2020

NO.

78

Contents

004
006
009

Yoko Hayami
Word from the Director
François Molle
Investigating Waterscapes
The Functional Expansion of Zakat in Contemporary Indonesia: 		
Zakat Management Organization Loans in Malang, East Java, Indonesia
Mari Adachi

014

Evolving Historical Trends in Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research at
the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS)


021
023

Mario Lopez & Ayako Fujieda

Planes, Movies, and Locations of Co-Production: 			
Jane M. Ferguson
Burmese Film Projections in Kyoto
The Charas Collection Cremation Books as Sources for Thai History


026
030
040

The Maldives Heritage Survey
Publications
EventsFront Cover image: Local craft anchored at HA. Muladhoo, Maldives (Photo by R. Michael Feener)

Pattarat Panprasit
R. Michael Feener

Word from the Director
I wonder how, a decade ahead from now, our future colleagues might look backupon this year 2020. All our visiting scholars have gone home and their offices
are left empty without nametags. No travel, no fieldwork, no conferences abroador in Japan. Everyone is stuck either at home or in the office. On-line classes andmeetings have become the norm, including conferences and seminars. Now,even I have been forced to learn the new technology and have no problem
connecting with a colleague or a friend over zoom for a consultation or chitchat.
But as some things are left mid-air we have, it seems, now entered into a‘new normal’. How convenient that we don’t have to go to Tokyo for every
two-hour meeting! How practical that some of us work at home without
spending the time commuting. How nice to be with family or to have a spousebe at home for once. As researchers, we have full loads of questions to ask
ourselves and the people in our field sites. So let’s hope that ten years from now,
we will look back and say, that this has been a turning-point year, rather than a‘lost year’.
At our Center, earlier in April, we launched a new ‘Corona Chronicles’
section of our website, gathering voices from many different locations – mainlyin Southeast Asia but also from other locations across the globe – affected by thevirus in diverse and unexpected ways. We began slowly by soliciting submissions
from our friends and colleagues, but gradually it grew into a recognized venue,
CSEAS NEWSLETTER

as unsolicited submissions began to arrive. How the virus hit our everyday lives
depends greatly on where we are, who we are, and what we do. COVID-19 hasdelineated previously blurry lines of differentiation, it has devastated manyNo. 78004

economically, widened the economic gap, reinforced discrimination, and drawn
attention to the ways we relate to and communicate with others both far and near. So
the virus brings both a wide range of changes to all of our lives.
This year, the cherry blossoms bloomed very quietly in our courtyard and some
important events that we had been anticipating have been left waiting. This includes agreatly missed opportunity for hearing the retirement speech of Professor Kazuo Ando,
who retired in March 2020. Beginning as an agronomist, more than anyone else hehas impressed his footsteps and disseminated his ideas regarding the future of farming
communities in Bangladesh, in Myanmar, in Japan, and wider on the globe. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear our Big Brother Ando-san’s words upon his retirement.
We did, however, also have two new welcome developments in the past half year.
Firstly, we had Professor Michael Feener join us as a new faculty member on April 1.
Arriving from Oxford, he and his family miraculously slipped through customs andquarantine just in the nick of time as the Japanese government announced the closingof airports on the same day of his arrival. So with this auspicious start, Michael is now
with us. He has also brought with him a new extension of his work in the Maldives so
CSEAS is now also the home of the Maritime Asia Heritage Survey. The project
resonates well with our Center’s emerging orientation towards thinking beyond andacross regions and we hope to learn from it.
Secondly, the renovation of our East Building has now been completed. Faculty
and research members moved into offices on the upper floors in August, and as of
September, the first floor, which is primarily space for common use, has also been
opened. In particular, the Research Commons was designed by architects from KU’s
Engineering Department. Inspired by the ambience of the room looking onto theinner yard, the room is designed as a creative space for small group meetings to talkabout research ideas, for quietly reading while overlooking the yard, or for events andexhibitions. May there be many ideas emerging from this room, and many interesting
events taking place in the near and far future.
COVID-19 has not stopped us although we are reconsidering some of our coreresearch activities. As the gates are gradually opening up, we look forward to receiving

Yoko Hayami
Director, CSEAS

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

our visitors again soon.

005

Investigating Waterscapes
François Molle

Visiting Research Scholar, CSEAS

Mobile dam on the Bank Pakong River, Thailand

Introduction

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78006

It has certainly not occurred to anyone that the fateof fishermen on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia could
have something to do with the political power of theThai Federation of Industries (TFI). Even less so that
this could have to do with their respective uses ofwater. But consider the following chain of facts. In
the last four decades of the twentieth century the
TFI mounted a successful opposition whenever ahike in groundwater tariffs was proposed in order tocurb the over abstraction of groundwater. Indeed,
overabstraction in and around Bangkok was causing land subsidence to the extent that roughly 40%of the Thai capital is now under mean sea level.
This dramatically increased flood risk and vulnerability, as was illustrated in 1995 and 2011. Yet in thelate 1980s, induced vulnerability and flood occurrence/damages were ascribed to deforestation,
carried out by both hill tribes and the logging industry. This led to a ban on logging, which, although
only partially implemented, caused the logging industry to move into neighboring countries without
such regulation, particularly Myanmar andCambodia. Increased deforestation in the Tonle
Sap catchment then led to dramatically increased
erosion and high sediment load being transported

to the lake. The resulting turbidity affected fish
spawning sites around the lake and, consequently,
the productivity of the fisheries and local livelihoods.
Admittedly this causal chain between the TFI’s
political influence and the Cambodian fishermen’s
livelihoods is only part of the story, and at eachnode of this chain other relevant factors can be
identified. (For example, Bangkok’s vulnerability toflooding is not only a result of land subsidence, andthere were ulterior motives for the logging ban andthe growth in ‘state enclosures’ in northern
Thailand.) Nonetheless, this overall causal chain isrelevant enough to be factored into an analysis ofsocial-ecological systems, where social dynamics
and environmental transformations are intimatelyinterwoven.
The narrative above illustrates the complexityof unpacking such historical transformations. How
do demographic, economic, sociologic, technical,
environmental and political changes combine andinteract, ‘jumping scales’ and influencing one another? Historians try to tell these relational stories,
while discipline-oriented analysts focus on one facet (agriculture, demography, markets, etc.), attempting to make sense of the changes they observe with the concepts of their own field and thus
narrowing the analysis. All accounts tend to reduceDragon bone chain pump,Thailandcomplexity to make it amenable to analysis fromparticular perspectives. Various ‘problemsheds’
can be defined according to the question posed
and the focus adopted. These problemsheds may
intersect with conventional ecological units, suchas watersheds or aquifers, in different ways.
Indeed, water can be a productive entry point into
investigations of socio-ecological systems. Not onlyis it central to life, culture, ecosystems and economies but it also interconnects people in uniqueways through its fluid, fluctuating and partly invisible circulation across the landscape. Changes inquality (pollution), quantity (droughts, floods), sediment load (silting, coastal erosion) continuously redistribute costs and benefits spatially and socially(Molle and Wester 2009).
Scholars in the field of environmental history
focus on the interaction between human cultures
and the environment and have thus taken to describing histories hinging, for example, on specificrivers – e.g. the Columbia (White 1996), or Asianrivers (Amrith 2018), or dam and irrigation development in Australia. Political ecologists have broadened or moved the focus of investigation to thelarger web of causalities, beyond the immediate local actors to more systemic economic and politicalrealities and discourses (see, for example, Forsyth& Walker 2008). They have often focused on urban
settings, where the entanglements of the flows ofwater and power are more neatly demonstrated
and readily comprehended.

Water is a definitional element of the history ofThailand’s Chao Phraya River Basin and can serveas an entry point to illuminate its history of the past
150 years. In the second half of the nineteenth century this basin, which includes most of Northern andCentral Thailand, was 90% forested and home toroughly 3 million people. Its agriculture was largely
reliant on rainfall and flooding. Through a spectacular reshaping of its land, water and human elements
this basin morphed into one of the most vibrant ricebowls of Asia, with forests retreating to 30% of thebasin and people now numbering around 30 million, almost half of whom reside in Bangkok
Metropolitan area and vicinity. The transformation
was of course closely linked to a broader history ofregional and global economic development: fromthe 1855 Bowring Treaty that incorporated Siam
into the international rice market, to Thailand’s industrialization of the late 1980s. Around 1900 thecentral region accounted for 70% of Siam’s riceproduction and 100% of its exports, but it now
yields a paltry 20%, making room for both agricultural diversification (notably shrimp farming) andmassive urbanization.
The spatial transformation of agriculture, alongwith industrialization and urbanization, has been
linked to technical, demographic and market
changes, but also in a large part to the ‘artificialization’ of the basin’s water regime and terrestrial landscape. Formidable investment in damming, dyking,dredging, well drilling, pumping, canalling, tunnel-

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

007

Floating machines toremove water Hyacinths,
BangkokRaised beds, Damnoen Saduak, Thailand

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78008

ing, land leveling and earth moving by both thestate and local individuals has created new waterscapes where material and social elements are reconfigured through mutual interaction. But as water
resources have come under what is conventionally,and somewhat misleadingly, called greater ‘control’
agricultural ‘demand’ (understood as the capacity
to put water to productive use) has outpaced available resource. This has led to shortages that cameto be labeled as ‘scarcity’ and motivated further infrastructural development. The ultimate proposal isto reopen the basin by importing water from theSalween Basin though a tunnel. In the dry season
the basin is now ‘closed’, meaning that the available water is insufficient to support all ecological
functions (not least controlling seawater intrusion
into the delta) while meeting societal ‘demand’.
Groundwater overdraft has added to the delta’s silt
deficit to fuel land subsidence that has taken 40%of the capital below an otherwise rising mean sea
level. Pollution from agrochemicals and waste, andcontamination by industry and refuse landfills, haveundermined water quality and aquatic ecosystems.
A desire to flood-proof capital investment, such as
property and industry, as well as fields in order togrow two or three crops of rice or to diversify, has
restricted the space for spreading and dampening
excess water, thus magnifying the risk of damage
to unprotected areas. Through their large-scale
modifications of the environment societies endlessly produce (partly unexpected) boomerang effects
that are usually addressed by injecting more capital and infrastructure into an increasingly artificialized waterscape.
Conventional representations of such ‘river
basin trajectories’ follow a Malthusian narrative,
whereby a growing population’s ‘demand’, theneed to produce more food in the name of food security, or the imperative to protect against drought

and floods (often blamed on climate change), constitute a societal challenge. A benevolent state thentackles this challenge by deploying ever-growing
resources to confront increasingly frequent extreme
events. Yet exploring the unofficial script leads one
to broaden and sometimes turn this narrative upside down by showing the pervasiveness of bureaucratic, economic, political but also ideational
factors that each contribute to a historical trajectorythat is by no means ‘natural’. Rather, transformations reflect specific arrangements between a vastassemblage of humanity – peasants, landless workers, hill tribes, irrigation engineers, middlemen, royals, academics, foreign consultants, NGOs – andfactories, dykes, canals, wells, stilt houses, shrines,
shrimps, wild elephants, forests, etc. All are actants
in a story that can only be unpacked through a relational account of how societies and their environments co-evolve.
References
Forsyth, T., & Walker, A. 2008. Forest Guardians and Forest
Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge In
Northern Thailand. Seattle: University of Washington
Press.
White, R. 1996. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of theColumbia River. New York: Hill and Wang.
Amrith, S. 2018. Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts,
and Seas Have Shaped Asia’s History. New York: Basic
Books.
Molle, F., & Wester, P. (Eds.) 2009. River Basins: Trajectories,
Societies, Environments. Wallingford, UK and Cambridge,
MA: CABI.

The Functional Expansion of Zakat in Contemporary Indonesia:
Zakat Management Organization Loans in
Malang, East Java, Indonesia
Mari Adachi

Researcher, CSEAS

Map 1 Location of Jakarta and Malang in Indonesia

Brief history of zakat management organizations in Indonesia

009

Over the past half century there has been a growing consensus in Indonesia that zakat, which was
traditionally an individual practice, should be managed by a centralized, professional, and transparent organization. Since 1968, following the estab-lishment of the first provincial level zakat
management organization in Jakarta, many provinces decided to establish public zakat management organizations at the provincial level.
Throughout the 1970s, many, including theIndonesian Ulama Council (Majelis Ulama
Indonesia/ MUI), have argued that the state should
create a highly transparent and professional organization with compulsory zakat collection. Soon after the democratization in 1998, Article 23 of the
Zakat Management Law was passed in 1999.
Under the regime of President Abdurrahman
Wahid, the state-run Zakat Management Body,
BAZNAS (Badan Amil Zakat Nasional) was established in 2001 to centralize the management of zakat and supervise provincial-level zakat management organizations and private zakat management
organizations (Lembaga Amil Zakat/ LAZ). With
these developments, the Indonesian legal system
has come to incorporate zakat as a formal mechanism for wealth redistribution mechanism administered by the state. However, although the legal
framework aims to centralize zakat collection anddistribution there remains opposition to the ideafrom a number of individual religious leaders (kyai,
ulama, and imams), and institutions including
NGOs, mosque associations, private zakat management organizations, and provincial zakat management bodies in Aceh and Jakarta. Indonesia istherefore a region of complex and mixed forms ofzakat practice, reflecting the amalgamation of diverse ideological currents and competing institutional actors in the country.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

One of the fundamental religious obligations ofIslam, along with prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage isalmsgiving (zakat). This ‘pillar’ of the Faith (arkānal-Islām) is mentioned more than 30 times in the
Qur’an, often in direct conjunction with prayer.
Zakat is, moreover, the only of the pillars involving
material transaction. It has traditionally been understood as both a mechanism for communal benefit inwhich the rich give alms to those less fortunate
among the community, as well as a personal religious duty (Feener & Wu 2020: 1-3). Modern statesystems have institutionalized the practice in many
counties with the establishment of zakat management organizations with modern systems for thecollection, management, and distribution of funds(Salim 2008; Fauzia 2013). In Indonesia, as elsewhere, Muslim scholars and NGOs have advanceda re-conceptualization of zakat, shifting from anemphasis on individual act to social obligation(Retsikas 2014: 345). Researchers have noted that
historic practices range from face-to-face transactions between givers and receivers to taxes enforced by different Islamic polities (Bashear 1993:
99-108, Singer 2008: 47-48, Schaeublin 2019: 129).

The new practice of using zakat as a loan
Based on Islamic jurisprudence, there are eightcategories of eligibility for zakat (asnāf), the mostimportant of which are the poor and needy (fakir,
miskin). The formal administration of these qualitative conceptions of poverty have, however, proved
a long-standing challenge. In recent years, one
proposed solution has been the identification of astandard measure for an Islamic ‘poverty line’ (In.
had kifayah / Ar. ḥadd al-kifāya; BAZNAS 2018:4-18). Figure 1 presents the ‘recipient pyramid’ thatwas created by the research office of the Nasional
Zakat Management Body (Pusat Kajian Strategis/
Puskas BAZNAS) to illustrate the levels of distribution in relation to their humanitarian and development priorities.
Here we see how a poverty line is establishedto demarcate between traditional recipient category for the poor (fakir, miskin), and those eligible for‘productive zakat’ distribution such as loans. First ofall, from the perspective of the zakat administrators,
one of the main subjects is how to optimize the impact of funds collected. Their discussions of thisproblem are often framed in terms of a dichotomy
drawn between ‘consumptive’ and ‘productive’.
This is not an established categorical distinction ofclassical Islamic jurisprudence, but rather a modern innovation designed to promote an effective
deployment of the traditional to serve the needs ofcontemporary communities.
Consumptive zakat distribution here refers to
expenditure to provide food, clothing, housing,transportation, health care, and education to address fundamental needs of recipients. Productive
zakat (zakat produktif), on the other hand, is directed toward stimulating income generation amongrecipients who are evaluated as able to make efficient use of new capital. Productive zakat distribution thus aims to promote economic independence

Fig. 1 Priority Pyramid of Zakat Recipientby providing financial assistance, job training andmanagement supervision to recipients (See Photos
1 & 2). It is the concept of productive zakat that has
provided the framework for imaging the use of donations to fund small interest-free loans, an ideathat has been taken up eagerly by many Indonesia
today (Nurzaman 2012: 5; Beik & Arsyianti 2016).
In 1982 – after much deliberation – theIndonesian Ulama Council (MUI) issued a fatwa
that legitimized new interpretations of some of the
traditionally established categories used to define
those who have a legitimate claim to receive zakat.
This included a ruling that zakat funds intended forthe poor and needy can be used for other social
welfare activities, while that allocated for the support of ‘those who struggle in the Way of God’ (fisabilillah) can be distributed for purposes of serving
the broader aims of public welfare (maslahah ’ammah) (BAZNAS 2011: 9-14). Following that, theIslamic Fiqh Academy (1986) also allowed the useof surplus zakat funds for income-generating investments. Interestingly, the Indonesian Zakat Act
clearly stipulates that zakat can be used for productive activities to minimize poverty and improve
the standard of living, but only after first addressing
the basic needs of traditionally defined zakat recipients (mustahiq). (Art. 27.1-2). In this, Indonesia
pioneered a new approach to the problem of prioritization in zakat distribution, one which to date has
not yet been adopted by any other Muslim majority
nation-state (Islamic Social Finance Report 2014:58).
In order to delve into the actual operation of’productive zakat’, I conducted field work on zakat
management organizations in Indonesia between
November 2016 - October 2017. This took the formof an exploratory, descriptive survey conducted on
zakat management organizations in the city of
Malang, East Java. Data was collected from thequestionnaires and interviews of the directors and

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78010

Fig. 2 Map of zakat management organizations in Malang city
In this map, the numbers ① ~ ⑧ represent Malang city brunch of BAZNAS and its distribution unit Baitul Mal (BM). Numbers ❾~ ⓬ denote private zakat organizations that have a productive zakat program. Numbers ⓭ ~ ⓰ denote private zakat organizations without a productive zakat program. The writer created this map with the interviews and pamphlets of each zakat
management institution as a source.

011

afford to give zakat. Of the productive program of
zakat management organizations in Malang, 3/4 ofthem (❾-⓬) collect money in the form of zakat onsalary (zakat profesi, zakat penghasilan, or zakatgaji). Philanthropic organizations which do not apply a monthly mandatory withdrawal of 2.5% zakat(⓭-⓰) have no ‘productive zakat’ activities. They
also do not distribute zakat in the form of microfinance (See the Figure 2).
Most previous studies have unilaterally understood zakat to be a form of charity, but this study
shows that in Malang, zakat is also used as a tool ofCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

managers of 16 zakat management organizations
and 134 clients of its zakat loan in that city. The
objective was not to criticize the working of modern
organizations administering ‘productive zakat’ asan [heretical] ‘innovation’ (bid`a) in Islamic jurisprudence, but rather to explore these innovative practices of Muslims in contemporary Indonesia.
The results of this research show that zakat
management organizations promote funding to low
priority customers (see Figure 1). In addition to consumptive distribution, managers lend interest-freeloans to low-income informal workers who cannot

Street vendor (kaki lima) purchased with a loan received as zakat (Photo by Mari Adachi, April 27, 2017)

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78012

development. That model of zakat management
aims to improve the economic prosperity of people
in ways that transform them from zakat receivers(mustahiq) to zakat donors (muzakky). In this transformation, the zakat distribution managers and therecipients interact face to face. On the collectionside, BAZNAS Kota Malang obtains zakat funds inpartnership with the Malang Municipal Office1, but
its distribution is delegated to the local Baitul Mal
and its voluntary manager (See Photos 3 & 4). This
helps to enhance the circulation of the funds within
the city, and thus supports local economic development.
My work on the local implementation of these
innovative approaches to the management of zakat
funds presents a case that challenges establishedneoliberal perspectives that have tended to trivial-

ize zakat as merely Islamic ‘charity’ or ‘philanthropy’and often characterizes modern institutions for zakat administration as an aspect of Islamist agendas
for capturing state power and centralizing control.
Rather, these examples from Malang open a window onto a range of contemporary Indonesian experiments with models of productive zakat that
present intervention strategies which retain aspectsof traditional Islamic concerns for poverty alleviation, while also introducing new visions of religious
giving channeled toward economic development
and Muslim community empowerment.
Notes
1

The Malang Municipal Administration deducts 2.5% ofcivil servant’s salary every month as zakat. The fund iscollected, managed, and distributed by BAZNAS Kota
Malang.

Photo 1

Photo 3
Photo 1 A customer pays back her debt in the office of a zakat management organization(Photo by Mari Adachi, September 25, 2017)
Photo 2 A voluntary manager of BM Merjosari meets and greets a recipient during his patrol(Photo by Mari Adachi, June 13, 2017)
Photo 3 The glossary shop owned by the voluntary manager of BM Kasin(Photo by Mari Adachi, April 26, 2017)
Photo 2

References
Badan Amil Zakat Nasional (BAZNAS). 2011. Himpunan
Fatwa Zakat MUI: Kompilasi fatwa MUI tentang Masalah
Zakat. Jakarta: BAZNAS.

Bashear, S. 1993. On the Origins and Development of the
Meaning of Zakāt in Early Islam. Arabica 40(1), pp.
84-113.
Beik, Irfan Syauqi & Arsyianti, Laily Dwi. 2016. Measuring
zakat impact on poverty and welfare using CIBEST
Model. Journal of Islamic Monetary Economics andFinance 1 (2), pp. 141-160.
Fauzia, Amelia. 2013. Faith and the State: A History of Islamic
Philanthropy in Indonesia. Leiden: Brill.
Feener, R. Michael & Wu, Keping. 2020. The Ethics of Religious Giving in Asia. Journal of Contemporary Religion 35(1), pp. 1-12.

Salim, A. 2008. The Shift in Zakat Practice in Indonesia: From
Piety to an Islamic Socio-political-economic System. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
Schaeublin, Emanuel. 2019. Islam in Face-to-Face Interaction: Direct Zakat Giving in Nablus (Palestine). Contemporary Levant 4(2), pp. 122-140.
Singer, Amy. 2008. Charity in Islamic Societies. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia Nomor 23 Tahun 2011
tentang Pengelolaan Zakat.

013

Islamic Social Finance Report. 2014. IRTI and Thomson
Reuters.

Retsikas, K. 2014. Reconceptualising Zakat in Indonesia:
Worship, Philanthropy and Rights. Indonesia and the
Malay World 42(124), pp. 337-357.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Badan Amil Zakat Nasional (BAZNAS). 2018. Himpunan
Fatwa Zakat MUI: Kompilasi fatwa MUI tentang Masalah
Zakat. Jakarta: BAZNAS.

Nurzaman, M. Soleh. 2012. Zakat and Human Development:
An Empirical Analysis on Poverty Alleviation in Jakarta,
Indonesia. In 8th Conference on Islamic Economics andFinance, pp. 26.

Evolving Historical Trends in Collaborative
Interdisciplinary Research at the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies (CSEAS)
Mario Lopez

Associate Professor, CSEAS

Ayako Fujieda

Researcher, Seika University

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78There continues to be a demand for comprehensive academic analysis of increasingly complex regionaland global social issues. Within research trends, Japan’s approach to Area Studies research has played asubstantial role in shaping interactions to these across a wide range of disciplines within not only the humanities and social sciences, but crucially also the natural sciences. Yet the importance of such contributions by Japanese scholars in shaping the interdisciplinary nature of ‘Japanese-style’ area studies has often
remained on the fringes of larger debates in part as discussions have taken place within a Japanese research ecology. This has meant that debates on the nature of Area Studies have run parallel to those taking
place in other Western institutional configurations that did not include the natural sciences. What exactly
constitutes Area Studies will very much depend on historical geopolitical encounters, ongoing institutional
configurations, and the subsequent legitimization of theoretical and methodological approaches that are
adopted (Kono et al. 2019).
Japanese Area Studies has not only been funded and supported through state structures, such as theJapanese Ministry of Education (MEXT), but also through other sources including business and philanthropic sectors. These set the multiple frameworks that guide how we think about the existent paradigms thatstructure our perceptions of reality. In what ways can we ground Japanese researchers’ contributions toongoing debates on the relevance of Area Studies and their impact on research agendas? The question“What is Area Studies?” has preoccupied Japanese researchers for more than 50 years (Motooka 1963). Yetfrom the outset of the institutional constitution and recognition of an Area Studies approach within JapaneseSoutheast Asian Studies, and in contrast to the United States’ politicized conceptualization and application
toward Southeast Asia, the natural sciences were deemed to be fundamentally important in any substantial
analysis of the region. Recognition of this at the time of founding the Center for Southeast Asian Studies(CSEAS) in the early 1960s has informed periodic institutional reorganizations of the Center over its 52 yearsof existence. These have had an impact in two closely interrelated ways. Firstly, they influenced both the very
projects initiated and the funding CSEAS received. And crucially they also influenced the kinds of people
who constituted the personal and institutional networks that fed back into developing and fomenting CSEAS’international research foundations. In this sense the very people and the research/personal relations thatcame to shape CSEAS have been as important as the institution-building they have participated in. However,to date, little empirical research has been conducted on what kinds of multidisciplinary relationships wereshaped through funding initiatives and how these translated back into the constitution of CSEAS itself. Overthe years interviews with former faculty have suggested there were very unique and intimate inter-disciplinary field encounters that had developed through collaborative projects. Interactions of this kind continue todynamically shape ongoing research trends.
In order to examine and contextualize this historical evolution in more detail, we have initiated a project
to clarify the interdisciplinary collaborations that have been forged over a period of 50 years. The project
aims to analyze the emerging trends and impacts of interdisciplinary collaboration within Southeast AsianArea Studies at CSEAS over this period. There are two approaches we employ to do this. The first is throughthe construction of a database based on researcher attributes and interdisciplinary joint research information that identifies temporal variables to clarify the diverse network within which researchers both within andoutside Kyoto University reside. The second is through a more traditional qualitative approach of interviewing present and past researchers affiliated to the Center. As an initial exercise the database contains the014project information for all registered Grant-in-Aid projects that were disbursed to current and former faculty
members who were based at CSEAS between 1963 to the present. Through the first phase of the project we
aim to examine the following. Firstly, to look at the changes in interdisciplinary research themes over decades. Secondly, examine any observable dynamic network changes that may suggest the academic andpublic-policy reorientation of research agendas. Here, the constant evolution of this reorientation reflects not
only researchers’ personal choices, but also their responses to shifting academic debates and Japanese
governmental priorities. Thirdly, we aim to clarify the qualitative characteristics of both the subjects and key
researchers involved in research projects at CSEAS to identify those factors other than researcher attributes
that influence research trends. Finally, we will clarify what are the limits and possibilities of using analyticalvisualization software for analyzing evolving research trends.
To date, scholars who have expressed concerns over the validity of Area Studies approaches, particularly within the framework of Southeast Asia, have tended to frame their discussions within a social sciences
and humanities paradigmatic framework. For this particular project we have decided to ground the firstphase of research through an area informatics approach. We attempt to visualize quantitative information
about researcher networks and research activities across time as expressed through the intensity of relations between them and their projects. This is followed by a more orthodox qualitative approach that requires
interviewing current and previous faculty to cross examine what data ‘purportedly’ suggests about research
themes, trends, changes, and relations in research networks over decades. Previous studies have focusedlittle on researchers themselves and what they do especially in terms of the bonds they form through the
projects they carry out in collaboration with other researchers. This project investigates the organic connections and researcher interactions that have supported the development of interdisciplinary and multidimensional research.
Database Construction and Initial Analysis
For the purpose of the first stage of this research, we have chosen an initial limited data analysis and constructed a database that allows us to examine ‘Area Studies’ categories from 2003 to 2020. Since the founding of CSEAS in 1964 the Center has received 515 awards for Grant-in-Aid for funding (256 as principal investigators and 259 as co-investigators). Area Studies as a category to apply under, has been available
since 2003 and for analysis purposes in this article, we take this as a point of departure. In total, we haveidentified 2,437 projects that were adopted under ‘Area Studies’ within which the number of target research
projects stands at 1,915. Within this we have identified 595 projects that focus on Southeast Asia and otherrelated areas (Diagram 1). Among 1,915 projects, 595 projects related to Southeast Asia and were directly
attributable to Kyoto University. Of these 144 researchers have been principal investigators (PI) with 47 asco-investigators. What this first level analysis shows is that Kyoto University accounts for around a third of all
projects that are focused on Southeast Asia under the Category of ‘Area Studies.’

１. Kyoto University (KU) Researcher Involvement under the category of Area Studies

Diagram 1 Kyoto University (KU) Researcher Involvement under the category of Area Studies (with focus on Southeast Asia)(with2003-2020
focus on Southeast Asia) 2003-2020
Projects focusing on Southeast Asia under the categoryof “Area Studies” for Grant-in-Aid Funding

Focus on Southeast Asia：595

KU Researchers working on SEA under the category of Area Studies
As Principal Investigators (PI): 144

Others：1320

30% of researchers at KU work on SEA
under Area Studies with Grant-in-Aid
funding

Other: 404＊This no excludes those projects under the category “Area Studies” that include Grant-In-Aid for encouragement of scientists

No. of Projects withresearchers as recipients offunding: 47015

Suggests that Area Studies research isprominent at Kyoto University

Total
595

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Total*
1915

We have also conducted a parallel analysis of Grant-in-Aids CSEAS has received since 2003 (SeeDiagram 2). The Center has received 516 awards with 256 directly related to faculty and researchers basedat the Center. This initial analysis suggests that CSEAS has a very diverse, broad approach to Area Studies
andconcerns
are not just limited
Southeast
2.research
Acquisitionof Grant-in-Aid
for totheCenterAsia.
for Southeast Asian Studies between

2003-2020.

Diagram 2 Acquisition of Grant-in-Aid for the Center for Southeast Asian Studies between 2003-2020

Grant-in-Aid Projects which had the participation of both PIs
and Recipients at CSEAS

Only as Recipients: 259

Total
516

Notes
•

Within this data there are also Grant-inAids for projects that are not related toSoutheast Asia.*1•

Among projects that include PIs, 48(18.75%) are those that do not include
SEA or issues relating to a target areathat cannot be identified from reports.

•

Application fields are not just limited toarea studies but emphasize diversity.

As Principal
Investigators*2: 256＊1 CSEAS here includes its different institutional arrangements as it has undergone structural reform over the years under analysis (data includes the Center
for Integrated Area Studies in disaggregated form)＊2 This also includes projects run by investigators at CSEAS who participated as both PIs and as recipients.

In order to give more depth to our analysis we have also used visualization software to reveal underlying
structural relations and associations between researchers and the projects they have initiated. This allows
for a social network analysis to observe organizational trends and follow these across and between projects.
Diagrams 3, 4 and 5 are directed graphs that present researcher relations at CSEAS between 1987 to 1994.
This period covers two overlapping stages in CSEAS’ history, a joint studies development stage (1970s~80s)
and an integrated Area Studies stage (1990s to early 2000s). The period under analysis identifies 41 projects with Principal Investigator (PIs) at the Center that run over these years with 37 co-investigators. In total
107 affiliated researchers are represented. In order to not follow a perceived conclusion that certain researchers acted as ‘project hubs’ we anonymized data so that we only see relations between CSEAS andrelations with other researchers (i.e. as co-investigators, see Diagram 3).

3. Grant-in-Aid Investigator hubs at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Investigators anonymized)

Diagram 3 Grant-in-Aid Investigator hubs at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Investigators Anonymized)

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78016

On analyzing data, we are able to uncover and pinpoint the main hub PIs for the period concerned andwhich other co-investigators they are connected to within CSEAS (Diagram 4). This shows the ‘degree centrality’ between PIs and co-investigators. The darker, larger hubs show a greater degree of connections interms of their eigencentrality, that is, the measure of their particular influence as a node in a network.

4. Grant-in-Aid Investigator hubs at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Investigators Clarified)Diagram 4 Grant-in-Aid Investigator hubs at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Investigators Clarified)

TAKAYATSUBOUCHITACHIMOTO

Main Hub Researchers with many nodal
connections to co-recipient researchers.
The nodes (light green) represent
researchers as co-recipients active
across projects in different teams

NaturalSciences
Humanities
Social Sciences

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

In Diagram 4 we can see former professors, Takaya Yoshikazu (Geology, 1934-2016), Tsubouchi
Yoshihiro (Sociologist), Tachimoto Narifumi (Anthropologist and former Director) as three principal hubs.
These researchers were all active as representative faculty in the mid 1980s~90s and can give us somesense of what types of collaborations played out in and across individual and joint projects. This graph reveals that these professors were very active in initiating projects as well as also fostering other staff who are
represented as active co-recipients. It was during this period that some of CSEAS’ large-scale team based
research projects took place such as the “Comparative Studies on the Maritime World” (1992-93 Headed byProfessors Takaya Yoshikazu and Yano Toru, 16 members, 12 who were based at CSEAS) and “Southeast
Asia as a Frontier Space” (1988-90, Headed by Professors Takaya and Ishii Yoneo, 9 CSEAS members).
Looking at these projects allows us to clarify the dynamic relations that developed between researchers fromdifferent disciplines that fed into the ongoing formation of a multidisciplinary Area Studies and the subsequent high output of academic materials in Japanese supports this.
We can also quantify that those researchers who, as nodes connected to other nodes, are ‘high-degree’ mediators. Diagram 5 presents the ‘between centrality’ of nodes in the network. Here, we can also
identify two more faculty professors Sakurai Yumio (Historian and Area Studies Specialist, 1945-2012) andFukui Hayao (Agro-economics) who functioned in this way during that period.

017

We were also able to note which faculty at this time operated as vectors and Diagram 6 highlights the
eigenvector centrality of former CSEAS director, Tanaka Koji (Agriculture), who joined the Center in 1979.
This shows the centrality of the relations that exist as expressed through the nodes that connect to a person.
What these initial data visualizations clarify is that researchers from different disciplines worked together on
multiple projects contributing to the formation of a multidisciplinary approach toward Japanese-style Area
Studies. Taking this approach and extending it across decades allows us to historically analyze some research trends and outcomes that concretely shaped CSEAS’ constitution and shaped the development ofArea Studies approaches to research on Southeast Asia conducted at the Center.

5. Grant-in-Aid Investigator hubs at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Including Hubs and Nodes)

Diagram 5 Grant-in-Aid Investigator hubs at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Including Hubs and Nodes)

TSUBOUCHI
TAKAYASAKURAIFUKUIMain Hub Researchers with ”high–degree”
mediator researchers (orange) connected byparticipation in numerous projects. Profs. Sakurai
Yumio and Fukui Hayao (mid-light green) arehighlighted her to show their connections.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78The preliminary sketches above can be further enhanced by an additional, if perhaps more ‘traditional,’
layer of analysis. This involves interviewing current and former faculty on the constitution of the multidisciplinary environment not just at CSEAS, but its place as a hub within the broader ecology of Kyoto University.
At present we have been conducting a historical literature review and interviewing select retired faculty on
the basis of what our network analysis reveals. It is hoped that this dual approach will allow us to flesh out
what kind of ‘methodological eclecticism’ developed and came to define Japanese approaches to Area- andSoutheast Asian Studies.
One of the weakness of the current data-driven approach is that at present we rely on the Grant-in-Aid
database to generate the above snapshots. CSEAS has received substantial external funding over the years
in the form of institutional support funds from the Ford Foundation (1963), numerous Global Center of
Excellence funding for five-year projects and other external grants. Adding these to our data would give us
a richer perspective of not just funding activities and research trends, but an insight into the ongoing evolution of research at CSEAS, and within the broader context of Kyoto University as a whole.

018

Conclusion
Various research and scholarly works have discussed theories and methods of Southeast Asian Studies
and Area Studies. However, few studies actually scrutinize the interdisciplinary nature of the networks between researchers, especially through an analysis of the funding, researcher collaborations and time in thefield that have developed over the years. This ongoing project aims to bring a fresh perspective throughqualitative and quantitative analysis and give us insights into new future directions of research. Area Studies
and Southeast Asian Studies are transformative in their nature. The preliminary results of this project hint at
what some may see as a known known: that Japanese scholarship has been bridging disciplinary divides
for some time and following a more holistic approach toward research attuned to the complex realities ofSoutheast Asian societies and nature. This has been done empirically for many decades already. Ultimately
it is hoped that analyzing interdisciplinary environments of collaboration will contribute to designing andconstructing a more suitable human resource environment that will better foster the future development of
new directions in Area Studies.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the International Program of Collaborative Research (IPCR) for funding
over a two year period (2020-21) for this project “An Analysis of Evolving Trends in Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research inSoutheast Asian Studies” ( 東南アジア地域研究における学際連携の創発要因と波及の分析 ). We also appreciate thoughtful discussions
and insights with former CSEAS Director Tanaka Koji, Emeritus Professor, Shibayama Mamoru (CSEAS), and Kono Yasuyuki(CSEAS).
Notes
1

Motooka proposed in 1963 that what should distinguish Japanese Area Studies from other models is the imperative toinclude the natural sciences (in collaboration with both the humanities and social sciences) in any analysis of ‘specificregions’ (tokutei chiiki/ 特定地域 ). The environmental foundations (shizen teki kiso/ 自然的基礎 ) of a region such as the topography, climate, geological conditions, soil, water, flora and flora as well as other natural resources should factor in any analysis of ‘region’ (Motooka 1963, 13).

2

See Nishibuchi on Microbiology (2019, 1-15), Shibayama on Area Informatics (2012, 3-7), Tanaka on Agriculture (2012,5-10), and Matsubayashi on Medicine (2014, 5-8) for reflections and intradisciplinary dialogues on their respective fields inrelation to the formation of Area Studies and with colleagues at CSEAS.

3

See Kono et al. (2019) for a detailed overview.

4

Area Informatics is a recent information paradigm in Japanese Area Studies. It applies informatics methods to try to “build
frameworks of organizing resources, quantifying qualitative data, integrating them with quantitative data from natural andtechnological sides of area studies, analyzing whole data sets, and finally constructing comprehensive, objective and reproducible images of particular areas” (Hara 2010, 215).

5

Data for this project was extracted from the publicly accessible Grant-in-Aid database. The Japanese Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Kagaku kenkyuhi josei jigyo/ 科学研究費助成事業 ) itself was created in 1939. Area Studies as a category that
researchers can select to have their projects evaluated under was first introduced in 2003: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/index/

6

However, this is not a fixed starting point as theoretical discussions and scholarship had already developed from the 1980s
onwards to produce writings on what constitutes “area studies” from a Japanese perspective. See Yano (1987) and Inoueand Yamamoto (2017).

7

CSEAS has undergone institutional reform over the past 50 years and incorporated with a sister institution, the Center for
Integrated Area Studies (CIAS) most recently in 2017. Between 1963-2003 it was known as Tonan Ajia Kenkyu Center ( 東南ア
ジア研究センター ), 2004-2016 Tonanajia Kenkyusho ( 東南アジア研究所 ), and from 2017 as Tonanajia Chiiki Kenkyu Kenkyusho( 東南アジア地域研究研究所 ).

8As an Area Studies research unit designated as a national institute by the Japanese government, this number of grants does
not just cover Southeast Asia, but also research covered in other regions under the category of Area Studies.
We utilize the opensource Gephi with Grant-in-aid data for the selected periods of analysis.

10

For example, between 1990-92, CSEAS published a series of 10 books covering nature, society, history, culture, philosophy,
politics and so on reflecting the multi-disciplinarity that had taken root.

11

Betweenness centrality is a general measure of centrality.

12

Kono et al. (2019, 3) define this as an approach to be one that is sensitive to different disciplinary domains and their existentparadigms which, when in dialogue, create conditions to question the basis of empirical research and subsequent theorization that arises from it. Different disciplinary domains will adhere to different notions, ideals and methodological research
processes that produce knowledge at different speeds and on different registers. An eclectic approach makes possible theconstitution of an arena of dialogue not tied to specific domains that can constrain approaches.

ReferencesHara, Shoichiro. 2010. Area Informatics: Concepts and Status. In Ishida, T. (eds.) Culture and Computing. Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, vol. 6259. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17184-0_17
Inoue, Makoto and Yamamoto, Nobuto (eds.) 井上真・山本信人 ( 編 ). 2017. Tonan Ajia Chiiki Kenkyu Nyumon: Kankyo/ 東南アジア地域研究入門 環境 [Introduction to the Environment in Southeast Asian Studies] Tokyo: Keio University Press.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

9019

Kono, Yasuyuki, Nathan Badenoch, and Mario Ivan Lopez. 2019. Bridging the Disciplinary Divide: 50 years of Research at theCenter for Southeast Asian Studies. Japan-ASEAN Transdisciplinary Studies Working Paper Series. No. 8: 1-42.
Matsubayashi, Kozo. 2014. “Field Medicine” in Japan and Asian Communities. In CSEAS Newsletter 69: 5-8.
Motooka, Takeshi. 本岡武 . 1963. Chiiki Kenkyu to wa Nanika? 地域研究とはなにか [What Are Area Studies]. Tonan Ajia Kenkyu 1.1:
5-19.
Nishibuchi, Mitsuaki. 2019. Memoir: The Path Hunter with a Scientific Mind in a Sound Body. In CSEAS Newsletter 77: 5-17.
https://newsletter.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/nl77/images/pdf/77_02_memoir.pdf
Shibayama, Mamoru. 2012. Appeal for an Area Informatics Approach to Area Studies. In CSEAS Newsletter 65: 3-7.
Tanaka, Koji. 2012. Eating from the Same Bowl: Japanese Reflections on Southeast Asian Studies. In CSEAS Newsletter 66:
5-10.
Yano, Toru (ed.) 矢野暢 ( 編 ). 1987. Chiiki Kenkyu: Koza Seijigaku/ 地域研究 講座政治学 [Area Studies: Political Science]. Tokyo:
Sanrei Shobo.
Grant-in-Aid Projects
1992-93. Kaiiki Sekai no Chiikikan Hikaku/ 海域世界の地域間比較 [Comparative Studies on Maritime Worlds]. Project No. 04041058.
1990-92. Furontia kukan toshite no Tonanajia/ フロンティア空間としての東南アジア [Southeast Asia as a Frontier Space]. Project No.
63400005.
Interviews
11 July, 2019. Tanaka Koji (former CSEAS Faculty and Director) and Shibayama Mamoru (Emeritus Professor, CSEAS).

at CSEAS between 1987-1994 (Investigators Cl
11 September, 2020. Tanaka Koji (former CSEAS Faculty and Director).

TSUBOUCHICSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78020

Planes, Movies and Locations of Co-Production:
Burmese Film Projections in Kyoto
Jane M. Ferguson

Visiting Research Scholar, CSEAS

Two handsome young pilots, in leather flightgear, with billowing scarves and aviator goggles
climb aboard their aircraft, named Myanma Gone
Yee (ြမန်မာ့ဂုဏ်ရည်) ‘The Spirit of Myanmar.’ The
year is 1935, and these Burmese aviators are about
to fly the first non-stop flight from Tokyo to Rangoon.
One of the pilots has a Japanese lover, Emiko-san,
who tearfully waves goodbye as the plane disappears on the horizon. The woman collapses at the
airfield, but dies peacefully when she hears on theradio that her lover’s flight successfully landed in
Burma; a tearful and tearful tragic ending to thetransnational romance. Alas, the movie Japan Yin
Thwe (ဂျပန့်ရင်ေသွး) also called Nippon Musume (日本娘), ‘Japanese Darling,’ ends in heartache.
Learning more about this film, its context,
along with those of many others, was my researchplan for my six months at Kyoto University Center
for Southeast Asian Studies. My project, Silver
Screens and Golden Dreams: A Social History of
Burmese Cinema, draws upon interviews, screenings and a personal collection of books and magazines which I had been accumulating rather haphazardly through collecting materials andethnographic experiences over the past 15 yearsof trips to Myanmar. The challenge would be to col-larified)

late all this information. So, last January, I took two
heavy suitcases laden with books, magazines, andphotocopies to Kyoto, looking forward to having thechance to explore the resources at the CSEAS library. From the Burmese collection, I found a number of books not catalogued in any other libraryconnected to WorldCat. Some of them even bore
the stamp of Myo Hlaing, a.k.a. ‘Japan Gyi,’ (Great
Japan) a book dealer in Yangon locally famous forhelping out Japanese researchers in Myanmar.
However, it would not only be the library books thatconnected Kyoto to the history of Burmese film:
there was another personal connection that I discovered, and that was through learning more about
the movie, Japan Yin Thwe, a co-production between Burmese and Japanese filmmakers.
In the 1930s, Japan Yin Thwe did not start asa movie project per se. It started as a mission of
two Burmese filmmakers - Nyi Pu and Tin Pay from
Burmese A1 studios - to travel to Japan, purchaseequipment and acquire skills in sound-on-film production. It was in Tokyo that they met with the owners of Photo Chemical Laboratories, or PCL the
precursor to Toho Studios. After touring the facilities, they proposed an idea of co-producing a filmin Japan. PCL organized the casting, production

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University021

The cast and crew ofJapan Yin Thwe at the
Asia Aviation School(Photo courtesy of Mr.
Tatsuo Kogure).

My visit to the Kyoto temple where Nyi Pu and Takako Suzuki were married.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78022

and post-production. For the aviation scenes, thesewere filmed at Asia Aviation School (亜細亜航空学校). Filming included two of the school’s aircraft.
They even hired Filipino studio musicians for thesoundtrack. The movie included scenes in Burmese(with Japanese subtitles), Japanese (with Burmese
subtitles) and some brief exchanges in English.
When A1 launched the film on 25 November
1935 at King Cinema and Olympia Cinema in
Rangoon, it was an instant hit among Burmese audiences. The film would later be shown in Japan, as
well as in Bangkok. Riding the waves of the film’s
box office success in Burma, the exotic allure of
Emiko-san inspired several kinds of unique merchandizing in the Burmese marketplace. Although
the female lead in the movie was named Emikosan, for Burmese audiences she was referred to as
Aye Mi San. Soon, women could buy their own ‘Aye
Mi San’ facial powder or ‘Aye Mi San’ skirts.
Burmese entrepreneurs even marketed ‘Aye Mi
San’ mosquito coils.
Despite the tragic end to the romance onscreen, there was a different ending to the story of
the Burmese men in Japan off-screen. While thecharacters Ba Tay and Emiko-san were falling inlove on the screen, Nyi Pu and another Japanese
woman, Takako Suzuki fell in love off-screen. As
they got to know each other, they initially relied on
PCL sound engineer Koji Ichikawa to translate forthem. Nyi Pu stayed on in Japan after the filming,and he and Suzuki got a home in the Shinjuku areaof Tokyo.
When Nyi Pu proposed marriage to Suzuki,
initially his Japanese fiancé’s parents were wary at
the prospect of their daughter marrying a Burmese
man. Not knowing his background and concernedthat he might already be married, Suzuki’s mothermade contact with Nyi Pu’s family in Rangoon regarding his bachelor status. When this was confirmed, with the added information that Nyi Pu’s father was the owner of the largest Burmese-owned
department store (Myanmar Aswe), Mrs. Suzuki’s
reservations about Nyi Pu seem to have faded.

Higashi Honganji Temple in Kyoto

The young transnational couple was marriedin late 1935. Suzuki wore a white kimono, and Nyi
Pu was also dressed in a kimono for the ceremony.
In February 1936 the young international couple
departed Japan for Southeast Asia, leaving
Yokohama by steamer, and settling in Rangoon at
the A1 Studios campus. They had a baby girl inJune 1936, and would later have a son in September
1937. Their children spent their youth in the A1
compound. Suzuki found that with the success ofJapan Yin Thwe the movie among the Burmese
public, she acquired the name Aye Mi San. She
was never able to shake that nickname, despite thefact that she was not the actress in Japan Yin Thwe.
To the Burmese public’s mind, she was a Japanese
woman married to U Nyi Pu, the Burmese movie
star, so she must be Aye Mi San.
Through a friend in the Burmese community ofwriters in the Washington DC area, I was introduced to Nyi Pu and Takako Suzuki’s son: a retired
computer engineer living in Virginia named U Aung
Pe. Over numerous chats online he has been wonderfully helpful and supportive of this research
project. While I am learning about A1 through oldfilms, interviews, magazines and books, for U AungPe, this is his youth growing up on the movie-making campus of A1 Studios, often called the
Hollywood of Burma. As a young adult, he worked
as a studio manager for his father before leaving
Burma for the United States in 1968. During mytime in Kyoto, I learned from U Aung Pe that the siteof his parents’ wedding ceremony was the Higashi
Honganji Temple in Kyoto.
Toward the end of my stint at CSEAS, while
the city was in ‘lockdown lite’ I made a special trip
to Higashi Honganji Temple, just north of Kyoto
Station to explore the temple grounds and revisit
the place where U Aung Pe’s parents tied the knot.
I took some photos, including a souvenir selfie or
two. I also let U Aung Pe know of my visit, and mymaking a special wish there for continued happiness, good health and friendship across the seas.

The Charas Collection Cremation Books as
Sources for Thai History
Pattarat Phantprasit
ASAFAS Ph.D. Student

youth, and incidents from their education, career,and life after retirement. Customarily, family members are the ones who write a short biography forthe deceased but sometimes families might choose
to publish longer version of autobiographies or
memoirs written by the deceased themselves.
Regardless of their length, such stories depict how
the deceased lived their lives and can provide fascinating details of changing lifestyles in modern
Thailand.
The biographies also shed light on circles offriends/acquaintances and various kinds of relations especially, but not only, of public figures.
These relations shown in both personal and official
letters as well as eulogies. Thus, cremation books
not only provide information about the deceased
and their relatives, but also potentially shed somelight on the on their social networks beyond theirfamilies.
The last sections of cremation books can also
yield a wealth of information on the kinds of knowledge valued in the circles of the deceased – thus
capturing snapshots of particular cultural momentsin Thai history. Some material published in cremation books might no longer exist in other forms, andmany of them are difficult to access, especially as
they are drawn from rare books from the nineteenthand the early twentieth centuries. From this, itCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Fig. 1 Examples from the cremation books in the Charas
Collection at the CSEAS Library at Kyoto University023

An undeniable issue for scholars interested in nineteenth-century Thai society is the limitation of available source material. Most available documentarysources are in the form of royal documents reflecting an official perspective, rather than those of mostof the population. Trying to catch a glimpse of the
lives of ordinary people in the past, social historians
have used other sources such as newspapers,
magazines, songs, films, novels, etc. In recent Thai
historiography, one alternative source base thathas been attracting attention is that of ‘cremation
books’.
What is a cremation book? Those who are notfamiliar with Thai society might not immediately recognize or understand this genre. Cremation books(Nang Sue Ngan Sop) are books published anddistributed at funerals that began to be publishedaround the latter part of the 19th century. Their primary intended purpose of to honor and commemorate the deceased so that their good deeds andtheir lives will be remembered by their families andacquaintances. At first, only members of the royalfamily and noblemen could afford printing cremation books. Later, as the price of printing came
down, ordinary people gradually joined this fashionand it becomes a part of Thai cremation ceremonies.
A cremation book can be divided into threemain parts: 1) a biography of the deceased, 2) eulogies from families and friends, and 3) other documents. This last section may contain edifying material on the Buddha’s teachings (dhamma), excerpts
from royal chronicles and other classical texts on
the arts, medicine, botany, as well as Thai andWestern recipes, self-improvement advice, etc.
According to well established Buddhist teachings,
such an impartation of knowledge can serve as one
last good deed accruing merit to the deceased.
In addition to the actually biographies of thedeceased presented in cremation books, anothermajor aspect of their value as historical sources
can be found in the selection of particular texts fromthe third section. The biographies often contain stories covering significant periods of the life of thedeceased, generally including episodes from

Fig. 2 Images of Siamese soldiers: photos of Lieutenant Phra Akkhaniwut (Lamai Srichamorn)

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78024

should be clear that well beyond their initial purpose of memorializing the deceased, these books
also benefit later generations as rich historicalsource material. Today, scholars and students ofhistory have begun collecting cremation books.
There is now a significant expansion of buying andselling cremation books of those who were famousin Thai society in particular. Among other institutions, Kyoto University currently owns one of thelargest cremation book collections in the world: theCharas Collection (Fig. 1)1.
There are approximately 9,000 titles in the
Charas Collection and 4,000 of which are cremation books. With such a great number of such publications, this library possesses the most wideranging cremation book collection outside Thailand.
Several of them date back to the latter part of thenineteenth century to the reign of King
Chulalongkorn, which also saw the emergence ofthe modern production of cremation books in
Thailand.
I first used this collection in 2019 during myfirst year of Ph.D. studies at the Kyoto University
Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies(ASAFAS). My thesis on the modernization of theThai army as well as the lives and ideologies of Thai
soldiers in the early twentieth century. In order toexpand the scope of my research, I explored the
new materials at the Center for Southeast AsianStudies Library, and came to recognize then thegreat potential of this source material for my research. I visit the library, I discovered an impressive number of cremation books from Charas
Collection including cremation books of soldiers,
mostly middle to high-ranking military officers.
Many of them lived during the time of a great transition in the twentieth century, witnessing the col-lapse of an absolute monarchy and the rise of democracy after the 1932 Revolution (Fig. 2)2.
At the moment, the army played an importantrole as one of the leaders in the revolution. It was
the first time the army stepped out of their barracks
into the political sphere. Of course, since thencoups and military interventions have become a familiar part of Thai politics. For my research, I explored these sources to understand the ideologies
and perspectives of these soldiers’ understandingof society and political affairs (Fig. 3)3.
I found some particularly interesting memoirs
and autobiographies of those who graduated fromcadet school and joined both the 1912 Soldiers’
Plot and the 1932 Revolution. The Charas Collection
includes the cremation books of leading military officers such as Colonel Phraya Riithiakhaney (พันเอก
พระยาฤทธิ์อัคเนย์), General Admiral Air Chief
Marshal Mangkorn Phromyothee (พลเอก พลเรือเอก
พลอากาศเอก มังกร พรหมโยธี), Lieutenant General
Prayoon Pamornmontri (พลโท ประยูร ภมรมนตรี),General Luang Hansongkram (พลโท หลวงหาญ
สงคราม), Sub Lieutenant Rian Srichan (ร้อยตรี
เหรียญ ศรีจันทร์).4
Their stories reflect their dissatisfaction with
the injustice and inequality treatment in the army,
particularly between royal members of the officers’
corps and non-royal military officers. Being royalmeant better treatment and better opportunities tostudy at military academies abroad and were promoted to higher positions faster than those who
were not born of noble families. Additionally, interms of difficult political and economic crisis that
happened at that time, these soldiers believed intheir potentials to protect and to rule the country.
They were smart, strong, and sensible. They were
not mere soldiers but revealed themselves as lead-Fig. 3 A photo of Prince Chirapravati, with an official from the Ministry of War
and Siamese Army commissioned officers

Notes
1

Cremation Book of Major Phra Chamnankuruwit (YamPhamornmontri) and Mrs.Chamnankuruwit (Annelly
Phamornmomtri) (Bangkok: Sophonphiphatthanakorn,1930); Cremation Book of Field Marshal Phraya Bodindechanochit (M. R. Arun Chatkun Na Krugthep) at the Royal
Plaza 1922 (Bangkok: Sophonphiphatthanakorn, 1922).

2

The cremation of Lieutenant Phra Akkhaniwut (Lamai Srichamorn) at Somanatworawihan November 17, 1917.
Akkhaniwutnusorn (Bangkok: Mahamakut Ratchawitthayalai, 1971).

3

Cremation Book of Major General Phraya Wibun-ayurawet(Sek Thammasarot) at Thepsirintharawat Temple, July 27,
1972 (Bangkok: Mongkonkanphim, 1972).

4

Cremation Book of Colonel Phraya Riithiakhaney at Thepsirintharawat Temple, May 25, 1967 (Bangkok, 1967);
Rian Ramluk. Cremation Book of Sub-lieutenant Rian
Srichan at Makutkasattiyaram Temple, November 6, 1971
(Bangkok: Aksorn Thai, 1971); Cremation Book of Lieutenant-General Prayoon Pamornmontri at Phrasrimahathatworawihan Temple, November 25, 1982 (Bangkok:
Bophitkanphim, 1982); Cremation Book of General Admiral Air Chief Marshal Mangkorn Phromyothee at Thepsirintharawat Temple, June 29, 1966 (Bangkok: Krom Samphamit Press, 1966).

5

Ruengsun Cho Chang (Short stories of Cho Chang) Cremation Book of Major General Lung Phlaengsathan andCaptain Sutthawit Anekamai (Bangkok: Arun Press,
1961); Cremation Book of Captain Luang Sorn Chitiyothin
at Sommanat Temple, June 5, 1973 (Bangkok: Bamrungnukunkit, 1973).

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University025

ers. Thus, they resolved to overthrow the absolutemonarchy and situated themselves as a leader of
democratic reform.
Another thing I discovered is autobiographiesof those who participated in a rebellion of royalists
who were against the 1932 Revolution and in response launched the Baworndech Rebellion in
1933. In contrast to those who involved in the 1932
Revolution, I found cremation books of Major
General Luang Phlengsatharn (พลตรีหลวงแผลง
สะท้าน), who flee to Saigon after the rebellion failed,
and Captain Luang Sornchittiyothin (ร้อยเอกหลวงศร
จิตติโยธิน)5. They both described their loyalty to themonarchy and never hesitated to protect the throne.
Some soldiers did not write about this incident directly but their short biographies reflect how standing on the losing side affected their careers. Severalof them resigned and many of them were indirectly
forced to leave their positions in the army after therebellion.
Through the sources presented by these cremation books I can see both sides of the story, fromthe perspectives of winners and losers. The winners claimed their victory and praised the democratic reform, on the contrary, the losers maintaintheir loyalty to the king. The different perspectives
that can be accessed through these cremation
books are crucial because they document diverse
ideologies, perspectives, and feelings among soldiers in the army. It is true that the army attempted
to implant the same ideology into soldiers’ minds
through military training but there were other factorsthat shaped these soldiers in ways that resulted inconsiderable diversity of opinion among them.
Although these fascinating accounts reveal diverse aspects in the Thai army, like any other historical source there are also limitations on the use ofcremation books. Because this type of books is forhonoring the deceased, it inevitably depicts a positive side of their stories. Not all cremation books
contain all the details we might expect or want. Thisis particularly the case for those who were not aristocrats, royal family members, or public figures.
Some books have no details at all except a short listof what the deceased had done in the coruse of
their lives. Yet, cremation books are still useful forsocial historians interested in various aspects ofThai society.
Those who are interested in Thai history should
consult the Charas Collection at the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies Library. One issue to be
noted in using cremation books is that they are difficult to categorize because of the varied nature of
their contexts. Thus, I would suggest starting withfamiliar names or famous figures. If you have moretime, then you could browse the shelves and you
might discover remarkable details from other volumes adjacent on the shelves. In addition to theCharas Collection, the CSEAS Library has gradually expanded the number of cremation books in theirgeneral collection, so that more cremation books
are also now available and easy to access here in
Kyoto.

The Maldives Heritage Survey
R. Michael Feener
Professor, CSEAS

Returning to base camp after surveying an abandoned shrine on an uninhabited island

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78026

The Maldives is a remote Indian Ocean archipelagoof coral atolls comprising 1,192 islands, of whichfewer than 200 are currently inhabited. Buddhism
had spread to the islands during the first millennium
CE, but was completely displaced by processes ofIslamization that began in the twelfth century withabrupt political and economic transformations asinstitutional Buddhism was abolished and mosquesbuilt on royal commissions across a number of islands. Over the centuries that followed, integration
into trans-regional circulations of commerce andculture facilitated the development of distinctive
forms of Muslim vernacular culture including thecountry’s traditional coral stone mosques, funerarymonuments, and Dhivehi-language literature.
Despite its long history and rich heritage, theMaldives has been so little studied that even in major research university library holdings have precious few sources available for the exploration of
the country’s history.
For the past two-and-a-half years, The
Maldives Heritage Survey (MHS) has worked tosystematically inventory and digitally document endangered tangible cultural heritage in the Maldives– including mosques, cemeteries, Buddhist temple
ruins, and other historical structures and physicalobjects – to create an open-access resource website and heritage database. The materials documented through this work are critically endangered,facing both natural and human threats that jeopardize the survival and accessibility of historical information for this vital node in pre-modern global economic and religious networks at the cross-roads ofthe interconnected region of Maritime Southern
Asia.
Our pioneering systematic survey of the archaeological heritage of the Maldives has identified
sites with GPS coordinates, and produced robust
documentation of each with detailed measurements, photographs, aerial photography and video,

3D scans, AutoCAD plans and elevations, as well
as digitized manuscripts and video recordings oforal history interviews. We have further contextualized sites (wherever relevant) by references to any
mention that may have been made of a particularsite in government reports, local publications, and/or scholarly works published abroad. For the overwhelming majority of these sites, however, we havegenerated the first-ever documentation – thus making a substantial contribution to the source material
available to scholars interested in the history andculture of this vital crossroads of civilizations in the
medieval and early modern Indian Ocean world.
To date, our survey has covered Laamu(Haddhunmathee), Gnaviyani (Fuvamulah), Addu
(Seenu), and Haa Alif (North Thiladhunmatheee)
atolls, started preliminary work in Haa Dhaalu(South Thiladhunmatheee), and surveyed a number
of islands in Kaafu (Malé) Atoll. Over the course ofthis work, the project has completed a comprehensive survey of 152 islands where we have locatedand documented 288 heritage sites, 1,154 structures, 3,734 objects, in addition to digitizing 231
historic manuscripts, producing 28 video recordings of oral history interviews and registering 87
point clouds of 3D imaging.
Alongside the primary fieldwork, we havebeen working to incorporate a broader range ofmaterial on Maldives heritage and history into the
documentation for the website. Toward this end wehave thus engaged with a range of other institutions
including the Maldives National Museum, theMaldives National Archives, the Utheemu
Ganduvaru Palace, the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford, and the Japanese National Museum of
Ethnology (Minpaku) to digitize relevant materials
from their collections and arrange for permissions
to provide open access to new digital heritage resources. Such collaborations further enhance thescope and accessibility of digital heritage docu-

mentation on the Maldives, allowing for a consolidated point of open-access for these records andsupporting materials to scholars, curators, policy
makers, and the broader public.
All of this material is now available on theMaldives Heritage Survey’s project website. This is
an open-access resource that includes a number ofinter-related sections, including:027

The project website has thus quickly become thesingle richest resource available for information on
the vanishing past of the islands for future students
and scholars, as well as an important location forpreserving the cultural heritage of the Maldives for
its people in the future, when physical access tomany of these sites will no longer be possible due
to erosion and rising sea levels. In this sense theproject has produced a virtual ark for the survival of
historical sites that face dire threats of being sub-merged under the waters of the Indian Ocean.
The project is led by Professor R. Michael
Feener, and funded by Arcadia – a charitable fundof Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin (Project 3984).
Work in country was done in partnership with theMaldives Department of Heritage (now National
Center for Cultural Heritage) and with the support ofWashington University’s SaieLab and the Earth
Observatory of Singapore at Nanyang Technological
University. This pilot phase of work was based at
the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, but withProfessor Feener’s recent move to CSEAS the entire project has relocated to Kyoto, where we are
currently establishing a new Digital Heritage
Documentation Lab. A number of new hires will bemade here over the coming months for the next
phase of the project. Moving forward from its newbase at Kyoto University, the MHS will be expanded
to become the Maritime Asia Heritage Survey(MAHS). Over the next five years, we will not only
complete the field survey of all remaining atolls in
the Maldives, but also expand operations to open
branches in other countries that have historically
been part of the same maritime circulations of commerce and culture across Southern Asia: Sri Lanka,
Indonesia, Brunei, and Vietnam.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University• A short video introducing the work and scope of
the project• A GIS-integrated database of sites, structures,and objects documented in the course of ourfield survey work.
• An online manuscript reader built around an interactive Universal Viewer interface that makes
available a range of texts in Dhivehi, Arabic, andEnglish including manuscripts digitized by oursurvey team in the field, as well as related documents from the collections of the Maldives
National Museum and the Maldives National
Archives.
• A video library of oral history interviews presenting community perspectives and local traditions
associated with various heritage sites covered byour survey• A gallery of 3D visualizations of LiDAR and photogrammetry data for select sites, structures, andobjects• Project-generated reference material, including
an illustrated glossary of Maldivian art and architectural terms and an annotated timeline ofMaldives history to clarify and contextualize material documented in the database• a ‘virtual library’ of earlier scholarship and primary source material on Maldives heritage and history that we have been building up through securing permissions and linking to open-accessmaterial scattered across diverse online resources• An active fieldwork blog and photo sets on ongoing work across the country• Full data sets for all LiDAR scans produced in thecourse of our work have also been made open
access available and provided with an additional
long-term archive via in collaboration with
OpenHeritage3D.

Explaining our work to neighbours in Kaashidhoo

Seated Buddha statue recoveredby the MHS at Isdhoo Kalaidhoo,
now in the collections of theMaldives National Museum(c. 10th-11th century)

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78028

Field photography of a Buddhist statue recovered in Isdhoo Kalaidhoo
Manuscript of a land endowment on the island of Meedhoo (1675)

Site plan of Koagannu, the largest early Muslim cemetery in the Maldives marking the locations of five mosques, and over 1,000 coral gravestones (12th-20th centuries)

Organizing manuscripts for digitization in the Ihavandhoo mosque

Work on site of a coral-stone mosque in Laamu AtollPUBLICATIONS

Noboru Ishikawa & Ryoji Soda (Eds.)

Pavin Chachavalpongpun (Ed.)

Anthropogenic Tropical Forests: Human–Nature Interfaces on the Plantation Frontier.

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Thailand.
Routledge, 2019.

Springer, 2019.

R. Michael Feener & Anne M. Blackburn(Eds.)
Buddhis t and Islamic Orders inSouthern Asia: Comparative Perspectives.
University of Hawaii Press, 2019.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78030

The studies in this volume provide an ethnography of a plantation frontier in central
Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Drawing on
the expertise of both natural scientists andsocial scientists, the key focus is the process of commodification of nature that has
turned the local landscape into anthropogenic tropical forests. Analyzing the transformation of the space of mixed landscapes and multiethnic communities —driven by trade in forest products, logging
and the cultivation of oil palm — the contributors explore the changing nature of theenvironment, multispecies interactions,and the metabolism between capitalism
and nature. The project involved the collaboration of researchers specializing inanthropology, geography, Southeast Asian
history, global history, area studies, political
ecology, environmental economics, plant
ecology, animal ecology, forest ecology,hydrology, ichthyology, geomorphology
and life-cycle assessment. Collectively, thetransdisciplinary research addresses anumber of vital questions. How are material
cycles and food webs altered as a result oflarge-scale land-use change? How havenew commodity chains emerged whileolder one s have disappeare d? Whatchanges are associated with such shifts?
What are the relationships among thesethree elements — commodity chains, material cycles and food webs? Attempts toanswer these questions led the team to go
beyond the dichotomy of society and nature as well as human and non-human.
Their research here highlights complex relational entanglements of the two worlds,
abruptly and forcibly connected by humaninduced changes in an emergent and compelling resource frontier in maritime Southeast Asia.

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary
Thailand is a timely survey and assessmentof the state of contemporary Thailand.
While the country has changed much inthe past decades, this handbook proposesthat many of its problems have remained
intact or even persistent, particularly problems related to domestic politics. It underlines emerging issues at this critical juncture in the kingdom and focuses on thehistory, politics, economy, society, culture,religion and international relations of thecountry.
The volume presents a multidisciplinary
approach, with chapters written by expertson Thailand, covering the country’s history,
politics, economy, and international relations. Designed for academics, students, libraries, policymakers and general readersin the field of Asian studies, political science, economics and sociology, this invaluable reference work provides an up-to-dateaccount of Thailand and initiates new discussion for future research activities.

This volume aims to foster interaction between scholars in the subfields of Islamic
and Buddhist studies by increasing understanding of the circulation and localizationof religious texts, institutional models, andritual practices across Asia and beyond.
Buddhist and Islamic Orders in Southern
Asia scrutinizes religious orders (including
Sufi tariqas and Buddhist monastic lineages) that enabled far-flung local communities to be recognized and engaged as partof a broader world of co-religionists, while
presenting their traditions and human representatives as attractive and authoritative
to new devotees. Contributors to the volume direct their attention toward analogous developments mutually illuminating
for both Buddhist Studies and Islamic
Studies, drawing readers’ attention to thefact that networked persons were not always strongly institutionalized and often
moved through Southern Asia to develop
local bases without the oversight of complex corporate organizations. This volume
features contributions by Ismail Fajrie Alatas, Anne M. Blackburn, Martin van Bruinessen, Kenneth Dean, R. Michael Feener,
Nancy K. Florida, Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Alexey Kirichenko, and Torsten
Tschacher. The full text of this volume is
now open-access available at: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/259
38

R. Michael Feener, Tom Borchert, Francis Lim & Wu Keping (Eds.)

Political Theologies and Development in Asia: Transcendence, Sacrifice, and Aspiration.

The Ethics of Giving in Asia, a special
issue of The Journal of Contemporary
Religion 35.1 (January 2020).

Manchester University Press, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2020.16957
89

This innovative and timely reassessment ofpolitical theology opens new lines of critical investigation into the intersections ofreligion and politics. Political Theologies
and Development in Asia pioneers thetheo-political analysis of Asian politics andin so doing moves beyond a focus on the(Post-)Christian West that has to datedominated scholarly discussions on thistheme. It also locates ‘development’ as avital focus for critical investigations into
Asian political theologies. The volume includes contributions by leading anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists,
including: Giuseppe Bolotta, Eli Elinoff, R.
Michael Feener, Philip Fountain, Kenneth
M. George, Sam Han, Sunila Kale & Christian Lee Novetzke, Till Mostowlansky, Armando Salvatore, and Edoardo Siani. Eachchapter brings new theoretical approaches
into conversation with detailed empiricalcase studies grounded in modern Asia. Not
only does the volume illustrate the value of
this approach to a diverse set of Asian societies and religions, but it also provides aforceful argument for why political theology
itself requires this broader horizon to remain relevant and critical.

The ethical evaluation of religious giving involves multiple metrics of theological references, everyday ethics, ritual correctness,and materialist self-interest. Understanding
how these categories are constantly remade and experienced in the lives of individuals and the broader history of religious
traditions is vital to understandings of the
ethics of religious giving. The salience of
this ‘value pluralism’ is particularly amplified in contemporary Asian contexts, wherecomplex inter- and intra-religious dynamics, agendas of modernizing reform, state
projects of nation building, economic development programs, and various forms ofactivist mobilization cut across intertwining
vectors. The articles commissioned for thisproject and collected here describe the ongoing everyday decision-making processesof individuals in diverse contexts in order tocontribute both empirically and theoretically to discussions of the ethics of religious
giving. This special issue of The Journal ofContemporary Religions presents an interactionist perspective in which the categoryof ‘the religious’ is dynamically and mutually reconfigured in relation to other salient
fields of charity, philanthropy, and humanitarianism, featuring contributions by Daniel
B i rc h o k , T h o m a s B o rc h e r t , C h a r l e s
Carstens, R . Michael Feener, Michael
Hertzberg, Francis Lim, and Wu Keping.

Toshihiko Kishi, Hidekazu Sensui & Risa
Nakayama (Eds.)
Yomigaeru Okinawa Beikoku shiseikenka no terebi eizo: Ryukyuretto
Beikokuminseifu (USCAR) no jidai /Enlightening through T V: USCAR
Public Diplomacy, 1950-1972.
Fuji Shuppan, 2020 [book and 6 DVD set, inJapanese].
This book is an attempt to empirically clarify the merits and demerits of the ‘American
Era’ (Amerika Yu / アメリカ世 ) in postwar
Okinawa. This print publication is accompanied by a set of six DVDs containing
films from both Japan and the UnitedStates produced during the time of theUnited States Civil Administration of the
Ryukyu Islands (USCAR). These materials
present new source material on the USCAR-era, including an archive of public relations photographs and official documentsthat are important for understanding thepolitical, social, and cultural impact of thisperiod in Okinawan history.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

R. Michael Feener, Giuseppe Bolotta &Philip Fountain (Eds.)

031

In addition to the well-known English and Japanese Southeast Asian Studies journals and the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, CSEAS publishes a number of active
series in both languages. Here we present highlights from the Center’s book and working paper series over the past year:

Toshihiko Kishi, Cindy Yik-yi Chu & Suk
Mei Irene Wong (Eds.)
Egakareta Makao: Dawento korekushon ni miru tozai koryu no rekishi / Images of Macau: East-West Exchange
and the Derwent Collection.

Min Thuta.

Vol. 21

A Study on Select Manuscripts in theCollection of the University of Yangon Library.

Takamichi Serizawa.

Journal of the Myanmar Academy of Arts andScience XV. 7 (August 2017): 381-406.

Bensei Shuppan, 2020.
Over the course of its history, Macau has a
Portuguese colony, an entrepot of EastWest trade, and a base for Christian mission. Today it is a world tourist destination
drawing people to its churches and otherheritage buildings, as well as its massive
casinos, and high-profile motoring events.
This book presents a selection of historicalimages of Macau in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries that reveal diverse aspects of the changing situation of Macauboth during and af ter the Opium War(1839-1842).

The study introduces the manuscripts of
the works of ten famous male writers of theearly twentieth century, along with a brief
biography of each. The authors covered inthis work are: Thakin Ba Thaung, Min Thu
Wun, Thein Pe Myint, Htin Lin, Kyaw Aung,
Aung Lin, Min Yu Wai, Dr. Khin Maung
Nyunt, Htila Sitthu, and Dr. Toe Hla.

Writing History in America’s Shadow:
Japan, the Philippines, and the Question of Pan-Asianism.
Kyoto University Press/ NUS Press, 2020.
Both the Japanese and Filipino people experienced a re-writing of their national histories upon being defeated by the UnitedStates; the Philippines after 1902 and Japanafter 1945. This rewriting was conducted inorder to justify and explain US rule and its
ideology of modernization and democracy.
These new histories portrayed the immediate past as the dark ages: the Spanish colonial period for the Philippines and Japan’s
wartime totalitarianism and militarism.
What kind of dilemmas and contradictions did Filipino and Japanese historians
and intellectuals embrace by accepting the
US rewriting of their national histories? Did
Filipino and Japanese historians interact at
all under the US hegemony? The idea of
America’s shadow is meant to shed a lighton areas of darkness in both Japanese andPhilippine historiographies and understanding of their regions.
Through an examination of the commonalities, differences and interactions of Japanese and Filipino histories, ideas of history,
modernization theory, and area studies,
Serizawa makes an important contribution
to sorting through the tangled histories ofAsia in the complicated matrix of colonial,
wartime and Cold War contexts.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78032

Vol. 22Vol. 25

Vol. 26

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Elliott PrasseFreeman & Patrick Strefford (Eds.)

Shimizu Hiromu (translated by Alexander Brown).

Soda Naoki.

Unraveling Myanmar’s Transition:
Progress, Retrenchment, and Ambiguity Amidst Liberalization.

Grassroots Globalization: Reforestation and Cultural Revitalization in thePhilippine Cordilleras.

Kyoto University Press/ NUS Press, 2020.

Kyoto University Press/ Trans Pacific Press,
2019.

Rapidly advancing globalization impacts
indigenous people worldwide. In this longterm study of a remote village famous for
its World Heritage-listed rice terraces,
where the people actively confront globalization, Shimizu Hiromu considers the extent to which globalization has penetrated
even the remote mountains of the Philippines at the grassroots level. The book examines globalization in Ifugao Province
since Spain’s colonization of the Philippines
and Ifugao resistance through to the newwave of migrant workers traveling overseas, who have experienced a shift in theirlife-world and confrontation point with
global powers from their home country toan away-game arena. By focusing on thevillage of Hapao and its reforestation andcultural revival movement led by Lopez
Nauyac, as well as the work of world-renowned film director Kidlat Tahimik and his
attempt to remake himself as an authentic
Filipino through Nauyac’s inspiration andstrategic essentialism, this book examines
globalization from the periphery and showsthat we are all deeply connected in thecontemporary era of globalization.
The Japanese original of this book won
the Japan Academy Prize in 2017, the mostprestigious academic publication prize inJapan. It was bestowed upon a cultural anthropologist for the first time. The bookalso received the eleventh Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology A ward in2016.

Kyoto University Press/ Trans Pacific Press,
2020.

This book explores the interrelations bet ween the indigenization of “colonial
knowledge” and the quest for pan-Malay
identity in Malaya. In what way, to what extent and for what purpose did the colonized accept, modify and adapt the colonizer ’s wor ld v i ew ? To answer the s equestions, this study examines textbooks
produced by British and Malay authors forteaching Malay history and geography tothe local populace in teacher training colleges, then conducts a case study of one ofthese students who would go on to become a prominent nationalist activist. It
shows that while the colonizers brought
new concepts of Malayness to Malaya, theindigenization of colonial knowledge entailed significant reinterpretation, transformation, and appropriation.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

The optimism provoked by Myanmar’s political reforms in 2011-2012 has now given
way to a sense that the uneven nature ofchange in this nation of 54 million has led
to instability and uncertainty. The liberalization of critical sectors and expansion ofcertain freedoms – such as political and legal opportunities for expression and mobilization – contrasts with the entrenchmentof structural problems. It thus becomes
ever more difficult to tackle ethnic marginalization and conflict, over-dependence onnatural resource extraction, inadequate
public services, and problems of under-capacity in the civilian bureaucracy. The result is the build-up of a toxic environment
in which classism, racism, and bigotry
threaten to rend Myanmar’s already delicate social fabric.
The contributors to this volume bringunique perspectives and methodologies tobear on unravelling Myanmar’s tangled
challenges. Whether it is through studying
corruption by analyzing the country’s realestate bubble, assessing civil society advocacy capacity against extractive industries,
or gauging the strength – and surprising
weakness – of Myanmar’s military, the volume employs unconventional approaches
and analytical rigor to address a fundamental question: Is Myanmar itself unraveling?

Conceptualizing the Malay World:
Colonialism and Pan-Malay Identity
in Malaya.

033

Vol. 27

Vol. 1Vol. 35

Nakamizo Kazuya.

Michael D. Pante.

Hayami Yoko (Ed.)

Violence and Democracy: The Collapse of One-Party Dominant Rule inIndia.

A Capital City at the Margins: Quezon
City and Urbanization in the Twentieth-Century Philippines.

Tonan Ajia ni okeru kea no senzairyoku / Potentialities of Care in
Southeast Asia.

Kyoto University Press/ Trans Pacific Press,
2020.

Kyoto University Press/ Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 2019.

Kyoto University Press, 2019.

The Bhagalpur riots occurred in the Indianstate of Bihar during the 1989 Lok Sabha
election campaign. In the lead-up, politicalactors and parties exploited religious identities for their own electoral purposes. In
this book, Nakamizo systematically andcomprehensively analyses the course of
the significant political change that forms
the background to these and other outbreaks of violence, from the collapse ofCongress’s rule to the rise of identity-based
political parties. The political change is explained via a multi-layered analysis of theconnection between centre, state and ruralvillage levels in the context of the interaction between caste and religious identities.
The riots, especially the counter-riot response, are used as a key explanatory variable throughout. Nakamizo’s book offers an
insightful and highly relevant perspectiveon the political background to the communal violence that has been a feature of
democratic India and continues to this day.

Quezon City served as the Philippines’s
capital for almost three decades (19481976), yet Filipinos today barely remember
this historical fact. Was the city, therefore, afailure? This book answers this question bypresenting an unconventional historical
geography of twentieth-century Quezon
City, one that focuses not on its grandiosearchitecture and master plan but on its
boundaries, peripheries, and marginal areas. In so doing, it shows how the city
functioned as a buffer zone mediating between city and countryside, and thus developed due to the urban rural overlaps inherent in sociohistorical forces such ascolonialism, revolution, agrarian unrest, decolonization, migration, and authoritarianism. Moving beyond a Manila-centric perspective, this book is twentieth-century
Philippine history from an off-center pointof view.

This edited volume presents a range of
new case studies of practices of ‘care’ incontemporary Southeast Asia. The studies
brought together here present diverse facets of the way in which care is understoodand experienced in the region, as well as
the broader range of social and cultural dynamics of which they are part. These issues are explored from the perspectives of
economics, political science, anthropology,sociology and nursing with contributions
by Riyo Naoi, Keiko Tamura, Makoto Ito,
Kosuke Mizuno, Sachiko Gochi, Atsufumi
Kato, Tran Thi Minh Thi (translation by Haruka Kano and Joerina Seto), Mitsuhiro Iwasa, Yoko Hayami, Ekawati Sri Wahyuni,
Naomi Hosoda, Keiko Kiso, Hiroki Koyama,
Sae Eto, Yuji Baba, Mayumi Okabe, Satoru
Kobayashi, Hiromu Shimizu, and Eriko Tomita.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78034

Vol. 36

Vol. 37

Vol. 38

Saito Teruko.

Tominaga Yasuyo.

Naoi Riyo.

18-19 seiki Biruma shakkin shomon no
kenkyu: Tonan Ajia no hitotsu no kinsei / Debt-Slave and Land Mortgage
Contracts in the 18th-19th Centuries
Burma: Another Interpretation of
Early Modern Southeast Asian Societies.

Chiisana gakko: Karutini ni yoru Orandago shokanshu kenkyu / A Study on
Kartini’s Letters: Comparing Door
Duisternis tot Licht with Brieven.

Byo-en no eizo chiiki kenkyu: Taihokubu no HIV yoseisha wo meguru
kyoshin no dokyumentari / Visualizing Area Studies: Finding Resonancein Making a Documentary Film about
Social Relations among HIV-positive
People in Northern Thailand.

Kyoto University Press, 2019.
In Burma, traditional writing materials
known as parabaik, contain writings frompeople of diverse social strata on their daily
lives during the Konbaung period. This
study is an attempt to re-examine the characteristics of these important and understudied historical sources. In particular, thiswork focuses on the money-lending contracts and court decisions preserved inparabaiks to provide new insights into the
lived experience in early modern Burmese
society.

Kyoto University Press, 2019.

Kyoto University Press, 2019.
In this book, with the case study of a documentary film produced by the author about
the social relations of HIV-positive people
in Northern Thailand, the author reflectively
considers how documentary film capturessocial relations. In recent years, the field ofanthropology has paid increasing attention
to the possibility of films to capture and express what cannot be described verbally. It
is generally believed that documentaryfilms capture reality simply because theyrecord what is happening objectively. Thisbelief is problematic in that it assumes thatreality can be re-presented, when it is,however, always in a process of construction. Lived experience is constantly changing, and perceptions of it are continuously
being (re-)crafted. This book delves into
the dynamics of a filmmaker’s perspective
and engagement with diverse influencesthat have shaped the creation of a significant piece of work.
Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879-1904) becamefamous both in the Netherlands and theDutch East Indies after the posthumous
publication of a selection of her letters. Today, today she is widely acknowledged asa forerunner of women’s emancipation inIndonesia, The compilation was edited by
H. Abendanon under the title Door Duisternis tot Licht [Through Darkness to Light] in
1911. He was the Director of Education, Religion and Industry and a promoter of the
Ethical Policy in the Dutch East Indies.
Door Duisternis tot Licht is regarded as theprincipal source on Kartini studies. Kartini’s
letters are a humanist account of the global
ethic related to the dignity of a human being, an articulation of the new thoughts of
the late nineteenth century.
Brieven: aan mevrouw R. M. AbendanonMandri en haar echtgenoot [Letters to Mrs.
R. M. Abendanon-Mandri and Her Husband] was edited in 1987. This comparisonof both the editions of Kartini’s letters reveals that Abendanon’s compilation deleted more than 70% of Kartini’s original content, in the process significantly stifling her
voice in what became an international conversation on women and their social position in the Netherlands Indies.

035

Vol. 39

Vol. 40

Vol. 41

Toyama Ayako.

Sato Wakana.

Mizuno Kosuke.

Tai minshuka to kenpou kaikaku: Rikkenshugi wa minshushugi wo sukuttaka? / Democratization and Constitutional Reform in Thailand: Has
Constitutionalism Saved Democracy?

Isho to ikiru jyosei tachi: myaozoku no
busshitsu bunka to hahako kankei /Women Living with Their Costumes:
The Material Culture and Motherdaughter Relationships of the Miao.

Minshuka to roushi kankei: Indonesia
no Mushawara roushi funsou shori tokoudoushugi no genryu / Industrial
relations in democratizing Indonesia:
Dispute settlement systems basedon the Musyawarah principle and an
examination of the origins of labor
activism.

Kyoto University Press, 2020.

Kyoto University Press, 2020.
Thailand’s modern politics has been a history of hardship, since the constitutional
revolution in 1932, there have been 13
coups. With each coup, the existing constitution was abolished, and a new one enacted. Essentially, constitutionalism should
be introduced to enhance the “quality” ofdemocracy. On the contrary, however, constitutionalism is being used to curb the political demands of the masses in countries
with emerging democracies. As the powerof the masses fuels a sense of crisis amongve s te d intere s t s , and f als e s ens e ofstrengthened justice under the name of
constitutionalism, in practice threatens thedevelopment of democratic institutions.
Using Thailand as a case study, the constitution, enacted in favor of constitutionalism,
can destroy democracy. This book probes
the paradox of modern politics: how constitutions, adopted in the name of nurturing
constitutionalism, destroy democracy.

CSEAS NEWSLETTERThe Miao people living in the mountainous
region extending from southern China tocontinental Southeast Asia are known forthe stunning ethnic costumes worn by theirwomen. The brilliant decorations and delicate embroidery, which tend to immediately attract attention, represent more thansimply aesthetic choice, however. The
norms and details of social relationships(especially between mother and daughter)affect the materials and colors, embroidery
patterns, and production techniques of thecostumes, as well as the act of making,wearing, storage, and transfer. This bookproposes that mother-daughter relationships in the patrilineal kinship system of
the Miao are constituted through their ethnic costumes. Such connections cannot betaken for granted, especially when daughters move from their natal to marital families. Rather, they are created and reinforcedby everyday practices, which are mediatedthrough material objects such as costumes
handcraf ted by mothers. Focusing onchanges taking place in the practices ofMiao brides since the 1990s, this ambitious
work connects research on material culture
with area studies.

Kyoto University Press, 2020.

No. 78036

How have industrial relations that wereconsidered ‘stable’ during the authoritarian
Soeharto regime successfully transformed
in order to guarantee workers’ rights andimprove the welfare of workers in democratizing Indonesia? This book attempts toanswer this question by focusing onchanges to the industrial dispute settlement system after democratization. The
book follows the step-by-step process of
strikes and dispute settlement based on
countless interviews and discussions withlabor activists, trade unions, laborers, company staff, and government officials. It thenanalyzes 1) whether the country’s disputesettlement system is based on the ‘rule oflaw ’ or the principle of ‘musyawarah
muafkat (deliberation and unanimous
agreement), and 2) which plays a morecritical role in settlement: government intervention or labor-capital bilateral negotiations. This book also investigates changes
to industrial dispute settlement systems,
and factors that may determine the qualityof the system—such as the nature andstrategies of both labor and company organizations, collective labor relations law, labor protections law, and law enforcement—from colonial times through the reform of
1998-2000 until today. In so doing, it provides a comprehensive study of how democratization has impacted industrial relations in Indonesia and sheds light on theorigins of labor activism in the country.

No. 7

No. 8

No. 9

Katsuo Kogure & Yoshito Takasaki.

Kono Yasuyuki, Nathan Badenoch &Mario Ivan Lopez.

François Molle.

Conflict, Institutions, and Economic
Behavior: Legacies of the Cambodian
Genocide.
This paper considers how the Cambodian
genocide under the Pol Pot regime (19751979) altered people’s post-conflict behaviors through institutional changes. Combining spatial genocide data and the complete
count 1998 Population Census microdata,
we examine the impacts of the genocide
on subsequent investments in children’s
education for couples who had their firstchild during and af ter the Pol Pot era.
These two demographic groups had distinct institutional experiences: The former
were controlled as family organizations –state-owned spouses and children – andthe latter were not. We find adverse genocide impacts predominate among the former group. Plausible underlying mechanisms for this finding are discussed.

Bridging the Disciplinary Divide: 50
years of Research at the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies.

The Chao Phraya Delta is known as the‘rice bowl of Thailand’, and has been thehistorical heart of the country’s large-scale
rice production and export. Although its
early agrarian history has been the objectof much scholarship, few studies have documented its significant transformations
over the past two decades. This working
paper attempts to fill this knowledge gap
by analyzing the evolution of farming structures over the past 70 years with the aim oflinking past and recent dynamics. It analyses in particular how farm and family sizes,
land use, land tenure, land productivity, labor force and economic diversification coevolve and shape an original agrarian trajectory that has avoided ex treme land
fragmentation or concentration.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

This paper traces the birth of the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies (CSEAS) approach to Area Studies, explores how theinstitution evolved to consolidate and institutionalize its activities, and introduces its
methodological responses and research
initiatives that have evolved over the past
50 years. Since before the founding of
CSEAS in 1963, Kyoto University researchers had been involved in multidisciplinary,field-based investigations of Southeast
Asian society and nature. The origins of
CSEAS’ philosophy and commitment to
the region lie in the individual researchers
at Kyoto University, their empirically-based
studies, and shared interests in ever more
integrated and multifaceted understandings of local society. The paper traces andoffers an overview of the large-scale projects that framed and guided research topresent fundamental approaches towards
issues in the region. This is through a commitment to long-term field-based studies
in and of local societies; empirical studies
grounded in local languages; and multidisciplinary, team-based research that has
bridged the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities. This paper also
shows how these approaches arose in response to changes and processes transforming social and environmental systemsof Southeast Asians societies. This has informed the development of conceptual andtheoretical work that has developed as a
response to empirically grounded understandings emerging from those societies.

Agrarian Change in the Central Plainof Thailand (1950-2020): A Longitudinal Study of Farm Characteristics.

037

134

No. 91

No. 93

Aung Aung.

Yamamoto Hiroyuki (Ed.)

The International Politics of the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar: China, Japan, and the United States.

Densho to kokumin no monogatari:Konsei Ajia eiga kenkyu 2019 / Folklore and Imagined Narratives: Cine
Adobo 2019.

Shinozaki Kaori & Yamamoto Hiroyuki(Eds.)CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78Amid of global security threats and severe
competition between China and the U.S.,
international pressures on Myanmar relating to the Rohingya crisis has dramaticallyincreased. Behind the Rohingya crisis, international politics especially China, Japanand the U.S. are heavily involved in the
United Nations and international realm, but
their positions such as their interests andconcerns are known to few people especially in Myanmar. While the U.S. and theWest focus on human rights and democracy, Japan and China focus on their economic interests and national securities. The
U.S. has thus adopted sanctions against
Myanmar’s military leaders, while Japan
has maintained its relations with both
Myanmar’s civilian government and themilitary, and China has strategically promoted its ties with both sides in Myanmar.
While the U.S. and Japan view China asa global security threat, China also views
that the U.S. and Japan want to contain
China via Myanmar in the names of UNs
and INGOs to disturb Chinese interestsand projects in Rakhine State. These three
counties have come to view Myanmar’s
Rakhine State as a battle field of international politics especially between China
and the U.S. Current trends, however, indicate that any attempts to isolate Myanmar
by international pressures would lead
Myanmar to completely rely on China.

Discussed how the malicious spirits in folklore and historical heroes in Southeast
Asian countries are portrayed in films incurrent political context.

Taminzoku shakai Maresia ni okeru
imin to shakai tougou / Immigrants
and Social Integration in Multi-Ethnic
Malaysia.
Joint study by researchers on Indonesia,
the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia,
discussing the social integration of migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, andMyanmar in Malaysia.

No. 92

No. 94

Yamamoto Hiroyuki & Mistunari Ayumi(Eds.)

Furukawa Hisao.

Karamu no jidai XI: Marei isuramu
sekai no jyosei to kindai / The Age of
Qalam XI: Women and Modernity in
the Malay Islamic World.
Discussed how women and modernity
were represented in the Malay Islamic
world in the 1950s and 1960s through thereader’s questions section of Qalam, amonthly Jawi-Malay magazine published in
Singapore.

Chiiki kenkyu akaibuzu: Furukawa
Hisao firudonoto shusei 2 / Field Archives on the Philippines, No. 2.
In his field works in the world, Professor
Furukawa Hisao took extremely detailed
notes on local environmental conditions
such as soil, landform, vegetation, agriculture, people’s livelihood, and so on.

038

No. 95

No. 96

No. 97

Obiya Chika & Goto Emi (Eds.)

Yanagisawa Masayuki, Shibuya Yuki, Fujikura Tetsuro & Ogawa Yuko (Eds.)

Okada Masashi & Yanagisawa Masayuki(Eds.)

Hyakkokusha tsushin dai 18 gou /Thong Tin Bach Coc, So 18 (Bach Coc
Village Report, 2006-2009).

Ajia no yakuyou shokubutsu shigen
no seisan, ryutsu, riyou no rekishi ni
kansuru gakusaiteki kenkyu: Shinamon ga tsunagu Betonamu to Nihon /Interdisciplinary Study on the Historyof the Production, Distribution, andUse of Herbal Resources in Asia: A
Vietnam and Japan History Seenfrom Cinammon since the 18th Century.

Yo s o o i t o K i h a n 3 : “ D e n t o ” t o“nashonaru” wo toinaosu / Fashionand the Norms 3: Rethinking Tradition and the National.
It is a proceeding in Japanese of the 3rdworkshop “Fashion and the Norms” held
on Feb. 10, 2020 at CSEAS, Kyoto Univ.,
which has been annually organized jointly
by B01 unit (Norms and Identity: Between
Social Relationship and Nationalism) of“Relational Studies on Global Crises” Project (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on
Innovative Areas: Research in a Proposed
Research Area, http://www.shd.chiba-u.jp/
glblcrss/index_en.html) and CIRAS research unit “Family and Norms in Muslim
Society in Central Eurasia.” It contains“History of School Uniforms in Asia: Focusing on Japan, China and Singapore” byLingfang Liu, “What are Clothes for Humans: Transformation of Kimono in Contemporary Society” by Michimasa Ogata,and “Global Economy and Fashion Trend of
the National Dress: Indian Western Sarees
and GI Product Sarees” by Seiko Sugimoto.

This is a series of research report on one
rural village in Northern part of Vietnam.
The project has been started since the1994, and is still continuously conducted by
Vietnamese and Japanese researchers.
Discussion paper No. 96 included suchdata and information from 2006 until 2009,
which on impact on industrial park in Nam
Dinh.

By focusing on a medicinal plant, cinnamon, this study aims to clarify how medicinal plants have been produced, distributed,
and used in Asia. Along with greater demand of medicinal plants, Asian countries
tried to import, cultivate, and distribute various plants since the 18th century. Those
plants were thereafter globally distributedand locally naturalized. In this discussion
paper, the authors discussed about Vietnamese and Japanese cases. The authors’
field notes also helped to understand present use of cinnamon in Kagoshima prefecture in southern part of Japan.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

039

EVENTSSEASIA Biennial Conference 2019
Change and Resistance: Future Direction of Southeast Asia
December 5-7, 2019, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Julius Bautista
Associate Professor, CSEAS

CSEAS is a founding member of the Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies in Asia
(SEASIA). In this capacity, CSEAS works with 13 scholarly institutions around the region inpromoting academic exchange and collaboration for the further development of Southeast
Asian area studies.
One of SEASIA’s main activities is a biannual conference hosted by one of the consortium member institutions. Following on from the success of the first SEASIA Conference
held in Kyoto in 2015 and the second in Bangkok in 2017, the third SEASIA biennial conference was held on December 5-7, 2019 in Academia Sinica, Taiwan under the theme of‘Change and Resistance’. The event had as its Guest of Honor the second-highest ranking
executive official of the Republic of China (Taiwan), His Excellency the Vice President
Chen Chien-jen.
The conference had 390 registered participants, and over 290 paper presenters from
more than 30 countries in Southeast Asia and beyond. The event wasorganized by a Conference Committee that included CSEAS as theActing Consortium Secretariat. Associate Professor Julius Bautista
served as chair of the SEASIA Committee, and was ably assisted by
Dr. Andrey Damaledo and Ms. Motoko Kondo.
The SEASIA Governing Board also held its biannual meeting on
December 4, 2019 at the Institute of Sociology of Academia Sinica.
CSEAS was represented by Professor Yoko Hayami, Associate Professor Julius Bautista, Dr Andrey Damaledo. During the meeting, CSEAS
was appointed to the SEASIA Executive Committee, which then re-solved to assign CSEAS the duty of Joint-Secretariat. CSEAS was also
reappointed to the SEASIA Conference Committee and the Networking and Outreach Committee. This ensures that CSEAS will continue
to play a pivotal role in the continued operations and expansion of theConsortium over the years to come.

Women’s Narratives from the Margins in Southeast Asia
Panel at the SEASIA Biennial Conference 2019, Taipei
CSEAS NEWSLETTER

Hayami Yoko
ConvenorNo. 78Personal narratives provide us with sources revealing intersections between self, experience, history and social context. How do we understand society and history from personal narratives? How is the self-constructed through narratives in the particular social and historical setting? Narrating one’s life provides a mechanism for organizing experience, and for making sense of how one copes with and overcomes difficulties in their own lived contexts. The manner of narration can, moreover, be as significant as the content of the040

narrative itself. These questions may become more acute in cases ofwomen, who experience different life trajectories from men, and who
may narrate their experiences in different styles. Furthermore, even if
its factual accuracy may be questioned, such narratives can nonetheless be extremely telling of personal experience of positionality in power relations, emotional responses and ethical discourses. This panelpresents and examines narratives from a diverse range of contemporary Southeast Asian experiences: migrant Shan women with HIV in
Thailand (Amporn Jirattikorn), women with chronic diseases in rural
Vietnam (Le Hoang Ngoc Yen), Orang Asli women pursuing formal
education (Shanthi Thambiah), politically active migrant women innorthern Myanmar (Wenchin Chang), and women in an elderly home
in Chiangmai (Yoko Hayami). The small, but elegant room at the Academica Sinica Institute of Humanities which we were provided for the panel was filled with an active audience, who helped to generate a lively discussion.

International Workshop on “Fake News and State Control
in the Post-Truth Era in Southeast Asia”
July 22, 2019, CSEAS, Kyoto University
Iga Tsukasa
ConvenorIn this era of electronic media, societies around the globe are confronted with issues suchas whether and how to control the dissemination of fake news, which at times affects ourown academic research activities. On the occasion of the Singapore congress approving
the ‘Protection from On-Line Falsehoods and Manipulation Act,’ academics across theworld raised concerns that this might interrupt and intervene in the freedom of expression.
This workshop was organized to examine and discuss the ways in which Southeast Asianstates have coped with such issues in the legislative, social, and political spheres. We invited journalists and media scholars from Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand andJapan for the discussion. The invited speakers included Cherian George, Steven Gan, Ismail Fahmi, Ben Dunant, Prangtip Daorueng, Tateiwa Yoichiro, while Masaaki Okamoto
and Yoshihiro Nakanishi served as moderators.

ASEAN-Japan Science, Technology and Innovation (JASTIP) Symposium
17-19 January 2020, Hanoi, Vietnam
Kono Yasuyuki
Professor, CSEAS
Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

041

JASTIP, together with the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology and the ASEAN Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation (ASEAN-COSTI), co-organized the ASEAN-Japan Science,
Technology and Innovation Symposium in Hanoi on January 17-19,
2020. The central theme of themeeting was the promotion of dialogue
between researchers and policy-makers, and it was designated as part of a series of events marking Vietnam’s Chairmanship of ASEAN in2020. The event attracted around 200 participants and received extensive media attention in the country.
With high-level representation from Japan and a number of ASEAN member states, as well as from scientists, national policy-makers andinternational agencies, the symposium discussed the establishment of practical ways to improve interactions between the supply and demand sides of scientific services among multiple stakeholders to achieve SDGs in ASEAN and Japan, as well as to identify effective and operational science advisory processes to maximize societal impact. These discussions have informed the outline of the second phase of JASTIP,
which has official started in September 2020.

Framings and Platforms
Approaches to the Study of Manchukuo Postcards
and Other Visual Sources

May 14, 2019, Harvard-Yenching Library, Cambridge, MA (USA)Kishi Toshihiko
Professor, CSEAS
This one-day workshop was co-sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Library and theReischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. It was the second event
convened byProfessor Kishi,
together withPaul Barclay of
Lafayet te College in collaboration with Harvard. Two panels
discussed historical perspectives and informatics approaches to the digitized postcard collections of Harvard,
Lafayette, and Kyoto Universities in working toward the developmentof a common platform for viewing and interpreting those materials. Invited speakers for this workshop included: Kuniko Yamada McVey,
Katherine Matsuura, Akihiro Kameda, Nishioka Chifumi, Susan Paige
Taylor, Feng-en Tu, Paul Barclay and Toshihiko Kishi.

CSEAS NEWSLETTER
No. 78042

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

Editor: R. Michael Feener〈編集〉マ イ ケ ル ・フィ ー ナ ーDate of Issue:2020
ISSN 2185-663X