South East Asian Studies

Scholars of religion have increasingly rejected the model of religious syncretism, in which apparent deviations from normative practice are explained as the result of a mixture of religions. Nevertheless, there are aspects of Thai Buddhist practice that still stubbornly appear syncretistic, such as the worship of particular Buddha images for mundane boons in the same way as gods and spirits.

This book demonstrates how preserving ideology and relationship with other activists affords social movements to persist over time amid limited resources and political opportunities in Southeast Asia. Examining two peace movements in Indonesia - the largest democratic country in Southeast Asia - to illuminate discontinuity, continuity, and change in social movements, the author uses a cultural approach to understanding why social movements persist and argues that the activists' memory, relationship with others, collective identity, and emotion as reasons for social movements to ascend and peak.

The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative and informative approach. The handbook actively analyses the varying definitions of civil society, critiquing the inconsistent scrutiny of this sphere over time. It brings forth the need to reconsider civil-society development in today's Southeast Asia, including activist organisations' and platforms' composition, claims, resources, and potential to effect sociopolitical change.

This book analyses marginalisation and human rights in Southeast Asia and offers diverse approaches in understanding the nuances of marginalisation and human rights in the region.

Chapter 1: Democratic Decline and Rising Autocratization in Southeast Asia: An Organizing Framework -- Chapter 2: At the Sharp Edge of Power: Philippines-China Relations and Democratic Erosion under Duterte -- Chapter 3: Anies Baswedan and Substate Populism in Jakarta, Indonesia -- Chapter 4: In Limbo: Islamist Populism and Democratic Stagnation in Malaysia -- Chapter 5: Democratic Backsliding in Malaysia: Executive Aggrandizement under Muhyiddin Yassin's Government -- Chapter 6: Propagating and Resisting Authoritarian Innovation Online: Thailand's 'ROTC Cyber' Activity. Chapter 7: Rural Grassroots Governance-Building in Myanmar -- Chapter 8: Returned Migrants and Democratization in Village Head Elections in Indonesia: A Glimpse of Hope from Indramayu -- Chapter 9: Regimes, Repression, Repertoires: Student Protest Movements and the Repertoires of Contention in the Philippines and Indonesia -- Chapter 10: Myanmar: From Hybrid Democracy to Violent Autocracy.

Tang and Wijaya present a range of new and established scholarly voices, including local activists directly involved in developments in Southeast Asia. This groundbreaking collection presents the current state of play and longstanding LGBTQ+ debates in this often overlooked region of Asia. ...

This ground-breaking volume on early modern inter-Asian translation examines how translation from plain Chinese was situated at the nexus between, on the one hand, the traditional standard of biliteracy characteristic of literary practices in the Sinographic sphere, and on the other, practices of translational multilingualism (competence in multiple spoken languages to produce a fully localized target text). ...

Taking both a retrospective and prospective view of the management of cultural heritage in the region, this volume argues that the plurality and complexity of heritage in the region cannot be comprehensively understood and effectively managed without a broader conceptual framework like the cultural landscape approach. ...

This book offers a regional analysis of the impact of fake news - misinformation, mal-information and dis-information - on electoral democracy and freedom of expression in Southeast Asia, which has taken place in the midst of a global health pandemic.

Building on archival work undertaken in France and fieldwork undertaken in Southeast Asia, Museum-Making in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia provides a critical analysis of museum histories and development in three former colonial territories.