SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES: Book Review

48 posts

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Nishaant Choksi

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Signs of Deference, Signs of Demeanour: Interlocutor Reference and Self-Other Relations across Southeast Asian Speech Communities Dwi Noverini Djenar and Jack Sidnell, eds. Singapore: NUS Press, 2023. The edited collection Signs of Deference, Signs of Demeanour is an important milestone in bringing the insights of […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Ming Gao

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia Katharine E. McGregor Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2023. The issue of “comfort women” is about the history of sexual violence and Japan’s military-enforced slavery system in Asia. At the same time, it touches on issues […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Thitiwut Boonyawongwiwat

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Repossessing Shanland: Myanmar, Thailand, and a Nation-State Deferred Jane M. Ferguson Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021. Since its independence in 1948, Myanmar has not experienced prolonged political stability either with respect to relations between ethnic groups or with respect to civil-military relations. One could […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Dulyapak Preecharush

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Burmese Haze: US Policy and Myanmar’s Opening—and Closing Erin Murphy Ann Arbor: Association of Asian Studies, 2022. The United States has diverse national interests and poses strategic threats in several Asian states, with significant diplomatic, economic, security, and geopolitical implications. China’s rising power challenges the […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Jae-Eun Noh

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory Kevin Blackburn Singapore: NUS Press, 2022. Kevin Blackburn’s The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory broadens understanding of “comfort women”1) by uncovering the “disappeared” collective memory of Singapore as a onetime “centre for comfort […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Krisna Uk

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories: Jarai and Other Lives in the Cambodian Highlands Jonathan Padwe Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories delves into the relationship the Jarai of Tang Kadon village have forged with their land as it has been tested through […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Erick White

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Stone Masters: Power Encounters in Mainland Southeast Asia Holly High, ed. Singapore: NUS Press, 2022. While Stone Masters: Power Encounters in Mainland Southeast Asia initially introduces itself rather humbly as an examination of “stone veneration in mainland Southeast Asia” (p. 5), it quickly expands into a […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, BOOK REVIEWS, Sharon A. Bong

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 BOOK REVIEWS The Camphor Tree and the Elephant: Religion and Ecological Change in Maritime Southeast Asia Faizah Zakaria Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2023. The accolades for Faizah Zakaria’s The Camphor Tree and the Elephant (on the publisher’s website)—“Absolutely fantastic” and “Insightful work on such […]

Vol. 13, No. 1, Watanabe Hiroki and Ubukata Fumikazu

Contents>> Vol. 13, No. 1 Negotiation under Authoritarian Environmentalism: A Case Study of Mangrove Shrimp Farming in Vietnam Watanabe Hiroki* and Ubukata Fumikazu** *渡邉大樹, Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, Okayama University, 3-1-1, Tsushima-naka, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan Corresponding author’s e-mail: pt0e5qtc[at]s.okayama-u.ac.jp https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7817-4543 **生方史数, Faculty of Environmental, Life, Natural […]

Vol. 12, No. 3, BOOK REVIEWS, Chan Cheow Thia

Contents>> Vol. 12, No. 3 Siting Postcoloniality: Critical Perspectives from the East Asian Sinosphere Pheng Cheah and Caroline S. Hau, eds. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022. Is it still meaningful to speak of the postcolonial today? Scholars of postcolonial studies may recall how Arif Dirlik once criticized the term’s overt […]

Vol. 12, No. 3, BOOK REVIEWS, Anna Felicia C. Sanchez

Contents>> Vol. 12, No. 3 Crip Colony: Mestizaje, US Imperialism, and the Queer Politics of Disability in the Philippines Sony Coráñez Bolton Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2023. In this stunning theoretical and archival work, Sony Coráñez Bolton dives into the interstices of global colonial strategies and postcolonial projects […]

Vol. 12, No. 3, BOOK REVIEWS, Holly High

Contents>> Vol. 12, No. 3 In Search of Justice in Thailand’s Deep South: Malay Muslim and Thai Buddhist Women’s Narratives John Clifford Holt, ed.; Soraya Jamjuree, comp.; and Hara Shintaro, trans. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022. In May of 2008, Saimah Che’nae was nursing a newborn at her home […]