Books in the The Modern Anthropology of Southeast Asia series

This book analyses the processes of social, cultural and economic change in Brunei Darussalam.

This title provides an overview of the major theoretical issues and themes which have emerged from the engagement of anthropologists with southeast Asian communities.

This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Darussalam, the origins of the sultanate, its genealogical foundations and the structure and administration of Brunei society.

Investigates the myriad of ways in which the Balinese has responded to the influx of outside influence. This book focuses on the interrelationship between tourism, economy, culture and religion in Bali, painting a twenty-first century picture of the Balinese. It demonstrates the importance of a contextualized approach to the analysis of a society.

Bringing together over thirty years of detailed ethnographic research on the Menraq of Malaysia, this book analyses and documents the experience of development and modernization in tribal communities. It traces the transformation of the lives of Menraq resulting from resettlement, development, and various 'civilizing projects'.

Focuses upon the predicaments of the Orang Suku Laut or 'tribe of sea people', an indigenous people of Indonesia, in view of the challenges imposed upon them by the emergence of new borders on their maritime world.

Following the work of the 'Good Roots Project' - a multi-year forestry and agriculture research project in the Philippines, this comparative study aims to help the farmers of the island to help themselves. Ben Wallace, the director of the study, investigates the issues surrounding the project.

Using the case study of the Kadazan of Sabah, a region in the Malaysian section of Borneo, this book examines national, ethnic and local identities in post-colonial states. It shows the importance of the connection between lived experience and identity and belonging, and by doing so, provides a deeper and fuller explanation of the apparently contradictory conflict between different collective forms of identification and the way in which they are employed in reference to everyday situations.

Indonesia has achieved a successful transition to democracy and yet this democracy continues to be flawed, illiberal, and predatory.This book suggests that this and other paradoxes of democracy in Indonesia often assume occult forms in the Indonesian political imagination, and that the spirit-like character of democracy and corruption traverses into the national media and the political elite. It seeks to provide a portrait of Indonesiäs contradictory democracy, contending that the contradictions that haunt democracy in Indonesia also infect democracy globally. Exploring the intimate ways in which the world of politics and the world of spirits are entangled, it argues that Indonesiäs seemingly peculiar problems with democracy and spirits in fact reflect a set of contradictions within democracy itself.

Using the case study of the Kadazan of Sabah, a region in the Malaysian section of Borneo, this book examines national, ethnic and local identities in post-colonial states. It shows the importance of the connection between lived experience and identity and belonging, and by doing so, provides a deeper and fuller explanation of the apparently contradictory conflict between different collective forms of identification and the way in which they are employed in reference to everyday situations.

Indonesia has achieved a successful transition to democracy and yet this democracy continues to be flawed, illiberal, and predatory.This book suggests that this and other paradoxes of democracy in Indonesia often assume occult forms in the Indonesian political imagination, and that the spirit-like character of democracy and corruption traverses into the national media and the political elite. It seeks to provide a portrait of Indonesiäs contradictory democracy, contending that the contradictions that haunt democracy in Indonesia also infect democracy globally. Exploring the intimate ways in which the world of politics and the world of spirits are entangled, it argues that Indonesiäs seemingly peculiar problems with democracy and spirits in fact reflect a set of contradictions within democracy itself.