{"title":"Bangkok middle-class spectatorship and social realist media: contesting modernity through visualizing Muslim minorities","authors":"Treepon Kirdnark","doi":"10.1080/0967828X.2022.2111268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2022.2111268","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since the escalation of violence in the three southern border provinces of Thailand began in 2004, the body of literature on Thai Muslims has grown, with newer works offering fresh insights into the deep-rooted conflict. That said, scholarly works gauging the interplay between media portrayals of Muslim minorities and ideological works are surprisingly scarce. To fill the gap, this article examines social realist media, namely films and a music video, produced in the 1980s. Drawing on visual culture and Thai postcolonial studies as theoretical underpinnings, it seeks to illuminate the interplay between Bangkok middle-class spectatorship and Muslim minorities by framing them within Thailand’s postcolonial context. The findings show that visual references to Muslimness are made to connote inferiority vis-à-vis the supposedly modern Bangkok middle class. The article argues that, in the 1980s, the visuality of Muslimness enabled the newly formed Bangkok middle classes to forge a superior visual subjectivity while perpetuating ‘Muslim others’ as a group in need of development by the aforementioned middle class. Furthermore, emerging from the postcolonial world, visuality became a site of struggle in which the emerging classes contested the notion of modernity that had hitherto been exclusively intertwined with the elites.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"361 - 376"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43297113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The value of wild fish: diet and livelihoods in two rural villages in the Mun River Basin, northeastern Thailand","authors":"Sirasak Gaja-Svasti, I. Baird, K. Manorom","doi":"10.1080/0967828X.2022.2118621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2022.2118621","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Over the last few decades, much has been written about the negative impacts of hydropower dams on wild-capture fisheries in the Mekong River Basin. Furthermore, some studies associated with the water–energy–food nexus have appropriately linked the impacts of hydropower dams to fisheries and human nutrition. Although some research related to food security and nutrition considered changes in human dietary preferences over time, studies about the impacts of hydropower dams on fisheries often implicitly assume that there have been no changes in dietary preferences. Here, we investigate two communities located near tributaries of the Mun River in Ubon Ratchathani Province, northeastern Thailand. We find that while wild-caught aquatic animals remain important, their utilization has shifted due to changes in dietary preferences and other factors. In particular, people often sell wild-caught fish, and use the money to buy other types of animal protein to consume. We suggest that this important issue deserves more attention.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"287 - 307"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59597890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beauty, educational prestige and vote choice in Indonesia: an experimental study","authors":"Ferdinand Eskol Tiar Sirait, Afrimadona, Eriyanto","doi":"10.1080/0967828X.2022.2119160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2022.2119160","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates how young voters make political choices in the absence of adequate information about the candidates they will vote for. Under conditions of low information, voters often use whatever cues they see in the ballot paper to help them make decisions in a short time. This mental process is known as heuristics. Using online experimental methods with two-by-two factorial design, this study examines two forms of heuristics that young voters can use in their political decisions, namely, candidates’ appearance and their academic degrees. The results show that only the candidates’ academic attainment has a significant effect on the voting preferences of young voters. This academic degree primarily affects voters’ intention to vote. However, neither academic titles nor beautiful faces have any effect on voters’ willingness to recommend the candidates to others, engage in their campaigns, or contribute to their campaign finances.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"341 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44385237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wayward distractions: ornament, emotion, zombies and the study of Buddhism in Thailand","authors":"P. Jackson","doi":"10.1080/0967828x.2022.2122238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828x.2022.2122238","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"402 - 404"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47088632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Citizen designs: city-making and democracy in northeastern Thailand","authors":"Leedom Lefferts","doi":"10.1080/0967828x.2022.2093527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828x.2022.2093527","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"399 - 401"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48972570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Amnesia: a history of democratic idealism in modern Thailand","authors":"Wasana Wongsurawat","doi":"10.1080/0967828x.2022.2114707","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828x.2022.2114707","url":null,"abstract":"exploring the many dimensions of the plenitude of Thai religiosity that fascinates him so much. A second volume of McDaniel’s collected articles is in train and will focus on his ‘wayward distractions’ in studying Thai Buddhist texts and histories. This second collection, to be called Further Wayward Distractions: Cacophanies, Erasures and Transformations in the Study of Buddhism in Thailand (2022), will undoubtedly provide an equally useful assembly of studies to further instantiate the cacophonous plenitude of the phenomena that, for better or worse, are labelled as making up ‘Thai Buddhism’.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"404 - 406"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45312399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Good for the country, beneficial to the family’: the Bắc Hưng Hải irrigation system and pragmatic collectivism in post-1954 northern Vietnam","authors":"T. Pham","doi":"10.1080/0967828X.2022.2122544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2022.2122544","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Focusing on the construction of the Bắc Hưng Hải irrigation system (Đại thủy nông Bắc Hưng Hải) in socialist northern Vietnam in the late 1950s, this article examines the statecraft of the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) as it sought to build socialism in the post-1954 period. To mobilize the free labour of local workers (dân công) to construct the massive irrigation system, the DRV's key strategy was to encourage workers to embrace a moral value that I term ‘pragmatic collectivism’. In official narratives about Bắc Hưng Hải, the labour service of local workers embodied not only their voluntary contribution to collective interests, i.e. the benefits of others, the country and socialism, but also their righteous pursuit of the immediate benefits of themselves, their families and villages. While this state-sanctioned version of collectivist morality shared remarkable similarity with the universal value of collectivism widely upheld in other socialist contexts, particularly the Soviet Union and China, it also incorporated elements much in contrast with Soviet-style collectivism, notably the treatment of the pursuit of individual and family benefits as in harmony with, rather than in conflict with, the pursuit of collective interest.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"308 - 324"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41659397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic Cold War: Chinese economic aid to Vietnam, 1954–1975","authors":"Lu Hong","doi":"10.1080/0967828X.2022.2125337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2022.2125337","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In both the first and second Indochina wars, Vietnam had a wide range of support from socialist countries, especially from its neighbour China, which was called the ‘elder brother’. From the 1950s, China assisted Vietnam in its resistance against the United States and its allies. By comparing changes in Chinese grants and loans to key moments in the anti-American war in Vietnam, this article argues that Beijing’s assistance was tied to US actions in South East Asia. The view from Vietnamese archival materials shows shifts in Chinese support that coincide with Beijing’s strategic calculation in dealing with the US in the global conflict. Although both Vietnam and China were in the socialist camp and had a shared ideology, there were profound contradictions in Chinese assistance to Hanoi. The article reveals that while supporting Vietnam, China pursued its own benefits, leading to Vietnam’s suspicion about China’s real intentions in Indochina. This perspective can explain why the war between China and Vietnam happened in 1979, soon after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"325 - 340"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45823275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Film is dangerous: ten years of censorship in Thailand’s cinema, 2010–2020","authors":"Sudarat Musikawong, Malinee Khumsupa","doi":"10.1080/0967828X.2022.2129429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2022.2129429","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The passing of the Cinema Act of 1930 marked the enforcement of the first official cinematic censorship measures in Thailand. However, it was constitutive censorship combined with official and expansive censorship practices enforced by the Film Censor Board that created an environment of self-censorship which is most dangerous for freedom of speech in cinema. The justification for banning films was that they constituted a threat to the nation – national security, unity, culture, religious values or good morality. In Thailand, the paramount framing of censorship is nationalism. Even in contemporary times, these nationalist formations of censorship are put into effect in the 2008 National Film and Video Act. This article analyses the expansive and subjective interpretation of national threat, especially the term of ‘morality’, which is not exclusive to film production, but extends into curatorial exhibitions and audiences’ access to cinema, an art form which is constrained by the censor/rating boards.","PeriodicalId":45498,"journal":{"name":"South East Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"377 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44908209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}