Year published :April 2022

Pages :320 pp.

Size :14 x 21 cm.

Black & White illustrations :20

ISBN: 9786162151866

Community Movements in Southeast Asia: An Anthropological Perspective of Assemblages

by Ryoko Nishii and Shigeharu Tanabe (editors)

Derived from the terms community and social movement, Shigeharu Tanabe’s concept of community movements is the process by which people create alternative communities, practices, and worlds that resist the influence and imposition of hegemonic political structures. Community movements enable us to capture the reality of power relations as they arise from and involve small-scale, face-to-face interactions, rather than the assumed existence of social institutions such as the nation-state. 

Illustrating this alternative means of constructing social identities and relations, this book contains vivid ethnographic descriptions of community movements across Southeast Asia, including the Buddhist Utopian movement, the creation of community radio, Hmong ex-communists, the creation of agricultural networks in Thailand, the Dhamma School movement, the Muslim and ethnic minority Kayah community in Myanmar, the construction of the Rope Bridge in a village in Laos, and the global land rights movement in Cambodia. Collectively, these movements provide the reader with a glimpse of other possibilities for the world as it exists now. 

About the Editors 

Ryoko Nishii is Professor at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Her recent works include Ethnography of Affect (2013, in Japanese) and the co-edited book Affectus: Touching the Outside of Life (2020 in Japanese). 

Shigeharu Tanabe is Professor Emeritus at the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan and currently teaches anthropology and Japanese studies at Chiang Mai University, Thailand. Recent works include Anthropology of Spirits: Politics of Communities in Northern Thailand (2013, in Japanese), Communities of Potential: Social Assemblages in Thailand and Beyond (2016). 

Table of Contents 

Acknowledgements 
Introduction Ryoko Nishii Community Movements in Southeast Asia 
Part 1: Community Movements as Assemblages: Resistance, Voice, and Memory 
Chapter 1 SHIGEHARU TANABE The Assemblage of Resistance in Crisis: Buddhist Hermits of King’s Mountain in Northern Thailand 
Chapter 2 RYO TAKAGI Reassembling the Community of Voice: Community Radio in Northern Thailand 
Chapter 3 RYOKO NISHII Forest Memory and Community Movements: Hmong Communities in Thailand 
Part 2: The Community Movements Today: State, Religion, and Education 
Chapter 4 KEIKO TOSA Teacher Training Workshops as an Opportunity for Self-transformation: The Dhamma School Movement in Myanmar 
Chapter 5 AYAKO SAITO Muslims as Citizens of Myanmar: Education in the Muslim Community 
Chapter 6 TADAYUKI KUBO Ethnic Language Education and State-building in Myanmar: Community Movement of Kayah (Karenni) 
Part 3: Networks and Globalization: Land, Life, and Movements 
Chapter 7 NOBUKO KOYA The Integrated Agriculture and Community Movement in Northeast Thailand 
Chapter 8 TOMOKO NAKATA Crossing the Limits: Implications of Rope Bridge-building for Social Movements in Southern Laos 
Chapter 9 TOSHIHIRO ABE Glocal Assemblage in Community Movements: Transforming Collective Actions in Cambodian Land Rights Movements 
Index 

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