redefines the nature of civil society.
The space of civil society comes to be conceptualized as composed of individuals rather than collections of organizations. Thus, those at the grassroots
become “clients,” “customers,” “entrepreneurs” and“key stakeholders” to be surveyed, focus-groupedand developed. This turn to individuals reflects a viewthat there is a latent entrepreneurialism at the grassroots, waiting to be unleashed. States are required tocontribute to this by providing an appropriate regulatory framework: granting property rights, making
loans, providing seed capital and other commercial
inputs. These projects often amount to forms ofprimitive accumulation meant to commodify thecommons and increase productivity by smallholder
farms producing for capitalist markets. It is then businesses or businessified NGOs that lead grassroots
entrepreneurs to the market.
As the nature of civil society is redefined by businessification it changes funding. Some NGOs refuse
government and corporate funding, but these are asmall minority. Most now operate in an environment
where funding has been converted to contracts forservices and where philanthropy is coming to dominate. Some estimates are that private development
assistance is now equal to about a third of the ODA
from DAC members, and that it makes up about aquarter of all humanitarian funding (CIVICUS 2015,167). While private donations are sometimes seen as
coming with fewer strings attached, to access thesefunds NGOs must engage in corporate-style marketing, advertising and branding, and present anagenda that wealthy individuals and foundations findpalatable, even “exciting.” In other words, agendas
are shaped by the nature and ideology of donors.
What does bussinessification mean for CSOs seeking structural change and social justice? What are
the ethics of accepting funds from the 1% whomonopolize economic and political power? Certainly,
where the money comes from is important. Yet funding independence is increasingly unlikely. As CIVICUS(2015, 170–173) observe, a small and powerfulgroup of “private foundations commands mostresources, with the 10 largest private foundations
providing 60% of all international foundation giving,
meaning that their decisions on resource allocation
can be disproportionately influential.” The result is aconvergence of CSOs and businesses and foundations and a dilution of attention to progressive socialchange.
The advocates for these processes of bussinessification argue that businesses and civil society appreciate a levelling of the playing field:

032

The rule of law is preferable to the rule of power.
Predictability trumps disorder. Fairness is better

than corruption. These statements ring as true
for business as they do for civil society. Stable,balanced environments are better for
everyone....
It is time that we acknowledge our similarities
and start working together to achieve this, forthe benefit of each sector, and for society as awhole (Kiai and Leissner 2015, 272).
Working together means competing with each otherwith “market logics” applied to NGOs. This often
leads to calls for a “rationalization” of the multitude ofNGOs in the interest of efficiency, evaluation, transparency and good governance; a kind of CSO mergers and acquisitions movement.
Conclusion
The struggle for civil society is a contest that has
been seen before in the ways in which business hascome to dominate states. At the same time, the successful businessification of the state means that civilsociety is faced with a two-pronged effort, by stateand business, to businessify the organizations of civilsociety.
Businessified NGOs will pose few challenges toregimes, repressive or democratic. Businessificationmeans that CSOs will tend to be supportive of theregimes of the day, leading to a narrowing of politicalspace. Civil society representation and participation
is now largely about regulation. Businesses andstates understand that.
This is not an argument that civil society is lost orthat all NGOs have sold out. Rather, this approachobserves that, for the organizations of civil society, as
bussinessification takes hold of them, there is a diminution of activism that contributes to the narrowingof political space, the rise of anti-politics and thedomination of business elites. If the space of civilsociety is being businessified, political strategies
need to be devised to challenge the trajectory ofbusinessification.
References
Bernstein, A. 2010. The Case for Business in Developing Economies. Johannesburg: Penguin.
Carroll, T. 2012. Working On, Through and Around the State:
The Deep Marketisation of Development in the Asia-Pacific.
Journal of Contemporary Asia 42 (3): 378–404.
CIVICUS. 2015. State of Civil Society Report. London: CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation.
Crouch, C. 2004. Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hewison, K. 2014. Considerations on Inequality and Politics inThailand. Democratization 21 (5): 846–866.
Hobbes, M. 2014. Stop Trying to Save the World. New Repub-

lic November 17.
ICAI. 2015. Business in Development. London: Independent
Commission for Aid Impact Report 43.
Kiai, M. and Leissner, M. 2015. The Clampdown on Resourcing: Comparing Civil Society and Business. In State of Civil
Society Report, edited by CIVICUS, pp. 272–277.
Mair, P. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western
Democracy. London: Verso.
Mitchell, J. 2011. The Role of the Private Sector in Development. February 2, https://www.odi.org/comment/5396-roleprivate-sector-development, accessed March 3, 2017.
Norfund. 2015. About Norfund. http://www.norfund.no/aboutnorfund/category447.html, accessed November 10, 2015.
Ridley-Duff, R. and Bull, M. 2011. Understanding Social Enterprise. London: Sage.

Wales, A. 2014. “How can Business Drive Meaningful Poverty
Alleviation?” Development Progress Blog, http://www.developmentprogress.org/blog/2014/03/05/how-can-businessdrive-meaningful-poverty-alleviation, accessed November
10, 2015.
Wankel, C. ed. 2008. Alleviating Poverty Through Business
Strategy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Whaites, A. 2000. Let’s Get Civil Society Straight: NGOs, theState, and Political Theory. In Development, NGOs, and Civil
Society, edited by Oxfam GB, pp. 124–141. Oxford: Oxfam
Publishing.
Wolin, S. 2008. Democracy Incorporated. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Yunus, M. 2007. Creating a World Without Poverty. New York:
Public Affairs.

Skoll Foundation. 2015. About Jeff Skoll. http://skoll.org/about/meet-jeff-skoll/, accessed November 8, 2015.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

033

Research on Women’s Leadership in Indonesia:
Women as the Source of Knowledge, New
Narrative, and Existing Limitations (2006–2017)
Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi

Senior Researcher, Research Center for Politics, Indonesian Institute of Sciences

Fig. 1 Interview. Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi with SM vice-district head of KL, 28 July 2016.

T

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76034

he democratized atmosphere of the post-Suharto era (after 1998) has provided wider room forIndonesian women to expand their political role in a
number of ways, including participation in direct elections and securing leadership positions. Since theearly 1990s, Muslim women activists in Indonesia
have begun to embrace and spread ideas of Islamic
feminism through publications and discussions. Subsequently, since the early 2000s, non-state actors
from academia and women activists began to promote affirmative action regulations to increase therepresentation of women in parliament. Increasing
discussions on gender equality in Indonesian Islamand civic consolidation to foster government’s policyof pro-affirmative action, resulted in voluntarily affirmative action being adopted in the 2004 General
Election. This was followed by firmer affirmative action rule combined with the zipper mechanism (maleand female candidates who would appear alternately
on party lists) which required at least one woman
among the top three candidates in the 2009 General
Election, and then in the 2014 General Election. In
the forthcoming 2019 General Election, Law No.
7/2017 article 173, section 2 (e) set the requirementthat only a political party that is able to fulfil the affirmative action rule, where women make up 30 per
cent of the members of party’s managing officers on
the central board to compete in the General Election.
Although the representation of women in the Indonesian parliament is still below 30 percent, the vibrantdiscourses surrounding it have provided comfortable
spaces for greater political participation and the lead-ership of women, including in Indonesian Islam.
Machrusah (2005) studied Muslimat Nahdlatul
Ulama (Muslimat NU), the women’s wing of NU, a
traditionalist Muslim organization founded in 1926, toobserve how it negotiated with its male dominatedparent organization NU for greater gender equality.
Machrusah concluded that the reinterpretation ofreligious texts is only one part of a discussion in talking about better gender relations within traditional
Muslim societies as it also depends on external political forces. “'Aisyiyah,” the women’s wing of Muhammadiyah (the Islamic modernism movement in Indonesia founded in 1912), also proposed women’s
leadership. Taking an interest in these changes inIndonesian society, in 2006, I begin research on
women’s leadership in Muhammadiyah. My work
revealed that 'Aisyiyah have demanded for women to
be included in the Muhammadiyah Central Board
since the 40 th “'Aisyiyah Muktamar” in Surabaya
1978 (Dewi 2008, 166). Muhammadiyah’s formal religious perspectives is in favor of women’s leadership;in contrast to the majority of Muhammadiyah followers at wilayah (provincial) and daerah (district) level
who oppose women’s leadership as they are likely
dominated by textual approaches in interpreting
divine messages on women’s leadership. This was
the case with the 45th Muhammadiyah Muktamar
held in July 2005, where no women were elected to
the Central Board of Muhammadiyah (Dewi 2007;2008). I concluded that 'Aisyiyah’s demands for
women’s leadership in Muhammadiyah should consider the changing religious perspectives of Muham-mainstream Indonesian Islam organizations, namely
Muhammadiyah and NU that have similar perspectives and attitudes in supporting women’s leadershipin local politics, where the three female JavaneseMuslim political leaders exercise power (Dewi 2015,
63). Thus, Indonesian Islam provides a strong religious foundation for Muslim women political leaders
to expand their leadership in politics and shape theg ro w t h o f d e m o c r a t i z a t i o n i n p o s t - S u h a r t oIndonesia.
Finishing my study, I was further driven by curiosity
to uncover another two factors, piety and sexuality,
which I did not deeply explore in my earlier research.
In doing so, in 2016, I observed another four Muslim
women political leaders’ experiences and narratives,
who resided in Yogyakarta Province and other surrounding provinces. Research showed that private
lives and intimate relations, which are greatly shaped
by Islamic norms, such as wearing the veil and husband-wife relationships, are deliberately brought into
the public sphere to seek political sympathy. Theiractions tell us that it is not only the agency of thesefour women that matter; the veil itself is a means ofagency. The veil, rather than signifying oppression as
often perceived by western feminist understanding,becomes a progressive socio-political tool because it
gives them comfort in certain spaces to maneuverer
and participate in the public sphere which is highly
patriarchal, given the increasing engagement of Indonesian people with Islamic principles and norms in
the third wave of Islamization in Indonesia (Dewi
2017a, 344, 354). Wearing a veil, in this case, signifies freedom for Indonesian Muslim women to takeactive part in electoral politics. I also discovered thatthe piety and good sexuality of Muslim women political leaders may be only be a very superficial part oftheir attitude, being able to get wider approval andpower. This finding confirms an earlier analysis ofthree Javanese Muslim women political leaders
where ideas and norms of Islamic piety in publicsphere were played upon or used in political campaigns, beyond a personal act of worshipping God

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

madiyah followers in favor of women’s leadership,
their ability to engage with obstacles from the gendered perspective of Muhammadiyah’s development,
and from within the context of Javanese culture(Dewi 2007; 2008).
Contemporary discourses and pressure for women’s leadership in Indonesian Islam, namely NU and
Muhammadiyah, coincides with the ongoing development of local politics. Direct local elections to electheads of local government under the Law No.
32/2004, was initially implemented in 2005. I haveargued that structural opportunities for women to be
recruited into politics have increased under the newconditions for direct local elections (Dewi 2015, 8).
Today, female politicians can move freely among voters without running into barriers set up by oligarchies
and male-dominated political parties. This is because
direct elections have lessened, if not removed, theinstitutional barriers of oligarchic, male-dominatedpolitical parties, including inside the regional People’s
Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat
Daerah, DPRD), which had been the mechanism
through which local government heads were elected.
It is now the voters who decide who wins, and notmale dominated political elites inside DPRD, who formerly elected local leaders. The number of female
leaders elected via direct local election as governor/
mayor/district heads, have increased significantly inwhich most of them are Muslims in Java, since theintroduction of direct local elections in 2005. This
new development is influenced by the increasing
engagement of Indonesian Muslim women who hold
Islamic principles. To put it another way, contemporary Indonesian Islam in the post-Suharto era showsa waning of political Islam, but a deepening of “social
Islamization” (Ota et al. 2010, 3–5). Considering thiscontext, I suggest that the increasing number offemale Muslim leaders elected through direct elections indicates that important changes and developments have taken place in Indonesia in relation to
Islam, gender and politics.
In 2008, I started new research on Muslim womenpolitical leaders focusing on three Muslim womenpolitical leaders who won direct local elections inJava. The majority of elected Muslim political leaders
are in Java and Javanese. Observing Indonesia’s
local politics through the prism of gender, my ongoing research has revealed many positive, yet often
neglected factors, namely the role of Islam, gender,and networks behind the success of Muslim womenpolitical leaders in direct local elections. Concurrently,
I have been developing new perspectives on theagency of Muslim women in utilizing their individual
capital (education, social background, gender) (Dewi2012; 2015). In particular, I have highlighted two

035

Photo: Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi

Photo: Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi
Fig. 2 Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi interviewing SW district head of BT (2010–2015), 31 July 2016.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76036(Dewi 2015, 182). This public piety is intermingledwith sexuality. There are generally widespread normsof Indonesian society that perceive heterosexuality as
the acceptable norm: the four female Javanese Muslim politicians are expected to behave with theirspouses (husbands) as good wives and mothers,
and this clearly played out in their political campaigns(Dewi 2017a, 354). Although we should be aware of
the “conservative turn” (van Bruinessen 2013, 3)
phenomenon of Indonesian Islam, research suggeststhat in local politics, gender is not a significant element of contestation that can be used as a primarypoint to attack or hinder Muslim women candidates.
In-depth research on women’s leadership in Indonesia (2006–2017) suggests the importance of
updating previous notions regarding female leadership in Asia that rely heavily on the “familial ties” factor and notion of “moral capital” (Dewi 2017a, 343). I
suggest that without neglecting the importance of
personal capabilities, we should consider and pay
attention to ideas and practices of Islamic piety andsexuality in the public sphere to analyze the rise ofMuslim women’s political leadership in Asian popular
democracy; in a milieu of Islamization and globalization in the twenty-first century where discourses ofpiety and sexuality are becoming increasingly
dynamic.
Through years of research, I realize that a feminist
research methodology, one that focuses on women’s

personal experiences in a specific context to gain
knowledge based on their real-life experiences (Harding 1987, 30), has enabled me to capture not only
their experiences, but much more. By positioning
women as a source of knowledge, we can observe
the correlation between Islam, gender, networks,
piety, and sexuality in the public sphere of contemporary Indonesia. The agency of Muslim womenpolitical leaders is pivotal. Their thoughts and experiences have produced new narratives of IndonesianMuslim women’s roles and positions, namely those
who actively create opportunities in politics with confidence to embrace and expand new meanings ofIslamic piety into the public sphere. This is shaping
the growth and direction of Indonesian democratization which was previously mainly dominated by men.
Nevertheless, academic efforts to promote women’s
leadership or political research with gender or women’s perspectives faces contemporary challenges.
Both the public and academia have higher expectations toward female political leaders’ commitment
and achievement toward gender responsive policy.
Careful analysis is needed in viewing this matter.
Research has made clear that most female politicalleaders show low commitment or passive roles inpromoting gender responsive policy, which has been
influenced by a number of factors such as their personal experiences, their engagement with women’sgroups during their quest for power, and their leader-

ship characteristics (Dewi 2015, 174, 183). Additionally, so far, the majority of female political leaders
come from strong families ties and political dynasties
which prevent them from performing progressively ina different fashion from male oligarchs (Dewi 2017b).
Furthermore, there are an increasing number offemale political leaders who have been jailed due tocorruption cases (such as in Banyuwangi, Banten,
Klaten, Tegal, Kutai Kertanegara). Although many
male political leaders have also been jailed due tocorruption cases, the public have paid special attention to the performance of female political leaders.
This is due to their rise and it is still regarded as a
new phenomenon which has disrupted a predominantly male dominated political landscape. Thisdevelopment indicates a disparity between academic
efforts to promote women’s leadership, as well as
research on politics with a focus on gender andwomen on the actual situation of women’s leaders inIndonesia.
This situation, if not paid enough attention, will
result in a backlash against the efforts to promotewomen’s leadership in Indonesian politics. Finally,
one other challenge is to encourage more female
political leaders from lower class groups to participate. To date, female political leaders in local politics
have predominantly come from the middle-class.
While lower class women usually do not haveenough resources to compete in direct local election,
middle class women have acquired better individual
capital (in the form of education, finance, and skills),
as well as social capital (networks). These are all
requirements to compete in direct local elections.
Certainly, there is still much to do to narrow thedivide between normative expectations and theactual situation of women’s leadership in Indonesia.
Systematic and continuous effort needed to achieve
substantive narrative women’s leadership, beyond
the symbolic narrative of women’s leadership inIndonesia.

References
Dewi, Kurniawati Hastuti. 2007. Women’s Leadership in
Muhammadiyah: ‘Aisyiyah’s Struggle for Equal Power Relations. Master's thesis, Australian National University.
––––––––. 2008. Perspectives Versus Practices: Women’s Leadership in Muhammadiyah. SOJOURN: Journal of Social
Issues in Southeast Asia 23(2): 161–185.
––––––––. 2012. The Emergence of Female Politicians in Local
Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia. PhD thesis, Kyoto
University.
––––––––. 2015. Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam,
Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press; Kyoto:
Kyoto University Press.
––––––––. 2017a. Piety and Sexuality in a Public Sphere: Experiences of Javanese Muslim Women’s Political Leadership. Asian Jour nal of Women’s Studies 23(3):340–362.
––––––––, ed. 2017b. Perempuan Kepala Daerah Dalam Jejaring
Oligarki (Female Political Leaders in the Oligarchy Networks) Lokal. Jakarta: LIPI Press.
Harding, S. 1987. The Method Question. Hypatia 2(3): 19–35.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810120.
Machrusah, Safira. 2005. Muslimat and Nahdlatul Ulama:
Negotiating Gender Relations within Traditional Muslim
Organisation in Indonesia. Master's thesis, Australian
National University.
Ota, Atsushi; Okamoto, Masaaki; and Ahmad Suaedy, eds.
2010. Islam in Contention: Rethinking Islam and State inIndonesia. Jakarta: The Wahid Institute, CSEAS, andCAPAS.
van Bruinessen, M., ed. 2013. Contemporary Developments inIndonesian Islam: Explaining the “Conservative Turn.” Singapore: ISEAS.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University037

A flyer for the third season of the popular Hindi TV drama "Nagin" (Snake Women), dubbed in Thai on Channel 3.

Fresh From the Field:
Translated Media, Trans-regional Encounters:
Experiencing India in the Lao Highlands
Nishaant Choksi
JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow/ CSEAS, Kyoto University

A

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76038

s a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow whose research
primarily focuses on India, I have always felt as aslight outlier at the CSEAS, where most research focuses on Southeast Asia, which as broadly conceived stretches from the Philippines to the Bangladesh-Burma border. Although I am the only
researcher at CSEAS as far as I know working primarily in India, my research focuses on India’s Austroasiatic languages, minority languages which areclosely related to the Mon-Khmer languages of mainland Southeast Asia. My postdoctoral counterpart at
CSEAS, Nathan Badenoch, has worked for a number of years on Mon-Khmer languages, particularly in
the Laos highlands, and also in Myanmar, and recently we together have begun joint projects in India
as well.
Since Southeast Asia is not my area of study, I havenot spent much time in the region. Yet one of theadvantages of working at CSEAS has been theopportunity to explore regions different from my primary research site, and to explore the longstanding
connections between different parts of Asia (Japan

included). Recently I had the opportunity to accompany Professor Badenoch on a trip to his field site inLuang Namtha province, Laos, a region far to thenorth of the country that shares a border with Yunnan in China. This region is both ethnically and linguistically diverse, home to several of Laos’ ethnic
minorities. In the villages around Luang Namtha,
speakers of four major language families (Austro-Asiatic, Hmong-Mien, Tibeto-Burman, and Tai-Kadai)
coexist together, and a type of stable multilingualism
has emerged. Badenoch has been studying the languages and the linguistic and ethnic diversity of thisregion for over eight years, and is proficient to varying degrees in many of the languages spoken there.
Currently, Badenoch is working mostly with a settlement of speakers of a Mon-Khmer language known
as Bit. As the language is under-documented, Badenoch is in the process of creating a dictionary andgrammar of the language. I accompanied him to the
Bit village in February 2018 for a brief visit. As the villagers could talk freely in their language (throughBadenoch), they were very friendly and open with

me. They readily answered questions I had about
their language, and I drew many comparisons
between words and cultural concepts in their language and in the Austro-Asiatic languages spoken in
India. They were equally surprised by the close similarities in languages spoken so far apart.
However, perhaps more interesting than my academic questions were the villagers’ own questions
for me, having for the first time seen a person ofIndian descent in the flesh. “Do you see many snakes
in India?” “Are you scared of snakes?” “Are snakes inIndia magical?” “Are India people’s origins fromsnakes?” At first I was a bit confused why so many
villagers, at most of the households we visited, kept
asking me questions about snakes. I know India wasfamous for cobras and snake charmers, but it is also
equally known for many other things, so I was curious why the intense curiosity of everyone on thesubject of snakes. It soon emerged in conversation
with the villagers that one of the most popular television shows in the village was a Thai-dubbed versionof the Indian drama Naagin (นาคิน in Thai).
Naagin was a popular Indian television drama thatfirst aired in India in 2015. The story is one of twoshapeshifting serpent cousin sisters (icchadaari naagin) who seek to avenge the death of their parents.
Their parents possessed an ancient powerful jewel,
and were murdered by a gang of thieves. The sisters
were then raised in a Shiva temple (Shiva is a powerful Hindu God, and Lord of Serpents) by a holy man(a rishi or sage), and then as they grew older they left
to kill the thieves and regain possession of the jewel.
Subsequently a series of events take place, forinstance the sisters both fall in love with one of thekind-hearted human sons of one of the murderers,
and turn on each other, leading to family and romantic dramas and tensions between serpent andhuman forms. Though the story has mythologicaland Puranic elements it is set in the modern world;
the characters use mobile phones and drive cars,
while at the same time using religious incantations,
casting curses, etc.
The show was one of the first Indian television dramas to air on Thailand’s Private Channel 3, andbecause, as is typical with many Indian television
dramas, a large number of episodes were produced,
it was available as a daily broadcast. As most people
in Luang Namtha had satellite dishes they received
Thai television channels, and as a general rule, mostpeople in Luang Namtha (and in Laos in general)
preferred watching Thai-language media. As wefound out later, not only in the Bit village, but
throughout Luang Namtha town and the surrounding
cities, Naagin was extremely popular. Everybody
either watched it, or expressed regret at not having
time to watch it. On my way back from the Bit village
to Luangnamtha city after a day of field work, I
passed by an open window and peeked inside, and I
saw a television show lighted up with two snakes
fighting with a Shiva linga (a statue of the Lord Shiva)
in the background, and one of the snakes quickly
morphing into a beautiful woman. The show ofcourse was Naagin.
As Badenoch took me around Luang Namtha andexplained to me more in depth about the history andcultural diversity of the place, I started to see that thethemes and characters of the Indian television show
had a far deeper local resonance than simply as an
exotic curiosity from a remote land. Communities likethe Bit, and other larger ethnic groups in the region
like the Khamu and Sida, were not Buddhist but
practiced forms of animism in which animal spirits
were important, including snakes, and spirits often
took the forms of both animals and humans. Snake

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

039

Fig. 1 Associate Professor Nathan Badenoch discussing Bit history with village elder

Fig. 2 Rishi and the Buddha (Photo from Nathan Badenoch)

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76040

spirits, called Naak (from the Sanskrit Naga) often
shape-shifted into women. Hence it was no surprisethat among animist communities like the Bit, shows
like Naagin were popular, and though they were“supernatural,” resonated with lived experience. The
Naga of course, as a popular creature from ancientIndian mythology, also plays a special role in Buddhism, the dominant religion of Laos.
Yet though shape-shifting snakes have parallels in
the Buddhist and animistic worldviews of the residents of Luang Namtha, there are also some othermore obscure connections that came to light during
my brief trip. For instance, Naagin features bearded
ascetics, holy men who, in India, are often associated with the worship of Shiva. Anyone who has visited the Himalayas in India or Nepal, or any numberof pilgrimage sites in South Asia, has seen thesewandering ascetics, and thus they are not so exotic
for the Indian viewer. They are however a rare sight in
the Theravada Buddhist cultures of Southeast Asia,
which does not encourage such type of renunciation.
Yet, curiously, as Badenoch pointed out to me on atrip to Luang Namtha’s major Buddhist temple, Wat
Samakhixay, one of the major features of the temple
is a cave-like structure in the back of the main sanctuary at the end of which sits a bearded renunciate (arishi, drawn from the Sanskrit word for sage or seer)
surrounded by Buddhas. Badenoch’s analysis (in anarticle currently under preparation for the Journal of

Lao Studies) is that the sage represents the animistic, non-Buddhist cultures of the region, and that thecave itself with the Buddhas standing in subordination, reverses the traditional power relations between
the highland animistic societies such as the Bit,
Khamu, or Hmong, and the dominant Buddhist Lao
and Tai cultures. This is also evidenced by the factthat many of the patrons of the temple are
non-Buddhists.
In addition to the presence of bearded ascetics inthe landscape of Luang Namtha, and its connection
to the minority cultures of the region, there are also
traces of the ancient worship of Shiva. Before arriving
in Luang Namtha, I had seen evidence for the worship of Shiva only in the ancient royal centers ofSoutheast Asia, such as at Angkor or My Son.
Hence, I was led to believe that this Puranic strata ofworship was only an elite practice, and therefore
easily replaced by Theravada Buddhism. While thismay in some sense be true, I saw that at Luang
Namtha, when the Buddhist Nyuan came from the
Chien Mai region to settle the region they built asmall structure to mark the founding of Luang
Namtha town. There, they also placed a lak-muang(or city pillar) in the shape of what Badenoch considers to be a Shiva linga, a statue to Shiva. Thesemonuments, in combination with the popularity ofshows such as Naagin which related the stories ofsnakes and the power of bearded sages and inter-ventions of the god Shiva on the snakes’ behalf,
formed a spectrum of Indic influence that spanned
both the ancient and the modern, and revealed possible connections between the animistic life-ways of
the region and Indic mytho-poetics that are not
attributable to dominant Buddhist worldviews.
Finally, talk about Naagin also brought to light thelarger history of Indian media in the region. For
instance, during a long five-hour lunch at the Bit village, which included several bottles of Lao beer andsome buffalo sashimi, Badenoch reminded his Bit
friends how in one story he had recorded one of theolder gentleman recalling the unbelievable beauty of
the heroine as “the top beauty of all India.” Badenoch
said he was surprised as to why the narrator brought
up specifically “Indian” woman as a standard forbeauty. However most of the villagers understood
immediately that the narrator was referencing Indian
film actresses. They said that in the 1980s and1990s, before television sets or satellite dishes
streamed Thai television into the homes of villagers(and Thai-dubbed Indian television) the only exposure
to cinema was traveling film shows which showedprimarily Indian movies. Villagers would spend heftysums to go see the movies, and would recall songs
and dance scenes and of course the “beauty” of theactresses who graced the screen. Thus Indian cinema itself has a longer history than one might expect
in the Laos highlands, and for many, it was the first
exposure to televisual media. In a time of satellite
dishes, and endless television programming stream-

Fig. 4 The next generation in Bit cultural transmission

ing from the Bangkok-based channels, the popularityof the Indian show Naagin brings forth an interesting,little discussed history of cross-regional connections
both old and new.

Fig. 3 Shiva linga in the monument about the founding of the valley (Photo from Nathan Badenoch)Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University041

Publications

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

Kyoto Area Studies on Asia (in Japanese)

Junko Koizumi (ed.).

Mio Horie.

Production of History: Narrating and Silencing
Southeast Asia’s Past

A Village Without Daughters: Bride Shortage,
Marriage Migration and Women’s Belonging
among the Lahu of Southwest China

2018. Kyoto University Press.

2018. Kyoto University Press.

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

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 76042

In 2012, we re-launched Southeast Asian Studies as an all-English journal,
alongside its Japanese sister journal, Tonan Ajia Kenkyu. Intended for aregional as well as global readership, Southeast Asian Studies is publishedthree times a year. The new journal aims to promote excellent, agenda-setting scholarship and provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration bothwithin and beyond the region. Southeast Asian Studies engages in wideranging and in-depth discussions that are attuned to the issues, debates,
and imperatives within the region, while affirming the importance of learningand 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 of bridging the continuing divide in area studies between the social sciences andhumanities, on the one hand, and the natural s­ ciences, on the other hand.

Recent Staff Publications

Koichi Muramatsu and Toshihiko Kishi (eds.)

Madoka Fukuoka and Shota Fukuoka (eds.)

Traveling the Pre-war East Asia Inspired by
Postcards and Old Photos

Hiroyuki Yamamoto et al.

2018. Bensei Publishing. (in Japanese)

Popular Culture in Southeast Asia: Identity,
Nation-state, and Globalization
2018. Stylenote. (in Japanese)

Toyomi Asano, Kizo Ogura and Masahiko Nishi (eds.)

Environmental Resources Use and Challenges
in Contemporary Southeast Asia: Tropical
Ecosystems in Transition

Taisho Nakayama et al.

2018. Springer.

For Dialogue
2018. Crane. (in Japanese)

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Mario Ivan Lopez and Jafar Suryomenggolo (eds.)

043

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/Summer 2018

〈編集〉マリオ・ロペズ 設楽 成実

ISSN 2185-663X