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Page 1 22nd Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia Abstracts 22nd Biennial Conference of the ASAA The University of Sydney sydney.edu.au/events/asaa2018 Area Studies and Beyond – Abstracts 22nd Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) 3 - 5 July 2018 Contents Welcome from the ASAA President ii Welcome from the Conference Convenor iii Sub-Regional Keynote Abstracts 1 Roundtable Abstracts 3 Speaker Abstracts (alphabetical by last name) Abdullah – Asad 4 Bacon – Bytheway 12 Campbell – Curato 21 Da-Anoy – Dutta 37 Edwards – Erlina 44 Fabrizio – Fushiki 46 Galang – Gupta 53 Hack – Hyslop 62 Inwald – I-Ying 73 Jacka – Jung 74 Kam – Kwek 77 Lahiri-Dutt - Luzzu 86 Ma – Myutel 98 Abstracts Nagesh – Nur 112 O’Brien – Oshiro 120 Pak – Putra 121 Rahim – Rungmanee 132 Saito – Swinbank 139 Tadem – Twomey 155 Uabumrungjit – Utama 164 Vanderstaay – Vu 164 Wahyuningrum – Wu 167 Xiaoxuan – Xu 179 Yadav – Yusuke 179 Zabrovskaia – Zhou 186 22nd Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia Association of Asian Studies 22nd Biennial Conference of the i Page i2 Welcome from the ASAA President Welcome to the 22nd biennial Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference Since 1976, ASAA and its conferences have been at the centre of Asian engagement in Australia. Over these 42 years, Asian Studies and Asian engagement have moved from the periphery of the Australian academy and public discourse to the very heart. We stand on the shoulders of those who have presented before us and brought their insight to the attention of policy makers and the next generation of students. This year’s conference is marked by the largest number of attendees, presenters and graduate students we have ever hosted. In years to come, subsequent presidents and members will be able to discuss the insights and highlights learned at Sydney in 2018. Abstracts This is a time more than ever when we need insight from knowledgeable commentators on Asia. At a time when leaders advocate a fake news and post-truth world, we have a responsibility to continue to present richly researched, critically scrutinised and evidence-based opinions. Moreover, we need to continue to demand all voices are heard and provide a forum and support particularly for the voices of the Asian region. In that vein, we acknowledge the Indigenous people of the place where we meet and where we study, and we pay our respects to all elders past, present and future. Have a fantastic conference. 22nd Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia Association of Asian Studies 22nd Biennial Conference of the Kent Anderson President, Asian Studies Association of Australia ii Page 1 Welcome from the Conference Convenor Welcome to the 22nd biennial Asian Studies Association of Australia conference, hosted by the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, the China Studies Centre, and the School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Sydney. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to The University of Sydney for this largest-ever ASAA conference. It is exciting to have so many scholars from Australia, Asia and beyond gathered at the University. I trust that you will enjoy this opportunity for intellectual exchange in and beyond the conference sessions, but also to renew old academic friendships and make new ones. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the organising committee and the disciplinary/thematic champions, who have played such an important role in taking this conference Abstracts beyond traditional area studies to disciplines as diverse as architecture, international business and public health. Heartfelt thanks are also due to my team at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, who have—as always—risen to the challenge of organising this enormous event. Finally, the conference would not have been possible without the financial support of our major sponsors. Alongside the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, these include the China Studies Centre, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the School of Languages and Cultures and the Power Institute. Funding from these and other sources have enabled us to support postgraduate students and scholars from the region, as well as ensuring that we can 22nd Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia Association of Asian Studies 22nd Biennial Conference of the present the best program possible. Professor Michele Ford Director, Sydney Southeast Asia Centre iii Page 2 Sub-Regional Keynote Abstracts Daniel Botsman (JSAA) Emperors, Outcastes and the Politics of Commemoration in Modern Japan: 1868/1968/2018 In 1968, at the time of the Japanese government’s official Meiji Centennial celebration, the historian Suzuki Ryō (1934-2015) published an article about the plight of a Hisabetsu Buraku community, which had been “forcibly relocated” in the 1910s because its presence was considered an insult to the nearby tomb of the Emperor Jinmu, mythical progenitor of Japan’s Imperial line. The tomb itself was a modern creation and for Suzuki the treatment suffered by this community provided a concrete example of the evils of the pre-war “Emperor system”. Fifty years later, as Japan’s current Emperor prepares to abdicate, and the Abe administration pushes once again to celebrate “the spirit of Meiji”, scholars such as Takagi Hiroshi have challenged key aspects of Suzuki’s work, but this talk aims to show that the issues it raised remain deeply relevant for our understanding of modern Japanese history. Tuesday 4 July, 17:00 - 17:45 Room: 2150 Katherine Bowie (AMSEAS) Beyond Nations and Areas: Monsoon Asia as a Geoenvironmental Region and Sociospatial Grouping Kruba Srivichai (1878-1939) is the most famous monk of northern Thailand. Born on a stormy night, northerners came to believe that he was a tonbun, a saintly precursor of Maitreya. Able to mobilize popular support on an unprecedented scale, Srivichai was involved in the building or restoration of over 100 temples throughout the northern region. By contrast the Bangkok court viewed him as a rebel leading a millenarian revolt against central Thai authority. During his lifetime he was detained under temple arrest multiple times. He was sent to Bangkok for investigation in 1920 and again in 1935-36, the latter arrest leading to the forcible disrobing of some 400 monks and novices. Prevailing scholarship has attributed his temple arrests to his failure to abide by the Sangha Act of 1902; however the Sangha Act did not apply to the northern region until 1924. My research suggests that the implementation of the Military Conscription Act and the Education Act, each important elements in the process of modern nation-state formation, underlay Srivichai’s arrests. My discussion places Srivichai’s controversial biography in the context of the pressures of Thai nation-state formation. Tuesday 4 July, 17:00 - 17:45 Room: 2080 Abstracts Kevin Carrico (CSAA) Seeing Sansha: The Political Aesthetics of a South China Sea Settlement On 24 July 2012, the Sansha People’s Government was established on an anthropogenic island in the South China Sea, more than 350 kilometers from the southernmost point of Hainan Province. The city of Sansha, occupying roughly ten square kilometers on Woody Island, has since grown to a population of over a thousand, and now serves as a symbolic cornerstone in the construction of PRC sovereignty in the South China Sea. Alongside the ambitious logistical and military projects to make Sansha “part of China”, a corresponding aesthetic project has consolidated in citizens’ minds a distant island which most will never see. In these cultural products, a new addition of territory is portrayed as an eternal part of China, while a remote island is constructed as an integral and intimately familiar part of the nation-state. This paper analyses a number of aesthetic portrayals of the island, including in film, poetry, and painting, thinking through their implications for state and popular nationalism in China today. Tuesday 4 July, 17:00 - 17:45 Room: 2090 Anis Hidayah (Indonesia Council) Protecting Indonesia’s Migrant Workers In mid-March 2018, another Indonesian migrant worker, Zaini Misrin, was executed in Saudi Arabia. Zaini’s case exposes the reality that Indonesians working abroad remain vulnerable because the framework of protections is still weak. The vulnerability of Indonesian migrant workers is the result of a non-protective migration policy. The adoption of Law No. 18/2017 on the Protection of Indonesian 22nd Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia Association of Asian Studies 22nd Biennial Conference of the Migrant Workers late last year, after a process that began almost seven years earlier, marks an important milestone. It substantially reduces the dominant role of private agents that causes migrant workers to experience debt bondage due to the high costs of migration and is expected to improve future protections. Civil society groups, including Migrant CARE have played a significant role in encouraging the protection for migrant workers for several decades. This paper will describe the work of Desa Peduli Buruh Migran, a Migrant CARE program working in cooperation with local government, to facilitate better access to protection for migrant workers. Tuesday 4 July, 17:00 - 17:45 Room: 2140 Page 1 Niraja Gopal Jayal (SASAA) Reconfiguring Citizenship in India This lecture will revisit the themes explored in my book Citizenship and Its Discontents, to take stock of recent