South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Outside The 'Big 4': Inception And Growth Of Independent Artistes And Institutions, Seshan Ramaswami

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

A Close Look At The Relationship Between Poverty And Political Violence In Nepal, Lauren C. Griffin

Global Tides

Today, one quarter of Nepal’s population of 27 million lives on a daily income of less than two dollars (Sharma 8). Villages are deprived of an ample water supply, and some areas still lie in ruins from the aftermath of the Maoist insurgency. This paper will seek to understand the role of poverty in the historically and presently unfolding political environment of Nepal. Several factors show direct correlation between poverty and insurgent activity, such as land ownership, level of education and socio-economic standing. Nepal has had a volatile and bloody past in the midst of medieval dynasties, an authoritative monarchy …

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2015, South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

What's Below The Peak? Perceptions Of Media From Those That Live Below The World's Most Famous Mountain, Jonah P. Lucas

Student Publications

This research seeks to explore the perceptions the Sherpa people in the Khumbu region have on the media that has been created about them and their communities. Interviews conducted in the Khumbu region of Nepal with a variety of individuals gave insight into how different socio-economic and educational backgrounds affect these perceptions. This research found that all Sherpa are aware to some extent of the media about them, and its biggest effect is the international tourism trade that it promotes. Furthermore, journalists visiting the region are regarded as normal tourists, and the work they do is considered accurate and suitable …

Language As The Foundation Of Identity Among Sherpa Youth In Nepal, Joshua H. Ginder

Student Publications

This paper explores how young Sherpas in Nepal use their language as a tool for identifying themselves as uniquely Sherpa in a mutlicultural Nepal. By analyzing the way Sherpas use their language in social settings and at a radio station, the author suggests the Sherpa language is perhaps the only truly unique quality that delineates Sherpas from other Nepalis.

Right To Land And The Rule Of Law: Infrastructure, Urbanization And Resistance In India, Preeti Sampat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Special Economic Zones Act 2005, a critical infrastructure model, was enacted in India in two days amid total political consensus. Within two years, intense conflicts over land and resources erupted in SEZ areas across the country between corporate developers, the state, and peasants' and citizens' groups. In the ensuing furor, several SEZs foundered and Goa state unprecedentedly revoked its SEZ policy, suspending 15 SEZs, some with construction underway. Amid raging debates and accusations of corrupt real estate deals over SEZs and other "infrastructure" and urbanization investments, the central (federal) government attempted to redraft land acquisition policy, eventually enacting a …

Strategic Deployments Of "Sisterhood" And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women’S Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.

Strategic Deployments Of "Sisterhood" And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women's Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.

Religiosity And Social Problems Among Muslim Adolescents In Southern Thailand, Suhaimee Sateemae, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Mahsoom Sateemae

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

Substantial commentary has been written about the historical context of the Malay-Muslim minority in the deep south of Thailand. Much of the recent scholarship on the Malay-Muslim minority of Thailand has focused on the ongoing ethnic insurgency in southern Thailand, the region’s troubled history of annexation, and its relevance to Thailand’s political landscape. However, there is little empirical research on the Malay-Muslim population itself, although it is assumed that expressions of their religious identity are a fundamental aspect of collective identity formation. In an effort to fill this gap, this study explored perceptions of religiosity and risk behavior among Muslim …

Mandala And Charisma: The Federalist Potentials In Traditional Indonesian Political Culture, Yuhao Wen

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This research explores the federalist elements in the mandala (a graphic art pattern in Southeast Asia) and political charisma to discuss their constructive roles as traditional Indonesian political culture in federalizing Indonesia. Since August 17, 1945 when Sukarno declared the independence of the country in Jakarta, the newly–born Indonesia was also finalized as a centralized presidential republic. However, till today, societal diversities in Indonesian society are continuously increasing, the tendency of federalization, therefore, has never entirely faded away. Both the mandala and political charisma de facto have spontaneously generated their own initiatives for federalization since ancient times. Upon illustration of …

Sex-Trafficking In Cambodia: Assessing The Role Of Ngos In Rebuilding Cambodia, Katherine M. Wood

Senior Honors Theses

The anti-slavery and other freedom fighting movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did not abolish all forms of slavery. Many forms of modern slavery thrive in countries all across the globe. The sex trafficking trade has intensified despite the advocacy of many human rights-based groups. Southeast Asia ranks very high in terms of the source, transit, and destination of sex trafficking. In particular, human trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of forced prostitution remains an increasing problem in Cambodia. Cambodia’s cultural traditions and the breakdown of law under the Khmer Rouge and Democratic Kampuchea have contributed to …

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2014, South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

English In South Asia And Pedagogical Implications, Brittany R. Ehret

Senior Honors Theses

English at present maintains a significant role as a second or foreign language in the region of South Asia as well as globally. In a discussion of this topic, it is important to explore a brief history of the expansion of English and its origins in South Asia. It is also essential to provide a background of South Asian English and its unique linguistic characteristics as well as its use in different contexts of South Asia. The perspectives of linguists and educators who are native to the region of South Asia should be included as much as possible in this …

Strategic Deployments Of ‘Sisterhood’ And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women’S Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Linguistic uses of ‘sisterhood’ provide a window into disparate understandings of relationality among virtual and actual interlocutors in women’s development across vectors of caste, class, ethnicity and nationality. In this essay, I examine the trope of ‘sisterhood’ as it was employed at a women’s development project in Janakpur, Nepal, in the 1990s. I demonstrate that the use of this common signifier of kinship with culturally disparate ‘signifieds’ created a confusion of meaning, and differential readings of the politics of relationality. In my view, ‘sister,’ as used at this project, was a multivalent, strategically deployed, and divergently interpreted term. In particular, …

Fearless: Sneha Shrestha, Sneha Shrestha

SURGE

Sneha Shrestha ’10, a native to Kathmandu, Nepal, recently received an Advancing Leaders Fellowship from World Learning for her fearless project. With it, she aims to provide a creative outlet for art and culture among young people in Nepal through the Kathmandu Children’s Art Museum (KCAM). This project will support a creative learning space for children as well as an opportunity for them to express themselves and investigate their own culture through art. [excerpt]

Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made A Fetish Of Small Feet, Aubrey L. Mcmahan

Grand Valley Journal of History

Abstract for “Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet”

This paper explores the source of the traditional practice of Chinese footbinding which first gained popularity at the end of the Tang dynasty and continued to flourish until the last half of the twentieth century.[1] Derived initially from court concubines whose feet were formed to represent an attractive “deer lady” from an Indian tale, footbinding became a wide-spread symbol among the Chinese of obedience, pecuniary reputability, and Confucianism, among other things.[2]^,[3] Drawing on the analyses of such scholars as Beverly Jackson, Valerie Steele …

Coalitions And Language Politics: Policy Shifts In Southeast Asia, Amy H. Liu, Jacob I. Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why is it that some governments recognize only one language while others espouse multilingualism? Related, why are some governments able to shift language policies, and if there is a shift, what explains the direction? In this article, the authors argue that these choices are theproduct of coalitional constraints facing the government during critical junctures in history. During times of political change in the state-building process, the effective threat of an alternate linguistic group determines the emergent language policy. If the threat is low, the government moves toward monolingual policies. As the threat increases, however, the government is forced to co-opt …

Paradigms Of Style: A Study Of Zulfikar Ghose's Novels, Abu Ul Wafa Mansoor Ahmed Abbasi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study deals with Zulfikar Ghose's--an expatriate English language writer of Pakistani origin living in the USA--novels. In this study, I focus on, among other things, the writer's negotiation with style and socio-politically provocative subject matter. I study Ghose's novels in a "good old fashioned way" in which I analyze his work by exploring his achievement as an artist, both in terms of style and socio-political subject matter. The focus is, precisely, to highlight the writer's correspondence between language and reality.

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2011, The South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

Explore The Phenomenon Of Buddhist Temple Stay In South Korea For Tourists, Wei Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Temple Stay program is a newly developed but comparatively mature tourism product in Korea, which is to accommodate and cater tourists in Buddhist temples and have them experience over 1700 years Korean traditions of Buddhism and culture. As a product of compromise between Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the most influential Buddhist organization Jogye Order, Temple Stay program was first launched in 2002 during FIFA World Cup to receive excessive international tourists. Through almost ten-year systematical development, Temple Stay program turns out to be a distinctive phenomenon which successfully establishes a unique identity of Korean culture and tourism, …

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2010, The South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

The Samurai's Rebirth - Japan's Increasing "Offensive" Security Capabilities, Patrick Bright

Political Science Theses and Capstones

This thesis studies the increasing "offensive" nature of Japanese security capabilities in nation which has major restrictions on military capability. There are regional tensions in East Asia that have the potential to escalate to armed conflict. Other countries in the region have increased their levels of armament but how has Japan reacted? I look at three major acquisitions by Japan that have created controversy, then examine the role public opinion has towards issues of defense, including external and domestic considerations. Two major data sets on public opinion, the Global Attitudes Project and the Asia Barometer, are used. I find that …

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2009, The South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

Talking Tools, Suffering Servants, And Defecating Men: The Power Of Storytelling In Maithil Women’S Tales, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

What can we learn about the way that folk storytelling operates for tellers and audience members by examining the telling of stories by characters within such narratives? I examine Maithil women’s folktales in which stories of women’s suffering at the hands of other women are first suppressed and later overheard by men who have the power to alleviate such suffering. Maithil women are pitted against one another in their pursuit of security and resources in the context of patrilineal formations. The solidarities such women nonetheless form—in part through sharing stories and keeping each other’s secrets—serve to mitigate their suffering and …

El Otro Encuentro: Gigi Oltavaro-Hormillosa’S "Neo-Queer Precolonial Imagining", Gina Velasco

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

This essay examines the performance and video art piece Cosmic Blood, by Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa, a queer Colombian and Filipina American artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It argues that Cosmic Blood is a performative intervention into dominant modes of reading the racialized and gendered Filipina body, as well as a critique of absolutist notions of national and ethnic belonging. Cosmic Blood challenges the inherent heteronormativity and masculinism of dominant notions of nation and kinship, accomplishing this imaginative intervention by its retroping of the past through a lens of queer desire. Within Otalvaro-Hormillosa’s retelling of the moment of first …

Pond-Women Revelations: The Subaltern Registers In Maithil Women's Expressive Forms, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Ponds are ubiquitous in the Maithil region of Nepal, and they figure prominently in folk narratives and ceremonial paintings produced by women there. I argue that in Maithil women's folktales, as in their paintings, the trope of ponds shifts the imaginative register toward women's perspectives and the importance of women's knowledge and influence in shaping Maithil society, even as this register shift occurs within plots featuring male protagonists. I argue further that in the absence of a habit of exegesis in their expressive arts, and given the cross-referential, dialogic nature of expressive practices, a methodology that draws into interpretive conversation …

Can Developing Women Create Primitive Art? And Other Questions Of Value, Meaning And Identity In The Circulation Of Janakpur Art, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal – objects collectors have called ‘Janakpur Art’. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art – shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s – occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women’s lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at …

'Listen, Rama’S Wife!’: Maithil Women’S Perspectives And Practices In The Festival Of Sāmā-Cakevā, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

As a female-only festival in a significantly gender-segregated society, sāmā cakevā provides a window into Maithil women’s understandings of their society and the sacred, cultural subjectivities, moral frameworks, and projects of self-construction. The festival reminds us that to read male-female relations under patriarchal social formations as a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered ignores the porous boundaries between the two in which negotiations and tradeoffs create a symbiotic reliance. Specifically, the festival names two oppositional camps—the male world of law and the female world of relationships—and then creates a male character, the brother, who moves between the two, loyal …

Y A-T-Il Une Réception Critique De La Littérature Vietnamienne Francophone?, Ching Selao

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Three approaches seem to characterize the reception of Vietnamese Literature in French: socio-historical, "essentialist" and feminist discourses. This article proposes to analyse the lack of theoretical thought and pertinence in some of the works published on the subject, which appear to introduce and promote this literature rather than study it. Without denying contributions that are indeed interesting, this paper, however, emphasizes works that raise questions and oblige us to ask: is there a critical reception of Vietnamese Francophone Literature?

Linda Lê : Schizo-Positive?, Isabelle Favre

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In her novel entitled "Calomnies", Linda Lê depicts a "mad uncle" and a young female writer fascinated with her uncle’s marginality. In this book, Lê presents a complex view of schizophrenia. Sometimes, the actions and thoughts of the uncle are reminiscent of Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts such as le corps sans organe and la machine célibataire. Some other times however, Lê pays attention to the past of the uncle and shows how, in Vietnam, he witnessed the hypocrisy of his family during the war. These passages are then closer to Laing’s theories, since the environment and conditions in which he …