Institute of Asian Studies (IAS)

Tourism promotional videos are known to play an important role in shaping destination image which motivates people to travel to the destination. Since destination images create expectations, marketing videos should ideally promote realistic scenarios which the tourist would experience at the destination. Failure to match the communicated destination image with reality, would only lead to tourist disappointment. Applying content analysis, we analyse the Brunei Tourism Promotional Video produced by Brunei Tourism in 2012, looking into possible areas where viewers are presented with unrealistic scenarios on Brunei’s rainforests and people. We also look into the Biocultural content of the video, to understand how the biological and cultural diversities of the country has been portrayed. The video is then compared objectively with other prominent videos from the region to generate a comparative understanding. The results show that tourism promotion videos published from Brunei and Indonesia have a significant percentage of unrealistic content.

Wars, armed combat, and military occupations are as old as humanity with conflict arising over mates, food and subsequently territory and material resources and ultimately power, control, and domination. The weapons of conflict have also evolved in sophistication, efficacy, and destructiveness with little sign of abatement. There are presently scores of conflict hotspots (of varying degree) across the globe with others simmering under the surface. This paper details examples drawn from Southeast Asia as an exploratory study to develop a compendium and potential typology set of wars and armed conflicts across the region over time. The aim is to discern patterns of occurrence, and more importantly, primary driving forces and/or ‘push’ factors that precipitated conflict in the first place. Scrutiny and analysis of discernible patterns might reveal certain conditions and situational commonalities that alert us to the need of making concerted efforts to avoid similar occurrences in the future.

Since time immemorial, Southeast Asia has been exposed to external influence, which has sometimes appeared as shocks with negative effects. In post-independent Southeast Asia, the destiny of regional states and regional stability are inexorably intertwined. Thus, it is imperative that the region develop the capacity to effectively cope with external shocks stemming from different sources. This paper aims at identifying this capacity by looking at three contemporary cases of external impact: (1) the South China Sea dispute; (2) the Western pressure on Southeast Asia for the domestic conduct of the Myanmar government; and (3) the impact of the newly established international norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P) on Southeast Asia. The concept of mediation regime is adopted as an analytical tool for the case studies. Among the major findings of the paper are: (1) that Southeast Asia has developed the capacity to absorb external shocks in several ways unique to itself; and (2) that the region also acquired other capabilities to cope with the shocks, such as preventing external shocks, ensuring the co-existence of incompatible positions of the parties and deflecting external shocks.

This paper examines woman (gender), Muslim (Orient) and elderly (age) from a postcolonial perspective. It highlights the relevance of spirituality to ageing, which is currently under-studied in sociology. Ten Brunei Malay Muslim women aged 60 - 76 were interviewed, with the aid of photo-elicitation method, about their experience of ageing. All interviewees perceive ageing as a gift from God and should be embraced wholeheartedly but this is not necessarily translated into practice. Nonetheless, spirituality remains prominent and heightened as one grows older. This study also demonstrated how these women’s ageing experience is mediated by structural influences. They include ongoing Islamisation discourse, strong Malay cultural and Islamic values, interdependence of family structure (social expectation of filial piety) and social rapport and network. Their experiences reveal a nuance understanding and diverse narratives of ageing. These findings open up new possibilities of understanding ageing in non-Western contexts.

On the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, scholars have documented a precarious land tenure, livelihood and security situation for many smallholders. Agrarian political economy studies provide insightful analysis of the underlying causes of much poverty and violence on the island. Less attention has been given to cases of smallholder success. This article proposes that conditions for smallholder farming, even among ethnic minority groups, are more varied across the island than the literature suggests. In upland villages of north-central Mindanao, there are signs of dynamic smallholder economies. The main case study is from a thriving mixed swidden and fixed field Maranao-Muslim farming village. Almost all the households in the village had successfully claimed land as their own and diversified and improved their livelihoods in recent times. To explain this positive outcome of agrarian transition, the article builds on a relational approach developed to assess the bargaining power of smallholders in land deals. To elaborate on the kinds of relationships smallholders use to access land and improve livelihoods, the article draws on anthropological literature on kinship, land tenure and place. A stronger cross fertilization of key insights in agrarian political economy and anthropological literature on kinship helps develop the debate on agrarian transition in the southern Philippines.

The rise of Korean pop culture signifies an active audience framework because, as this study finds, Indonesian Muslim youth are more active in their consumption of television dramas through laptops than through television. Globalisation has supported the instant availability of Korean television dramas on the internet, and these can be downloaded and shared as pirated DVDs and free files. Furthermore, Muslim youths who watch Korean television dramas actively imagine the modernity reflected in them, and seek to selectively experience the modern elements that are represented. This imagination is interwoven with their Islamic belief structure and thus allows them to be both modern and Muslim.

Hybridity is the antithesis to identity. It is a transgressive concept that blurs and traverses the boundaries by which identities are bounded. Between the poles of identity and hybridity lies the multiple positions that depends on how agency and power are exercised. This paper discusses the multidirectionality of the hybridizing process of the Chinese Indonesians, from assimilation during the Suharto’s New Order (1966-1998) to “resinicization” following the democratization process after fall of Suharto. It examines the cultural politics of the Chinese Indonesians in negotiating between hybridity and identity, as well as the underlying power dynamics in such negotiations. For many hybridized Chinese Indonesians who are unable to access the cultural resources in Chinese, learning Mandarin and performing Chineseness appeals more to economic rather than cultural logic. In light of the rise of China, this paper attempts to unpack the deeper embedded cultural and economic meaning to the return to primordial Chineseness among the Chinese in post-Suharto Indonesia.

The following paper specifically addresses the challenge that the international norm of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) posed to the old ‘ASEAN Way’ of non-interference in the sovereign affairs of its members. It examines the extent to which the ‘ASEAN Way’ adapted in the face of the Cyclone Nargis R2P crisis. The paper argues that Myanmar’s R2P crisis was a wakeup call for ASEAN. It not only challenged ASEAN’s old ways of dealing with crisis but provided a potential precedent for dealing more effectively with regional problems through mediation, action and hybridity. This in turn allowed for pragmatic adaptation without a wholesale abandonment of the Association’s founding principles and values.

Canada’s skilled worker program is designed to attract those educated and experienced individuals from around the world who are eligible to integrate into Canada’s labour market upon arrival. However, many skilled and other non-business-class immigrants do not find suitable jobs upon arrival in Canada. Some of them choose to open their own businesses and eventually become entrepreneurs. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants, this paper examines how immigrants reposition themselves from the rank of non-business-class immigrants to that of entrepreneurs in the settlement process. The paper reports that migrant entrepreneurship is embedded within the dynamics of immigration trajectory and the broader context of the receiving society. Even though they are driven towards the lower end of the economy, innovations have expanded the breadth and depth of their businesses and made their businesses different and rewarding.

In many respects, this paper is a starting point in the consideration of research on Borneo as a field of studies which has both relied upon and contributed to the more general field of anthropology and the wider social sciences. I believe that this represents the first attempt to take stock of and to reflect on what has been achieved in scholarship on Borneo in the post war period and it has also considered the post-war colonial legacy and what has been achieved in research during the period of independence in Malaysian and Indonesian Borneo and Brunei Darussalam and in the era of nation-building and development. In presenting an overview of the field I have reflected on the literature and attempted to arrange and evaluate it in a more consistent and ordered fashion. I have used an overlapping set of organisational principles based on chronology, themes, individual legacies and contributions, and debates and controversies. There is much more I could have referred to and discussed in this introductory overview but the intention has been to stimulate reflection and debate on the development of our understanding about the societies and cultures of Borneo since the 1940s.

This paper explores various notions of masculinity among young Malay men in Brunei Darussalam. Using interview data from 16 male and female informants, it elucidates other forms of self-expressions and identities in contrast to the stereotypical and traditional notion of masculinity. While the data attest to the normative values and ways of being men recognized by the mainstream society and institutions in Brunei, it also found a significant “modern” approach and perception of expressing different notions of masculinity. This pilot study sheds light on the norms and values that define and shape masculinity among young Malay men within their socio-cultural contexts of contemporary Brunei Darussalam.

A careful observation of the ways in which conflicts in East Asia are managed reveals a unique approach to addressing incompatibilities involved in conflict. This approach is fundamentally different from the mainstream Western approach, which is characterized by an effort to integrate the incompatible positions of the parties to conflict. According to John Burton, this integration is made possible by delving into human needs that lie beneath these positions. In contrast, an East Asian approach (in its best case scenario) seems to result in the co-existence of incompatible positions without integration. This paper investigates how such co-existence of incompatible positions is achievable. After discussing several possible ways in which incompatibility of conflict can be addressed, the paper examines three representative East Asian conflicts from the standpoint of incompatibility management, namely the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. It highlights that incompatible positions co-exist with each other in the management of these conflicts. While there are observable efforts to transform conflicts for better management in the three cases, a regional approach is found to manoeuvre around incompatibility. This is made possible partly by the function of the parties absorbing tension arising from incompatibility. Yet, more fundamentally, this paper argues that the Buddhist concepts of sōsoku-sōnyū (mutual presence and mutual merging), shi-hokkai (four realms of existence) and dai’enkyō-chi (wisdom comparable to an infinite round mirror), originating in Kegon-kyō or the Avatamsaka (Flower Garland) Sutra of the Mahayana Buddhism are key to explaining outcomes in these cases.

This paper explores the relations between riparian people and states regarding the two Sesan River hydropower projects: the Yali Falls Dam and the Lower Sesan II Dam. I argue that the relations are contested and that these contested relations are rooted in the states’ predominance and the local population’s disempowerment, which are relevant to present-day human-security agendas.

Tourism is making an increasingly important contribution to regional economic development in Borneo and is an important element in state development plans and programmes; considerable attention is also being paid to the potential offered in the East Asian market for attracting package tourists to the Borneo states, especially in Sabah, Brunei Darussalam and Sarawak. The Borneo states boast two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, one in Sarawak (Gunung Mulu National Park) and the other in Sabah (Kinabalu National Park), and the collaborative and coordinated 'The Heart of Borneo' conservation and forest and wildlife reservation project in which all Borneo states participate and which offers opportunities for the development of ecotourism. Nevertheless, tourism is a relatively new developmental enterprise in Borneo in comparison with the established tourism destinations in neighbouring Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Even now research on tourism in Borneo is uneven and its conceptual contribution to tourism studies though empirically interesting and useful is poorly developed. Developments in research during the past 20 years are reviewed. Three ASEAN states are represented in Borneo: the Federation of Malaysia, Negara Brunei Darussalam, and the Republic of Indonesia and they offer fertile ground for comparative studies in the tourism field. Whilst the emphasis and direction of tourism development policies indicate some convergence in those pursuits offered to tourists: in ecotourism, ethnic and longhouse tourism, heritage tourism and even beach resort tourism, there is also evidence of considerable divergence. The reasons for this divergence are examined in terms of the differences in overall political and economic priorities in the three nation-states, and to different environmental, cultural, historical and infrastructural characteristics. These differences suggest that one way forward for tourism development is the organization and promotion of regional and cross-national tourism packages to take advantage of diversity in an already interconnected set of states.

During the past two decades the Southeast Asian region (ASEAN) has experienced a range of serious crises affecting the tourism industry and related services, including natural and environmental disasters, epidemics and pandemics, global financial slumps, terrorist actions and political and military conflict. The latest challenge has been the “Novel Coronavirus” (Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2) pandemic which began to make a profound impact from the first half of 2020. It has had damaging consequences for tourism development and economic growth in all the ASEAN countries, but some have suffered more than others. These difficulties are set to continue in 2023 and into 2024; though there are signs of recovery and of the resilience of the tourism industry. The paper examines this process of post-Covid-19 recovery, taking the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or Laos) as a case study, and giving consideration to the continuities and discontinuities in the tourism industry and the transition from the environment of lockdowns and restrictions to the re-opening of borders and the increasing movements of people. Tourism in the Lao PDR is rather neglected in the literature and attention to how the country is faring in its attempts to retrieve its 2019 pre-pandemic position is crucial in attempting to understand how the tourism industry there will develop in the next several years. Tourism was the major source of foreign exchange in 2019 and its decline has therefore amplified the economic pressures which the Lao PDR is continuing to experience.

During the past two decades the Southeast Asian region has experienced a range of major crises. Its substantial tourism industry has often taken the brunt of these difficult and testing events, from natural and environmental calamities, epidemics and pandemics, downturns and financial slumps in the world economy, terrorism and political conflict. The latest peril, this time on a global scale, is the ‘Novel Coronavirus’ (Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2) pandemic; it has already had serious consequences for Southeast Asia and its tourism development and will continue to do so. Since the SARS epidemic of 2002-2004 the Southeast Asian economies have become increasingly integrated into those of East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong). China’s contribution to tourism in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has grown exponentially. This paper surveys some of the most significant literature on crises, and specifically Covid-19, to gauge their consequences for tourism in Southeast Asia. By comparing experiences across the region, we highlight the issues raised by the over dependence of some countries on visitor arrivals from East Asia, the problems generated in certain cases by multiple, sequential or coinciding crises, and some of the responses to these. A common focus of crises research has been on dramatic and usually unpredictable natural disasters and on human-generated global economic downturns but less attention has been given to disease and contagion, which is both natural and socio-cultural in its origins and effects. In the case of Covid-19, it is a situation that evokes a pre-crisis period of normality, a liminal transition and a post-crisis ‘new normality’.

In an attempt to promote a wide-ranging comparative investigation in Borneo Studies and one which looks beyond Borneo’s shores to the wider nation-states in which Sarawak, Sabah and Kalimantan are situated, this paper examines the interrelated concepts of culture and identity, and more especially identities in motion, in analysing interrelationships and encounters between a range of peoples and communities. Although it is an attempt to re-orient and promote the study of Bornean identities what it is doing in a more modest fashion is to bring some of the available literature together and explore some of the links between case-studies and ideas. The cases are grouped under four heads (though as the research develops there could be more) whilst keeping in mind the underlying concepts of centres and margins and cores and peripheries: (1) the nation state, majorities and minorities; (2) the media, identities and nation-building; (3) borderlands, margins and identities; and (4) emerging middle classes, lifestyles and identities.

This article focuses on the experiences, aspirations and challenges of Sri Lankan Muslim returnees to the northern part of Sri Lanka, Jaffna and analyzes their strategies to cope with the ambivalent situation they face. The empirical point of departure is drawn from the stories of three Muslim returnees in Jaffna who returned from different parts of Sri Lanka. The article finds that the Muslim returnees conceptualize home as a place where they can have a “better future” than the displaced location where they stayed for so long. We argue that this unveils the different kinds of attachment they have to their homes through memories, emotions, as well as material and other immaterial concerns. There even, exist feelings of alienation and detachment from their homes among some. Furthermore, their aspirations of a good life seem to be fading after their return.

This paper considers whether regional digital partnership offers an effective strategy for post-pandemic recovery. To ground the paper in critical reflection, we combine personal impressions of our current situation with a discussion of the ways to achieve meaningful digital partnership. Drawing on work as varied as Thomas Kuhn, Bong Joon-ho, Nikolai Kondratieff and Piyawat Sivarak, the paper argues that our future wellbeing is predicated on our ability to bridge the digital divide and cooperate effectively for mutual benefit.