Southeast Asian Studies

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/22743

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Voices and Noises: U.S. Influence, Indonesian Statecraft, and the Battle of Development Discourse in West Papua
(2025-08-01) Zahra, Armadina Az; Lowe, Celia
Assuming development interventions in West Papua are merely acts of state-making by the Indonesian government fails to apprehend the influence and involvement of transnational actors whose interests may either facilitate or obstruct Indonesia’s statecraft. This process involves collaborators, including the U.S., who help formulate and articulate development discourse. This rhetoric functions as a mechanism for controlling political and economic systems, shaping how power is produced, regulated, distributed, and exercised, thereby legitimizing their actions. This thesis examines how U.S. foreign investment and aid shaped development discourse in West Papua during Indonesia’s transition from the New Order to Reformasi (1997–early 2000s). It focuses on Freeport-McMoRan and USAID as key actors in embedding U.S. developmental ideas into Indonesian state-making and statecraft efforts. Using archival sources, including Tifa Irian newspaper articles, USAID reports, and the Amungme People’s Council meeting minutes, this study reveals how written discourse legitimized both U.S. interests and Indonesian state authority while silencing Papuan resistance. I juxtapose these written sources with non-written forms of grassroots knowledge from West Papua, including opinion articles in the media, music, documentary films, and everyday conversations with Papuan people. Through this approach, I seek to explore and analyze how narratives around development initiatives in West Papua have evolved. I argue that these initiatives have served as tools to maintain political control and reinforce power structures—operated by the U.S. as a key collaborator of the government of Indonesia.
New Khmer Cinema: Generative Nostalgia and Community Encounters in the Phnom Penh Film Scene
(2023-09-27) Hollister, Andrew Putthirak; Grant, Jenna
The Cambodian film scene is undergoing a renaissance in the 21st century. This thesis examines the current trends of Cambodian independent cinema, with particular emphasis on community building and film discourse. As younger generations of artists take over, they offer new stories—drawn from their own experiences—which rethink the Cambodian present’s relationship with its past and imagine possibilities for the future. Drawing from ethnographic research, informal conversations, participation in film discussions, film festival programming, and film text analysis, I map an emerging ecosystem of Cambodian cinema that generates community at critical hubs for encounter between artists, audiences, and academics. This thesis is situated in time and place through several Phnom Penh film events and film spaces in the summer of 2022, including a book launch, film festival, cinema community center, and film club. These sites all constitute essential venues for film viewing and discussion, and reveal different practices of relating to cinema within a vibrant and growing film community. Drawing from my observations, I propose a framework of “generative nostalgia” through which to understand the current engagements with 1960s cinema and popular culture in the Cambodian arts today—a past that still lives in the present. Generative nostalgia represents a nostalgic practice grounded in the material conditions of the now, pragmatically pulling past cultural productions and aesthetics into present as a means to bridge the ruptured cultural continuity caused by the Cambodian genocide. It is a nostalgia that looks back only so it can look forward, trading sentimentality for determined practicality. Through close examination of Cambodian independent cinema and the concept of generative nostalgia, this thesis showcases the resiliency, expression, and innovation of Cambodia’s film community.
Vietnamese in the Cultural Nation Building of the First Republic of Vietnam (1955-1963)
(2023-09-27) Tran, Johnathan; Giebel, Christoph
Once lacking a writing system, the Vietnamese language eventually eclipsed literary Chinese and French in official administrative capacities to become the official national language of modern Vietnam. By 1945, the linguistic imagination of Vietnam was not whether Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) and the Romanized “national language script” (chữ Quốc ngữ) should be cemented into the country’s national formation but rather how ideological concerns would shape the construction of Vietnamese language conventions. This thesis argues that language-making for the first administration of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, 1955-1975), commonly referred to as the First Republic of Vietnam (1955-1963), was explicitly part of a larger cultural nation-building agenda aimed at actualizing the regime’s ideological aspirations. I first examine how language was deployed in the making of an all-Vietnamese postcolonial state. Then, I turn to two RVN national universities (in Saigon and Hue) to examine the role of the Vietnamese in the making of a Vietnamese national identity. Finally, I examine a RVN national archives source document that directly addresses how certain foreign loanwords should or should not be standardized in the Vietnamese vernacular, exposing a deference to traditional culture and practices.
Defining a Nation: Language, Literature, and the Articulation of National Imaginaries in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Cambodia
(2023-08-14) Rost, Ben; Grant, Jenna
This thesis considers the roles played by the Khmer language as a medium and idiom through which generations of Cambodian scholars, authors, intellectuals, religious and civil officials, and others, extending from the opening decades of the twentieth century through to the contemporary era, have delineated and contested the contours of national community and identity. Across diverse social, political, and historical landscapes, I argue, language, from its orthographic conventions to its literary traditions, has remained a central site of engagement through which generations of Cambodians have negotiated and mediated experiences of modernity and postcoloniality, and imagined and articulated possible and alternative futures for the Cambodian nation. This work is not intended to be read as an exhaustive examination of such themes, but rather emphasizes a close reading of an assemblage of individual texts, ranging from linguistic studies and a well-known dictionary to novels and blog posts, alongside a careful consideration of their historical contexts, for their insights into the varied and dynamic ways in which the Khmer language has been deeply implicated in successive projects of imagining the Cambodian nation, particularly those carried out both by and contra oppressive regimes of power. I draw on the historical and conceptual journeys traced by such works as threads that bind together a broader discussion of the social and political horizons unfolded – and foreclosed – through discursive engagements with language and literature. I situate this thesis within a genealogy of studies of national imaginaries, particularly as critiqued and theorized by a range of postcolonial scholars. I draw inspiration from several scholars who have expanded our understandings of literature, across diverse national contexts, as a critical discursive space in which debates around national identity, de- and postcoloniality, and modernity have been held. Finally, I position this thesis in conversation with an assemblage of feminist historians and theorists whose works, taken together, encourage a critical inquiry into the logics of inclusion and exclusion that enable the formulation, consolidation, and naturalization of the ‘nation.’ Placed alongside one another, such diverse and varied discourses allow for a consideration of the ways in which language simultaneously both naturalizes and destabilizes social and political categories and relations, thereby highlighting the ways in which history continues to do work in the present and unfolding the possibility of more liberatory futures, in ways that add depth and nuance to our readings of the works and authors considered in this study. Ultimately, I conclude that, despite efforts to fix it in time and place, language has instead endured as a destabilizing force, as its fluidity forever unfolds the space in which to reformulate, refashion, and redefine. From the opening of the twentieth century through to the present day, the Khmer language has endured as a critical site of negotiation and mediation, allowing for the continual making and remaking of the Cambodian nation, as successive generations confront the ever-urgent questions of being and belonging in the modern world.
The Emerald Buddha: Legend, Myth, and the Bedazzlement of History and Nation-Creation
(2023-08-14) Laucirica, Teshan; Lowe, Celia
This research utilizes the Emerald Buddha statue as a material object that is believed to have cosmic power, through which to view the interconnected institutions of the monarchy, Buddhism, and the military in Thailand, from past to present. Reviewing the historical manipulations surrounding this Buddha image provides a better understanding of how these institutions are intertwined and continue reinforcing one another’s power. A pattern of historical bedazzlement is exposed, used to create identity, belonging, and nationalism, as much as it is used to create divisions. The effects that this living history has upon current relationships both within Thailand and with their neighbors become clear.
Old Weapons for a New War: Mobilizations of Nationalist Language within Indonesian Political Discourse, 1991-1997
(2023-08-14) Daniel, Jafar N; Lowe, Celia
This thesis discusses the transformation and political mobilization of the language of Indonesian nationalism in the period of the early 1990s. Political language developed in the framework of cold war politics were adapted to address social changes triggered by the end of the cold war. This analysis is based upon a close reading of two documents: a 1992 issue of Persepsi, a journal of political theory published by a New Order policymaking institution, and an excerpt of a 1997 memoir of businessman and Suharto cousin Sudwikatmono which centers around the 1995 Jimbaran conference. Using these documents, this thesis explores the transformations internal to the policy-making institution’s perception of causes of social change, and the ways in which this language was adapted by a rising oligarchy to consolidate their class power in anticipation of the fall of Suharto.
Regional Integration: Finding Vietnam in ASEAN’s Single Tourism Destination
(2022-07-14) Phan, Son Mai; Giebel, Christoph
The current ASEAN tourism cooperation is implemented under a policy framework set out by the 2002 ASEAN Tourism Agreement of which Objective 5 positions the entire region as a “single tourism destination”. A review of ASEAN’s official documents reveals that branding ASEAN as a single tourist destination is meant to promote multi-faceted attractions and world-class standards and facilities in ASEAN. Objective 5 is deemed ambitious, yet problematic. Relying on primary and secondary materials in both English and Vietnamese, this thesis pays careful attention to the implementation of objective 5, aiming to answer a research question “What are the implications of ASEAN’s single tourism destination strategy for the course of regional integration and member states’ agendas, specifically those of Vietnam?”.
The Father, the Son, and the Aswang: Uncolonial Ontologies in Philippine Literature
(2022-01-26) Bender, Joshua Paul; Rafael, Vicente L
This paper proposes the “uncolonial” as an alternative Philippine ontology to the traditionally dualistic terrain of coloniality often associated with the archipelago. While much traditional research has provided insight into the ways in which colonial governance, bolstered by Catholicism introduced by the Spanish upon their arrival on the islands, outlines a stark material contrast between the colonial and noncolonial, this paper articulates a theorization of immateriality and hybridity of uncolonial literature and cultural practices. By offering a triptych framework through which to articulate the uncolonial—an apt metaphor for the immense impact Abrahamic religion and the spiritual have had on the Philippines—this paper argues that the heterogeneity of a Philippine colonial, pre/postcolonial, and uncolonial structure enables an analysis of the historical trajectory of the Philippines without strictly reducing it to a totalizingnationalism. Utilizing Philippine folk creatures and monsters as vehicles through which to articulate an uncolonial indifference to colonial governance, this paper envisions a radical alterity of Philippine cultural and knowledge production, intentionally or not, unintelligible to the archipelago’s historical colonizers. Under the umbrella of the aswang, a cultural figuration of different forms of supernatural creatures, as well as the more conventional spiritual manifestation of the ghost, the construction of an uncolonial Philippine ontology renders Philippine cultural production as something that cannot, and perhaps should not, be totally and completely understood
Paste-up Modernity: Visual Depiction of Modern Cambodia in the 1960s in the Magazine Kambuja Review
(2021-08-26) Eat, Sambath; Grant, Jenna M.
Modernity is central to postcolonial discourse. This paper examines how the state of Cambodia constructs modernity in the public imagination. Reflecting upon Homi Bhabha’s discussion on mimicry “almost the same, but not quite”, this paper looks at different aspects of modernity that appear in the state-owned magazine Kambuja. While many scholars have examined the political and ideological angles of this modernity, however, few have examined the artistic and visual representation of it. This paper examines how modernity is presented in Kambuja. To accomplish this task, the paper proposes a new concept of “paste-up” modernity as a way to demonstrate a unique character to Cambodia modernity which incorporates heterogeneous elements taken from traditional and Western images in its semiotic representation of modernity. And in doing so, the paper hopes to highlight the fluid nature of modernity as a semiotic signifier in which different meanings can be “cut and paste” to evoke a sense of “imagined community.”
Rivers of Dayak Dreams: The Aporia of Knowledge and the Melancholia of Race in Three Memoirs about Borneo
(2020-08-14) Wang, Lezhi; Rafael, Vicente
The space and people of Borneo have long been subject to colonial curiosity and exoticism. In and after the age of high imperialism, knowing Borneo’s “secrets” and seeing through the mist of its jungles had been the ambition of many an adventurer and ethnographer. This article challenges the dominating power dynamics between the actively observing outsider and the passively observed indigenous by looking at specifically failures in historical endeavors to “know” the island. My data is drawn from two semi-autobiographical novels each by the Chinese Sarawakian author Li Yongping, the Dutch author Michael Perelaer, and a memoir by the indigenous Dayak autobiographer Riska. Their juxtaposition allows an experimental attempt at bringing the fields of Sinophone studies, Dutch colonial literature, and Southeast Asian history in conversation with each other. The result shows that an active field of language and cultural barrier, for which I use the term "aporia", is continuously and consciously maintained by the indigenous communities, resisting imperialist efforts to epistemologically take possession of the island's traditionally secretive and introvert knowledge.
Nature/War Framework of Disability: Potential Disconnect Between Cambodian Government and Local and International Communities Regarding Disability
(2019-08-14) Song, Vanna; Grant, Jenna M
The recent genocide and civil wars in Cambodia have produced various disabilities in Cambodia. Local Cambodian Disabled Peoples Organizations, international non-governmental organizations, other international agencies, and the Cambodian government have attempted to address challenges faced by persons with disabilities. Are these efforts collective or is there a disconnect between these entities?
Ragapadmi and the First Leper: A Critical History of Leprosy Transmission in Madura, Indonesia
(2018-07-31) Romadhon, Dimas Iqbal; Sears, Laurie J
This thesis explores the interconnections between oral traditions and global health issues around leprosy. A folktale from Madura Island, Indonesia, telling about a princess named Ragapadmi who was expelled from her palace due to suffering leprosy, is the main focus in this study. The area studied, Madura Island, Indonesia, is known as one of the highest leprosy endemic areas in the world, which places Indonesia in the third place of international leprosy rankings in 2015. In this thesis, I study the movement of the Ragapadmi story from an oral tradition, which contains selected memories from the past time in Madura, to documented publications that were used by the Dutch administrators as a part of health propaganda to natives’ unique perceptions regarding leprosy which gives a stigma-free environment for leprosy sufferers in Madura. Studying this tongue to paper to mindset movement of a folktale, as I found during this study, is beneficial for the development of medical studies, specifically in the sub-fields of epidemiology, health propaganda and medical ethnology.
Caste and the quest for racial hierarchy in British Burma: An analysis of census classifications from 1872-1931
(2017-08-11) McAuliffe, Erin Lynn; Hirschman, Charles
Ethnically-defined conflicts are major concerns in Burma/Myanmar today, particularly as the country navigates the political, economic, and social changes necessary for successful democratic consolidation. ‘Race’ labels and their perceived inherent status used by groups today to justify, legitimate, or demand rights are products of colonial administration; however, race or ethnicity (lu-myo in Burmese) remains an ambiguous and fluid identity. How then have race labels been defined and measured and structured into a racial hierarchy during colonial rule? This thesis, through a textual analysis of the definitions and applications of the terms “caste” and “race” in the Census of India from 1872-1931, government documents, and British scholarly publications of the 19th and 20th centuries, identifies the emergence of racial hierarchy in British Burma, a province of British India, as an alternative to the caste structure of India and as an attempt to conform local criteria for measuring social and cultural difference, notably language and religion, to British racial theories of inherent and unequal human characteristics.
Imagining the Buddhist Ecumene in Myanmar: How Buddhist Paradigms Dictate Belonging in Contemporary Myanmar
(2017-08-11) Murphree, Daniel P.; Sears, Laurie J
This paper argues that the model of an “Ecumene” will aid external interpretation of the Myanmar political process, including the beliefs of its leaders and constituents, the Bamar. Myanmar as Ecumene better articulates Bama constructions of society, including governance, in that it resituates the political process as a Buddhist enterprise, shifting “Buddhist nationalism” to an imagined “Nation of Buddhists.” It also provides the rationale for othering of religious minorities, such as the Muslim Rohingya or the Christian Chin. Utilizing ethnographic, historical, and textual source material, I show how the Bamar of Myanmar understand their relationship with the State, with one another, and with minority groups primarily through Buddhist modes of kingship and belonging. The right to rule is negotiated through the concept of “moral authority.” This dhamma sphere exists as a space to contest power legitimation, but requires the use of Buddhist textual and historical concepts provided in the dhammarāja or Cakkavattin model of Buddhist kingship, The Ten Virtues, the Jātakas, and the historical figures of Aśoka and Anawrahta. In order to do this, this paper develops a rubric for interpreting what a dhammarāja does. This has not been done before and will allow the reader the ability to evaluate whether or not any given government in Myanmar is operating according to a dhammarāja tradition. Based on the rubric provided and source materials, this paper concludes that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, presumed leader of Myanmar, imagines herself a Buddhist dhammarāja and the leader of a Buddhist Ecumene. The Bamar are concerned about the decline of dhamma and the retraction of a Buddhist land, and this concern provides a basis of support and concern for the current regime.
Becoming Red and White: The Legacy of New Order Nationalism on Interfaith Relations in Ambon
(2016-07-14) Moseley, Benjamin Locke; Moseley, Benjamin L
This paper analyzes the roles of the nationalistic policies and rhetoric of the New Order in facilitating a wave of sectarian violence that plagued the island of Ambon in Indonesia’s Maluku Province from 1999 to 2002. While the sectarian violence in Ambon did not begin until almost a year after the resignation of Suharto in May 1998, this paper endorses the belief that the roots of Christian-Muslim anxiety, mistrust, and, eventually, violence in Ambon can be traced to government efforts to manipulate religious organizations, diminish local institutions, and suppress regional identities. Furthermore, the period of political liberalization that followed the resignation of Suharto, known as Reformasi, created the necessarily conditions for sectarian violence to occur as the different religious and ethnic groups living in Ambon became increasingly nervous about their political, social, and economic positions in a post-Suharto Indonesia. In this paper, newspapers, anthropological articles, and contemporary reports are utilized to examine the outbreak of the sectarian violence, the rhetoric surrounding the violence, and its origins in the policies of the New Order regime. As Ambon was only one of many places in Indonesia to experience violence in the Reformasi period, this paper strives to situate the sectarian conflict in Ambon in the context of national post-Suharto violence and unrest.
NGOs, International Aid, and Mental Health in Cambodia
(2016-04-06) Gordon, Natalie Ann; Curran, Sara
Research shows that there are enduringly high rates of trauma in Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge genocide and current daily stressors including poverty and a corrupt government. Additionally, Cambodia is a highly aid dependent country. There is strong international involvement not only in providing aid to the government, but also in giving grants to local NGOs. Despite this heavy international aid, mental health services in Cambodia are insufficient to address the need. Cambodia is party to the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, meaning that Cambodia is legally obligated to ensure the right to the highest attainable standard of health which includes mental health. Because Cambodia faces resource and infrastructure limitations, the international community is legally obligated to assist Cambodia’s efforts in ensuring the right to health, under the same convention. The fact that these services are not being provided shows that both parties are failing in their obligation to the right to health. The purpose of this thesis is to examine why this mental health gap is not being addressed by international or local actors. To gather data, interviews of local NGOs were conducted in Cambodia, along with observations of meetings with international and local actors, and on-the-ground volunteering experience with a local Cambodian NGO. Some document analysis was also conducted to gather data about how these entities present their programs and goals. The findings from these different sources of data were recorded and triangulated to find common themes and conclusions. This research revealed five main conclusions about why mental health is not being addressed. First, there is poor collaboration between international donors and local NGOs, as well as poor participation with the recipient communities. Second, there is a tension between high government corruption and a need for better regulation of the NGO sector. Third, local NGOs have little autonomy in their programmatic priority setting. The international community has more money and power to set the health agenda in Cambodia. Fourth, there is a disconnect between the Western dominated international understanding of trauma and healing and the culturally embedded Cambodian understanding of trauma and healing. Finally, there are significant funding and infrastructure shortcomings that limit the ability of local NGOs to function effectively. All of these conclusions negatively affect aspects of the right to the highest attainable standard of health and have important implications for research and policy.
This Grievable Life: Precarity, Land Tenancy, Climate Change and Flooding in the Kampung of Jakarta
(2016-03-11) Cuadra, Linda K.; Sears, Laurie J.
University of Washington Abstract This Grievable Life: Precarity, Land Tenancy, and Flooding in the Kampung of Jakarta Linda Kathleen Cuadra Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Laurie Sears History Slum clearing in Jakarta has taken on a new intensity since the end of the New Order in Indonesia, despite the nation’s claim of providing a more democratic atmosphere and expansion of civil right for its citizens. This paper considers the conflation of forces that work to make the lives of Jakarta’s poor residents more precarious, considering Judith Butler’s ideas of precarity and dispossession and how these can lead not just to increased poverty but possibly to positive responses from the dispossessed. Considering how the poor have been moved as demand for developable land and land prices escalate in Jakarta highlights how disenfranchised the poor in modern Indonesia have become. Problems of flooding and climate change are explored, as well as the complicated nature of land use and land tenancy in Jakarta. Neoliberal pressures to both provide cheap, informal labor and to conform to international ideals about environmentalism are considered. Finally, this paper explores whether ideas of dispossession paired with social media may increase the ability of Jakarta’s poor to struggle against those external forces that pressure quality of lives toward penury.
Food, the State and Development: A Political Economy of Agriculture and Trade in Indonesia
(2015-09-29) Cantrell, Ben; Curran, Sara
Indonesia is experiencing a reemergence of economic nationalism in recent national development policy. Agriculture and trade, in particular, are sectors targeted by recent protectionist legislation. This study explores this phenomena, combining qualitative methods and a political economic/historical approach to understanding these recent developments.
PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT AND DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND MANAGEMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES: THE CASE OF ALBAY PROVINCE
(2015-09-29) Pongan, Lauren M.; Rafael, Vicente L
“Climate Change” is no longer an esoteric phrase. In the context of the Philippines, the damage in recent years has been substantial. In addition to the tragic loss of lives and damage to ecosystems and land, “the average annual damage caused by disasters amounts to PHP 19.7 billion in the past two decades, equivalent to an average of 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) each year.” The city of Tacloban serves as an example of failure in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) in the wake of November 2013’s super typhoon Haiyan. In contrast, the province of Albay’s DRRM practices interpret complex, abstruse DRRM legislation and frameworks into a highly contextualized model of participatory development that succeeds in saving lives and mitigating economic and property-damage risks. This paper also assesses the extent to which Albay’s DRRM practices succeed in addressing the factors that make communities vulnerable to begin with, such as lack of economic opportunity or public health issues. Development and DRR are deeply intertwined, and development often becomes a conversation that excludes the very communities that it purports to serve. Participatory DRRM offers a means of returning some level of efficacy to victims of climate change, even in the face of disasters that are difficult to predict.
Vietnam's Forgotten Revolutionaries: Student Voices From Inside the Vietnames Revolution
(2014-10-20) Lillie, Aaron John; Giebel, Christoph
Using a combination of sources, including interviews with a number of former members of the organization, Vietnamese scholarly publications and recent publications by American academics, this thesis project centers primarily on a narrative of the lives of seven Vietnamese student activists in Hue who joined the NLF-led Youth Association of High School Students for National Liberation in the Center of Central Vietnam in December of 1961. Through their accounts and recollections, this narrative investigates and seeks to identify the political and historical conditions that gave life to and fueled this disciplined, highly-motivated and determined revolutionary movement of high school and college students.

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