[Tlc] TLC/AAS reminder

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Dear TLC Members (if you received this message the new TLC
listserv is working!),

See below information a reminder regarding the TLC meeting at
the AAS (4/6-4/9) and sundry. Please alert me to any
additions, corrections, or suggestions.

This year, if we have time after Dr. Craig Reynolds' talk and
the short agenda, if anyone has links to the latest news about
the political firestorm in Thailand, please bring news to
announce at the meeting. It is rare, in the States, to have a
group of Thai Studies experts in the same room together. Larry
Ashmun recently made a great suggestion to me -- he suggested
that we get together after the meeting and have a roundtable
discussion. If anyone would like to join that roundtable (it
will have to be late -- after 8:30 pm) then please contact me
and I will put a list together, and add it to the agenda. If
there is enough interest, I will request to the AAS that we be
allowed to use the room for another hour. If not, we can
continue the meeting at the hotel or local cafe/lounge.

Remember, Dr. Pattana Kitiarsa's TLC panel in honor of Charles
Keyes is between 5-7 pm on Saturday, April 8th. Please try to
attend that panel before the TLC business meeting. It looks
like a great selection of papers.

Best,
justin

THAILAND/LAOS/CAMBODIA GROUP OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ASIAN STUDIES
Annual Business Meeting
San Francisco, CA 
7:15 Pacific Suite H
4th Floor 
Marriot
Saturday
April 8, 2006

MEETING AGENDA (7:15-9:00)

1) This year's meeting will start with a talk "A History of
Auspiciousness from Thai Handbooks" presented by Dr. Craig J.
Reynolds (Australian National University). This talk is the
first in the TLC "discipline series." This year's focus
is "History." At the business meeting we will open the floor
to ideas for next year's "discipline" (Anthropology, Political
Science, Linguistics, Development Studies, Ethnomusicology,
Economics, etc.).   

Abstract: 

"A History of Auspiciousness from Thai Handbooks"

For a project that began as a hobby, I've collected a
mind-boggling assortment of handbooks, what might be called
manual knowledge. Many of these handbooks concern
auspiciousness -- when to plant a crop, how to improve the
spiritual self, how to select a good fighting cock from a
brood, how to read moles and freckles. For a historian to
understand these handbooks it is necessary to relax the rules
of accountability, so to speak. I hope to show how the
historian's interests in handbooks overlap and enhance the
study of religion, anthropology, politics, and economics.

2) Call for panel ideas for a T/L/C sponsored panel. Please
bring suggestions for next year's panel.

This year's TLC-Panel is: Saturday April, 8, 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
#183. Villagers as Urban/Overseas Migrants: Rethinking and
Relocating the Vanishing Rural Worlds of Southeast Asia

(Chair: Pattana Kitiarsa, National University of Singapore).
This is the sole panel sponsored by the TLC and one of the
only panels that features papers on Thai-Lao-Cambodian topics.
It is a panel in honor of Charles Keyes. I encourage everyone
to attend and promote TLC panels at the AAS in the future.
Please see a description of this panel and the abstracts
below. For easy reference, see also a list of every TLC or
Southeast Asian panel/event below. 

For the room location of this panel and all other TLC-SEA
panels and events see: http://www.aasianst.org/annmtg.htm

3) Website (tlc.ucr.edu), listserve and Khosana update. Check
out the website! There is lots of new stuff. Lots more is
being added this week. Please bring suggestions, resources,
criticisms, etc. If you subscribed to the print edition of
Khosana in the past you should be receiving a CD-Rom this
week--I mailed over 200.   

4) Member news--we have lots of new members!

5) Nominations and Elections:

*Continuing Executive Committee Members (2005-2007): Henry
Delcore (California State University at Fresno), Tamara Loos
(Cornell University), John Marston (El Colegio de México) 

*This year there will be a call for nominations to replace
four executive committee members and chair:
Karen Adams, Gregory Green, Ellen Johnson, Justin McDaniel,
Michael Montesano
 
6) Announcements (Please come with any information on upcoming
conferences, fellowship opportunities, performances, archive
openings, etc. that you would like to bring to the attention
of the TLC membership. If you send me these announcements I
will also post them on the TLC website).

7) Call for donations for the Ingrid Muan Graduate Traveling
Fellowship. Financial news: we are quite doing well, but could
do more to help students and scholars traveling from SEA.
Please help us grow with a 5-10 USD donation. You will be
helping well-deserving graduate students in TLC Studies.

8) Floor open for any other announcemnts.

9) Possible roundtable on recent political events in Thailand.

ADDENDUM:

Special Panel to Honor Prof. Charles F. Keyes’
Career Contributions to the Studies of the ‘Golden Peninsula,’
(The Sole Panel Sponsored by the Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Study
Group) 

Saturday April, 8, 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
#183.

Title:
Villagers as Urban/Overseas Migrants: 
Rethinking and Relocating the Vanishing Rural Worlds of
Southeast Asia

This is a special panel aiming to pay homage to and celebrate
Prof. Charles F. Keyes’ career achievements and contribution
to Asian studies, particularly the anthropological studies of
the Golden Peninsula.

Engaging with a major portion of Charles Keyes’ scholarship on
mainland Southeast Asia’s changing ‘moral economy’ of the
ethno-culturally complex rural world, the panel aims to
revisit debates concerning village studies and to relocate the
rural village in the broader contexts of rapid urbanization
and transnationalization. 

What is the rural village (mu ban/kampong) in the
post-development world? Has it actually vanished? What has
happened to rural villages after decades of urbanization and
transnationalization? How have ‘rural’ villagers experienced
and responded to the onslaught of urbanization and
transnationalization?

Papers presented in this panel will examine and explore these
questions from different ethnographic and methodological
angles. Marjorie Muecke discusses theoretical and
methodological aspects of her longitudinal research project on
reproductive health and families during the era of rapid
policy-directed “development” and urbanization in Northern
Thailand. Eric Thompson explores evolving rural identities as
experienced by Malay migrants living and working in Malaysia’s
urbanizing areas. Maureen Hickey uses her case studies of
Thai-Isan taxi drivers in Bangkok to locate the issues
concerning globalization on the ground and the geographies of
transportation to link the local and the global. Pattana
Kitiarsa takes the ‘contracted and imagined life’ of
transnational labor migrants from Northeastern Thailand’s
countryside as popular culture. Altogether, they contribute to
issues of how and why rural villages should be located and
viewed in the contemporary contexts of urbanization and
transnationalization.

 
Chair: 
Pattana Kitiarsa, Asia Research Institute, National University
of Singapore 


Panelists: 
Marjorie Muecke, Department of Psychosocial and Community
Health/Anthropology, University of Washington
Eric Thompson, Department of Sociology, National University of
Singapore
Maureen Hickey, Department of Geography, University of Washington
Pattana Kitiarsa, Asia Research Institute, National University
of Singapore 

Discussant:
Amara Pongsapitch, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn
University 

Abstracts:

Capturing Change:
On the Methodological Challenges and the Rewards 
of Long-term Ethnographic Relationships with One’s “Field”
Marjorie Muecke 
University of Washington

Long-term ethnographic relationships such as those created by
Charles Keyes with “his village” of Northeastern Thailand can
yield new understandings of the intricate processes of social
change and can sometimes make new knowledge by demonstrating
cause-effect relationships.  Dr. Keyes’ mentorship guided a
number of his first doctoral students, myself included, to
follow suit and develop long-term relationships with our
respective “fields.”  The new knowledge that emerges from this
work involves greater understanding of the fluid and complex
nature of “the field” studied and of its ever-metamorphosing
relationships to the world at large, as well as of the
ethnographer’s own changing situatedness in the world over
time.  In contrast to the knowledge based upon static images
and outcomes provided by cross-sectional studies, an
ethnographer’s studies over the long-term with the same people
or place provide keys to the processes of change because each
visit to “the field” provides a comparative perspective on
previous encounters and points to emergent trends.  Yet the
gains are obtained against steep odds.

In this presentation I will identify and examine theoretical
and methodological issues that long term study raise, using
examples from my experience in a three decade study of

families whom I first met in urban Chiang Mai.  I will discuss
the challenges posed and the benefits promised by long-term
study during the era of rapid policy-directed “development”
and urbanization of Thailand.  The paper will focus on the
parallel sea changes that challenge the long-term study of
change in people and places: profound changes in
anthropological theory; concomitant changes in technology
(including the introduction of the computer; advances in
medical technology; and the revolutionary shift in ease of
distance communication); increased monitoring of all research
for observance of  ethical standards that were developed in
Europe and the USA for empirical interventionist research; and
changes in the ethnographer as an instrument of her / his
Zeitgeist.   

Cultural Urbanism, Cosmopolitan Chauvinism, and Rural
Identities in Malaysia
Eric C. Thompson
National University of Singapore

Malaysian society, like much of Asia, has undergone a
transformation from agricultural and rural to industrial and
urban. This transformation is not only demographic and
economic, but has consequences for cultural beliefs and
identity formations. The Malay world has long been a world of
frontiers, long-distance trade, and radical mobility. Yet in
the wake of European colonialism, Malays came to be seen – and
importantly, to see themselves – as a backwards and largely
rural community. The “orang kampung” (lit. village person) in
particular became a figure of pity if not contempt. This paper
maps the details of a cultural construction of rural
marginalization in Malay discourse and the political
consequences of cosmopolitan chauvinism. In this regard, I
argue that it is more productive to see rural conservativism –
which in the case of Malaysia includes support for the Islamic
Party of Malaysia (PAS) – as a product of cultural urbanism
than as a “natural” characteristic of rural peoples.


Village Man/Taxi Man: Bangkok Taxi Drivers and Rural to Urban
Migration in a Globalizing Thailand
Maureen Hickey
University of Washington

	More than five decades on, rural out-migration remains a
central facet of life and livelihood for the majority of
Northeastern Thai villagers.   But as Thailand increasingly
participates in a “globalized” economy and culture focused on
Bangkok, and as many Northeastern Thais now spend the majority
of their lives as city dwellers, does it make sense to speak
of these migrants as “villagers” any longer?  How do migrants

maintain and build relationships in their “home” villages? 
How do migrants “place” themselves and their experiences in an
increasingly modernized and globalized Thai society?  Based on
ten-months of dissertation research with taxi drivers from
Northeastern Thailand, this paper argues that while more and
more migrant taxi drivers are spending the majority of their
adult years working in Bangkok, the “village” -- both as a
geographic place and as the focus of personal, familial and
ethno-cultural identity -- remains at the center of most
drivers’ lives.  Northeastern taxi drivers in Bangkok continue
to frame their migration experiences in terms of traditional
masculine responsibilities to provide for their wives,
children and extended village communities.  Even as drivers
struggle to adjust to new economic realities, such as the
deregulation of taxi ownership, and to new social priorities,
such as providing children with higher education, most drivers
continue to “place” themselves, even in an ever expanding and
increasingly fragmented social world, in terms of their
identities as “village men” who will one day return home full
time to farm and to take up positions of local responsibility.  


The Romance of Overseas Migrant Workers:
Thailand’s Transnational Labor Migration as Popular Culture
Pattana Kitiarsa
National University of Singapore

	Transnational labor migration constitutes multiple sites and
signs of cultural production, circulation, and consumption.
While recent literature on the subject in the Asia-Pacific
region seems to overlook these prolific transient cultural
significations, this paper takes Thailand’s labor migratory
flows across national borders as forms of popular cultural
practice. Representations of the overseas ‘labor-selling’
culture of Thailand’s overseas migrant workers (OMWs) will be
gathered from a selection of materials like romantic, tragic,
and comedic stories in popular musical genres (e.g., lukthung,
molam, and pleng phue chiwit), novels, TV dramas, and films.
It is my argument that Thailand’s overseas migrant workers’
identities and selfhoods have been commoditized subjects in
the popular cultural media since the mid 1980s. The ways which
OMWs’ selfhoods are produced, circulated, and consumed are
contingent to the positions subscribed to by people at home
rather than their harsh realities abroad. OMWs’ stories are
portrayed as the romances of the emerging transnational
working class, aiming to place the underprivileged and
outclassed selfhoods ‘at home in the world.’ Nurtured by the
growing transnational entertaining industry, these popular
media weave the webs of self-comforting and nostalgic
sensibilities to be marketed and consumed both at home and away.

**OTHER TLC or Southeast Asian Studies panels, events, and
meetings in conjunction (numbers refer to their place in the
on-line AAS meeting program. If any panel, etc. interests you
the room locations are listed on-line.):

Thursday 7-9 pm
9. Culture, Literature, & Language in Southeast Asian Studies
- Sponsored by COTSEAL (Leo Paz, City College of San Francisco)

10. Individual Papers: Religion, Civil Society and Nation in
Southeast Asia (Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Boston University)

Friday 8:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
30. Using Climate Forecasts in Southeast Asia: “New” Science,
Institutions, and Development (Shiv Someshwar, Columbia
University)

Friday 10:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
45. Asian Cosmopoleis: Networks in Premodern and Early Modern
Eras (John N. Miksic, National University of Singapore)

Roundtable: Current Trends in Teaching Southeast Asian
Languages and Cultures - Sponsored by COTSEAL (John F.
Hartmann, Northern Illinois University)

49. Governing Reproduction: Women’s Bodies in Vietnamese
Society, 1600–2005 (Nhung Tuyet Tran, University of Toronto)

Friday 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
67. Politics and Problems in the Production of Knowledge about
Southeast Asia - Sponsored by the Southeast Asia Council (John
Thayer Sidel, London School of Economics)

68. Porn-ation: Mediating Sex-Crossings (Laura J Bellows,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

69. Religion in East and Southeast Asia: Transformation in
Regional Perspective (Thomas DuBois, National University of
Singapore)


70. Roundtable: The Asian Antiquities Trade and the Academy
(Magnus Fiskesjo, Cornell University)

Friday 3:15 p.m.–5:15 p.m.
96. Local Institutional Innovation under Decentralized
Government: Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam (Alasdair
Bowie, George Washington University)

Saturday 8:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
118. Southeast Asia’s Changing Security Environment: New and
Conflicting Views from Within (Tuong H. Vu, University of
California, Berkeley)

Saturday 10:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
138. Communities of Interpretation and the Idea of Modern
Burma (Maitrii Aung-Thwin, National University of Singapore)

139. The Literary Culture of South Vietnam (Jason A Picard,
University of California, Berkeley)

140. Cultural Commodities, Production and Power in Southeast
Asia. (Sarah Turner, McGill University)

Saturday 2:45 p.m.–4:45 p.m.
155. AAS Presidential Panel - Funding for Asian Studies in the
Twenty-First Century: International Perspectives (Barbara
Watson Andaya, University of Hawaii, Manoa)

159. The Philippines as a Nation and the Filipinos as a
People: Alternative Interpretations to their History and
Identity (Richard T. Chu, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

160. Vertical Linkages and Multi-Level Politics in
Decentralized Indonesia (Ehito Kimura, University of
Wisconsin, Madison)

161. Individual Papers: Modern Developments and Popular
Culture (Nancy J. Smith-Hefner, Boston University)

Saturday 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
183. Villagers as Urban/Overseas Migrants: Rethinking and
Relocating the Vanishing Rural Worlds of Southeast Asia
(Pattana Kitiarsa, National University of Singapore)

184. “Blessed are the Peacemakers”: Opportunities and
Obstacles to Religion as a Solution to Internal Conflicts in
Southeast Asia (Joseph Chinyong Liow, Nanyang Technological
University)

185. Vexed Relations: Rethinking the Second Indochina War
through the Perspectives of the South Vietnamese and their
Military Allies (Lien-Hang Thi Nguyen, Yale University)

Sunday 8:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
203. Individual Papers: Reflections on Religion: Buddhism,
Shamanism, and Protestantism (Paul Hutchcroft, University of
Wisconsin, Madison)

207. Vietnam Keywords (Erik Harms, Duke University)

208. Explaining Party Institutionalization in Southeast Asia
(Erik M. Kuhonta, McGill University)

209. Improvising Philippine Identities: Reconsidering
Populations at the Margins of the State (Oona Thommes Paredes,
Arizona State University)


Sunday 10:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
228. Party Politics in Southeast Asia (Yin H Kyaw, National
University of Singapore)

227. Engagements with Peace: Comparative Perspectives on Peace

and Peacebuilding in South and Southeast Asia (Haley
Duschinski, Ohio University)











______________

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
909-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu