Drawing on long term fieldwork and research in communities from Assam through to Laos, this book offers a unique level of reappraisal of the work of Edmund Leach and is a significant contribution to the development of a new regional anthropology of Southeast Asia.

This book examines interethic relationships between groups and the dynamics of exchange networks throughout Asia and includes case studies based in Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Nepal, China, Indonesia, and Russia.

Dwelling in the highland areas of Northeast India, Bangladesh, Southwest China, Taiwan, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Peninsular Malaysia are hundreds of “peoples”. Together their population adds up to 100 million, more than most of the countries they live in. Yet in each of these countries, they are regarded as minorities. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Peoples of the Southeast Asian Massif contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on about 300 groups, the ten countries they live in, their historical figures, and their salient political, economic, social, cultural and religious aspects. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more.

Animism refers to ontologies or worldviews which assign agency and personhood to human and non-human beings alike. Recent years have seen a revival of this concept in anthropology, where it is now discussed as an alternative to modern-Western naturalistic notions of human-environment relations. Based on original fieldwork, this book presents a number of case studies of animism from insular and peninsular Southeast Asia and offers a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon – its diversity and underlying commonalities and its resilience in the face of powerful forces of change. Critically engaging with the current standard notion of animism, based on hunter-gatherer and horticulturalist societies in other regions, it examines the roles of life forces, souls and spirits in local cosmologies and indigenous religion. It proposes an expansion of the concept to societies featuring mixed farming, sacrifice and hierarchy and explores the question of how non-human agents are created through acts of attention and communication, touching upon the relationship between animist ontologies, world religion, and the state. Shedding new light on Southeast Asian religious ethnographic research, the book is a significant contribution to anthropological theory and the revitalization of the concept of animism in the humanities and social sciences.

The Modern Anthropology of India is an accessible textbook providing a critical overview of the ethnographic work done in India since 1947. It assesses the history of research in each region and serves as a practical and comprehensive guide to the main themes dealt with by ethnographers. It highlights key analytical concepts and paradigms that came to be of relevance in particular regions in the recent history of research in India, and which possibly gained a pan-Indian or even trans-Indian significance. Structured according to the states of the Indian union, contributors raise several key questions, including: What themes were ethnographers interested in? What are the significant ethnographic contributions? How are peoples, communities and cultural areas represented? How has the ethnographic research in the area developed? Filling a significant gap in the literature, the book is an invaluable resource to students and researchers in the field of Indian anthropology/ethnography, regional anthropology and postcolonial studies. It is also of interest to students of South Asian studies in general as it provides an extensive and critical overview of regionally based ethnographic activity undertaken in India.

“Southeast Asian Affairs, first published in 1974, continues today to be required reading for not only scholars but the general public interested in in-depth analysis of critical cultural, economic and political issues in Southeast Asia. In this annual review of the region, renowned academics provide comprehensive and stimulating commentary that furthers understanding of not only the region’s dynamism but also of its tensions and conflicts. It is a must read.” –Suchit Bunbongkarn, Emeritus Professor, Chulalongkorn University “Now in its forty-fifth edition, Southeast Asian Affairs offers an indispensable guide to this fascinating region. Lively, analytical, authoritative, and accessible, there is nothing comparable in quality or range to this series. It is a must read for academics, government officials, the business community, the media, and anybody with an interest in contemporary Southeast Asia. Drawing on its unparalleled network of researchers and commentators, ISEAS is to be congratulated for producing this major contribution to our understanding of this diverse and fast-changing region, to a consistently high standard and in a timely manner.” –Hal Hill, H.W. Arndt Professor of Southeast Asian Economies, Australian National University

From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.

AHP's 2013 annual collection contains 5 original research articles, 7 new pieces of fiction, & 20 reviews of recent books. ARTICLES Ian G Baird-Shifting Contexts & Performances: The Brao-Kavet & Their Sacred Mountains in Northeast Cambodia Dpa' mo skyid-The 'Descent of Blessings': Ecstasy & Revival among the Tibetan Bon Communities of Reb gong Gerong Pincuo & Henrëtte Daudey-Too Much Loving-kindness to Repay: Funeral Speeches of the Wenquan Pumi Wang Shiyong-Towards a Localized Development Approach for Tibetan Areas in China. William Noseworthy-The Cham's First Highland Sovereign-Po Romé (r. 1627-1651) FICTION Bsod nams 'gyur med-Folktales from Gcig sgril Lhundrom-Longing for Snow-covered Peaks: Deity Possession in the Philippines Thub bstan-Elopement Ba Lobsang Gonbo-Love in Shambala Pad+ma skyabs-The Price of a Thesis Pad ma rin chen-Scattered Memories of a Misspent Youth & Conflict REVIEWS Review - Scripture of the Ten Kings (305-313) Nietupski, Paul Review - Tibet: A History (315-317) Vargas-O'Bryan, Ivette Review - Mongolian Language Scholarship on the Mongols of the Gansu-Qinghai Region (319-327) Balogh, Mátyás Review - China's Environmental Challenges (329-338) Bleisch, Bill Review - Le bergers du Fort Noir (339-341) Buffetrille, Katia Review - Islam and Tibet (343-347) Chaudhry, Faisal Review - The Art of Not Being Governed (349-355) Grant, Andrew Review - Recent Research on Ladakh (357-361) Singh, Binod Review - Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World (363-369) Kilby, Christina Review - Japanese-Mongolian Relations (371-373) Reid, Anja Review - China's 'Tibetan' Frontiers (375-380) Weiner, Benno Review - Drokpa (381-385) Beebe, Ligaya Review - Transforming Nomadic Resource Management and Livelihood Strategies (387-392) Winkler, Daniel Review - Explorers and Scientists in China's Borderlands (393-396) Rohlf, Gregory Review - Origins and Migrations in the Extended Eastern Himalayas (397-403) Hayes, Jack Review - The Sherthukpens of Arunachal Pradesh (405-411) Weedall, Christopher Review - Critical Han Studies (413-417) Ye, Zhiguo Review - Trade and Society along the Ancient Silk Road (419-422) Sengar, Bina Review - Emerging Bon (423-449) Zeisler, Bettina Free download of entire volume here http://www.plateauculture.org/writing/ahp-28-entire-volume At-cost hardcover:http://www.lulu.com/shop/various/ahp-28/hardcover/product-21362829.html

We live in a world populated not just by individuals but by figures, those larger-than-life people who in some way express and challenge our conventional understandings of social types. This innovative and collaborative work takes up the wide range of figures that populate the social and cultural imaginaries of contemporary Southeast Asia—some familiar only in specific places, others recognizable across the region and even globally. It puts forward a series of ethnographic portraits of figures that represent and give voice to something larger than themselves, offering a view into social life that is at once highly particular and general. They include the Muslim Television Preacher in Indonesia, Miss Beer Lao, the Rural DJ in Thailand, the Korean Soap Opera Junkie in Burma, the Filipino Seaman, and the Photo Retoucher in Vietnam. Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity brings together the fieldwork of over eighty scholars and covers the nine major countries of the region: Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. An introduction outlines important social transformations in Southeast Asia and key theoretical and methodological innovations that result from ethnographic attention to the study of key figures. Each section begins with an introduction by a country editor followed by short essays offering vivid and intimate portraits set against the background of contemporary Southeast Asia. The result is a volume that combines scholarly rigor with a meaningful, up-to-date portrayal of a region of the world undergoing rapid change. A reference bibliography offers suggestions for further reading. Figures of Southeast Asia Modernity is an ideal teaching tool for introductory classes to Southeast Asia studies, anthropology, and geography.

This book explores the historical interconnections between Bengal, Burma, and Yunnan (China), and views the corridor as a transregion that exhibits mobility, connectivity and diversity as well as place-based ecogeological uniqueness. With a focus on the concept of corridor geographies that have shared human and environmental histories beyond sharply demarcated territorial sovereignties of modern individual nation-states, it presents the variety and complexity of premodern and modern pathways, corridors, borders, and networks of livelihood-making, local political alliances, trade and commerce, religions, political systems, and colonial encounters. The book discusses crucial themes including environmental edgings of human-nonhuman habitats, transregional migratory routes and habitats of megafauna, elephant corridors in Yunnan–Myanmar–Bengal landscape, framing spaces between India and China, Tibetan–Myanmar corridors, transboundary river systems, narratives of a Rohingya jade trader, cross-border flow of De’ang’s fermented tea, householding in upland Laos, cultural identities, and trans-border livelihoods. Comprehensive and topical, with its wide-ranging case studies, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of history, routes and border studies, sociology and social anthropology, South East Asian history, South Asian history, Chinese studies, environmental history, human geography, international relations, ecology, and cultural studies.