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Southeast Asian Studies Programme
presents

Graduate Seminar Series 2004

Wednesday, 3 November 2004 , 3.00 – 5.30 p.m.
AS3, Level 6, SEASP Seminar Room

SE6770 Preliminary Graduate Seminars

These presentations by incoming graduate research students are intended to facilitate the development of their thesis topics and proposals. They share their preliminary thoughts and findings with the wider scholarly community in the hope of securing helpful comments and feedback.

Speakers and Topics:

1. Koh Kim Seng (PhD student)
Topic: Understanding Myanmar : Is the developmental trajectory, post 1988, politics of bigotry or survival?

2. Nikki Briones (PhD student)
Topic : Multiple Meanings of “ Moro-Moro":
Colonial Theater and Native Resistance in the Philippines

3. Davisakd Puaksom (PhD student)
Topic: The Pursuit of Java: Thai Panji stories, (un)translation, and discoveries of the “Panyi” kingdom

Contact: Professor Ileto (68746338) and Dr Sulistiyanto (68746588)

ALL ARE WELCOME

An Open Panel

Thailand: Why is the South on Fire?

Organized by
Graduate Students of Southeast Asian Studies Programme

Date: 29 October 2004
Day/Time: Friday, 2:30 - 4:30 pm
Venue: Faculty Lounge, AS7 - Ground Floor

Abstract

On 4 January 2004 there was a violent incident in an army camp in Narathiwat, Southern Thailand. This was followed by the burning of 11 schools in the area. These events were the start of violence that would engulf the Muslim-dominated provinces of Southern Thailand, also known as the "Deep South". A series of actions by both the state and local communities have culminated in spiralling and often invidious turmoil. The situation reached its peak when the bodies of Muslim youths lay dead outside Masayid Kruese (Kruesae Mosque) in Pattani on 28 April 2004 after a controversial clash with law enforcement officers. The ensuing troubles reflect tensions between the state and local communities.

The aim of this panel is to discuss Thailand's Muslim community in the South and their perceptions of disenfranchisement from the state. Multiple perspectives have emerged in an effort to explicate the mess. The forum aims to offers a balanced view of the various issues concerned. We also hope to achieve a broader understanding of the situation that has implications both for the Thai State and society as well as the Southeast Asian region.

Speakers

Mr Ahmad Somboon is a former academic from Prince of Songkla University who has extensive connections with the Muslim communities in Southern Thailand. He is also frequently consulted by cabinet ministers and quoted in the Bangkok Post and other major Thai dailies.

Mr. Muhammad Arafat is a graduate student working on his MA at the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS.

Dr. Michael Montesano is Assistant Professor at the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS.


Contact: Thirumaran: (6874-5010)

ALL ARE WELCOME

Southeast Asian Studies Programme
presents

Living in Tua Pek Kong's Shadow: Narrative Production and the Politics of Chinese Monumentality in a Kelantanese Thai Community.

by

Wednesday, 20 October 2004, 3.00 - 4.30pm
AS3, Level 6, SEASP Seminar Room

Abstract

The past twenty years have witnessed the mushrooming of Chinese inspired religious statutory in Kelantan's Thai Buddhist temples. Built by the Thais themselves in their ethnically homogenous villages, the statues have become visible symbols of a Buddhist presence in a Malay Muslim state. They loom large over surrounding dry rice fields and can be seen from major roads. These gigantic cement creations attract large numbers of Chinese visitors from across Malaysia and Singapore to the otherwise unassuming Thai villages. The statues have become nodes in a new stream of mobility that has expanded the boundaries of the Thai settlement tying it to the cultural dynamics of Chinese tourist-pilgrimage networks, ethnic economics and national politics. In my talk, I will show how through their engagement with these mobile cultural processes, Kelantanese Thai villagers produce narratives of personhood structured upon essentialized notions of cultural difference. Within this context of crisscrossing flows and travel circuits, Kelantanese Thais thus carved for themselves a stable and spatialized understanding of their ethnocultural identity.

Speaker

Irving Chan Johnson is Assistant Professor at the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS. He is a social anthropologist interested in issues of identity production, history and mobilities in the Thai villages of Kelantan, Malaysia. He obtained a PhD from Harvard University in 2004. His secondary interests include the anthropology of performance in SEA, indigenous histories, religion, and Sri Lanka. Irving's current research looks at the histories and experiences of movement, monumentality, and expansive diasporic spaces along the Thai-Malaysian border. His publications include "Seductive Mediators: The Nuuraa Performer's Ritual Persona as a Love Magician in Kelantanese Thai Society" in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30(2) pp. 286-309, and "The Buddha and the Puritan: A Weberian Analysis of Protestant Buddhism" in Sri Lanka Journal of Social Science, Vol.26(2).

Convenor: Dr Priyambudi Sulistiyanto (6874-6588)

ALL ARE WELCOME

Southeast Asian Studies and Thai Language Programmes
Sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
jointly present

The Thai Classical Music Instruments: An Introduction

a lecture demonstration by

Associate Professor Bussakorn Sumrongthong
Deputy Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Wednesday, 6 October 2004, 3.00 - 4.30 p.m.
AS3, Level 6, SEASP Seminar Room

Abstract

Dr Bussakorn will be using the set of Thai instruments recently gifted to the Southeast Asia Studies Programme and the Thai Language Programme by HRH Princess Maha Chakkri Sirindhorn.

Dr Bussakorn will introduce and demonstrate the different Thai instruments and the basic knowledge of Thai musical practice and improvisation. The first Thai musical instruments were used for the most part for signals or to announce the time such as drum and bell. The earliest instrument had onomatopoetic names. Later on instruments were named according to their characteristic shape or customary use in ensembles. Thai musical ensembles consist of xylophones, metalophones, gongchimes, zithers, bowed string instruments, cymbals, and drums. Each instrument has it own role when performing and can be found with various ornamentation. There are different Thai music schools in Thailand that provide private lessons for everyone who would like to explore Thai music knowledge. Each part of Thailand has its own musical dialect and culture. The musical production is always involved with people ways of life in that region.

The Speaker

Associate Professor Bussakorn Sumrongthong, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from University of York, UK. Besides teaching and research, she is a renowned and active performer and composer, and she has conducted many Thai music workshops in Asian, European, and American countries.

Convenor: Dr Priyambudi Sulistiyanto (6874-6588)

ALL ARE WELCOME

Southeast Asian Studies Programme
presents

Chinese Customs, Women's Education:
A 1918 Case Study from the Dutch East Indies

by

Dr Tineke Hellwig
Asian Studies, University of British Columbia

Monday, 13 September 2004, 10.30 am-12.00 noon
AS3, Level 6, SEASP Staff Meeting Room (#06-21)

Abstract

Lingua franca or colloquial Malay narratives from the Dutch East Indies, published in the early twentieth century, have long been considered “popular literature” in “Low Malay” (bahasa Melayu Rendah) as opposed to “Literature” (with a capital L) in “High Malay”. These Malay texts represent a transition in literary genres and styles, from traditional to modern, and should be regarded as an integral part of the manifold societal changes and the modernization process around 1900.

This presentation takes two 1918 Malay narratives as its point of departure: Rasia Bandoeng by Chabanneau and Tjerita Nona Tan Seng Nio Alias Hermine T. by K. Kh. Liong. They tell about the life of Hermine Tan, a historical figure from Bandung (1898-1957). A critical reading shows how these texts strongly condemn a Western education for Chinese women in the Indies. I will juxtapose the literary Malay representations of Hermine Tan with the untold stories about her life, using the unpublished memoirs of her nephew and the non-official family stories told by her children.

The Speaker

Tineke Hellwig is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). She received her Ph.D. degree in Indonesian literature from Leiden University (the Netherlands). Her dissertation on women in modern Indonesian novels was published under the title In the Shadow of Change (1994, UC Berkeley) and an Indonesian translation came out last year. Her current research focuses on lingua franca Malay narratives from the Dutch East Indies. Her book Adjustment and Discontent (Windsor, Ontario) was a first introduction to this topic.

Convenor: Dr Priyambudi Sulistiyanto (6874-6588)

ALL ARE WELCOME

Southeast Asian Studies Programme
Graduate Seminar Series
presents

The Rockefeller Foundation
in

The Making of Modern Rice

by

Miss Chua Bann
PhD Student, SEASP, NUS

Wednesday, 15 September 2004, 3.30-5pm
AS3, Level 6, SEASP Seminar Room (#06-20)

Abstract

Being the staple food of Southeast Asia, rice encases social, economic and political significance. Hence, the release of modern varieties by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) since the mid-1960s has reorganized many societies differently. The term ‘modern rice' is used to purport the complexity these varieties encapsulate.

Because IRRI was the ‘brainchild' of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), some earlier scholarships have explained its establishment and formative years in the light of RF economic interests, American foreign policy and historical processes. However, the dynamic conceptual framework developed by Bruno Latour to study science-in-action has offered an alternative way of understanding the role played by the RF in the making of modern rice. A month was thus spent at the Rockefeller Archive Centre (RAC) to consult the unprocessed IRRI-files that have previously seen little use. The material consulted suggests that the RF officers directly responsible for envisioning and establishing IRRI were actually ‘doing science'.

This presentation will share the findings at the RAC, illustrating that ‘doing science' for modern rice was simultaneously a process that entailed continuous interaction and negotiation with relevant elements in the political, economic and social fields.

The Speaker

Chua Bann is currently working on the thesis entitled The Making of Modern Rice in Southeast Asia. Besides the RAC, Bann has also attended the Rice Production Training Course and consulted relevant resources housed in IRRI.

Convenor: Dr Priyambudi Sulistiyanto (6874-6588)

ALL ARE WELCOME

Southeast Asian Studies Programme
Graduate Seminar Series
presents

Beauty and Power: Transsexual Beauty Contests in Thailand

by

Miss Wong Ying Wuen
MA Student, Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS

Wednesday, 25 August 2004, 3.30-5.00 p.m.
AS3, Level 6, SEASP Seminar Room (#06-20)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the importance of transsexual beauty contests in Thailand, not just as “anti-pageants”, but as a means to appropriate a transsexual identity. Beauty contests feature as an innate part of Thai society, with an emphasis on the “public face” and beauty. Thailand is often seen as a land of beautiful women and the land of profusion of kathoeys (transsexuals). However, this perceived transgression of gender boundary may not be totalitarian. Some of these kathoeys do not seek to transgress the gender boundary and become “complete women”. In fact, they display their transsexuality on stage and stress on the powers to transform from men to women visually. Gender is displayed and performed on a designated stage and transsexual beauty contests reflect this physical transformation of gender and the performance of femininity. On one hand, the vulnerability of these transsexuals is balanced by the power of attraction and beauty and their social status is elevated when such transformations are approved by the audience. On the other hand, this vulnerability increases because of the risks involved in performance and these kathoeys are still ironically assessed based on their ability to transgress the gender boundary, i.e. how “womanly” they look and behave. Beauty, in this sense, does not necessarily elevate social power and status or transsexual identity. In fact, power lies in the hands of those who assess that “beauty” at face value. This paper will examine the significance of mainstream and transsexual beauty contests and the close relationship between beauty, power and transsexual identity. Illustrations will be drawn from primary fieldwork findings.

The Speaker

Wong Ying Wuen is currently a M.A student with the Southeast Asian Studies Programme. She is working on her M.A. thesis, focusing on the study of Thai beauty contests and the formation of the transsexual identity in Thailand, with a post-colonialist perspective. Ying Wuen graduated from the honours programme in the same department and wrote a thesis titled “Behind the Curtains: The Lives and Experiences of Transsexual Performers in Phuket, Thailand”. She also presented a similar paper during the Biennial Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference held in Canberra this year, 2004.

Convenor: Dr Priyambudi Sulistiyanto (6874-6588)

ALL ARE WELCOME