Abstracts for Issue no.5

Can We Save the Indigenous Minority Languages? The Case of the Remun Language of Sarawak, Malaysia

Mohamed Zahid Akter

Historical and contemporary pressures on language diversity have now left us with only about 6,912 languages. If this trend persists, we are likely to lose half of our total living languages in the present century alone (Krauss 1992 cited in Hinton 2001). Can we afford to lose so many languages (and so soon)? Standing at this juncture of linguistic history, it is crucial for us to understand the conditions in which we lose our languages and then to take steps to reverse the situation. The present study, in this context, will take Malaysia’s case of language endangerment into consideration. In doing so, it will look into the conditions of one of its relatively small indigenous languages named Remun. No doubt, a research of this magnitude will give us only a fragmentary picture of Malaysia’s language endangerment. Nonetheless, it may provide us with an insight and understanding necessary for taking effective measures to revitalize a language that requires our attention.

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Situation and Trends of Vietnamese Labor Export

Kannika Angsuthanasombat

The study examines the situation and trends of international labour migration in Vietnam, focusing on overseas workers, updating the pre-departure processing, labour market in destination countries, type of work, quality of Vietnamese workers, problems and the social impact of migration. Vietnamese labour export has rapidly increased since the 1980s when the Vietnamese government opened up the country to new markets such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Libya, and the Middle East. In 2006, more than 400,000 Vietnamese were working abroad in 40 countries and territories, mostly documented workers and unskilled workers. Remittances in 2006 totaled around US$1.6 billion annually. The trends of labour export show Vietnam’s target is to focus on increasing the number of labour export and remittances.

The pattern of the migration movement in Vietnam is very complicated with the growing problems related to human trafficking. As for labour export policy, Vietnam is concerned with meeting the quantity target more than improving the quality of guest workers. In spite of this, the quality has become an urgent issue as importing countries are raising standards of foreign labour. There are many challenges to Vietnam’s labor export policy including increasing the competitiveness, work opportunities for the nationals, protecting migrant workers’ rights, and improving their welfare.

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Chong Chan Fui

This research project aims to describe the current state of experimental filmmaking in Indonesia before and after the 1998 socio-economic-political events. Data was gathered primarily through 30-videotaped semi-structured interviews with Indonesian experimental filmmakers, film scholars and other local stakeholders (programmers, distributors, exhibitors, journalists, etc). Results show that Indonesian experimental filmmakers loosely define experimental cinema as a dynamic field that continuously explores new and alternative forms of expression through moving images. The presence of dedicated film schools (e.g. the IKJ), the increasing popularity of the art form, and the availability of mentors all helped in encouraging local filmmakers to pursue the field. Indonesian experimental cinema showcases an almost infinite variety of explorations in film topics and how they are presented. Film communities have emerged in various locales particularly in larger areas like Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bandung. The main problems faced by the industry as identified by the interviewees were: 1.) Inadequate systems for distribution and marketing; 2.) Inadequate facilities for exhibitions; 3.) Lack of systematic archiving and documentation; and 4.) Weak support for regeneration of new filmmakers. 

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Promoting Institutional Development for Sustainable Rangeland Management in Mountainous Areas of Northern Nepal

Dong Shikui

Rangelands represent one of the most important natural resources in mountainous regions of northern Nepal. However, a poor understanding of the social dimensions of rangeland use has limited their proper management and sustainable development and represent major challenges for Nepal’s resource managers. Institutional development is thought to be a viable solution to this problem and may ultimately lead to improved rangeland management in Nepal. Based on this hypothesis, a study was conducted in the Rasuwa district of northern Nepal to examine the effectiveness of institutional development at the local and national levels in mitigating the problems facing sustainable rangeland management. It can be concluded from this case study that a number of institutional development efforts are needed to promote sustainable rangeland management in this region. First, local herders represent a repository of rich indigenous knowledge essential to sustaining sound rangeland management practices; hence, indigenous practices need to be integrated into modern technologies. Second, public services and technical supports are currently unavailable or inaccessible to local herders; hence, research, development and extension interventions need to be initiated for marginalized pastoral communities. Third, rangeland institutions are incomplete and ill-organized, so institutional development of various organizations is necessary for promoting sustainable rangeland management. Fourth, the policies and governance necessary for promoting rangeland management are not well designed; hence, governance reform and policy development need to be formulated through internal and external agencies and organizations.

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Myanmar Migrant Workers in Thailand: Policies and Prospects

He Jinsong

One of the greatest issues facing the Kingdom of Thailand today is the management of transnational migrant workers (cross-border migrant workers) and the protection of their rights through proper policy-making and implementation in accordance with the International Human Protection of labor workers. Though Thailand is making slow but steady progress towards better protection of migrant workers, it is apparent that Thailand itself has difficulties tackling all problems of human mobility that poverty and lack of economic opportunities bring about. This paper focuses on the situation of Myanmar cross-border migrant workers in Thailand and Thai government policy on cross-border migrant workers, putting forward the feasibility of the establishment an equal, secure, democratic, and orderly Free-Labor-Flow Mechanism under the existing framework of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).

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Activism of Chinese Women Writers During Reform and Globalization

Sabaree Mitra

Since the policies of Economic Reform and Opening to the outside world were initiated in China in the late 1970s, more and more Chinese women writers have started to use gender as a relational category to highlight bias against women. So much so, that they have gradually emerged as a social activist group raising issues faced by Chinese women today. This paper is an effort to contextualize the activism of Chinese women writers in the foreground of the larger socio-economic and cultural canvas emerging in China as a result of economic reform and globalization. To this end, works of representative women writers have been studied and perceptions of writers and critics analyzed to underscore the linkage between women’s writings and the Chinese women’s cause in general, as manifested in any given period of time through the 1980s and the 1990s.

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Independent Digital Film Practice in Contemporary Malaysia: Imagining Malay/sia as a ‘Malaysian’ Malaysia?

Zakir Hossain Raju

This research paper attempts to locate the recent trend of independently produced digital films of Malaysia with/in contexts ranging from the national to the transnational. First, it attempts to position these films mostly by non-Malay (Chinese) Malaysian filmmakers alongside the Malay-language Malaysian national cinema as well as the Mahua (Malaysian Chinese) literature that developed in Malaysia in the last century or so. Secondly, the paper de-territorializes these Chinese-language films depicting the lives of the Chinese in/of Malaysia as transnational, transcultural entities.  It further examines such Malaysian Chinese films as a ‘new’ transnational Chinese cinema developed in connection with other transnational cinemas in the contemporary cosmopolitan world. It asks how this cinema is ‘transnational’ and if it bears some specific meaning of ‘Chinese-ness’ as it develops in today’s globalizing Malaysia. In that way, the contemporary digital film culture in Malaysia signifies attempts of seeing Malaysia, not as Malay/sia (that is only for the Malays), rather as a ‘Malaysian’ (read pluralist) Malaysia.

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Globalisation, Affirmative Action and Higher Education Reforms in Malaysia: A Tightrope Walk between Equality and Excellence

S. Srinivasa Rao
 

In the context of globalization, higher education systems have become sites for competition and contestations of various kinds in various societies. The competition and contestation for access and equality has become inevitable as there are higher levels of demand for fewer places in higher education and employment. This situation therefore calls for the attention of policy makers and sociologists to examine the impacts of globalization on strategies adopted to include the historically excluded social, ethnic and racial groups, on the one hand, and to achieve the requirements of the emerging labour market, industry and the global system of higher education on the other. The study of Malaysia provides an opportunity to learn and understand from the experiences of countries that have adopted neo-liberal economic reforms to address and balance the challenges posed by globalization on a multi-ethnic social fabric. 

In Malaysia, the overall orientation of the affirmative policies and development planning reflects a commitment of the dominant classes to capitalist development and the promotion of the capitalist interests and has not been wholly focused on the concerns of the economic and social underclass from among all the ethnic groups. It is not just a contention between different races, but it is also a contention among various social classes within each of the races. The forces of globalization drive the state to initiate policy reforms to achieve excellence, relevance and marketability of the higher education system and the local ethnic polarizations work in diagonally opposite directions by demanding equity in opportunities, access and treatment. This makes the policy reform process strained and contested between individuals, groups and institutions. In sum, the contestations in higher education are symptomatic of the tensions that prevail in the society and economy at large.  

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Danilo Francisco M. Reyes

Broad as it may seem, the nation stands for the multiform of figural constructs favoring collective representation inside the museum.  Where museums display a wide and engaging range of curiosities and objects, they feature not only things but also ideal ways of seeing. The display alludes to forces in society, groups with a keen interest and fierce stake in directing the nation. Through this project on Thai museological practices, I have traced national allegories through museum objects, the living spaces forged inside museums, the helpful narratives, timelines, and annotations accompanying the exhibits, the manner of enlarging the collection, its instructional goals, target crowd, the practical functions that it fulfills against the matrix of other museums, and the force of public perception that affirms and contests, both, the national allegories that museums project.  Museum objects then, become performative constructs of social allegory as society lists, preserves, and promotes its most significant concerns.

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Politics and Canon of Audience: Tourists and Local Cultural Performances

Shiva Ram Rijal

Tourists have become important audiences of traditional performing arts. Audiences and even performers themselves finally arrive at a venue for a performance after crossing several boundaries created by agents of tourism -- from tour leader to local guide and hotel crew to hawker. In this process of becoming an audience, a tourist becomes a 'meta-tourist'. Urry calls him or her a 'post-tourist' (Urry 2002: 91), someone who is conscious of being a tourist at a certain point of time and place in his or her life and one who is always in the process of becoming a tourist. Since local performers know that they are performing for tourists, they too become 'meta-performers' for the tourists; they are conscious of performing for some kinds of audience. Thus performance in such contexts itself assumes a 'meta-local' and 'meta-touristic' quality since it tries its best to remain local.

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Transnational Peace Building in Asia: A comparative study of aid, conflict and peace in Aceh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka

Ancestor Worship In Chinese Society in Sarawak, Malaysia

Muhammad Ikhsan Tanggok

This paper discusses Chinese ancestor worship rituals in Sarawak, Malaysia. The central concern of this study is the description and analysis of Chinese ancestor worship rituals, such as the ceremony of death done at the houses and the graveyards, and annual rituals like the Ching Ming, Chinese Tomb Festivals, and the Hungry Ghost Festival. Chinese ancestor worship practices in Sarawak function not only as family rituals but also as a means to unite family members who are still alive with their dead ancestors. It is also a time to offer gifts and counter-offer gifts, a time of reciprocity between family members and their ancestors. Moreover, Chinese ancestor worship in Sarawak benefits not only Chinese family members but also results in economic profit for others from the other ethnic groups in Sarawak Malaysia.

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Comparative Study of the Policy Towards Ethnic Minorities of P.R. China and Vietnam

Teng Chengda

China and Vietnam are multi-ethnic countries, with culturally diverse ethnic groups. Ethnic issues and policies towards ethnic minorities of these two countries were shaped by Marxist theories inflected by the actual situations of each country. Equality, unity, and mutual assistance are foundational principles of the policies towards ethnic minorities in these two countries. In the interest of equality and national unity, China and Vietnam both have special policies towards ethnic minorities specific to their own ethnic issues. This paper mainly concerns contemporary policies towards ethnic minorities in China and Vietnam that aim to develop the economy as well as preserve the traditional culture of ethnic minorities. In China and Vietnam, the similarities in ethnic minority policies outnumber the differences. By comparing the economic and cultural aspects of these policies, this study casts light on the reasons for the similarities and differences and the developing tendencies of the policy towards ethnic minorities of China and Vietnam.

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