Digital Commons Network^™

Rethinking The Inclusionary Potential Of Religious Institutions: The Case Of Gurdwaras In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Whilst Singapore’s Sikh community is relatively small, it is also heterogeneous. Its diversity reflects differences in ancestral and socio-economic backgrounds. As spaces of worship that regularly bring together the Sikh community in space and time, Sikh temples—gurdwaras––are often conceived as important places through which a shared sense of religiously-defined community is reproduced. Yet, as much as religion can provide a bridge that integrates people of different ethnic, racial, national, and linguistic groups into a single faith community, so too can it act as a buttress through which differences and divisions are enforced within the community. We argue that whilst gurdwaras …

Diasporic Placemaking: The Internationalisation Of A Migrant Hometown In Post-Socialist China, Jiaqi M. Liu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

International migration profoundly reshapes the urban landscape in sending and receiving countries. Compared to ethnic enclaves in migrant-receiving metropolises and remittance houses in sending communities, we know little about systematic urban changes led by emigration states. In this article, based on three months of fieldwork in a migrant hometown in China, I argue that the dispersion of emigrants per se does not make its urban space inherently ‘diasporic’. Rather, a ‘diasporic place’ can be strategically constructed by local sociopolitical actors, a process I conceptualise as ‘diasporic placemaking’. To create an international city branding and boost the consumption-based urban economy, the …

Original Gangsters: Genre, Crime, And The Violences Of Settler Democracy, Sean M. Kennedy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Building upon examinations of genericity, subalternity, and carcerality by Black, Indigenous, and women-of-color feminist scholars, my dissertation offers an account of how truth claims are produced and sustained to limit social change in representatively governed societies. Taking the gangster genre as my lens, I first resituate the form, assumed to depict white-ethnic conflict in the U.S. and Europe, as a type of resistance to race-based political economic policies imposed by imperial regimes. After linking the subaltern classes of pre-20th-century southern Europe, southern Africa, South Asia, and the U.S. South—all subjected to criminalization as a mode of colonial and capitalist control—I …

Departing From Java: Javanese Labour, Migration And Diaspora, Andy Scott Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Under globalization, guest worker programs are increasingly touted as a “win-win” solution for regularizing cross-border mobility. While such temporary migration schemes enable destination states to procure a flexible labour pool, they are said to benefit origin states through skill and remittance transfers. The Indonesian state, nonetheless, is often perceived as bereft of the capacity to harness labour export for development. Departing from Java complicates this narrative of administrative failure by analyzing diaspora through the prisms of empire, state-building, and feminism. Placing migration in contexts that are local and global, imperial and postcolonial, and authoritarian and democratic, the edited volume examines …

How Black Lives Matter Has Influenced And Interacted With Global Social Movements, Arelle A. Binning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a chapter-based and member-led organization created out of grief by three queer black women. This thesis examines the international impact of BLM. I conducted telephone interviews with activists and advocacy organizations who have organized activist networks and/or won struggles against institutional racism outside of the United States. These activists are located in Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, India, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Paris. I conclude that BLM has inspired the creation and supported the continued development of organizations advocating for national and transnational social and racial justice on a global scale. BLM in spite …

“To Gallop Together To War Is Simple-- To Make Peace Is Complex” Indigenous Informal Restorative Conflict Resolution Practices Among Kazakhs: An Ethnographic Case Study, Ronald Brooks Wiley

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Advocates of restorative and transitional justice practice have long drawn from practices of indigenous peoples to form the basis for more sustainable, relational, participatory, community-based approaches to conflict resolution. With the resurgence in Kazakh nationalism since the Republic of Kazakhstan independence, repatriated diasporic Kazakhs, who through cultural survival in diaspora retain more of their ethno-cultural characteristics, influence a revival of Kazakh language and culture. The purpose of this study was to understand the indigenous informal restorative conflict resolution practices of the Kazakh people. The questions that drove this study were: What indigenous informal forms of dispute resolution have been in …

Educational Experiences Of 1.5 Generation Cambodian Americans, Kassandra A. Chhay

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

During the 1980s, an influx of Cambodian Americans resettled in the United States due to the Cambodian genocide. Those Cambodian refugees who came to the United States as either infants, children or adolescents due to warfare, are members of the 1.5 generation. This thesis examines the educational trajectory of 1.5 generation Cambodian Americans in the context of family, school, and community from their resettlement in the United States to adulthood. Using a narrative approach, I examine how the eighteen participants in the study overcame certain challenges to attain success and how they negotiated their cultural and ethnic identity in relation …

Cultural Models Of Democracy Among Burmese Residents In Chicago, Illinois, And Fort Wayne, Indiana, John Hillory Hood

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines implicit assumptions about democracy among Burmese residents in Chicago, Illinois and Fort Wayne, Indiana. A major focus of the research is the durability of foundational cultural models – basic, simple, widely-shared modes of thought – that may or may not change over time, measured in this study through length-of-residency. As such, I examined three distinct sample groups: temporary residents, immigrants, and adult offspring of immigrants. This research comprised methods of ethnography, semi-structured interviews, as well as a free-listing memory task. A key point of inquiry is intracultural variation occurring between sample groups. Particular attention was paid to …

Jailangkung: Indonesian Spirit-Basket Divination, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese spirit-basket divination, which dates to the fifth century, would have been lost to the world had it not been reincarnated as Indonesian jailangkung. The term is the homophonic rendition of the Chinese cai lan gong [菜篮公, vegetable basket deity] and unambiguously links the Indonesian practice with the Chinese. Contemporary Chinese divinatory methods have replaced the clumsy basket planchette with the handier tri-forked branch or a pen held in the medium’s hand, but a spirit-basket still features in jailangkung and remains the key element in involutions of the prototype. For example, Nini Thowong’s spirit-possessed doll, is essentially an anthropomorphic effigy …

Inherent Multiculturalism: An Ancient Chinese Practice Becomes A Part Of The Indonesian Everyday, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Several methods are used to trace cultural transfer between countries. The time-honoured methods are chronicles of early travellers and archaeology. We can also look to epigraphs and loan words. Present-day ethnic communities also suggest earlier settlements. Edward B. Tylor proposed the world distribution of games as anthropological evidence. Tylor's method combined with an archaeology into the Everyday provides evidence of earlier cultural transfer and present-day applications of the game enables analysis to draw socio-cultural knowledge of inter-ethnic, inter-cultural reception to foreign influences in host societies.

“Home Sweet Home”: Displacement And Belonging In Post-1960s Diasporic Chinese Literature, Melody Yunzi Li

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Situated at the intersection of Sinophone and Diaspora Studies and focusing on the rhetoric of “home,” my dissertation explores the ways in which Chinese immigrant Sinophone writers and Anglophone writers in the U.S. construct “imaginative homes” in response to the absence of their physical homes. Through detailed analysis of works by Yu Lihua (Again the Palm Trees, 1967), Yan Geling (The Criminal Lu Yanshi, 2011; A Woman’s Epic, 2006), Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei People, 1971), Shi Yu (New York Lover, 2004), Chen Qian (Listen to the Caged Bird Sing, 2010), Rong Rong (Notes of a Couple, 2004) and Ha Jin (A …

Contemporary Daoist Tangki Practice, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since 1979, China has seen a renaissance of indigenous belief systems, including Daoist tangki spirit-medium practice. Tangki traditions have Neolithic roots. The founding myth is of a man who magically battled flood demons to save China. In imperial times, ordinary people, disenfranchised by the state religion and pawns of dynastic wars, created a soteriology of self-empowerment. Ordinary people would transform through spirit pos-session into warrior gods who would save the community. Millennia-old tangki traditions have diffused into the modern Chinese quotidian. With a remote Central Committee of the Communist Party recalling distant emperors, village temples, many led by tangkis, have …

Berita Autumn 2015, Eric C. Thompson

Berita

Table of Contents

Chair’s Address ... 2

Editor’s Foreword ...3

John A. Lent Prize ...4

Ronald Provencher Travel Award ...5

Rabbits or rebels? Making sense of Singapore’s 2015 elections ...6

Greening the glass ceiling? Shaping of Malaysian women’s Shariah expertise as global Islamic financial expertise...10

Mr. Teh-o-ais kurang manis...17

Review of the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies Library ... 21

Association for Asian Studies 2016 (Seattle) – Panels with Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei Content ... 23

Evolving Chineseness, Ethnicity And Business: The Making Of Ethnic Chinese As A 'Market-Dominant Minority' In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Coping With Change - Understanding Ethnic Chinese Business Behavior, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

No abstract provided.

The Worship Of Semar: A Claim To "Jus Primordialis", Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

An ethnography of Paguyuban Cahya Buwana (PCB, The Community of the Light of the Universe) at Gunong Srandil, Central Java, a group dedicated to the worship of Semar. The study reveals how a community of Chinese in Central Java has moved beyond limiting ethnic notions such as Peranakan (Chinese born in Indonesia and adopting Indonesian language) and Totok (“newly-arrived” and retaining the Chinese language) to become entirely Javanese through entry into Kejawen (“Javanism”). This entry has been effected through their worship of Semar who has been described as the “father” of the Javanese.

Evolving Chineseness, Ethnicity And Business: The Making Of The Ethnic Chinese As A ‘Market-Dominant Minority’ In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The ethnic Chinese in Indonesia play a very significant role in the nation’s economy. Their dominance in the Indonesian economy is often seen as disproportionate to their numbers, as reflected in the popular assertion that “the Chinese constitute only 3.5 percent of the population but control 70 percent of Indonesia’s economy”. In the New York Times bestseller, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, Amy Chua (2004) identified Chinese Indonesians as one of the “ market-dominant minorities” in the world. Her book highlights the double bind of free market democracy: it privileges certain …

"By Race, I Am Chinese; And By Grace, I Am Christian”: Chineseness And Christianity In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

No abstract provided.

The Spirit-Mediums Of Singkawang: Performing Peoplehood Of West Kalimantan, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese New Year in the West Kalimantan town of Singkawang is marked by a parade featuring hundreds of possessed spirit-mediums performing self-mortification and blood sacrifice. The event is a huge tourist draw, but beyond the spectacle, deeper meanings are enacted. The spirit-medium procession stages a fraternity of Dayak, Malay and Chinese earth gods united in the purpose of exorcising demons from the neighborhood. The self-conscious presentation of the Chinese as brethren among pribumi [sons-of-the-soil] Dayak and Malay, proposes the Chinese as belonging to the ‘peoplehood’ of West Kalimantan.

Cultural Differences And Switching Of In-Group Sharing Behavior Between An American (Facebook) And A Chinese (Renren) Social Networking Site, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Prior research has documented cultural dimensions that broadly characterize between-culture variations in Western and East Asian societies and that bicultural individuals can flexibly change their behaviors in response to different cultural contexts. In this article, we studied cultural differences and behavioral switching in the context of the fast emerging, naturally occurring online social networking, using both self-report measures and content analyses of online activities on two highly popular platforms, Facebook and Renren (the “Facebook of China”). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, the Renren culture is perceived as more collectivistic than the Facebook culture. …

Mapping 'Chinese' Christian Schools In Indonesia: Ethnicity, Class And Religion, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

No abstract provided.

Mapping 'Chinese' Christian Schools In Indonesia: Ethnicity, Class And Religion, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Schools are not ‘‘innocent’’ sites of cultural transmission. They play an active and significant role in transmitting values and inculcating culture. Schools also serve as a site for the maintenance of boundaries and for the construction of identities. Previous studies have recognized the relationship between education and identity. Building on existing literature, this study examines the ways in which Christian schools can be a site for the construction and maintenance of religious, ethnic and class identities of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. The study surveys four prestigious ‘‘Chinese’’ Christian schools in Jakarta. Through a brief but thorough profiling of the …

In Case You Missed It: Big White Lie, Peter Zarrow

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I want to share some impressions of a book that the sinologically inclined (like me) might otherwise ignore. Big White Lie, by John Fitzgerald, is most importantly a polemic about Australian history—subtitled “Chinese Australians in White Australia”—but it also has a lot to say about modern Chinese culture, politics, and business. What follows is not a systematic review but a few xinde: somewhat random and incomplete notes on what I got out of the book.

The study of overseas Chinese has always seemed to me like an orphan field—an interesting and important area of research that has long produced major …

More Than A Cultural Celebration: The Politics Of Chinese New Year In Post-Suharto Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

In the aftermath of the May 1998 riots that forced President Suharto to step down, ethnic Chinese received unprecedented freedom to assert their long suppressed cultural and religious identity. Following the transition from assimilation to multiculturalism, for the first time in over three decades Chinese culture became more visible and ethnic Chinese could finally enjoy the freedom to celebrate Chinese New Year (Imlek) publicly. This article focuses on the politics of the re-emergent Chinese New Year celebration in the Indonesian public sphere. It demonstrates the significance of Imlek as an ethnic symbol to Chinese-Indonesians. Borrowing Hobsbawm’s concept of “invented tradition”, …

Chinese New Year In West Kalimantan: Ritual Theatre And Political Circus, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since 2002, when Chinese New Year became a national holiday in Indonesia, spirit medium parades on the fifteen day of the New Year (called Cap Go Meh) have been growing in size in certain West Kalimantan towns, especially Singkawang. This parade in particular has become a major tourist draw-card. Referring to local history, Chinese popular religion and Hakka culture, this article applies a performance analysis methodology to dissect this contemporary phenomenon from religious, historical and inter-ethnic perspectives. It shows how the parades have become enmeshed in current inter-ethnic politics in West Kalimantan, as well as revealing the way that adaptations …

More Than A Cultural Celebration: The Politics Of Chinese New Year In Post-Suharto Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In the aftermath of the May 1998 riots that forced President Suharto to step down, ethnic Chinese received unprecedented freedom to assert their long suppressed cultural and religious identity. Following the transition from assimilation to multiculturalism, for the first time in over three decades Chinese culture became more visible and ethnic Chinese could finally enjoy the freedom to celebrate Chinese New Year (Imlek) publicly. This article focuses on the politics of the re-emergent Chinese New Year celebration in the Indonesian public sphere. It demonstrates the significance of Imlek as an ethnic symbol to Chinese-Indonesians. Borrowing Hobsbawm’s concept of “invented tradition”, …

Chinese Identity In Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Politics And Media, Chang Yau Hoon

Chang Yau HOON

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Book A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles Of South Asian Women In America, Anjali Ram

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Ever since western feminist scholarship was accused of defining gender in transhistorical and transcultural ways, there have been attempts to add the category, `woman of colour’, in feminist enterprises that rang e from the academic to the administrative. Such toke n gestures inevitably re-inscribe the problem by glossing over distinctive material histories and the particularity of women’s experiences and struggles. For those of us who refuse such additive, tokenist approaches, A Patchwork Shawl edited by Shamita Das Dasgupta is a welcome contribution. Written by South Asian immigrant and first generation women, A Patchwork Shawlis, to us e Dasgupta’s words, `a …