Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia shows that the cultural reconfiguration of domestic and international relations around Asias new rich has often been characterised by tension and division.

Southeast Asia, until the Asian economic crisis of 1997-2000, was a high economic growth area. However, despite the neo-liberal and globalizing logic of capitalism, local conditions and cultures determine that capitalism will spread in ways not entirely consonant with its Western origins. Capitalism is not a free-floating entity -- it is a socially embodied phenomenon that needs to function in various cultural contexts. Consequently, the tension between the universal status that some claim capitalism now occupies in the post-Cold War world and the particularities of the local cultures it enters should be of great concern.

This book focuses on the key role played by producer services in shaping new business areas and new patterns for social mobility, and their interdependence with the State and the emergence and flourishing of the new professions.

Now available in paperback, this Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the major themes that have defined the politics of Southeast Asia. It provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge examination of this important subject. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the theoretical and ideological themes that have dominated the study of the region's politics and presents the different ways the complex politics of the region have been understood. The contributions by leading scholars in the field cover a range of broad questions about the dynamics of politics. The Handbook analyses how the dominant political and social coalitions of the region were forged in the Cold War era, and assesses the complex processes of transition towards various forms of democratic politics. How institutions and systems of governance are being forged in an increasingly global environment is discussed and whether civil society in Southeast Asia has really evolved as an independent sphere of social and political activity. The Handbook examines how national governments are dealing with growing tensions within the region as matters such as labour, human rights and the environment spill beyond national boundaries, and how they are establishing a place in the new global framework. By engaging the Southeast Asian experience more firmly with larger debates about modern political systems, the Handbook is an essential reference tool for students and scholars of Political Science and Southeast Asian studies.

The beginning of the 21st century has seen important shifts in mobility cultures around the world, as the West’s media-driven car culture has contrasted with existing local mobilities, from rickshaws in India and minibuses in Africa to cycling in China. In this expansive volume, historian Gijs Mom explores how contemporary mobility has been impacted by social, political, and economic forces on a global scale, as in light of local mobility cultures, the car as an ‘adventure machine’ seems to lose cultural influence in favor of the car’s status character.

This book is a history of the Asian region from 1945 to the present day which delineates the various ideological battles over Asia's development.

A cross-cultural exploration of globalization and women in higher education. Compares experiences of Western and Asian women within a framework that raises important questions about cultural difference and institutional power.

Embedded Entrepreneurship examines the importance of cultural meaning in the creation and utilization of economic value. Based on case-studies from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, the authors demonstrate that micro-scale entrepreneurship is intertwined with prevailing conceptions, moralities and habituations in the entrepreneurs’ social milieu. More specifically, the volume argues that meaning-making is integral to economic opportunity; that economic actors’ market agency is shaped by cultural experiences; that entrepreneurs' prototypical “individualism” is socially contingent; and that cultural meanings channel economic value among economic and social domains. Addressing core questions about “embedding”, the authors suggest theoretical convergences between economic anthropology and economic sociology. Contributors include: Signe Howell, Ingrid Rudie, Leif Manger, Olaf H. Smedal, Frode F. Jacobsen, Kristianne Ervik, Anette Fagertun, Lars Gjelstad, Nils Hidle, Anja Lillegraven, Solgunn Olsen and Ingvild Solvang.

Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia is one of the first substantial comparative studies of contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, homes to the world's largest Muslim population. Following the collapse of New Order rule in Indonesia in 1998, this book provides an in-depth examination of anti-authoritarian forces in contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, assessing their problems and prospects. The authors discuss the roles played by women, public intellectuals, arts workers, industrial workers as well as environmental and Islamic activists. They explore how different forms of authoritarianism in the two countries affect the prospects of democratization, and examine the impact and legacy of the diverse social and political protests in Indonesia and Malaysia in the late 1990s.