Paper Abstracts Ali, Muhammad , Victoria University Melbourne Australia Decentralization and Poverty Reduction: Great Authority, Wealth and Poverty in East Kalimantan, Indonesia (Panel 22) East Kalimantan is a province with full of paradox. This region has considerable economic potential measured in terms of its endowments of natural resources, including oil, natural gas, gold and coal. Yet, East Kalimantan still lacks infrastructure, has poor human resources and high levels of unemployment, factors which condemn much of the population to a life of paucity and hardship. The new system of decentralisation which has been implemented since 2001 has been expected to give more benefit to the region. Regional autonomy has provided more political power and fiscal capacity which are supposed to give more opportunity for regional governments to accelerate regional development and bring their people to greater prosperity. However, East Kalimantan, one of the richest provinces in Indonesia, still harbours high levels of poverty. This essay will discuss the extent to which decentralisation has facilitated poverty reduction in a resource rich province like East Kalimantan. Baird, Ian, University of Wisconsen, Madison Hmong Small-holder Rubber Development: Combining Economic Land Concessions, Sharecropping and Contracting Farming in Central Laos (Panel 15) In recent years rubber development in Laos has been controversial. Some farmers—exemplified by the Hmong from Hat Nyao village, Luang Nam Tha Province, in northern Laos—have significantly economically benefited from small-holder rubber development. Others farmers, however, especially in parts of southern Laos, have lost their agricultural and forest lands to large-scale economic rubber concessions, leaving them disenfranchised and with serious livelihoods challenges. Neither of these narratives is necessarily incorrect, as rubber development can sometimes economically benefit small-scale farmers considerably and in other cases can be quite disempowering. Here, I look at attempts by Hmong farmers in central Laos to develop small-holder rubber plantations through two separate sharecropping and contracting arrangements, one to obtain the land, and another to obtain seedlings, expertise and market access. This paper will contribute to better understanding the various ways that farmers are becoming engaged in export-oriented agriculture in Laos. Barker, Joshua, University of Toronto Making News Public: Local Journalism and Democracy on a Bandung Plaza (Panel 1) This paper examines the ways in which local journalists in the city of Bandung grapple with the expectation that they employ democratic values in their work. The paper focuses on a small group of reporters who regularly gather at the edge of one of Bandung’s most important sites of government power and social protest: the giant square in front of the Governor’s office and the provincial legislature for West Java. Based on interviews with these journalists and observations of their work, the paper considers how they variously position themselves vis-a-vis the government and protest groups, and describes the complex mechanisms that structure the production of news about city and provincial politics before it reaches the news desk. Bélanger, Danièle, University of Western Ontario and and Hong-zen Wang, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Marriage migration and social change in Asia: transnationalism from below (Panel 7) This paper provides a framework for studying marriage migration in Asia as a powerful factor of social transformation. The analysis pulls together results from research on various aspects of marriage migration conducted in Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea between 2004 and 2010. This research uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches to study the impact of marriage migration. Our main contention is that because marriage migration constitutes the largest flow of permanent migration in the Asian region, it represents a significant vector of social change both for sending and receiving areas of migrants. We examine the gendered aspects of this transformation since the vast majority of migrant spouses in Asia are women. We use the concept of ‘transnationalism from below’ to frame the social impact of marriage migration. Concerning receiving countries of marriage migrants, we examine how transnational activities of women marriage migrants bring about change in family relations and community dynamics. Practices such as transnational childcare, sending and receiving of remittances, the set up of ethnic businesses and of matchmaking services contribute to family and community change in Taiwan and South Korea. In sending communities of Vietnam, the emigration of young women reconfigures gender and kinship relations because women have the power to choose between a local and a foreign spouse. Local marriage markets are altered and local single men must seek spouses in other communities or countries, thus creating a marriage migration chain. Finally, emigrants send remittances which can increase dependence on remittances, improve living conditions and boosts local economies through investment in human capital and productive activities. A focus on the development of transnational flows of exchanges created by marriage migrants and their families –both natal and through marriage- contributes in the understanding and significance of marriage migration for the Asian region. Berdej, Samantha M., Wilfred Laurier University Community Agreements on Conservation in Lore Lindu National Park, Indonesia (Panel 25) The involvement of the public in protected area management is increasingly sought as a means to address the complex nature of environmental and social problems. The paper examines the emergence of the ‘community conservation agreement’ (CCA) in Lore Lindu National Park Sulawesi-Indonesia as a meeting point between the demands of conservation and development. A case study approach provides a holistic understanding of the CCA and its implications for societies and the Park, particularly as they relate to livelihood and benefits distributed. The paper shows that the CCA reflects a positive attempt to integrate the goals of conservation and development, however, is threatened by a number of issues. The paper provides an examination of the potential of the CCA to improve nature conservation and development, as well as conceivable serve as a model for other regions of Indonesia, identifying research gaps and future knowledge needs. Bissonnette, Jean-François, University of Toronto Narratives of (im)mobility: The spatiality of work in the oil palm plantation economy (Panel 8) The paper examines the spatiality of experiences of migrant workers in the Indonesian oil palm plantation economy. Drawing on concepts developed by feminist geographers to analyse experiences of migrant domestic workers, I look at the spatial reality of migrant plantation workers. In the context of plantation work, the inter-island migration that workers from rural areas of central islands go through is an important source of constraint. Channels of mobility are an important site of power relations both during workers’ migration to the plantation belts and during the time spent working on the plantation. How mobility is imagined and often lived as immobility by plantation workers of different sociological backgrounds draws the contours of the spatiality of the oil palm plantation economy in Indonesia. Data used derives from interviews with migrant plantation workers conducted in villages of East Lombok and Java. Bissonnette, Jean-François, University of Toronto Enabling sustainable palm oil in Indonesia (Panel 15) This paper examines new sustainable initiatives surrounding palm oil production in Indonesia. As a response to mounting pressure from environmental organizations, measures to produce sustainable palm oil have been undertaken by both the International Organization Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Indonesian government’s Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO). According to these initiatives, particular forms of knowledge on forest conservation, land use and climate change shape the space in which sustainable and legitimate palm oil can be produced. However, the RSPO certification currently impacts less than 5% of oil palm production in Indonesia. Although the ISPO initiative seeks to provide a mandatory regulatory framework for all palm oil producers in Indonesia, many question the institutional capacity of the state to implement credible sustainable guidelines. In this context I examine the broader political implications of sustainable palm oil initiatives in Indonesia. The research is based on documents, participant observation and interviews conducted in Jakarta at the RSPO in 2010. Boisclair, Louis, Université Laval L’intégration des Plateaux centraux au Vietnam : un examen cartographique des transformations démographiques entre 1989 et 2009 (Panel 19) Au cours des soixante dernières années, les Plateaux centraux du Vietnam ont connu des transformations majeures d’ordres démographique et environnemental découlant notamment de l’arrivée massive de migrants Kinh. Ce processus a entrainé une forte expansion agricole qui s’est traduite par une déforestation massive. Au cours de la même période, la région s’est davantage rapprochée de Hanoï et du reste du monde de sorte qu’elle est aujourd’hui intégrée économiquement à leurs systèmes. Utilisant les données issues du recensement de 2009, cette communication contribuera à étudier cartographiquement l’évolution démographique récente sur les Plateaux centraux, en utilisation le cas spécifique de la province de Lam Dong. Des données empiriques de première main qui seront obtenues lors d’un stage de recherche sur le terrain à l’été 2011 serviront à discuter des problèmes, des enjeux et des défis posés par cette évolution démographique récente. Byrne, Ned, Vancouver School of Theology Looking at the West Papua’s modern independence movement across the nation’s tribal and traditional identities (Panel 3) It is generally believed that the nation of West Papua is ready to cast its cloak as a Southeast Asian colony, and assert identity as a modern Melanesian state on the western rim of the Pacific. The geo-political shift is the fulfillment of a self-determination program formalised by the Dutch half-a-century ago but part of Papuan thinking for much longer than that. It designates the preparedness of Papuan tribes to adopt new forms of political architecture and social infrastructure. It portrays younger Papuans as ready to re-claim relationship with fellow Melanesians and to re-inscribe their nation as a launching pad to the Pacific as well as to Southeast Asia. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it provides West Papuan cultural identities with an appropriate political identity. This paper considers some of the inevitable tensions in the transition, with particular reference to the qualitative difference between ‘independence’ and ‘self-determination’. Campbell, Stephen, University of Toronto Cross-ethnic labour solidarities on the Thai-Myanmar border (Panel 2) English-language analysis of ethnic relations in Myanmar over the past two decades has been dominated by a focus on the country’s high profile armed conflicts. This perspective has largely missed the dynamics of everyday cross-ethnic relations arising out of individuals’ immediate material and livelihood concerns. Yet, such everyday relations comprise a salient basis of inter-personal solidarity and tension. Given the major economic transformations currently underway in Myanmar, emerging class dynamics are likely to challenge prior patterns of ethnic relations in the country. As one facet of these transformations, the large-scale migration of individuals seeking descent livelihoods abroad has brought Myanmar’s expatriate migrant worker population to over three million. Against this backdrop, the present study examines cross-ethnic labour solidarities that have emerged amongst a multi-ethnic body of migrant workers residing in an industrial zone on the Thai-Myanmar border. Chaiyamart, Pornchai, University of Minnesota Decision making of rural development impacted by Pak Mun Dam, Thailand (Panel 12) Knowledge for sustainability development play important role for western world but the eastern ignores this. This study focuses on the factors that impact the decision making of villagers who received negative effects from the Pak Mun Dam in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. This dam caused many problems before it was built and is still causing difficulties for the people who were displaced. Local residents lost their ability to fish and otherwise draw their livelihood from their immediate environment. Indeed, they have lost the environment itself. This is the issue from which they derive their right to request the government to open the sluice gate of the dam. Choice modeling is the method being used to test these residents by providing them the opportunity to accept or reject a new livelihood project with potentially high financial and social benefits. The result is in the process and will be provided at the meeting. Coloma, Roland Sintos, OISE, University of Toronto Nationalism under Imperialism: Subjectivity, Literacy, and “The Philippine Readers” (Panel 16) This paper examines basal literacy readers in the formation of nationalist subjectivity in the context of imperialism. It addresses the following questions: How do colonized people instill and develop a sense of national identity under the regime of a foreign power? How do nationalist-oriented texts work within colonial conditions? I analyze “The Philippine Readers,” the first major set of literacy schoolbooks by a Filipino during United States colonial rule. Authored and edited by Camilo Osias, a US-trained Filipino educator, the “Readers” wove together stories and folklores that were native to the Philippines and drawn from Western countries. Through the concepts of “imagined community” (Anderson 1983), “care of the self” (Foucault 1988), and “reparative reading” (Sedgwick 1997), I interrogate the texts for their nationalist, anti-colonial, and gendered perspectives. My critical readings reveal how school curricula can be imbued with contradictory and ambivalent messages of colonial oppression and nationalist opposition. Dao, Nga, York University Water governance and its politics in Vietnam (Panel 23) Water governance and river basin management have long been a critical issue in Vietnam. State attention towards water resource governance has increased steadily even as policies and delegated authority for river basin and water management have changed continuously. However, even though there have been policy improvement in this issue, many constraints remain. In particular, there still lack of clear mechanism for people to participate, which in turn leads to poor water governance in many places. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic research, and government documents, this paper seeks answers for a series of questions: how water resource governance has been addressed in Vietnam? How has river basin management and power planning evolved over time? How have local people and environmental groups participated in this process and with what impacts? Examining water governance and dam building in Vietnam will not only explain the evolution of civil society movement in Vietnam, but also shed light on uneven development in the uplands. De Koninck, Rodolphe and Jean-François Rousseau, Université de Montréal A half century of gambling with the land and the sea: Southeast Asian Agricultures since the 1960s (Panel 15) Since the early 1960s, the agricultures of Southeast Asia have managed to largely answer local food demand while catering increasingly to the world market, particularly through export of industrial crops. Even if population growth has been sustained, so has the increase in local food production, particularly that of rice. In terms of food security, the region has even been able to improve its position, although this does not necessarily apply to every country. This has largely been achieved through massive intensification of cultivation and equally significant territorial expansion of the agricultural realm. Expansion has even reached into the maritime domain, aquaculture growing even faster than agriculture per se. Both forms of expansion, on land as well as sea, are accentuating the pressure on environmental resources. To what extent can this gambling with the land and the sea be sustained without jeopardizing regional food security? De Koninck, Rodolphe, Université de Montréal The need and the ways to assess Southeast Asian population redistribution since the 1960s (Panel 19) In the colonial literature, Southeast Asia was often referred to as a relatively empty region next to two demographic giants, India and China. Southeast Asia is still less much less populated than the latter, but it cannot anymore be described as empty. The basic reason behind this has been a systematic demographic filling in of most of its margins through both state policies of population redistribution as well as various forms of largely spontaneous migrations. The motives and the consequences behind these migrations and the constant remodelling of the respective national demographic grid are both socio-economic and geopolitical. In order to better analyze these processes, motives and consequences, systematic diachronic mapping of the region’s population is indispensable. But this meets with problems concerning sources, their validity, accuracy and comparability. De Leon, Conely, York University Labouring Brown Bodies: Exploring the Mass Reproduction of Filipina Caregivers in the Global Labour Market (Panel 13) Drawing on in-depth interviews with three Filipina mother / adult daughter pairs living and working in Ontario and Quebec, I argue that the mass consumption of domestic and care work in Canada does not seem to end with the labouring bodies of single Filipino women, but rather persists with the labouring bodies of their daughters. Employing a critical transnational feminist framework, I suggest that highly gendered and racialized processes are at work in circulating and reproducing a demand not simply for single Filipinas, but also for their immediate and extended female kin. I further suggest that an exploration of the complexities of intergenerational conflict and compromise among Filipina mothers and daughters may provide greater insight into the ways in which Filipinas create networks of solidarity and resistance in response to an overwhelming demand for their labour. Déry, Steve, Université Laval Building states out of nature and nature out of states in mainland Southeast Asia? (Panel 25) In Southeast Asia, protected areas represent a relatively new tool of state intervention, generalised throughout the world from the 1960s and 1970s. In many cases, they have been deployed as territorial projects to target mountains and mountain dwellers. The logic behind this state project appears different from the one that framed previous territorial endeavours, when states were relying mostly on peasants to occupy and control their territories. Looking through protected areas as windows, the general objective of this paper is to discuss the nature of states. Are they defined by the tools they use in their consolidation and reproduction? By their “will” or objectives? By their territorial organisation? What does it mean to build states out of “nature” (with protected areas), instead of building them out of people (with agricultural lands)? This paper will examine and discuss some of these questions and others using empirical evidences from mainland Southeast Asia. Dettman, Sebastian, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor Institutional Imperatives? Local political parties in Aceh, Indonesia (Panel 22) Aceh’s transition to peace has been largely successful following the 2005 signing of the peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the secessionist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The agreement allowed Acehnese to form local political parties, a controversial move in a country which forbids local parties. Local parties offered a political avenue for GAM’s leaders as they moved from armed struggle to the political realm. In this paper, I will explore the fortunes of local political parties in Aceh five years after their creation, drawing on field research to be conducted in May-June 2011. I will describe how the local parties differentiate themselves from the national parties in electoral contests; the shifting relationship between the local parties and ex-combatants; and the national parties’ strategies in response to the local parties’ appeals. The success (or failure) of the local party system will have important repercussions for Aceh and other restive regions. Diego Fossati, Cornell University Social Protection in Indonesia: Some Theoretical Observations and a Preliminary Quantitative Analysis (Panel 6) The development of the welfare state in developing countries is a substantively important issue that has been largely neglected by social science research. This paper starts with some theoretical considerations on the study of the welfare state and a brief review of the literature on welfare state regimes. It then argues that the political economy of the developing world presents some distinctive features that call for a different approach to social policy analysis. In particular, the prevalence of the informal sector and different forms of spatial inequality are seen as a key characteristic of welfare systems in the Global South. The case of Indonesia, through an investigation of recent data from the Indonesian Labor Force Survey (SAKERNAS), provides a poignant empirical illustration the high degree of subnational variation in social protection in developing countries. The paper concludes with some observations on empirical strategies to ascertain the sources of variation in welfare systems in developing countries. Drummond, Lisa, York University and Young, Douglas, York University Hanoi and Berlin: Socialist Cityscapes in the 21st Century (Panel 5) From Reunification Park in Hanoi to Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, iconic urban spaces built by socialism in the 20th century are now considered due for upgrading and/or redevelopment. This paper presents preliminary findings from new comparative research on the residual landscapes of high socialist era urban planning in Hanoi and Berlin. In this research, we explore how contemporary debates situate and address those projects and sites conceptualized and constructed by socialist-era planners and architects in the cities of today, market- and post-socialist respectively. In doing so, we trace differences and similarities in their original creation as well as in the present-day contests over how to live with their legacies. Eidse, Noelani, McGill Universtiy Exploring Urban Resistance: Street vending and negotiations over public space livelihoods in Hanoi, Vietnam (Panel 24) This paper examines the infrapolitics of street vending in Hanoi, Vietnam, as vendors negotiate government regulations aimed at restricting vendor livelihoods. In 2008, Hanoi’s municipal government banned street vending on 62 selected streets and from the vicinity of 48 public spaces. While the government has taken steps to restrict the ability of street traders to work, vendors can still be seen plying their trade throughout the city. Moreover, the majority of street vendors, especially itinerant traders, are rural to urban migrants, often women, without access to more formal livelihoods due to a lack of formal education, financial capital or social networks. As the threat of government regulation becomes increasingly critical, vendors must develop effective resistance strategies in order to maintain their livelihoods. Based on fieldwork completed in the summer of 2010, this paper explores these vendors’ multiple survival strategies, ranging from false compliance (or disguise), to the use of bribes. Fortier, François, Université d’Ottawa Viet Nam’s Food Security: A Castle of Cards in the Winds of Climate Change (Panel 27) This paper argues that, in the context of Viet Nam’s agricultural modernisation, the country’s dependence on technology and commodification is making it particularly vulnerable in the imprecise and shifting context of climate change, energy supply, and global trade. The strategic response to this mounting crisis has been, in Viet Nam as almost everywhere else, to rebrand modernisation under green capitalism which will, it is hoped, provide the necessary fixes and maintain production outputs amidst changing resources and climates. The article discusses how this would inevitably lead to the collapse of Vietnamese agriculture. This leaves no other option but to radically and urgently engage in economic de-growth. At the level of food production, this means the prompt adoption of agroecology, both as a means of ensuring food security and as a key contribution to GHG mitigation, and the restructuring of production, distribution and consumption under principles of food sovereignty Gibbings, Sheri Lynn, University of British Columbia Asserting Status: Gender, Street Vending and Democracy in Yogyakarta City (Panel 1) Men took up street vending in greater numbers after the economic crisis in 1998 in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia. Many who did not have capital looked to trading second-hand or used commodities. Despite the hard work involved and low status associated with this line of work, some of the street vendors were able to make a reasonable living. According to Javanese hierarchy, however, street vending is low. Yet, during my research it appeared to me that their place on the hierarchy did not go uncontested. My paper explores how these male street vendors were engaged in practices to assert their “status” in relation to Javanese hierarchies, the nation, and to more emergent sources of value related to the ideals of democracy and reformasi in Yogyakarta City. I interpret these strategies in light of recent transformations and illustrate how the politics of street vending in urban Indonesia reflects the uncertainty over gender relations and power in a democratic Indonesia. Gibb, Christine, Université de Montréal Environmental migration in the Philippines (Panel 20) Environmental migration is a global change issue of growing concern. There is much theoretical debate on environmental migration and the resulting “environmental refugees” or “environmental migrants.” To date, however, there is no institutional framework that recognizes and protects these people. This paper will investigate these debates and the contribution of “environment” as a driver of migration through a political ecology lens. In particular, it will address the potential impacts of environmental factors on migration within the Philippines. Gibb, Christine, Université de Montréal and Veuthey, Justin, Université de Montréal How do Disasters Shape Food Sovereignty in the Philippines? Exploring Reciprocal Relationships Between Food and Disaster (Panel 27) Food and disasters are intricately related. This paper explores connections between vulnerability to natural hazards and food production, distribution and consumption. Linkages can be observed in both the pre-disaster and the post-disaster phases. Drawing mainly from cases in the Philippines, the authors underline that food sovereignty, rather than food security, is the most appropriate approach for analyzing these connections. Han, Ei Phyu, York University Hunger and boundaries: The role of food in creating ‘home’ for Karen refugees in Mae La camp (Panel 2) Since the early 1980s individuals of Karen ethnicity have lived in Thai refugee camps, having fled persecution by the Burmese state. Since Thailand is not a signatory member of the UN Refugee Convention, Burmese Karen are not granted legal protection as refugees. They are instead considered to be alien migrants who are not allowed to seek employment and who face deportation if found outside of the camps. My proposed research investigates the conceptualization of ‘home’ by Karen refugees understood as a type of place constructed by both material and social means. For this paper I will focus on the production and consumption of food in Mae La camp and how this contributes to creating a sense of home in at the Thai-Burma border, as well as how the governance of refugees at Mae La camp shape the associated place-making activities. Harrison, Scott, University of Waterloo Cold War and Indigenous Peoples in Southeast Asia (Panel 10) Examination of the indigeneity – Cold War connection in a historical context creates a new space from which to understand the politics of identity gaining in importance at local, regional, and global levels. Such an approach also facilitates a new way to critique the two superpower countries of the United States and the Soviet Union that were both ideologically anti-colonial in a decolonising world. Indigeneity complicates Cold War history as we know it because it works out of a space connected to but occasionally blinded by the nation-state, where history and time are not necessarily linear or progressive but dispersed in space and place. Following from this broader project, this paper examines the historical relationship between indigeneity and the Cold War in Southeast Asia. Hostovsky, Charles, University of Toronto The role of public involvement in environmental impact assessment in Vietnam: towards a more culturally sensitive approach (Panel 20) This paper explores the extent to which Western approaches to public involvement in environmental impact assessment (EIA) have been transferred to Vietnam, constraints on their use, and their appropriateness for the Vietnamese context. The CIDA funded research is based on an analysis of the public involvement content found in 26 EIA reports from development banks and interviews with 26 key informants. The study found that public involvement in Vietnam is generally technocratic, expert-driven and non-transparent, similar to the early days of EIA in the West and emerging economies. Public involvement usually occurs through authorised state channels such as commune leaders, mass organisations and professional organisations. The lack of a participatory culture for EIA, the nascent nature of grassroots democracy in the country, and Vietnamese cultural norms regarding respect for authority provide a challenging context for involving the public in EIA. The paper concludes by offering a number of suggestions for culturally appropriate public involvement. Hurst, Bill, University of Toronto Judicialization, Venue Shopping, or Bureaucratic Bargaining? The Politics of Indonesia’s Courts of Industrial Relations (Panel 6) Since their establishment earlier this decade,Indonesia’s courts of Industrial Relations(Pnegadilan Hubungan Industrial or PHI) have managed to entrench themselves as vital arbiters of may typesof labor disputes. To date, aside from some descriptive compilations of relevant rules and regulations by Indonesian academics, almost no academic attention has been paid to this important institution. Based on an analysis of all cases brought before the PHI of Surabaya from 2004 to 2009, along with a compilation of selected case law from across the archipelago published by the Indonesian Supreme Court in cooperation with the ILO, this paper will be the first scholarly attempt to substantively address the question of just how the PHI actually function. On the surface, the greater role of thesecourts would appear to support a narrative of the”judicialization” of labor relations, as more and more cases end up in formal adjudication venues. A closer look at case law, however, points more clearly to a process of “venue shopping” in which litigants often go first a police agency or other loosely related government office, then to a labor bureau, then to an arbitration office, then to a court, in search of a satisfactory outcome. What also comes out is a dynamic of bargaining and contention between state agencies or bureaucracies that is almost as sharp – and arguably more important – than that between the litigants. These special courts can thus potentially serve as a window onto micro-level political dynamics of Indonesia under reform as decentralization takes hold and power relationsbetween elements of the state are reordered. Irvine, Kim, SUNY, Buffalo State Capacity Building for Environmental Assessment in Cambodia – Successes and Challenges of Focused Workshops (Panel 20) Cambodia has a need for build capacity within the environmental field, but questions remain as to the best approach to meet this need. One option is focused workshops and our group offered four between 2004 and 2009. The workshops concentrated on methods for analysis of surface water quality, drinking water quality, and pesticides, as well as GIS training. Evaluations at the end of each workshop were used to make some important adjustments to our teaching approach. Workshops evolved towards more student-centered learning and later workshops successfully incorporated past students as instructors. A drinking water quality index prototype developed in one workshop grew into a larger program that tested >7,000 wells. In addition to logistical challenges, we found some education strategies, such as teaching by analogy, were less successful and that spatial understanding had some important differences in Cambodia. We conclude that these workshops made a positive step in capacity building. Ismah, Nor, University of Hawaii at Manoa Not Just an Ordinary Moslem Woman: Reading Contemporary Indonesian and Malaysian Moslem Young Adult Novels (Panel 4) Images of Indonesian women appear in numerous literary sources, but of particular interest are those projected in Young Adult Literature (YAL). This literature is written for young adults and is therefore written from their point of view. Typically, YAL focuses on the characters, issues, language, and values that appeal to the modern young adult, including female characters. In recent years a number of young adult novels written by women writers from Indonesia and Malaysia, both Moslem countries, have been published. Writing competitions held by book publishers and language centers have also produced selected young adult novels. In this paper I will examine several novels in order to determine whether their representation of women fosters ideas of gender equality or whether they are portrayed as stereotypical modern women who are materialistic and focused only on themselves. Istiqomah, Milda, University of Brawijaya The Female Jihad: Jamaah Islamiyah’s Women in Indonesia (Panel 10) There are only few papers which discuss women as terrorists. Most of terrorism literatures are about men who are involved in terrorism. However, the current trend demonstrates that the number of women involved in terrorism is steadily increasing. There are at least two types of roles that women assume in terrorism; the ‘visible role’ and ‘invisible role’. Both roles are very important to the sustainability of terrorism and terrorist organizations. Moreover, women’s role in terrorism is considered as a less important issue. However, some terrorist attacks are carried out by women and it damages seriously to society. Women are also effective for doing terrorist attacks. The physical appearance of women is exploited by terrorist organizations to carry out suicide bombings. This paper argues that women in Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) play an important role in the ‘invisible’ category. They are involved in this organization by marital and kinship linkages which aims to secure the networks and regenerate the Jihadi ideology in JI. Jefremovas, Villia, Queen’s University Of Two Minds: Elite Representation of Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines (Panel 10) In this paper I will look at elite representation of the Igorots, both mainstream elite and indigenous elite, showing the ambivalence that has been thrown into stark relief by the creation of real economic and political rights for a marginalised and stigmatised population. I will begin by considering the construction of this “Other by mainstream elites, and the recourse to this “Otherness” in the construction of a post-colonial national identity. Then I will examine the ways in which indigenous elites also use these same racist categories and skewed understandings of history are used to lay claims under IPRA, and argue that these representations often express the internalization of ideas of “primitivism” and inferiority to shape a “modern” indigenous representation of indigenous culture. This will be contrasted with a discussion of the history that created the differences that now dominate these discourses. Jung, Eunsook, Fairfield University Maintaining the status-quo: Social Welfare Policy in Indonesia (Panel 6) Much literature on social policy in developing countries argued that democratization is conducive to the development of social welfare policies. Democracy would bring about redistributive reform due to demands from the newly enfranchised poor and reactivated social movements. Despite this, democracy does not necessarily bring about comprehensive social welfare reform. Why would democratization not bring social welfare reform? What would be institutional prerequisites to such reform? This paper will examine Indonesia, the third largest democracy in the world. Indonesia democratized in 1998 and, despite a devastating economic crisis at the time, has achieved a stable democracy with a constantly growing economy. With its remarkable development for the last decade, Indonesia’s social welfare reform is staggering. There have been discussions about universal social policy, but they did not materialize. Indonesia has a relatively good social welfare system for state employees, formal sector employees, and a few policies for the extreme poor., though these systems actually originated under the Suharto authoritarian regime. By examining the Indonesia case, I argue that social reform has institutional prerequisites such as either the broad-based organization of its advocates or the internal unity of the state. Without these prerequisites, democratization does not necessarily bring social reform. Kang, Chia fen, National Taiwan University Ethnic View of Post-Indian Ocean Tsunami Reconstruction- A Case Study of Indonesia-China Friendship Village in Aceh, Indonesia (Panel 14) Overseas Chinese are called “orang Cina” (Chinese people, meaning of discrimination) by Indonesian since the discrimination policies in Dutch colonial government. The discrimination has been for centuries; however, this tense situation started to change after 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when Aceh received various aids from all over the world, one of which is Chinese Indonesia-China Friendship Village. The village is not only the largest housing program in Aceh, but also considered as the best structure in all reconstruction by local people. The field observations and interviews found out that this China aid has created a friendly image for Acehnese and a new name of “orang Tiongkok” (no discrimination) is given for those overseas Chinese. This paper argue that as a new aid in the world, Chinese aid in Indonesia can not only confirm the image of peaceful rising, but change the long-term strained ethnics relations between China and South-east Asia. Kelly, Philip, York University Geographies of the Second Generation: Filipino-Canadian Class Reproduction Across Urban Canada (Panel 13) This paper explores processes of inter-generational class reproduction among Filipino families in Canada, with particular reference to the role of geographical difference at urban and inter-urban scales. Filipino youth often appear to have anomalously poor educational and employment outcomes, but this is highly variable across different urban centres of immigrant settlement in Canada, and across different neighbourhoods within major cities. This relates in part to varied histories of migration in different settlement sites, different forms of social networks, and diverse constructions of ‘Filipino-ness’ in different Canadian urban contexts. All of these factors play into the processes through which the class subordination experienced by the first generation of immigrant Filipino parents is reproduced (or not) in the experiences of the second generation. Kuhonta, Erik Martinez, McGill University The Politics of Health Care Reform in Thailand (Panel 6) Since the economic boom in the late 1980s, Thailand’s distribution of income has worsened considerably. It is now the most unequal country in Southeast Asia. Yet, one social sector – health care – has moved against the trend of deepening inequality. In 2001, a universal health care policy was passed under the Thaksin Shinawatra government. Despite the coup against Thaksin’s government, the health care program has remained untouched by Thaksin’s opponents. Why has health care stood out in terms of its pro-poor orientation, and why has the universal health care program been supported by all political parties? I argue in this paper that the pro-poor orientation of the health care sector in Thailand and the ability to sustain the universal health care program stem from a number of factors. Historically, the medical sector has been a magnet for social activists. Their pursuit of a universal health care policy finally gained ground when the combination of a financial and social crisis in 1997-98 and the rise of a programmatic party a few years later – Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai – provided the justification and the institutional means for pursuing social change. Despite Thai Rak Thai’s eventual demise, no actor in Thailand – whether military or civilian – has sought to tamper with the universal health care program. Thus, historical conditions along with institutional capacities provided the momentum for health care reform and its widespread popularity has anchored it firmly in a pro-poor orientation. Kusno, Abidin, University of British Columbia Housing the Margin (Panel 1) This paper will explore housing concerns with the relationship between people and the state. It is one of the strategic sites to examine the question of “collective consumption” and “the right to the city” in the changing power relations of post-authoritarian Indonesia. I will look at some of the housing schemes, which targeted low-income urban populations, and explore the methods, the institutional frameworks and socio-historical conditions of their emergence. I will also ask what might be the theoretical, cultural or political implications of housing the margin in the context of Indonesia today. Labbé, Danielle, University of British Columbia Hanoi’s New Urban Order (Panel 5) The management of periurban space production in the region of Hanoi experienced various regulatory shifts since the beginning of the doi moi reforms (circa 1980). From the 1990s onward, Vietnamese metropolitan regions witnessed the formation of a new planning regime. This included a reform of urban and regional planning mechanisms, the formulation of new models of periurban development, a thorough revision of the land legislation, and a new official discourse about appropriate urban practices and spatial configurations. In this presentation, I show how the state-backed territorial order resulting from this various reforms seeks to delegitimize regulatory informality at the grassroots level while supporting regulatory exceptionalism in the management of developable periurban land. The presentation revisits questions of regulatory informality and of coalitions of interests as means to understand the somewhat contradictory directions taken by this emerging urban development regime. Lamb, Vanessa, York University Reading lines: Performances of the border at the intersection of environmentalism, identity and state power (Panel 2) This paper investigates the underpinnings of borders in Southeast Asia. I will consider how a diversity of issues and activisms at the border, including ethnic/national identity and environmental management might be understood in part as performances that serve in their own way to recognize, reinforce and ‘make real’ the border as a physical and notional space. I will be focusing on the example of how ecological knowledge production (by both “experts” and non-experts) is part of border performance, using Public Forums for Information Disclosure at the Thai-Burma border. This conceptualization of borders builds on past work that highlights borders as “in motion” and constantly negotiated rather than as concrete lines or divisions between geographic nation-states. Lattu, Izak, Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, USA Towards a Moluccan-Christian Perspective of Reconciliation in Indonesia (Panel 17) Reconciliation has its own space and time. Reconciliation is not a one-face process; instead it has thousands of faces. Reconciliation in South Africa takes a different way than that of the American or European model. Ubuntu in South Africa is a blended way, the South African traditional way of reconciliation and the Christian teaching of forgiveness. In the context of South Africa, this theological approach is worthy and runs tremendously well, but not in the context of Balkan conflict. The International Court has had to take retributive justice to overcome the hard feelings of the survivors of Bosnia. Conflict between Christian and Muslim in Moluccas, Indonesia, had another way of reconciliation, named Pela. At this point, Moluccan pela is a meta-narrative for all Moluccans; Muslim, Christian, and the indigenous religious followers. Hence, Moluccan-Christians should shape a local perspective of reconciliation based on pela as a local wisdom. The problem with Christianity in Moluccas is that for hundreds of years, this religion tended to remove Moluccan traditional values and replace them with Western-Christian teaching. Here I would like to propose a Pela model of reconciliation to the air of academia based on Moluccas traditional narrative of peacebuilding. Moluccas has its traditional way of reconciliation which can serve as the basis of a local foundation for peace. Le, Phuong Thao D., University of Califorina, Los Angeles Spatial Modeling of Trafficking in Persons – A Case Study of Vietnam (Panel 2) Vietnam is a known major source and destination of trafficking in persons. This paper presents the findings and analyses from the spatial modeling of the status of trafficking in Vietnam via geographical information systems technology (i.e., ArcGIS). Using the results of the 2009 Vietnam Population and Housing Census and other data sources, provincial-level analyses of vulnerability to trafficking are conducted and are then graphically and statistically compared to the province’s trafficking status, which is computed from results of the 2003 Survey and Assessment of Vietnamese Youth and archival document research. Additionally, multiple linear regression analysis is used to identify significant predictors of human trafficking in Vietnam. Implications for policy and modeling are discussed. Lessard, Micheline, University of Ottawa To Raise Women: Vietnamese, French and American uses of Vietnamese Women’s Images in Propaganda (Panel 11) Waging wars in Vietnam required the use of propaganda. From 1946 to 1975, France, the United States, and the states of Vietnam used propaganda (in many forms) to recruit members to their respective causes, to destabilize their enemies, to promote their own agendas. Much of this propaganda, from all sides, used images of Vietnamese women. What emerges from these examples of propaganda are attempts to define Vietnamese women within idealized formats that were highly politicized and that reflected the military agendas of those producing the propaganda.. Li, Tania, University of Toronto Labour Migration to Indonesia’s Oil Palm Frontier (Panel 23) The paper examines migration of workers to Indonesia’s oil palm frontier, a migration stream that has so far attracted less attention than rural-urban or transborder migration. Migrants move through a set of sub-contracting mechanisms that involve various decrees of risk and security. Unlike the colonial period, when employers attempted to tie workers into contracts, the emphasis today is on a casual, flexible labour pool for which the employer accepts no responsibility. Migrants are correspondingly more autonomous, but also at risk of finding themselves without protection, far from home. Data is drawn from research on two oil palm plantations in West Kalimantan, one government owned, the other private. Lin, Stephen, University of Western Ontario and Bélanger, Danièle, University of Western Ontario Global and local family care among Vietnamese migrant women (Panel 9) Economic hardship has led increasing numbers of women in poor Southeast Asian countries to seek livelihoods in affluent neighbouring countries. Many female migrants are employed as domestic elderly caregivers. Over the long term, they may also become emotionally attached to their employer’s family, while remaining attached to their distant family. Migration research to date has neither closely examined the dynamic of migrants’ concurrent attachments, nor the manner in which they engage with their own family and that of those for whom they work and care. In this paper, we argue that migrant women’s “bi-familial” relationships, forms of care and attachment constitute the transnational practices of care work. Our research is based on narratives collected from twenty Vietnamese live-in caregivers and their employers in Taiwan. This paper, by using the life course and spatial analysis, documents the trajectory and interconnection of various caregiving relationships in both local and transnational contexts. Mais, Julia, York University Filipino-Canadian Masculinities and Labour Market Outcomes for the Second Generation (Panel 13) Many Filipino immigrants have moved to Canada as professionals, with university degrees and with high levels of English fluency. However, Filipinos are still relatively disadvantaged in the labour market. While many other immigrant groups also endure challenges, in most cases the second generation exceeds their parents in terms of education and earnings. The Filipino-Canadian community is an anomaly, however, in two senses. First, census data suggests that the second generation is having difficulty reaching the same educational attainment and earnings levels as their parents’ generation. Second, while men earn more than women in almost every segment of the Canadian labour market, the reverse is true among the Filipino-Canadian second generation. My research is addressing these two anomalies in Greater Vancouver, where they appear to be especially pronounced. This is done through examining how the home, the neighbourhood, the education system and social networks influence employment outcomes for this population. Maillet, Gilles, Université de Montréal Living and Fishing in a Marine Protected Area: Balancing Traditional Fisheries with Conservation in Karimunjawa National Park (Panel 21) As marine resources increasingly come under pressure from intensified fishing activities worldwide, marine reserves are seen as a promising strategy to combat declining fish stocks. Although ample data have been gathered in recent years on the positive ecological effects of marine reserves, there is still much to learn about the societal impacts on communities around which these areas are drawn. Seeing how popular consensus points towards the importance of community participation in the success of reserves, the significance of better understanding socioeconomic changes and environmental subjectivities of local actors inside these areas is clear. This presentation will discuss these points of interest within the context of Karimunjawa National Park, a marine protected area located in Central Java, Indonesia. This will be done by examining fisherfolk’s attitudes towards conservation and increased regulation all the while taking into account the park management’s efforts to ease fishing pressure around coral reefs by encouraging alternative forms of livelihoods such as tourism. Marschke, Melissa, University of Ottawa Resource Governance at the Margins: Fish, trees and life in coastal Cambodia (Panel 2) Focusing on village livelihoods, I explore how emerging government policy, donor interest in forms of community-based management and opportunities for resource exploitation coalese in coastal Cambodia over a twelve year period to produce a complex, highly uncertain dynamic. I pay careful attention to the opportunities and constraints facing villagers, and illustrate why local resource management practices remain fragile, even with a significant, sustained effort. For those resource challenges that cannot be solved by villagers, I examine the role of other actors including government bureacrats and business entrepreneurs and illustrate how resource governance failures are in fact not scale specific. Even with serious development efforts and significant policy reforms coastal livelihoods remain precarious — policy uptake is not always possible in Cambodia’s current context. McAllister, Karen, McGill University Relational resource rights: the ramifications of rubber on claims and counter-claims to property and territory in Pak Ou District, Luang Prabang, Laos (Panel 24) Since the mid-2000s, northern Laos has been experiencing a rubber boom which is having irreversible effects on ecological systems, property rights and social relations in the highlands. In Luang Prabang Province, rubber has been introduced into swidden systems through three types of management systems; plantation concessions on village lands leased by the state to Chinese companies; contract farming arrangements between Chinese companies and individual villages and farmers; and independent adoption of rubber trees by smallholder highland farmers. In each of these cases, the introduction of rubber trees intersects with ongoing negotiations over property and provokes contestations about land rights and uses within and between villages and with the state. The spatially uneven deployment of the land and forest allocation policy has further influenced how these negotiations over territorial and property rights in response to rubber trees play out in different villages. This paper explores the various state and local actions, narratives and counter-narratives supporting contested claims to land and resource use that have emerged in response to the introduction of rubber trees into villages in Pak Ou District. I will examine the various forms of negotiation, resistance and compliance that are emerging in response to displacements, market opportunities and local and state desires for modernisation that are being provoked by the introduction of rubber trees into the district. Michaud, Jean, Université Laval Hmong Infrapolitics in Vietnam (Panel 15) With their home on the geographical, economic, political, and cultural fringes of the Viet nation, the national state is enforcing modernity on the Hmong of Lào Cai via sedentarization, administrative enclosure, national education, and inclusion to the market. The Hmong, in turn, use their agency to embrace opportunities suiting their needs and current capacity, an embrace that is not done blindly. As much as they can, they are vernacularizing modernist directives, be they socialist or neo-liberal, in ways keeping their culture and identity into the picture. They use their agency in culturally rooted ways consistent with their sense of identity and place, taking advantage, consciously or not, of their social organization. These are the elementary forces behind Hmong infrapolitics, and their signature. Michaud, Jean, Université Laval Fieldwork, supervision and trust: The conditions of research in the socialist highlands of Asia. (Panel 10) What have I learned over 20-odd years of practising fieldwork and ethnography among ethnic minorities of upland Asia; 15 of these devoted to socialist countries? How can I advise younger generations so that they may better understand the issues at stake when organising their field research in the highlands of Vietnam, Laos and China? In short, I assess that trust is a core element of the process, encompassing a range of negotiations. First, giving graduate students reasons to trust me. Second, entrusting students to my dependable friends in the field with whom, over the years, I have developed personal relationships. Third, these friends trusting our friendship and when needed, helping to circumvent complications inherent in conducting fieldwork on the margins of a socialist state. Of course all these relationships do not positively guarantee that students will succeed; but their odds might become higher than mine were at the same stage. Milgram, B. Lynne, OCAD University Tangled Fields: Rethinking Positionality and Ethics in Research on Women’s Work in a Hong Kong-Philippine Trade. (Panel 10) A growing global trade in second-hand clothing means that in the Philippines, some women with business capital have drawn on their skills as the country’s primary public market traders to start businesses importing used clothing from neighbouring Hong Kong. As a 1966 national law prohibits this cross-border trade, ethically recording its operation highlights a dilemma for research. How can researchers respect the confidence of and fulfil obligations to their respondents when documenting enterprises that straddle what the state considers to be illegal and what traders consider their legal right as citizens to viable work? This paper explores the problematic side-roads I have pursued to responsibly situate the work of transnational used clothing traders who remain vulnerable to personal and livelihood threats. I suggest that documenting such extra-legal cross-border enterprises alerts us to carefully consider issues of positionality and ethics when engaging people’s political struggles for change. Mills, Mary Beth, Colby College, Maine, USA Is that what you heard me say?: Dilemmas of ethnographic representation in the field and beyond. (Panel 10) In recent years, the reflexive turn in anthropology and other social sciences has raised important questions about the stability and objectivity of ethnographic authority. Consequently, as ethnographers we are keenly aware of the ethical hazards involved in representing our communities of study, particularly when our research subjects comprise socially marginalized groups. Somewhat less frequently examined are the ways in which these ethical dilemmas of representation involve not only critical responsibilities to our communities of research but also the varied and often problematic responses of the different audiences to whom we speak both in the field and beyond. Drawing on my research in Thailand, I explore these dilemmas of representation. Specifically, I examine instances in which the presumptions of different audiences have challenged my own efforts to assert appropriate claims to ethnographic authority and I consider the potential for misunderstandings and misreadings that can ensue. Montsion, Jean Michel, University of Winnipeg When desire meets mobility in Singapore’s new citizenship project (Panel 9) Singapore’s ‘gateway’ is a project developed at the end of the 1990s, is based on the city-state’s re-positioning in the knowledge-based economy between an emerging China and Western societies. This project targets elite populations whether they are locals or migrants and re/aligns the city-state’s citizenship project along a strong neo-liberal narrative of mobility. In this paper, I will critically assess the impacts of Singapore’s gateway strategies on the formation of citizens-subjects through the notion of un/desirability. By focusing on stories of desirable subjects, I will stress the everyday tensions arising in the production of neo-liberal citizens. I argue that desirable subjects are struggling with the neo-liberal pressures to become ‘self-governed entrepreneurs’, which is symptomatic of schisms between the city-state’s citizenship project and their own practice. Stories of un/desirable subjects involved in gateway strategies will be shared to discuss the broader implications for framing citizenship projects in gateway locations. Morris-Jung, Jason, University of California, Berkeley New Spaces for Activism in Vietnam: the Bauxite Petition (Panel 1) This paper examines signs of growing activism in Vietnam through a case study of the Bauxite Petition. This online petition mobilized an unprecedented 9,000 Vietnamese signatures in protest of a national policy, spawned the meteoric rise of a quasi-dissident website dedicated to open debate and critical commentary, and united a wide range of social and political groups across the country in a common affront to state legitimacy. This incident has been one of several in Vietnam in recent years suggesting a growing openness, engagement and organization within Vietnamese society to challenge and criticize the policies and orientations of the Vietnamese government and Communist Party. This paper will examine how the creators of the Bauxite Petition opened new spaces for activism in Vietnam not only by making use of internet technologies but even more so by helping to build social foundations for activism through discursive articulations of nature, nation and revolutionary history. Moya, Nel Coloma, Queen’s University Urban Renewal or Rural Revitalization: The Ambiguities of the Gawad Kalinga Project The Gawad Kalinga villages have been sprouting up over the Philippine landscape like mushroom colonies over the past decade. The initiative continues on unabated in spite of internal conflicts and moral imperatives. Surpassing many government projects on housing, GK has proven to be successful in its approach to addressing the housing needs of the poor. This paper will outline some of the ambiguities and pitfalls of the GK initiative presenting a nuanced perspective of its outcomes. Munro, Jenny, University of Calgary Wielding the pen? Education, literacy and colonialism in the central highlands of Papua, Indonesia Literacy and educational attainment are considered important aspects of personal, political and cultural authority in many societies. In the central highlands of Papua, Indonesia, education promises power to indigenous Papuans marginalized by development, military operations, and Indonesian migrants, and further delineates who is seen as ‘modern’ or ‘primitive’ in the context of often tense relations between indigenous inhabitants and migrants. Among Dani highlanders, education levels have risen continuously since formal schooling was introduced in the 1950s. Based on a qualitative study conducted in 2006, this paper examines the everyday uses and significance of education and literacy for Dani men and women. It shows that attempts by educated Dani to use literacy for power vis a vis Indonesians may be cut short in humiliating or disappointing ways which differ for men and women. It concludes that limited impact of literacy or educational attainment in these encounters is an indicator of colonial conditions in Papua. Nerenberg, Jacob, University of Toronto From sexual fantasy to liberal accountability: Imperial boundaries and erasures in highlands New Guinea This paper explores the enrolment of transnational human rights advocacy in the project of white empire by examining the differential gendering of media images of violated New Guinean bodies. It traces continuities between histories of colonial sexual fantasy and contemporary media stagings of sexualized suffering to show how human rights advocacy draws on racist and sexist tropes. As media activists engage with dominant representations around violence and gender in West Papua and Papua New Guinea, their projects to restore dignity to New Guinean subjects are partly recaptured by a liberal imperialist discourse of the postcolonial state’s progress towards accountability. This discourse forecloses possibilities of transformative politics by reinscribing the colonially-inherited boundary that divides New Guinea and by effecting a gendered denial of Melanesian agency. Newberry, Jan, University of Lethbridge Mobile Childhoods, Fixed Neighbourhoods: How Non-governmental Governance Rules Kampung Women (Panel 11) Suharto’s New Order government served to fix poor women in place. Fieldwork in urban Yogyakarta in the early 1990s demonstrated that state-sponsored modernization served to immobilize women in their neighbourhoods as volunteer social welfare labour. Democratization at the turn of the century has marked new forms of mobility, yet the effects for poor urban women are mixed. There has been a rapid proliferation of early childhood care and development (ECCD) programs for children 0-8 years of age, which index middle class desires for mobility as well as the dictates of the World Bank. Yet, the delivery of these early childhood education programs in Yogyakarta neighbourhoods once again draws on the unpaid labour of these citizen-housewives, even as attention to early childhood is taken to represent new democratic possibilities. Strikingly, the newly mobile, empowered children of democracy seem to rely on the continuing fixity of women in urban enclaves. Nguyen-Marshall, Van, Trent University Student Activism in South Vietnam, 1960s-1970s (Panel 1) The 1960s is usually associated with the rise of student activism globally; while students in the West demanded political and social changes, youth in China were waging a cultural revolution. In the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) high school and university students were similarly active and organized. This paper examines Vietnamese student organizations and their activities. The interests and political stances of these groups were diverse. Whereas radical groups took to the streets to demand political reforms and an end to war, more moderate student associations were mobilized in war-relief efforts. Despite their differences, students of all political stripes had to contend with a violent and seemingly endless war, a brutal authoritarian state, and dismal future prospects Nguyen, Thi Dien, Hanoi Agricultural University and Phillipe Lebailly Land conversion for industrialization and its impacts on food security in the Red River Delta, Vietnam (Panel 25) Industrialization with the high rate of agricultural land conversion recently causes the complex agrarian transformation in present context of land tenure in Vietnam. This research investigates the mechanism of rural social differentiation by analyzing the responses of different peasant household groups to the State land conversion. The study was carried out in Hung Yen province, Northern Vietnam from 2006 to 2010. The study results are as follows: i. Land conversion to industrialization has impact on the decline of household landholdings but creates the changes in value of land which are the determinants of social differentiations; ii. Household initial status as “ho thuan nong” (pure farming) or “ho kiem” (non-farming) background play the decisive roles in accumulating their wealth. Among the affected peasant groups, households with non-farm background tend to be in better position in engaging to high – earning activities. They are likely the rich peasants in opposed to poor group with farming background and lost more than 50% of their agricultural land. This research highlights that the dynamism of peasant livelihood mitigated the impacts of land conversion. The de-agrarianization is also slowed down due to the fact that in the context of land conversion to industrialization with tiny plots of land, low return from agricultural production and more opportunities of non-farm activities, even when non-farm employment is very profitable, peasant households are not likely to give up their land but maintaining agricultural production for their basic and secure livelihood. Nguyen, Hoang V., University of Toronto To Return or Not to Return: Perspectives of Vietnamese New Orleanians of Homeland Visit in Repatriation Era (Panel 1) To Vietnamese Americans who left Vietnam after April 1975 due to the victory of the Northern army, returning to their home country, both temporarily and permanently, has been a difficult decision as well as ambiguous experience. Drawing from the case studies of Vietnamese fishermen in New Orleans who have visited Vietnam, this paper shows how these “astronaut” returnees have dealt with multiple barriers in both the settlement country and the home country. On the one hand, they face criticism by fellow immigrants for embracing the current regime in Vietnam through tourism. On the other hand, they are at pains to find out that their homeland is no longer the one as they remember. The paper examines the ambivalence of return, exploring how the perceptions of homeland of the returnees have changed through the process of returning. Okabe, Misa, Wakayama University and Mercy Simorangkir, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia Are both intra-ASEAN FDI and inward FDI from the rest of the world facilitated under ASEAN Economic Community? (Panel 28) Free flow of investment is one of the core elements of the ASEAN Economic Community. The free and open investment regime described in the AEC Blueprint aims to enhance the competitiveness of this region in attracting FDI from outside as well as intra-regional Investment. While FDI from the rest of the world has been the most important factor to sustain the region-wide trend of output growth, promotion of intra-ASEAN Investment is a key subject to realize the economic integration which narrows the development gap between member countries. By applying gravity model of FDI to bilateral FDI flows, we compare the determinants of bilateral FDI flows in the case of intra-ASEAN FDI to the case of FDI between ASEAN members and the rest of the world in order to draw implications for the role of AEC to promote both types of FDI. Omoto, Reiko and Steffanie Scott, University of Waterloo Fairness as economic incentive in environmental regulatory networks through international organic certification: A case study of shrimp production in the Mekong, Delta, Vietnam (Panel 26) International eco-certifications for food have affected the empowerment of actors in these new commodity chains in various ways. This paper examines the case of an export-oriented certified organic shrimp production network in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. We identify the implications of eco-certification, which include efficient traceability, but also changes in the balance of power between small-scale shrimp farmers and other stakeholders in the shrimp supply chain. The study found that unclear and inconsistent benefit sharing in the network can result in a collapse of the overall food eco-certification network, and the withdrawal of farmers from the project. The findings suggest that eco-certifications need to include criteria that ensure that farmers have continuous clear economic incentives. This does not mean fair trade between the Global North and the South, but rather consistent benefit distribution within the eco-certification network at local level to better ensure that ecological goals are met. Pham, Thanh-Hai, Université de Montréal Post 1975 migrations to the Red lands of South Vietnam: differences between urban and rural migrants (Panel 19) For centuries, migrations have been a key component of Vietnam’s spatial history. Characteristics and consequences of the migratory process vary and depend on physical, social and political conditions. Shortly after the country’s 1975 reunification, the process of internal population re-distribution relied initially on the relocation of urban people from the South, then on that of peasants from the North. A good number of both were settled in the Red lands located on the Southern margins of the so-called Central Highlands. During this process, the relocation of these two population groups resulted in different characteristics in terms of spatial-temporal distribution, role, resilience, and impact of activities on the environment. Based on data derived from interviews with settlers, original residents and state officials, as well as on literature and statistical and cartographic sources, this presentation will elucidate these different characteristics. Pierdet, Céline, Compiegne University of Technology The flood risk management in Bangkok (Thailand) or the limits of the structural method (Panel 2) This metropolitan area that includes more than ten millions people must face an annual worsen flood risk. The flood caused by melting snow on the Tibetan Plateau and the monsoon rains is worsened by high tides. But urbanization exacerbates the natural hazard by increasing the volume of runoff and the process of subsidence. Despite an ingenious network of canals, hydraulic networks, flooding disrupts each year the running of Bangkok metropolitan area. If the poorest people living in flood zones are most concerned the central districts of this metropolitan area are also affected by the floods. Which actors and which tools manage flooding in Thailand? Why can we say that the structural methods of flood management have reached their limits and what are the alternatives? Pierdet, Céline, Compiegne University of Technology Urban sprawl and floods management in Phnom Penh (Cambodia): the gradual incorporation of international guidelines (Panel 20) The river capital of Cambodia has spread in the floodplain of the Mekong river by dikes and embankment successive. The major crisis suffered under the Khmer Rouge damaged hydraulic networks. Since 1979 through ad hoc interventions of actors on the networks the city-system comes into resilience. While these networks are hardly rebuilt, the high land and property speculation for years 2005-2008 leads to a densification and a high standing of the urban fabric. Recurrent floods disrupt economic activity in the centre of the capital. But Cambodia is among the countries that signed the Hyogo Declaration and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. What does this mean? Since 2008, new towns are being built in the periphery of the city. How does the municipality have convinced private investors to build hydraulic networks to reduce flooding? How does Cambodia integrate progressively the recommendations of international guidelines for the reduction of natural hazards? Placzek, Jim, University of British Columbia Bhikkhuni Ordination and the Thai Forest Tradition in Canada (Panel 4) The Ajahn Chah teaching lineage, part of the Buddhist Thai Forest Tradition, has spread successfully to Canada but recently one of its senior Western monks was expelled from the lineage for arranging the ordination of Bhikkhunis (fully ordained female monks) in Australia. Until recently there have been no Bhikkhunis in Theravada Buddhism. This paper reviews the history of Bhikkhunis in Theravada Buddhism, as well as other statuses for Buddhist women in Thailand. Part of the problem is the absolute distinction made between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, in which Bhikkhuni ordination has survived. Preston, Trevor W., University of Toronto Uncovering the ‘State’ in ‘State’ Islam: State Religious Bureaucrats in Indonesia and Malaysia Muslim politics in Southeast Asia have been dominated by the state sector as governments particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia have been able to successfully co-opt and neutralize the political and cultural challenge of the Islamic Revival. The elaboration and articulation of new state religious institutions to channel the cultural aspirations, but not necessarily the political demands of the Islamic Revival, is the focus of this paper. These state religious institutions, I will argue have emerged as key interlocutors between the state and Islam in the near contemporary period. Some of the analytical questions to be explored in this paper include – How does the state through its state religious institutions approach the defense of the rights of religious minorities? How can Islamic law, or sharia be implemented or adapted to democratic rights or norms? Can the state, through its state religious institutions be an effective outlet for the socialization of ‘moderate’ or ‘liberal Islam? Service Delivery in Cities: A Comparative Study of Canada and Brunei A one-time kampong ayer (water village), Brunei has now began to feel the pressure of urbanization as its capital city Bandar Seri Begawan and the vicinity (Brunei Muara district) is growing fast with more people concentrating in this part of the country. A potential demographic change will have adverse implications for housing, transport and environment. Other social and economic problems such as water pollution, rising unemployment, and lack of entrepreneurship will add new dimensions to this city in the not-too-distant future. Against this background, this paper examines the key challenges and issues in the city governance of Brunei and Canada as an attempt to ascertain the opportunities of mutual learning for policymakers in both countries. This best practice research thus scrutinizes the ongoing Canadian efforts to integrate and improve citizen-oriented services in its various cities including Montréal, Toronto and Ottawa. The paper identifies some of the areas in which the Bruneian urban experts and policymakers can draw lessons from the Canadian experience to design and undertake appropriate changes towards making the Brunei cities more prosperous, healthy and sustainable. Roth, Robin J, York University Market-oriented livelihoods in Thai National Parks: the role of knowledge in shaping livelihood pathways (Panel 3) Conservation governance in the highlands of Northern Thailand increasingly relies upon the transition of communities to market-oriented livelihoods. While the debate regarding the presence of people in sensitive highland environments has largely focused on subsistence-oriented livelihoods, NGOS, park officials and farmers themselves are promoting particular kinds of market activity that results in transition towards market-oriented livelihoods. This paper traces the emergence of market-oriented livelihoods in two parks and explains the observed community and household differences in market-oriented decision making through an examination of the role of knowledge. Through an investigation into the ways in which technologies of knowledge production, such as mapping, enable livelihood change and the relations of power shaping access to and use of knowledge regarding livelihood opportunities, the paper gives insight into the ways conservation gets negotiated and and grapples with the social and ecological realities of contemporary highland livelihoods. Rotz, Sarah, York University REDD’ing Forest Conservation: The Philippine Predicament (Panel 22) This paper analyzes some of the concerns and contradictions in attempting to translate universalized carbon emissions reductions programs—specifically the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation program (REDD)—into a specific local and institutional context. Emissions reductions programs directed toward developing countries have been criticized on a number of grounds. The first concerns the problematic networks of power found in the development and implementation of such programs. The second concerns the precarious conditions of ownership, rights and representation within localized political, ecological, social and institutional contexts. Finally, the outcomes experienced within these local contexts often have the potential to be highly exclusionary, corporatized and socially unjust. This paper explores these issues in the context of Philippine experiences with land claims, tenancy and forest management. I argue that the REDD+ Programme is inadequate as a strategy for socially just climate change mitigation. Sajo, Trina Joyce, The University of Western Ontario Of scams, sex work, and Filipino webcam models (Panel 8) This paper is a preliminary excursion into commercial, online sex work involving Filipino women using the concept of immaterial labor. Internet sex workers provide services of affective and/or of sexual nature on the Internet. Adult webcam models, as they are called, appear on porn sites, but can also scour dating sites for potential customers. These models are recruited or voluntarily enter into the business because of poverty. To augment their income, some webcam models resort to scamming, defrauding their customers for extra money through different means. In scam work, poverty is a lived experience, as well as a narrative that workers use to exploit their customers. Scamming affords the worker some agency, but, played out against an overarching structure of systematized exploitation, eventually becomes a zero-sum game. The implications for the study of sex work in the Web 2.0 regime will be drawn out. Sapitula, Manuel Victor J., National University of Singapore (Panel 5) The Social and Political Uses of Marian Piety in the Philippines: A Socio-Historical Synthesis The predominant religious culture in the Philippines has displayed a particularly strong Marian dimension, as exemplified by various beliefs and practices within and outside institutional Catholicism. This socio-historical synthesis argues that throughout colonial and postcolonial Philippine history, Marian piety was deployed by various institutional agents in order to achieve goals that both relate to and transcend purely religious goals. Marian piety was utilized during the Spanish colonial period as a means of buttressing colonial power at the local level. After the cession of the Philippines to the United States in 1898, however, the opening up of Philippine Catholicism to direct Vatican intervention shifted local ecclesiastical power toward the centralizing influences of nineteenth-century “fortress Catholicism”. This changed the character of Marian piety and the conditions of its institutional deployment, a trend that continued after Philippine independence from the United States in 1946. On the whole, these events demonstrate the increasing separation between “lay” and “specialist” accounts of religion that characterizes the transition to modernity. Likewise, they also illustrate the continuing influence of religion, thus informing discussions about the relationship between religion and society in the Philippine context. Sayo, Margarita (Maita), York University Images of the Primitive in Early Modernity: The Filipinas That Never Was (Panel 14) This paper explores early modern representations of the Philippines, focusing on an American anthology of Spanish narratives. Descriptions of the islands and inhabitants are analysed and reconstituted into signs that can be mapped in and across historical time. These enable the reconstruction of a fabricated image of the colony. The paper explores historical methodologies that: (a) respect how any narrative, however colonial and oppressive, can be treated as system and can be assessed according to its own rules and internal coherence; and (b) work with the notion that archives can be read both along and against the historical grain. The project explores contemporary questions on decolonization as it documents the Americanization of Spanish colonial history in the twentieth century. It demonstrates how Spanish histories were mediated by American scholars, publishers, and technocrats. These mediations exemplify the complex and multi-layered nature of imperial historiographies in the colonies. Schneider, Alison, Saint Mary’s University What shall we do without our land? Land Grabs and Resistance in Rural Cambodia (Panel 26) Political dynamics of the global land grab are exemplified in Cambodia, where at least 27 forced evictions took place in 2009, affecting 23,000 people. Evictions of the rural poor are legitimized by the assumption that non-private land is idle, marginal, or degraded and available for capitalist exploitation. This paper: (1) questions the assumption that land is idle; (2) explores whether land grabs can be regulated through a ‘code of conduct’; and (3) examines peasant resistance to land grabs. Overall, the Cambodian case studies confirm that land grabs are not benefiting the rural poor, but they challenge the process of dispossession. Although ‘everyday forms of peasant politics’ are prevalent, more organized and structured forms of political contention by rural poor communities and their NGO allies are slowly emerging. Scott, Steffanie, University of Waterloo From shortages to prosperity: Linking food security, food policy, and smallholders livelihoods in Vietnam (Panel 25) As market opportunities have expanded over the past quarter century, Vietnam’s poverty rate has dropped dramatically, and the country has become the world’s second largest rice exporter. This paper explores whether these successes can be explained as a market-driven solution to food insecurity. I argue that while market liberalization has clearly benefited Vietnam in many ways, and market opportunities and remittances have played a leading role in ensuring food security, the roles of the state (at different levels), farmer cooperatives, NGOs and donor agencies in the agricultural sector cannot be underestimated. I also review how food and agriculture-related policies—including land policy and agricultural land protection, rural credit, foreign trade policies, diversification, and the promotion of ‘safe’ vegetable production—have affected the country’s food security. ‘Pro-poor’ aspects of these policies have helped to enhance livelihood opportunities for small-scale farmers to a much greater extent than many other countries in Southeast Asia. Segard, Juliette, University Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense Managing the Development of Craft Villages in the Red River Delta: From public authorities to professional associations. (Panel 12) Since the beginning of the Đổi Mới period, the craft villages of the Red River Delta have been not only revived but strongly developed and enriched. Currently, with the extension of Hà Nội, tremendous economical, social, and political changes are shaping a new context and environment for these villages. Exogenous as well as endogenous urbanizations are imposing stresses on their traditional organization, creating new challenges for their inhabitants and for public authorities. Based on a 2009-2011 survey conducted in the former Hà Tây and Bắc Ninh provinces, this presentation aims to expose who are the actors managing the evolution of these villages, and will underline their new internal organization, from the local public authorities to the professional associations. Silvey, Rachel, University of Toronto Managing Migration: The Spatial Politics of Indonesian Labor (Panel 23) Recent research on transnationalism and migration has challenged and expanded classical spatializations of ‘‘the political.” Building on this growing body of work, this paper explores the spatial politics of state power as refracted in struggles over migration. Specifically, it analyzes the Indonesian states’ involvement in shaping the migration and working conditions of Indonesian migration to Saudi Arabia. It examines the social networks linking migrants to both origins and destinations, and the political strategies that migrant rights activists are employing to expand the states’ spaces and scales of jurisdiction. It points up specific limits to the expansion of spaces of labor regulation, as well as possibilities that NGOs have identified for improving the protection of migrant workers in these translocal and transnational contexts. It demonstrates in conclusion the ways in which contestations around networks and scale are interlinked with changing geographies of the Indonesian developmental state’s power. Smythe, Julian, University of Manitoba The Living Symbol of Song in West Papua: A Soul-force to be Reckoned With In 1982, the Indonesian government, for the purpose of nation-building, endeavoured to name and commodify Papuan culture. Chosen for the task of recording and cataloguing the music of Papua was anthropologist Arnold Ap. However, rather than reinforcing the boundaries of the Indonesian state, Ap’s music served to reinvigorate a unified Papuan identity centred in cultural pride and a shared symbolism in which the physicality of the land was sung and danced into the realm of identity. Ap’s music was indestructible by the Indonesian state because it created a symbol of freedom that Papuans could live in. Combining Simmel’s interactive theories of society, Benedict Anderson’s theories of collective identity, and theories of Ghandian nonviolence, sensitized by the methodological liberation of John Paul Lederach’s elicitive model, this paper explores the music of Ap in providing an interactive Papuan identity mobilized around music as a lived symbol of collective movement towards a shared consciousness of liberation and dignity. Unlike a flag, or even a spinning wheel, music is a living symbol, a participative event into which human beings can enter through harmony and improvisation. The continual dialectic between the individual and the group in Simmel’s theory is mirrored in the interplay between different voices in the creation of song. This “creative consciousness” of shared song created by interactions among people is an empowering metaphor of participative movement in which “discourses of dignity” can be practiced, even in the midst of continuing violence. The nonviolence of participation in the living symbol of song does not lessen its power as a tool of resistance. Theories of nonviolent social movements assume that the potency of symbols will have the power to mobilize people into collective action once cognitive liberation occurs. If a sustained nonviolent struggle is undergone under constant threat of terror by the state, I argue that an interactive symbol of collective identity such as song can create and sustain collective internal freedom (one might even call this dignity!). Simmel’s Interaction theory combined with the participative symbols of collective identity in song allow people, through nonviolence to maintain an underlying equilibrium of hope in order to act. Music becomes a kind of soul force enabling internal freedom to continue; until one day, conditions are ripe for the song to break free. Soedirgo, Jessica, University of Toronto Coordinated In-Group Policing in Conflict Environments: The Preservation of Peace in Waiyame, Indonesia Maluku, Indonesia was the site of significant Christian-Muslim bloodletting from 1999-2002. Located near Ambon City, the epicenter of the violence, Waiyame was the only village on Ambon Island where peace was preserved. Why did violence not spread to Waiyame, a village that was religiously mixed and inundated by IDPs? This paper argues that a coordinated in-group policing system was critical for the preservation of peace. The Team 20, a group of Christian and Muslim village elite, established and enforced village norms. While decisions were made as a group, leaders were responsible for monitoring their co-religionists and sanctioning those that violated the norms. The Waiyame case allows for the examination of factors that enable a successful, durable and sustainable system of in-group policing. The Waiyame case also provides insights on processes of in-group policing more broadly, shedding light on processes of local in-group policing in environments of widespread macro-level intergroup violence. Tan Ai Boay, University of Malaya In search of a New Identity: The Formation of Chinese institutions in Colonial Malaya (Panel 27) This paper argues that the establishment of Chinese organizations in colonial Malaya not only shaped the development of a distinct Chinese identity, but also facilitated Chinese adaptation to Malayan society during waves of Chinese migration into Malaya in the late 19th to the early 20th century. Temples, clan associations, and schools served as the primary institutions by which Chinese Malayans preserved and reasserted their political and cultural identities in the face of successive attempts by the colonial regime to control them. Such institutions permitted Malayan Chinese to forge kinship and social ties that enabled them to adjust in a new environment. Tracing and comparing the evolution of Chinese institutions in Penang and Perak, towns with the most sizeable Chinese communities in northern Malaya, this paper analyzes the mechanisms by which the Chinese adapted to Malaya society and how such institutions contributed to the formation of a Malayan Chinese identity. Thavat, Maylee, Australian National University Value Chain Development in Cambodia’s Agricultural Sector – Towards A Wider Framework of Application? (Panel 26) Rapid and uneven growth in the development process has led to calls for development to become more pro-poor. An increasingly popular tool employed in such efforts is agricultural commodity chain development, more recently called value chain development or markets for the poor. The key idea here is to assist poor rural agriculturalists (the majority of the world’s poor) to upgrade their livelihoods through appropriately configured commodity chains. Although conceptions vary about what sort of commodity chain is best engaged or how to engage it, the primary tenet of this approach is that given appropriate assistance the poor may trade their way out of poverty. This seminar will trace the epistemology of value chain development, noting the strengths of this approach and the key reasons why it has risen in importance as a private sector development tool. The results of four case studies of ‘value chain development’ in Cambodia will then be presented: rice seed (input improvement), organic rice (niche marketing), vegetables (diversification) and chili sauce (value adding). Each case study represents a different conception of how value chain development is best approached. I will then outline four key paradoxes of value chain development approaches as implemented by donors in the Southeast Asian context. Finally, I will make suggestions as to how these paradoxes could possibly be addressed. Tran, Kim, University of California, Berkeley The Specter of War: The Vietnamese American Refugee in an Era of Capitalist Camps (Panel 1) Vietnamese American subjects have long been defined in the American imaginary singularly through the experience of the imperial encounter. The specter of the War in Vietnam functions to limit identity formation, lending itself to a rigid determinism constructing the Vietnamese American community as one comprised of pitiful war refugees. Taking this established discourse as a point of derivation, I ask how these entrenched ideologies can be exhumed and expanded in fruitful ways to understand the current global epoch of capitalist modernity, particularly the space of the free trade zone. I intend to broaden these narratives using the entry points of necropolitics and abjection, specifically seeking to delimit definitions of refugees to include economic factors ultimately situating the contemporary political subject in the transient “camps” of free trade zones and characterized by a state of economic refugeehood. Triastuti, Endah, University of Wollongong A gender perspective on Indonesian women’s blogging practices (Panel 8) Previous researches take the mainstream science’s side by presenting women’s lack in technology. Feminist standpoint theory raises the awareness that both the mainstream research methodology and social institution content social bias. I suggest school and family are two major institutions, which strongly reflect mainstream bias. Drawing my research sample outside family and school, my research on Indonesian women blogger offers another result. Writing for most Indonesian women has different meaning; compares with men writing’s trends such as economy or networking purposes. For women, writing is the most powerful tool to give back their voice. For women, writing is always a sanctuary. Blogging is a modern way of diary writing, that women are able to keep personal journal. It presents the new model of women’s freedom in sharing their private story in public sphere that fosters new social discourse: Indonesian women’s writing culture as form of sociality, both online and offline. Totanes, Vernon, University of Toronto The Evolution of the Field of Historical Production in the Philippines (Panel 14) This paper reconstructs the prevailing conditions related to the teaching of history and the publication of history books during the early twentieth century using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the field of cultural production as a means to interrogate perceptions regarding the “miseducation of the Filipino.” The analysis of the field involves not only accurately recalling who was teaching what and where, and recovering the titles of books, their authors and publishers, but also determining the status of history as a discipline and its evolution over time, the identities and influence of individuals and institutions engaged in the production and consecration of history books, their intended audiences, and the struggles that occurred but are largely ignored in surveys of the development of Philippine historiography. This study argues that the introduction of public school education was not as straightforward or as uncontested as it has been portrayed by Filipino scholars and intellectuals. Tran Thi Thu Trang, Université d’Ottawa Food Security Instead of Food Sovereignty: Choice of Concept, Choice of Policies, and Choice of Classes in Vietnam’s Post-Reform (Panel 15) This article discusses two important concepts of food security and food sovereignty in the context of Vietnam’s post-reform. It will examine Vietnam’s persistent choice of the food security framework, its resulting policies and their implications. The article argues that the choice of food security has been to justify the promotion of industrial agriculture and international trade. While this model has led so far to increased food productivity, it failed to guarantee access to and quality of food, the other two important pillars of the food security framework. More importantly, the article argues that the continued adoption of food security and industrial agriculture is not neutral but reflects the shifting position of the Vietnamese government away from the peasantry for the benefits of capital accumulation by other classes. Turner, Sarah, McGill University How can you be homesick? You live here! Reflections of invisible interpreters and research assistants. (Panel 10) Despite increased attention in the social sciences to the positionality and reflexivity of researchers completing fieldwork in foreign countries, we still know relatively little about how research assistants and interpreters are positioned in the field and their own concerns, constraints and coping mechanisms. This paper, based on in-depth interviews with local interpreters/research assistants in Vietnam and China, working alongside Western doctoral students researching upland ethnic minority populations, provides space for assistants’ voices. While reflecting upon their time in the field, we see how the positionalities of these individuals can have rather unexpected consequences. Furthermore, the assistants’ analyses of particular events, as well as their take on the best way to proceed in specific circumstances can be at odds with that of their employers, and negotiated coping strategies have to be found. I conclude with advice from these assistants regarding what foreign researchers need to consider in fostering constructive working relationships. Vandergeest, Peter, York University and Atchara Rakyutidharm, Silpakorn University, Thailand Alternative Agriculture NGOs and political conflict in Thailand (Panel 25) The involvement of organizations known for their support of alternative agriculture on the anti-red shirt side of Thai politics today may seem surprising at first glance, but may be much less so when considering how alternative agriculture emerged as an alternative not just to commercial green revolution agriculture, but also as an alternative to both confrontational agrarian movements and to capitalism in ways often motivated by religiously inspired critiques of the ways that markets and capitalism were seen to undermine rural communities and traditional values. This paper will trace the history of alternative agriculture from the cold war politics of the 1970s until today. We explore how NGOs and individuals including many (but not all) of those active in the Alternative Agriculture movement have adopted positions opposing the Red Shirt movement which they associate with greed and capitalism, while many government agencies have adopted key ideas associated with alternative agriculture such as self-sufficiency, community values, and restrained desire. These convergences help explain how some NGOs are now aligned with state agencies against rural-associated red shirt mobilizations. Veuthey, Justin, Université de Montréal Who gets to leave and why? Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) from the rural Eastern Visayas (Panel 20) Over the last couple decades a very large number of Filipinos have left the archipelago and gone overseas to seek employment, so much so that the commonly given figure is that one out of ten adult of working age is an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW). When walking around many rural villages in the archipelago, it is impossible not to notice the brightly painted homes of families with the “privilege” of having someone working overseas: the houses are larger, better built, and have a nicer finish. Who are these OFWs? Why do they leave? How do they leave? Why is it that in the same area, some villages have very many OFWs, while others have virtually none? These are some of the issues that I will address in this paper with the comparison between two adjacent rural villages in the Eastern Visayas. Veuthey, Justin, Université de Montréal Growing economic inequality and erosion of social cohesion. Comparing social capital differences between two rural Filipino villages. (Panel 18) The Philippines is one of the most unequal societies in all of Southeast Asia. The gaps in wealth and access to resources between rich and poor have a long historical grounding but have changed rapidly over the last decades because of various aspects of globalization. From around the world, large numbers of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) send remittances back to their families who sometimes remain in very rural areas. These injections of money into villages often create great differences between households with OFWs and those without. This paper, based on data collected during preliminary fieldwork in the Eastern Visayas region of the archipelago, will look at some of the social repercussions of these growing intra-village inequalities. I compare the levels of trust and social cohesion in two adjacent villages: one with many OFWs and thus greater overall wealth but higher levels of inequality, and one with very few OFWs and a more equal level of poverty. Vanchan, Vida and Stephen Vermette, SUNY – Buffalo State College Enhancing Geography Curriculum and Education in Developing Countries: A Cambodia’s Initiative (Panel 28) After many years of war and political instability, Cambodia is at a crossroads economically and culturally. The largest segment of Cambodia’s population is under 15 years of age. These students will soon be the citizens making the crucial decisions that steer Cambodia’s future. Unfortunately, only 27% of students complete middle school. According to high school teachers in Cambodia, a lack of teaching resources and knowledge is mainly responsible for the lack of interest in the classroom and general education as a whole. Our project aims to offer a springboard to improve Cambodia’s human capital through enhancing part of its education system. A pilot kit and workshop was organized at the largest high school in the city of Phnom Penh in order to enhance an existing geography curriculum, assist teachers in their teaching and learning processes, and assess their needs. The kit was built around the existing curriculum, which consisted of compasses, GPS, up-to-date maps, globes, etc. to be shared by teachers. We propose to expand this effort across the country using a diffusion approach to support in-country capacity building, which is also sustainable with the continued outlay of minimal resources. Viriya, Cheamphan, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Determinants of Primary Education in Rural Cambodia (Panel 28) Development goals are introduced to combat with poverty of which one of the hot discourses is rural primary education. Basically hunger, along with norms and traditions, are always standing in the way between rural households’ striving survival and their children education. The finding attributes come from mainly livelihood aspects that shape their lives. It found that children tended to engage in child laboring, income generation, and food security in the financial and economic components for the families. However, gender, women’s education, and indigenous education are otherwise socio-cultural indicators by which have no greater effect on their minds. This paper is fact-finding these driving factors having effect toward parents’ perception and decision of the future of their children, and trying to point out major setbacks as well as to formulate policies that will encourage greater educational attainment for children in subsistence economies. Webster, David, University of Regina “Lost causes” and non-state actions against impunity in East Timor (Panel 6) Western governments argued for many years that any effort to free East Timor was a “lost cause.” This rhetoric flowed from government decisions to oppose self-determination, but it also reinforced those decisions. State rhetoric led to an effort at silencing the issue. This was opposed by a Timor non-state movement made up of Timorese non-state diplomats and a support network in international civil society. The Timor non-state network’s major accomplishment was to disrupt and disprove the “lost cause” rhetoric in ways that made self-determination possible. It achieved this task using common languages of human rights and a “boomerang” strategy in which the network mobilized international pressure on a national government. Since East Timor’s independence, state rhetoric has argued that any campaign against impunity is hopeless. A new Timor non-state network may be emerging, and its major task will be to disrupt and disprove the new “lost cause” rhetoric. Wellstead, James, University of Ottawa Evolving Governance Spaces: Coal Livelihoods in East Kalimantan, Indonesia Coal mining carries significant impacts for surrounding livelihood practices. Yet, in order to explain how specific impacts become grounded within a particular community, attention must be given to the complex assemblage of socio-political and economic forces operating at the local scale. As such, this paper builds upon 3 months of field research in 2010 to describe the impact of decentralized extractive resource governance at coal mines near the rural coastal village of Sekerat, East Kalimantan. Employing evolutions in political ecology research, the analysis focuses on how institutional analyses of resource extraction governance and livelihood governance can be integrated to understand how scalar processes construct a range of real and perceived impacts which condition the decision-making modalities of local villagers. A case is then made for giving greater consideration to the importance of termporality and materiality to explaining how land-based and wage-labour livelihood practices have become ‘reified’. White, Ben, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague Indonesian rural youth transitions: education, employment and the future of agriculture (Panel 23) Using available literature and illustrations from various locations, this paper explores the dynamics of rural youth transitions in Indonesia. As in other countries, rural youth’s transition to adulthood is being prolonged as they remain longer enrolled in education, their average age at first marriage rises, and their entry into the labour force is postponed. Each new generation of rural young men and women has grown up better educated than their parents. This however has not been matched with expansion of employment opportunities for educated youth, and one-third of Indonesians aged 15-24 in rural areas are openly unemployed. These problems of transition, besides representing a waste of young adults’ productive potential, reflect a crisis of social reproduction. In such situations the young may be forced to improvise their own survival strategies. It is not surprising, then to see increasing emphasis on promotion of ‘entrepreneurial’ skills in national youth policy, education policy, and World Bank and ILO policy discourse. There is little evidence that these policies increase employment prospects or earnings. One important strategy in negotiating transition is young people’s mobility, which now extends to all social classes and both genders. Despite the growth of non-farm activities agriculture remains the biggest single rural employer. At the same time, young people seem increasingly uninterested in agricultural or rural futures, but this should not be taken for granted. Today’s rural young men and women, even if interested in farming, are confronted by the narrowing or closure of access to land. This reflects both demographic factors (growing life expectancy of parents delays land transfers to the next generation) and political-economic (changing patterns of land ownership). This problem is likely to worsen in the context of new patterns of corporate land grabbing in many regions. Meanwhile secondary education contributes to a process of de-skilling of rural youth in which farming skills are neglected and farming itself downgraded as an occupation. These developments raise many questions about the future of rural youth, and of agriculture itself. Wright, Ashley, University of Toronto The “Shoe Question” and Anglo-Burmese Relations in the Eighteenth Century (Panel 27) This paper investigates the contribution of conflicts over material culture to the relationship between the British and Burmese empires at the end of the eighteenth century. At various times the British in Burma have viewed Burmese expectations regarding dress as an assertion of Burmese superiority and an opportunity for British individuals to negotiate status. This is exemplified by the “shoe question”–the unwillingness of British officials to remove their shoes to enter Burmese pagodas. This issue would remain a point of contention between the British and the Burmese into the colonial era. This paper examines earlier manifestations of this conflict, focusing on Hiram Cox’s late eighteenth century residency in Burma. Cox’s account of his residency in Burma describes several instances in which Cox rejected Burmese expectations regarding appropriate material display. This paper discusses these instances, their effects on Anglo-Burmese relations, and their contribution to British perceptions of the Burmese court. Ye, Junjia, Max Planck Institute Class in a Global Labour Force: Bangladeshi men in Singapore’s division of labour (Panel 9) This presentation discusses the social reproduction of class identities within Singapore’s division of labour, focusing on the low-paid, low-status Bangladeshi male migrant workers. Bangladeshi male migrants are now part of a vast pool of inexpensive and mobile workers that are maintained as such because of powerful structures of inequality that require the extraction of their labour at both the global and local scale. This phenomenon which is first and foremost an economic one also shapes and is shaped by the circumstances, needs, desires and attitudes of Bangladeshi individuals, motivating them to continue the arduous labouring in Singapore’s construction and marine industries. I argue that it is the intricate web of structure and agency that reproduces a particular form of class relations within the division of labour in Singapore: exploitation, unequal treatment, unequal pay and status differences are met with migrants’ own enactment of their identities as they become part of a transnational labour force. Young, Mary, York University Struggle and suppression in the historical roots of Indonesia’s alternative agriculture movements (Panel 25) The emergence of alternative agriculture in Indonesia over the past few decades has its roots in a long history of struggles over land issues and rights of peasant farmers. The focus of this paper will be on the post-independence period, where initial hopes of land reform where eliminated by the political suppression of rural areas under the New Order regime. More radical agrarian movements were eventually replaced by social movement efforts that targeted environment and social welfare goals, as state efforts to permit more “apolitical” community organizing attempted to neutralize politically-charged reforms in the countryside. However, after 1997 radical agrarian movements resurged as part of Indonesia’s political opening, demonstrating the ongoing tension with the alternative agricultural movement between the more mainstream approaches to changing agricultural practices and those approaches that advocated greater confrontation with the state over its past failures in land management. Youdelis, Megan, York University Reconstructing Nature and Culture: Ecotourism in Northern Thailand (Panel 3) In Northern Thailand, ecotourism is being increasingly adopted as a livelihood strategy by communities living within protected areas. The promise of ecotourism to reconcile environmental and economic concerns relies on the production of both environmentally and economically minded participants, while promoting a very particular image of nature (aesthetic, untouched, bountiful) to be sold to the tourist. While considerable work has explored material outcomes of ecotourism, little work has explored the reconstructions of subjects and discourses of nature within ecotourism projects. This paper will show how community members understand ‘nature’ and ‘conservation’ in relation to market-oriented tourism activities, as well as what accounts for differences among community members in terms of participation and satisfaction with the project. The research suggests that within conservation zones, the production of cooperative environmental and economic subjects is sought in part to minimize community involvement in environmental management.
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