South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Malaysia's Transitional Moment? : Democratic Transition Theory And The Problem Of Malaysian Exceptionalism., Jason P. Abbott

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Many theorists of democratization transition have, either explicitly or implicitly, a teleological concept of political progress, liberalization and reform. For such theorists, countries such as Malaysia are therefore in transition towards substantive 'full' liberal democracy. Taken in this light, the significant advances by opposition political parties in the 2008 federal and state elections in Malaysia represent a major advance towards this end goal. While many have highlighted that Malaysia may in fact be an exception to this rule, this paper contends instead that the Malaysian case study challenges the central tenets of democratic transition more profoundly. Indeed, since independence the …

Use And Impact Of E-Resources At Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (India): A Case Study, Chetan Sharma

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

Today availability of e-resources in a university library is very common. But their proper and maximum use is a matter for discussion. The present paper examines the existence of various e-resource databases in Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University Library. The study also highlights the preferences and importance of online resources among the teachers and research scholars.

Sac Outreach Bulletin 2009, 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 …

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 …

Jagannath's Saligram: On Bruno Latour And Literary Critique After Postcoloniality, Amit Ray, Evan Selinger

Articles

Bruno Latour has turned to Indian vernacular fiction to illustrate the limits of ideology critique. In examining the method of literary analysis that underlies his appropriation of postcolonial history and culture, we appeal to Edward Said's notion of "traveling theory" in order to discuss critically the aesthetic as well as political stakes of using the technology of the modern novel for the allegorical purposes that Latour has in mind. We argue that Latourian analysis fails to uphold its own rigorous aspirations when it reduces complex literary and cultural representation to universal allegory.

Indonesian Souvenirs As Micro-Monuments To Modernity: Hybridization, Deterritorialization And Commoditization, Kathleen M. Adams

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

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 …

Samoanizing My Fa’Apalagi : The Indigenization Of Language In Samoa, Cheryl Nunes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since its arrival in the 1830s, the English language has been an increasing presence in the minds and mouths of native Samoans. It winds its way within the schools, onto the streets, and into the offices of modern Samoa. This constant exposure to English, however, does not necessarily entail a loss of the Samoan language or culture. Quite the contrary, as Samoans have not only embraced the English language, but have furthermore indigenized it to their own advantage. Using education and exposure as tools, Samoans readily weave innovative mixtures of English and Samoan into various aspects of their lives, including …

The (No) Work And (No) Leisure World Of Women In Assi, Banaras, Nita Kumar

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

In the riverside neighborhood (mohalla) of Assi, in the south of Banaras, families of the following professions are to be found: the preparation and retail of foods such as: milk, sweets, tea, paan, peanuts and snacks; clerical work in offices or shops; private professional work, such as priesthood, teaching, boating, cleaning toilets; and crafts, such as masonry, weaving, making and maintaining jacquard machines, carpentry, and goldsmithy. All this work is done by men in the public sphere. In Banaras, the observable and articulated sphere of activity called "work" (kam) largely exists for men only. Men are …

'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 …

Taman Shamanism (Borneo), Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

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 …

Global Diffusion Of The Internet - I: India: Is The Elephant Learning To Dance?, Peter Wolcott, Seymour E. Goodman

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

With his proclamation in 1998 that "IT is India's tomorrow", Prime Minister Vajpayee captured a vision of a 21st century India substantially different from that of the previous century, with its high levels of poverty, bloated bureaucracies, and protectionist policies. He envisioned the new India as a major IT power, fully integrated with the global economy, bringing about substantial domestic and international benefit. The Internet is a key to this vision, both as an enabler of technology-based change, and as an indicator of the vision's fulfillment.

Using an analytic framework developed by the authors and others, this study documents the …

Feminist Tigers And Patriarchal Lions: Rhetorical Strategies And Instrument Effects In The Struggle For Definition And Control Over Development In Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

This article offers an analysis of a struggle for control of a women’s development project in Nepal. The story of this struggle is worth telling, for it is rife with the gender politics and neo-colonial context that underscore much of what goes on in contemporary Nepal. In particular, my analysis helps to unravel some of the powerful discourses, threads of interest, and yet unintended effects inevitable under a regime of development aid. The analysis demonstrates that the employment of already available discursive figures of the imperialist feminist and the patriarchal third world man are central to the rhetorical strategies taken …

The Internet In India And China, Larry Press, William Foster, Peter Wolcott, William Mchenry

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

This article compares the diffusion of the Internet in China and India. Using a six–dimension framework for characterizing the state of the Internet in a nation, we observe that, while both nations have made significant progress since our last comparison (in 1999), China enjoys a substantial lead over India.

We also examine determinants of Internet diffusion. We find that the Chinese Internet has benefited from economic and trade reform begun in the late 1980s, a strong government commitment to the Internet, complementary human and capital resources, etc. The two nations have very different governments and policies, leading to differing approaches …

The Influence Of Ramayana On The Vaishnava Hymns, R. Seeta Lechumi Ratha Krishnan

Student Works (2000-2009)

The aim of this study is to identify and assess the influences of the Ramayanas on the hymns of the Tamil Vaishnava saints called alvars. The hymns of each alvar is examined separately and the Ramayana incidents are then collectively scrutinised to assess the treatment of these incidents by the alvars. They are also compared with similar events in the Ramayanas of VaImiki and Kampar. Research for the study is based on the library method and for the collection of relevant material, the documentation method is used. The facts thus collected are analysed according to the synthesis method and then …

Tenant Partners For Community Education: A Family Literacy Project, Pamela J. Anderson

MA TESOL Collection

The purpose of this paper is to discuss, describe, and evaluate a family literacy program I developed as a pilot project for Southeast Asian immigrant families with elementary school-aged children living in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

I will give an overview of this project and review recent research on the different approaches to family literacy. Using a working definition of family literacy based upon current research and implementation in the field, the Indochinese Housing Family Literacy Project-a description of its structure and expected outcomes, lesson plans, and useful findings from current working programs-will be explored and described. Finally, …

Revival Of Traditions In Post-Soviet Central Asia, Anara Tabyshalieva

History Faculty Research

The collapse of the Soviet Union gave the unexpected gift of independence in 1991 to five new states in Central Asia-Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. In common with other post-socialist countries, these states are currently going through a transition period characterized by serious and worsening social and economic problems. The 55 million people who live in the region are facing problems of overpopulation, a chronic decline in living standards, and ecological crisis. There has also been a revival of patriarchal traditions and a reversal of female emancipation: The combination of Soviet and Muslim components has led to an …

The Use Of Plot Surveys For The Study Of Ethnobotanical Knowledge: A Brunei Dusun Example, Jay H. Bernstein, Roy Ellen, Bantong Bin Antaran

Publications and Research

This paper describes a technique for using plot surveys to measure individual informants' ethnobotanical knowledge of forests, as applied to the Dusun community of Merimbun in Brunei. Two knowledgeable but non-literate Dusun informants enumerated marked plots of both recent and old secondary growth mixed dipterocarp forest near the village. They were able to provide names (other than life-forms or the most general basic and intermediate categories) for 86-97% of species growing in the plots. Between 152 and 170 plant names were elicited by the surveys. In all cases, about 88% of the names were at the basic naming level and …

Ethnic And Language Identity Among A Select Group Of Vietnamese-Americans In Portland Oregon, Jay Owen Peterson

Dissertations and Theses

Vietnamese immigrants within the United States have demonstrated a strong desire to retain their ethnocultural identity. They have also experienced tremendous pressure to use English. What are the implications of these two trends for identity and language choice within the Vietnamese-American community? The presented research used multidimensional scaling (MDS) methods to describe the subjects' ethnic and language identities.

The population for the study consisted of adult Vietnamese-Americans who were born in Vietnam and were currently living in the US. The study had two stages. First, identity labels were generated using a modified Twenty Statements Test. A "Myself" label was added …

Higher-Order Categories In Brunei Dusun Ethnobotany: The Folk-Classification Of Rainforest Plants, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Licuala Palms In Brunei Dusun Ethnobotany, Jay H. Bernstein, Roy F. Ellen

Publications and Research

Several species of Licuala occur in the Merimbun area of Tutong district, Brunei Darussalam. One kind of Licuala, called benjiru by the local Dusun population, is often collected for sale as a vegetable. While Licuala is not generally considered an important economic plant, overharvesting in the Merimbun area suggests that conservation measures may be needed to protect it from local extinction. Besides benjiru, other kinds of Licuala recognized by the Dusun are called silad and ukang. The three kinds of Licuala do not have one overall name in the Dusun language, but constitute a covert category at the "intermediate" ethnobotanical …

Making Monotheism: Global Islam In Local Practice Among The Laujé Of Indonesia, Jennifer W. Nourse

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper explores the complex interaction between state-sanctioned Islam and local religious practice in Indonesia's periphery. In 1982 in the "county" of Tinombo, Central Sulawesi, immigrant Reform Muslims convinced the regional government to ban a spirit possession ritual performed by the indigenous Laufe people. Reformists claimed that Laujé spirit mediums were possessed by satanic spirits. Insulted by Reformists' claims that Laujé rites were pagan and they themselves were not Muslims, prominent Laujé went to officials in the government asking to rescind the ban. In their arguments, Laujé borrowed the rhetoric of Reform Islam. The ban was rescinded in 1984. Once …

Visions Of The Supreme Goddess: A Study In The Iconography Of The Hindu Goddess Kali, Carol Marie Angel

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Poisons And Antidotes Among The Taman Of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Among the Taman of kabupaten Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan, certain oils are used to cast and counteract spells. Antidotes are said to be made from the same substance as poisons, and thus a given antidote implies ownership of the poison, and this is one reason people are furtive in using, exchanging, and discussing this aspect of folk-medicine. Magical oils are generally obtained outside Taman society, and are used most often to cure illnesses presumed to have been contracted outside the society. These oils contain essences, and so can be reproduced by adding oil. However, specific knowledge is needed to use …

The Discourse Of Souls In Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions And Christian Conceptions, Kathleen M. Adams

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.