Koichi Fujita, Re-thinking Economic Development: The Green Revolution, Agrarian Structure and Transformation in Bangladesh (Hardcover)

This study investigates the impact of agrarian development programs on rural class structure in Bangladesh and highlights how the local administration of infrastructure affected the social stratification of villages. Fujita shows how the so-called Green Revolution was conducive to the formation of the groundwater market and the emergence of the 'waterlords'. This book demonstrates the ways in which the failure of formal finance facilities contributed to the credit flow from the wealthy to the poor, with the transformation of the potato-marketing system and the structure of rural finance.

Mariko Urano, The Limits of Tradition: Peasants and Land Conflicts in Indonesia (Hardcover)

The Limits of Tradition explores the discourse of adat (customary or traditional) landownership that played an important role in peasant resistance against Indonesia's state development programs and demonstrates its inherent limits as a viable instrument for enhancing the rights of forest-dwelling communities. The book traces the process in which the Indonesian government, as well as NGOs, developed competing interpretations of the discourse, and the study presents fieldwork reports on how the lower classes appropriated it. The Limits of Tradition represents an in-depth analysis of the role of subaltern elites in creating and organizing counter-hegemonic culture.

Tran Duc Vien, A. Terry Rambo and Nguyen Thanh Lam (eds), Farming with Fire and Water: The Human Ecology of a Composite Swiddening Community in Vietnam's Northern Mountains

The book offers a description of composite swiddening, a traditional Southeaster Asian agricultural system that combines shifting cultivation fields on the hillsides with irrigated paddy fields in the valleys. The book challenges the conventional belief that shifting cultivation inevitably causes deforestation. It describes this complex agro-ecosystem in terms of individual components, its adaptation to ongoing changes, and its wider use elsewhere in Vietnam's northern mountains. It will be of interest to Southeast Asian area scholars, agricultural ecologists, ethnologists and upland development policymakers.

Yoshifumi Tamada, Myths and Realities: The Democratization of Thai Politics (Paperback)

This study traces the current instability of Thai politics back to the 1990s. The book challenges the prevailing view that the nation's democratization process in the decade was led by the active middle class and presents an alternative explanation focusing upon the appeasement of 'passive' forces. The Japanese original of the book won an Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize in 2003.

Takashi Shiraishi and Pasuk Phongpaichit (eds), The Rise of Middle Classes in Southeast Asia

The rise of the new middle classes in Southeast Asia brought about important transformations in various countries politically, socially, economically and culturally, while producing new 'East Asian lifestyles' that transcend national boundaries and causing the reorganization of urban space. Based on the framework of comparative politics, this study first examines the regional significance of the growth of the middle classes after the economic crisis in 1997–1998 and pays special attention to the conditions which led the fall of the Thaksin government as a consequence of a military coup. From the international relations point of view, this collective work by Southeast Asian specialists also uses abundant data to unravel the regionalization of the cultural industry across East Asia.

Shigeyuki Abe and Bhanupong Nidhipraba (eds), East Asian Economies and New Regionalism

In the face of the financial crisis of East Asia in 1997, Japan successfully pressed forth the Miyazawa Plan and other efficient rescue packages while the IMF and the World Bank failed to present effective programs. With its presence established, Japan kept playing a leading role in formulating the Chiang Mai Initiative which facilitated bilateral and regional economic cooperation in the area. Based on the analysis of this process, the book examines the ways in which East Asia has grappled with the regional integration of the economies of the area. The study focuses upon competing developmental models, the effects of FTA and EPA, the initiatives of ASEAN, investments and trades in the region. The contributors to the book then inquire what can be done in financial and monetary domains with a special attention paid to the effects of the depreciation of currencies and the consequences of the IMF emergency policies. The study also addresses the issues of productivity, problems of agrarian small states and difficulties of the socially weak in the region.

Toshihiro Nobuta, Living on the Periphery: Development and the Islamization of the Orang Asli

Using ethnographic data, this study reveals the way in which state-initiated development projects and the process of islamization influence the life world of the Orang Asli, the indigenous group in Malaysia.

Ryoji Soda, People on the Move: Rural-Urban Interactions in Sarawak

Based on a decade of observation and interviews in a Sarawak village, Ryoji Soda examines out-migration from the village. The themes include: the migrants' living strategies in urban areas; their frequent moves between rural and urban areas; and kinship relations between rural and urban residents. This is a fresh ethnographic perspective on human mobility, rural-urban interactions, development policy and family relations.

Takashi Shiraishi and Patricio N. Abninales (eds), After the Crisis: Hegemony, Technocracy and Governance in Southeast Asia

This book is about Southeast Asia - above all Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines - after the Asian financial crisis. It takes up the complex interactions and tensions among Southeast Asian states, markets and societies within the context of a regional order under American hegemony, with emphasis on individuals and collectivities whose thoughts and actions actively intervene in the shaping of relations between and among the three realms.

Patricio N. Abinales, Noboru Ishikawa and Akio Tanabe (eds), Dislocating Nation-States: Globalization in Asia and Africa

As much of the world turns its attention to questions of the role and even survival of the nation-state formation in an increasingly globalized world, the authors of this interdisciplinary volume shift the focus of the debate by examining various sites of social action where the nation-state is still in a formative stage even as it is increasingly under threat. Including micro level ethnographies, local histories and a macro-theoretical overview of the world-system, this volume directly engages with the complexities of globalization in marginal and troubled states; complexities that are themselves typically marginalized in debates all too often obsessed with the plight of the most powerful and developed nations.

Ichiro Kakizaki, Laying the Tracks: The Thai Economy and its Railways 1885-1935 (Hardcover)

Published in January 2005. This economic history of the early development of Thailand's railways details the rail policies of the royal government, from the end of the 19th century to 1932, when the Constitutional Revolution overthrew it. It also assesses the role and impact of the railways on Thailand's economy in terms of the degree to which they reduced transport time and cost, as well as the extent to which they altered the flow of commodities and the transportation of passengers across the country.

Terry Rambo, Searching for Vietnam (Hardcover)

This volume brings together within a single set of covers much of what the author has written about Vietnam over the past forty years. The book opens with an autobiographical account of his history as a Vietnam researcher that sets each of the selections into the context of the time and situation in which it was written. The writings are grouped into five topical sections. Each part includes a brief introduction that describes the selections it contains. Part I deals with cultural history, religion, and cultural ecology, Part II with the Vietnamese village, Part III with the impact of the war on South Vietnamese society, Part IV with Vietnam's development prospects in the its reform period, and Part V with problems of development in Vietnam's mountains.

Yoko Hayami, Between Hills and Plains: Power and Practice in Socio-Religious Dynamics among Karen (Hardcover)

Located 'betwixt and between' the hills and the plains, 'tradition' and 'modernity', the peripheries and the mainstream of the modern nation-state, Hayami's study of the Karen in northwestern Thailand provides a window into the ways people adapt their practices and values in the face of encroaching social and economic forces. Re-examining the historical records while providing a detailed ethnographic account of customary rituals and practices, Hayami overturns previous interpretations of religious adaptation which suggested that the uptake of Christianity and Buddhism in the region has been 'superficially' concerned with embodied practices at the expense of doctrinal conformity. Arguing that such an interpretation is trapped within an ideological understanding of religion, Hayami demonstrates here that the Karen are active participants in seeking out, adapting and adopting new religious practices in ways that enable the maintenance of communal boundaries and cultural particularity at the same time as they integrate themselves into the broader stream of Thai society.

Hisao Furukawa, Mitsuaki Nishibuchi, Yusaku Kono and Yoshiro Kaida (eds), Ecological Destruction, Health and Development: Advancing Asian Paradigms (Hardcover)

This title won the 2005 gold prize for the best translated or co-published academic books awarded by the Asian Pacific Publishers Association.

Uniquely interdisciplinary in orientation, experts in ecology, agriculture, medicine and development studies have joined forces to produce this large-scale study. The authors argue that a number of qualitatively different regional types exist in the world, each comprising its own homeostasis. The book presents a fresh perspective on environmental area studies and demonstrates that the globalizing process leads to the destruction of the co-existence of human beings and their environment.

Yoko Hayami, Akio Tanabe and Yumiko Tokita-Tanabe (eds), Gender and Modernity: Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific (Paperback)
Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic fieldwork, this anthology examines the complexities of identity formation and self-positioning in post-colonial contexts, ranging from the impact of Christian missionaries on the women of Aboriginal Australia to the re-masculinization of post-colonial subjects in Eastern India, from the negotiation of gendered spaces in Indonesia and Thailand to the ways in which Japanese popular culture 'plays' with gender identities. Focusing in particular on the negotiation of gender categories, these papers reveal that local actors are confronted with the competing values and rationalities of local traditions and global modernity.

Yoko Hayami, Akio Tanabe and Yumiko Tokita-Tanabe (eds), Gender and Modernity: Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific (Hardcover)

This is a hardcover version.

Lye Tuck-po, Wil de Jong and Ken-ichi Abe (eds), The Political Ecology of Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia (Paperback)
Published in February 2003. Following an interdisciplinary approach to debates about the future of tropical forests in Southeast Asia, the authors - each experts in their field - unravel the extent to which the interests of local inhabitants, nation-states and international environmental movements are intertwined. The volume investigates the highly politicized context in which local forestry problems intersect with global market forces and emphasizes the importance of examining local issues in their own right.

Lye Tuck-po, Wil de Jong and Ken-ichi Abe (eds), The Political Ecology of Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia (Hardcover)

This is a hardcover version.

Yukio Hayashi, Practical Buddhism among the Thai-Lao: Religon in the Making of a Region (Paperback)
Published in February 2003. Based on long-term fieldwork, Hayashi presents the local history of Thai-Lao religion and society, up to and including its present-day dynamics. The volume clarifies the position of the Lao as a people as well as the social composition and changes in Lao village society. Working from the analytical premise that concepts such as Buddhism and magic are intrinsic to the multi-faceted statements of the people who live in the particular locality, Hayashi describes the diachronic process and the dynamics of indigenous religious 'knowledge' in this regional context. The study reveals how religious practices, and associated knowledge of the dynamic local world, take diverse forms across the generations.

Yukio Hayashi, Practical Buddhism among the Thai-Lao: Religon in the Making of a Region (Hardcover)

This is a hardcover version.

Kasian Tejapira, Commodifying Marxism: The Formation of Modern Thai Radical Culture (Paperback)
This study reveals a process of cultural and political interaction resulting in a mutual transformation of exogenous Marxism and indigenous Thai culture. Tejapira traces the introduction of Sino-Vietnamese communism into Siam during the absolute monarchy in the late 1920s until the late 1950s when, under the military regime, it emerges as a particularly Thai cultural phenomenon. Marxism/communism entered the post-war Thai cultural market in the form of printed commodities, whose demand, supply and reproduction ebbed and flowed with the volatile and violent tide of international and domestic events. It was paradoxically diffused but dissolved by capitalist publishing, censored yet promoted by anti-communist authoritarian regimes. Through this process some Thai radical intellectuals translated Marxism/communism into the Thai language and rhyming verse.

Kasian Tejapira, Commodifying Marxism (Hardcover)

This is the hardcover edition of the above title.

Yoshihiro Tsubouchi, One Malay Village: A Thirty-Year Community Study (Paperback)
In a society recognized for its multi-racial constitution, the relative homogeneity of Kelantan has inspired numerous researchers to seek the 'essence' of 'Malay-ness' in the traditional ethnic events and distinctive form of Islam practiced there. Drawing on the research conducted during more than ten site-visits to the Kelantan community over a 30 year period, One Malay Village is a comparison of Tubouchi's initial and final surveys. Through the juxtaposition of two 'snap-shots' taken twenty years apart he reveals a process of change occurring in the community which even the locals are at risk of over-looking. The rapid changes experienced by this Malay community expose the limitations of analytic frameworks such as urban-rural community, modernization, and urbanization.

Yoshihiro Tsubouchi, One Malay Village: A Thirty-Years Community Study (Hardcover)
This book is the hardcover version of the above title.

Kunio Yoshihira, The Nation and Economic Growth: Korea and Thailand
The book urges economists to pay greater attention to the nation as the context of economic growth. By taking Korea and Thailand as a pair of contrasting nations, the author shows how a nation's economic growth is influenced by the culture and institutions imbedded in it.