School of Languages and Cultures · Te Kura o ngā Reo me ngā Tikanga-ā-iwi: Asian Studies Institute
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Item Open Access Hostile borders on historical landscapes : the placeless place of Andamanese culture(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1999) Pandya, VishvajitThis paper is an analysis of meanings attributed to contacts between Jarwas and non-Jarwas in the Andaman Islands. Unlike other Andaman tribal groups, the Jarwas are confined to a government-designated area of 765 square kilometres of forest reserve, which is only a fraction of their former tribal land. Since early colonial occupation, government parties have sought out Jarwas on the west coast of the island they inhabit, bringing them gifts to try to establish friendly relations. On the eastern side of Jarwa territory, on the other hand, the Jarwas raid settlements and occasionally kill settlers and police who venture into their territory. The paper addresses the issue of how the contact event on the eastern side is different in Jarwa eyes from what occurs on the western side. The boundaries are given meanings by the various outsiders and the Jarwas, and these meanings are not fixed. Although contact events are in tended to establish 'friendly' relations with 'hostile' Jarwas, no true relationship of trust and understanding has yet been established. This underlines the fact that meanings are bound by cultural, political and historical contexts.Item Open Access Understanding the Asian Crisis: Recommendations for Policy(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Victorio, Antong (Andres G.)The 1997 Asian crisis is described in order to show a plausible chain of causes and events that led to the eventual collapse of many Asian currencies. Empirical evidence is presented based upon the experiences of five Southeast Asian countries that were severely affected by the crisis. Policies are recommended in the setting of exchange rates, the monitoring and liberalisation of banks, the foreign ownership of domestic assets and the augmentation of foreign exchange reserves.Item Open Access The diasporic imaginary and the Indian diaspora(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2005) Mishra, Vijay“All diasporas are unhappy, but every diaspora is unhappy in its own way” (Mishra 1996: 189). Diasporas refer to people who do not feel comfortable with their non-hyphenated identities as indicated on their passports. Diasporas are people who would want to explore the meaning of the hyphen, but perhaps not press the hyphen too far for fear that this would lead to massive communal schizophrenia. They are precariously lodged within an episteme of real or imagined displacements, self-imposed sense of exile; they are haunted by spectres, by ghosts arising from within that encourage irredentist or separatist movements. Diasporas are both celebrated (by late/post modernity) and maligned (by early modernity). But we need to be a little cautious, a little wary of either position. Celebrating diasporas as the exemplary condition of late modernity – diasporas as highly democratic communities for whom domination and territoriality are not the preconditions of “nationhood” – is a not uncommon refrain. In the late modern celebratory argument on behalf of diasporas, diasporic communities are said to occupy a border zone where the most vibrant kinds of interactions take place and where ethnicity and nation are kept separate. In this argument, diasporas are fluid, ideal, social formations happy to live wherever there is an international airport and stand for a longer, much admired, historical process.Item Open Access Bollywood Cinema: A Critical Genealogy(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2006) Mishra, Vijay“Bollywood” has finally made it to the Oxford English Dictionary. The 2005 edition defines it as: “a name for the Indian popular film industry, based in Bombay. Origin 1970s. Blend of Bombay and Hollywood.” The incorporation of the word in the OED acknowledges the strength of a film industry which, with the coming of sound in 1931, has produced some 9,000 films. (This must not be confused with the output of Indian cinema generally, which would be four times more). What is less evident from the OED definition is the way in which the word has acquired its current meaning and has displaced its earlier descriptors (Bombay Cinema, Indian Popular Cinema, Hindi Cinema), functioning, perhaps even horrifyingly, as an “empty signifier” (Prasad) that may be variously used for a reading of popular Indian cinema. The triumph of the term (over the others) is nothing less than spectacular and indicates, furthermore, the growing global sweep of this cinema not just as cinema qua cinema but as cinema qua social effects and national cultural coding. Although Indian film producers in particular, and pockets of Indian spectators generally, continue to feel uneasy with it (the vernacular press came around to using “Bollywood” only reluctantly), its ascendancy has been such that Bombay Dreams (the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical) and the homegrown Merchants of Bollywood both become signifiers of a cultural logic which transcends cinema and is a global marker of Indian modernity. As the Melbourne (March 2006) closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games showed, Bollywood will be the cultural practice through which Indian national culture will be projected when the games are held in Delhi in 2010. International games (the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, and so on) are often expressions of a nation’s own emerging modernity. For India that modernity, in the realm of culture, is increasingly being interpellated by Bollywood.Item Open Access Modern state building and the problem of intermediate institutions : religion, family and military in East Asia(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2006) Huang, XiaomingThis article examines the problem of intermediate institutions in modern state building in Japan, Korea and China. In particular, it investigates how the state tried to redefine its relations with the forces of religion, family and military in building a direct, effective and exclusive relationship with the individual. The absence of religion-dominated governance, the long history of a centralized state system, and the critical role of the family and military in reinforcing the state in pre-modern society created a local pattern of modern state building in which these significant social and political forces have only gradually lost their capacity to compete with the state as a form of public authority and, consequently, their emergent relations with the state have been ambiguous. This study also finds evidence of a “breakthrough” that divided the process of modern state building into two distinct phases in which different patterns of power relations existed among the state, religion, family and military. These ambiguous emergent relations and the “mid-way breakthrough” constitute two defining elements of the institutional dynamism of modern political development in East Asia.Item Open Access Notes made whilst travelling and at repose (Book One) / by Yuan Zhongdao (1570-1624), translated by Duncan Campbell.(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1999) Campbell, Duncan; Yuan, ZhondaoTranslator’s Introduction Thus it is that, for the six years now since the Wushen year [1608], I have spent much of my time aboard a junk. As one junk fell into disrepair, I have had another built. Whenever I live in town I become as inflamed as if being cauterised with moxa, only finding release when I climb upon a junk. If when studying at home I can understand not a word of what I happen to be reading, on board a junk I become intoxicated with the copiousness of my reading notes. Or if I haven’t written a line of poetry during the course of a year spent on land, my poetic inspiration surges up again like a spring the moment I find myself within the cabin of a junk ... Such is the power of living on a junk. Yuan Zhongdao, ‘Hou Fanfu ji’ [Record of My Second “Floating Wild Duck” Junk] Yuan Zhongdao, the youngest of the three famous Yuan brothers of the late Ming period, never quite achieved either the official success of his eldest brother, Yuan Zongdao (1560-1600), or the literary reputation of the most famous of the three, Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610). To the mind of his earliest biographer, the great Qian Qianyi (1582-1664), his problem in the latter respect was certainly not due to any lack of talent. "Both your poetry and your prose", Qian records himself as telling Yuan on one occasion, "suffer from an excess of talent. Your travel records, for instance, if only you were to edit them severely, deleting more than half their text, could well stand alongside those of the ancients". "Excellent advice", Yuan had responded, "but although you may well be able to do this to them, I cannot, and I am myself forever fearful of the extent to which the gush of my inspiration tends to overflow the banks". Yuan Zhongdao's diary, entitled Youju feilu [Notes Made Whilst Travelling and at Repose], Book One of which is translated here, is a remarkable work, perhaps in part by virtue of the superfluity spoken of by Qian Qianyi. Its thirteen books provide a detailed record of the years 1608-18,a period during which both Yuan Zhongdao's father and his beloved brother Hongdao died, whilst Zhongdao himself belatedly achieved the examination success long expected of him and took up the first of his official posts. Above all, the diary tells of the pleasure Yuan derived from his riverine travels throughout some of the most scenically beautiful parts of southern China, of the friends he encountered along his way and the private collections of painting and calligraphy that he was given access to. As such, it affords us a unique glimpse into the material, social and emotional world of a noted member of the scholarly elite of the late imperial period in China. Yuan Zhongdao's collected works, entitled Kexuezhai ji [Collection of the Snowy White Jade Studio] and including his diary, was first published in his own lifetime, in 1618. The present translation is based on the version found in Qian Bocheng (ed.), Kexuezhai ji (Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1989). Reference has also been made to a recently published and lightly annotated version of the diary, Bu Wenying (ed.), Youju feilu (Shanghai: Yuandong chubanshe, 1996). A partial translation of Book One of this diary is included in Stephen Owen (trans.), An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York & London: W.W. Norton, 1996), pp. 823-26.Item Open Access Kuang Lu's Customs of the south : loyalty on the borders of empire(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Campbell, DuncanThe late Ming dynasty Cantonese scholar and poet Kuang Lu (1604-1650) is almost lost to history. The anecdotes that do tell of him, found scattered in the occasional notes of a number of early Qing writers, situate him on the margins of various discourses: the discourse on the strange and the absurd; that on depravity; and finally that on loyalty, for when Manchu troops occupied Canton Kuang Lu died a martyr to the cause of the Ming dynasty, his favourite qin clutched to his breast. Kuang Lu was also, however, an early ethnographer. Having injured a local magistrate in an accident, he fled to live in Guangxi province amongst the Yao people, serving for some time as the secretary to a woman general there. My paper presents a reading of the account of his stay in the borderlands of the empire that he produced upon his return, his Chiya (Customs of the South), seeking to understand it not so much in terms of what he has to say about the Yao people and their way of life, but as a commentary upon the failings of the social and political order of the Ming dynasty itself.Item Open Access Getting peasants organised : peasants, the Communist-party and village organisations in Northwest China, 1934-45(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Keating, Pauline B.Organising peasants was a Chinese Communist strategy for 'democratising' rural China. In the view of most western historians, the Communists’ grassroots organisations have been the means through which a hegemonising Partystate penetrated rural society to an extent that no state power in China has done before. This paper argues that, if 'democracy' is understood as community activism arising from a measure of local autonomy, there is not necessarily a contradiction between the goals of democratisation and overall state control at the national level. The paper makes a close study of the Communists’ rural organisational work in northwest China in the early 1940s for the purpose of demonstrating the dynamic interplay between the two goals. And it draws three broad conclusions: first, that getting peasants organised was very difficult, and many of the early grassroots organisations failed; second, that local conditions largely determined whether village democracy ever made it to the starter’s block; and third, that farmer mutualaid teams in districts close to Yan’an city serve as the best examples of the autonomycontrol dynamic at work.Item Open Access Conversion and subversion : religion and the management of moral panics in Singapore(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Hill, MichaelTo understand the Singapore government's policy in controlling religion, it is first necessary to trace the emergence of Singapore as an independent state and with it the shaping of 'myths of origin' which highlight its vulnerable situation. The concept of 'moral panic' is a useful tool in examining the role of the state in crisis-production and crisis-amplification: the latter serve as a means of generating public concern in order to justify policies which are presented as necessary to rectify some perceived problem. In particular, the issues of multiracialism and political subversion have been highlighted as sources of the precariousness which, it is claimed, is a continuing feature of Singapore's existence. Religion was identified as especially problematic in the latter half of the 1980s for three reasons. First, Singapore's Malay population was argued to have conflicting loyalties to the state and to Islam. Secondly, the growing influence of evangelical Christianity among the Chinese was viewed as potentially destabilising if it provoked proselytising activity among other ethnic groups. Thirdly, the emergence of a socially activist form of Catholicism and its alleged links with a 'Marxist Conspiracy' contributed to the construction of an acute moral panic which involved the deployment of the security services and eventually led to the introduction of legislation constraining religious organisations. The demarcation of the religious sphere by the state derives in part from the logic of instrumental rationality in a culture of managerialism.Item Open Access Approaching "Asia" from the southeast : does the crisis make a difference?(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Reid, AnthonyAsian Studies Institute inaugural lecture.Item Open Access Knowledge, belief and doubt : some contemporary problems and their solutions from the Nyāya perspective(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2007) Shaw, Jaysankar LalThe aim of this paper is to demonstrate the relevance of Indian epistemology to Western philosophy. Hence I shall discuss: 1. How to suggest solutions to some unsolved problems of Western philosophy. 2. How to suggest better solutions to certain epistemological problems of Western philosophy, and 3. How to add new dimensions to Western philosophy.Item Open Access International studies in Taiwan today : a preliminary survey of the problems and prospects(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2000) Chan, GeraldInternational relations, as an academic study, is relatively new. It is much more developed, discussed and documented in the West, especially the US, than in other places. Within Asia, reports about international relations have begun to appear in Japan and China. This working paper is the first of its kind specifically to examine and make a survey of the study of international relations in Taiwan. The paper begins by giving an historical background, and then discusses the academic study of political science, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in universities. Particular attention is paid to the activities of the Institute of International Relations, the leading institution in the country with a research focus on international relations and Chinese affairs. It ends by analysing the problems of and prospects for studying international relations in Taiwan. This analysis is placed within the context of Taiwan’s unique position in the world, its acrimonious relationship with China, its speedy process of democratisation and the recognised need among the country’s elite for a better understanding of international affairs. On the whole the study of international relations in Taiwan is distinctively policyoriented, with a specific focus on the country's relations with China and the United States, and with little theoretical interest. However, Taiwan's unique experience in world affairs offers a fertile ground for theoretical development which may contribute to an enrichment of the existing international relations scholarship.Item Open Access The crisis in North Korea - seeds of hope(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1999) Beal, TimIn recent years the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK (North Korea) has suffered calamitous food shortages. A recent consolidated appeal by UN agencies and NGOs (nongovernmental organisations) called for US$376 million to meet the humanitarian needs of close to 5.5 million vulnerable people in 1999. The DPRK government has laid the blame for this state of affairs on a series of natural disasters, especially flooding, which has afflicted North Korea over the last three years, and on the United States sanctions which have been in place since the Korean War (195053). Valid as these factors are, however, they are only part of the story. As this paper makes clear, the DPRK has seen much of its foreign trade dry up since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this has led to devastating shortages of imports. The most serious shortfall, in oil imports, has had a serious impact on industry, transportation, power generation and the production of fertilisers. The paper points out that beyond this foreign trade problem lies a more fundamental issue. The DPRK has little arable land and a short growing season for agriculture. Its very successful development programmes of the 1950s1970s were based on a policy of sharply growing inputs of fertiliser, agricultural mechanisation and expansion of irrigation. The policy achieved rapid growth and selfsufficiency, but even without the present crisis it is unlikely that it would have been sustainable because of diminishing returns. This paper draws on recent studies by the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), UNICEF and the Red Cross (IFRC see Glossary). As the paper notes, the DPRK faces a multitude of problems but the crucial one is its relationship with the outside world. This is a complex issue and goes to the heart of the DPRK's history and to its sustaining ideology, Juche, usually translated as 'selfreliance'. The driving force behind the DPRK is nationalism. Its founding myth is the struggle, led by Kim Il Sung, to expel the Japanese and to establish an independent and powerful state, even if on only part of the national territory, and to repulse American attempts to destroy that independence. The paper argues that the search for selfreliance must now be reformulated. What worked in the past with powerful and committed allies such as the Soviet Union and China, both of them to some extent competing with aid and trade, is no longer effective, and the DPRK has to come to terms with the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). It has to earn foreign exchange on world markets. All this requires a lessening of tension in northeast Asia. That in turn demands growing mutual knowledge and understanding between the DPRK and the other states with which its future is interconnected. There are in fact a number of signs of such a trend emerging. The DPRK is in particular becoming much more confident and adept at dealing with foreign agencies. As the UN consolidated appeal noted, "[g]reat strides have been made building confidence with the [DPRK] Government since 1995", with increased access by foreign agencies to areas of North Korea formerly offlimits. It is this building up of mutual understanding, the disinterested provision of aid and expertise, and the acceptance of it with confidence that may plant the most fertile seeds of hope for the future.Item Restricted India, Pakistan and the Kashmir Dispute(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Ganguly, RajatThe root cause of instability and hostility in South Asia stems from the unresolved nature of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. It has led to two major wars and several near misses in the past. Since the early 1990s, a 'proxy war' has developed between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The onset of the proxy war has brought bilateral relations between the two states to its nadir and contributed directly to the overt nuclearisation of South Asia in 1998. It has further undermined the prospects for regional integration and raised fears of a deadly IndoPakistan nuclear exchange in the future. Resolving the Kashmir dispute has thus never acquired more urgency than it has today. This paper analyses the origins of the Kashmir dispute, its influence on IndoPakistan relations, and the prospects for its resolution.Item Open Access Wild bull fight / by F. Rahardi; translated by Stephen Epstein.(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1999) Epstein, Stephen J.; Rahardi, F.Translated short storyItem Open Access Thus ended my days of watching over the house / by Pak Wan-sô ; translated by Stephen Epstein.(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1997) Epstein, Stephen J.; Pak, Wan-sŏThis first Paper consists of a translation of a short story by the Korean writer, Pak Wansô. Pak Wansô (1931), although little known in the West, is the most well known woman writer in Korea today.Item Open Access Gender, Politics and the Household in the Short Stories of Pak Wan-sô(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1998) Epstein, Stephen J.Pak Wan-sô (1931), though little known in the West, is perhaps the most notable female author currently writing in South Korea. Her works have not only received prestigious literary awards but have topped bestseller lists and, like Yi Ch'ôngjun and Yi Munyôl, writers who similarly enjoy both recognition for their literary skills and a mass following, Pak has seen her fiction successfully adapted for screen productions. In Pak's case, however, wide popularity (especially among a female audience), taken in combination with the author's own gender, have produced controversy in the critical reception of her work. If we grant that there exists a hegemonic ideology for women in Korea, and if, with Dianne Hoffman, who writes on blurred gender roles in Korea, we take it as axiomatic that "wherever there exists a dominant ideology for women, one finds a popular culture that shapes everyday life in ways that subvert or even contradict the dominant ethos", it comes as little surprise that Pak's works have at times been regarded as mildly threatening.
