Sociology of Southeast Asia Is Long Overdue

KING One of the main problems faced by teachers and students who have a scholarly interest in Southeast Asia is the lack of general, user-friendly texts in the social sciences. A single-authored, integrated introductory volume on the sociology of Southeast Asia is long overdue. This book is the first of its kind. It focuses on the sociology of change and development THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA in the region and provides an overview of the important sociological and political economy writings. In particular it considers the key concepts and themes in the field since 1945. Aimed primarily at undergraduates up to the final year, it is also a valuable reference work for postgraduates and researchers who lack such a general book. In examining social processes historically and comparatively it refers back to the classic writings in European sociology and locates local-level issues and processes in the context of more general political, economic and cultural transformations, and in relation to theories of modernization, underdevelopment and globalization. The major themes covered include the colonial THE encounter, social class, status and the state, ethnicity and identity, patronage and corruption, gender and SOCIOLOGY OF work, urbanization and Asian values. ‘Victor King has produced a lucid, comprehensive SOUTHEAST ASIA and challenging analysis of the state-of-the-art of Southeast Asian sociology. The book is not only an Transformations in a Developing Region excellent text book for courses on Southeast Asia or development sociology, but also “required reading” for all social scientists embarking on research on the area. I am certain it will become a long-lasting Victor T. King addition to the standard literature on Asia.’ (Hans- Dieter Evers, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Bielefeld University, now at Bonn University) Victor T. King is Professor of South East Asian Studies and Executive Director of the White Rose East Asia Centre at the University of Leeds. He has published widely in the field of Southeast Asian studies, especially in the sociology of change and development and in social and cultural anthropology. www.niaspress.dk King-nias-pbk_cover.indd 1 6/9/07 14:53:07 THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA King_NIAS-prelims.indd 1 7/9/07 9:46:38 King_NIAS-prelims.indd 2 7/9/07 9:46:39 THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA Transformations in a Developing Region Victor T. King King_NIAS-prelims.indd 3 7/9/07 9:46:39 First published in 2008 by NIAS Press Leifsgade 33, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark tel (+45) 3532 950 • fax (+45) 3532 9549 email: [email protected] • website: www.niaspress.dk Simultaneously published in the United States by the University of Hawai‘i Press © Victor T. King 2008 All rights reserved. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data King, Victor T. The sociology of Southeast Asia : transformations in a developing region . Southeast Asia - Social conditions - 2st century I. Title 306’.0959’0905 ISBN: 978-87-94-59-5 (hardback) ISBN: 978-87-94-60- (paperback) Typeset by NIAS Press Produced by SRM Production Services Sdn Bhd and printed in Malaysia King_NIAS-prelims.indd 4 3/10/07 13:04:06 Contents Preface: Setting the Scene vii Acknowledgements xiv . Introduction: The Sociology of a Diverse Region 2. The Sociological Context 20 3. Modernization and Post-War Social Change 37 4. Underdevelopment and Dependency 56 5. Social Class, the State and Political Economy 9 6. Ethnicity and Society 29 7. Patronage and Corruption 55 8. Asian Values and Social Action 78 9. Transformations in the World of Work: Gender Issues 97 0. Transformations in Urban Worlds 225 . Conclusions: Modernity, Globalization and the Future 246 Images of Southeast Asia 256 References 270 Author/Name Index 37 Subject Index 322 v King_NIAS-prelims.indd 5 7/9/07 9:46:41 The Sociology of Southeast Asia Map Southeast Asia xvi Illustrations Novice cameraman near Yangon, Myanmar 256 Wat Thaalaat, Yasothon Province, northeast Thailand 257 Transplanting rice, Yasothon Province, northeast Thailand 257 Reflections: Buddhist monks in Siem Reap, Cambodia 258 Reflections: cyclists in Kunming, China 258 Mosque and boat, Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia 259 Carrying offerings, Bali, Indonesia 260 Offering devotions, Bali, Indonesia 260 Akha girls, Chiang Rai, northern Thailand 26 Boat women, Hoi-An, Vietnam 26 Klong slum, Bangkok 262 Democracy monument, Bangkok 262 Singapore skyline 263 Boat people, Hue 263 Tanjung Pagar shophouses, Singapore 264 HDB housing, Singapore 264 Chinatown, Bangkok 265 Chinatown, Singapore 265 Slum housing in Smokey Mountain, Manila 266 Round the bend: street vendor in Hanoi 266 Air pollution, Hanoi 267 Stevedore, Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia 267 Hanoi street vendors 267 Water collectors, Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia 268 Child ice cream vendor, Bac Ha market, northern Vietnam 268 Globalization, Indonesia 269 Cool dude, Phnom Penh 269 Taxi rank, Bangkok 269 Table Southeast Asia: key statistics xvii vi King_NIAS-prelims.indd 6 7/9/07 9:46:41 Preface: Setting the Scene Rather than provide an impersonal introduction I thought it more appropriate to preface the volume with an indication of how and why I came to write this book. A major problem faced by teachers and students with a scholarly interest in Southeast Asia is the lack of user-friendly social science texts. The absence of an introduction to the sociology of Southeast Asia is unfortunate, although my colleagues in politics, economics, history, geography and anthropology fare rather better in the provision of introductory volumes. For over thirty years I have taught courses in Southeast Asian sociology at the University of Hull, and now at Leeds, and I have been acutely conscious of the lack of sociological introductions combining an interest in conceptual issues with the comparative analysis of social life and its transformation. A general sociology of Southeast Asia is long overdue, and, following the completion of other projects, I decided that I should attempt to provide one. I regret that I have not found the time to produce such a book sooner. Yet I am much comforted when reading Wim Wertheim’s ‘foreword’ to his compilation East–West Parallels that ‘to find time to write a book is difficult enough for a university professor, who has the privilege of being responsible for guiding the studies of quite a number of students’(964a: v). Perhaps I cannot use this as an excuse for my tardiness, but had an integrated sociological text on Southeast Asia been available it would have made the academic life of my students much easier, given that we have had to canvas diverse social-science and historical materials, both theoretical and empirical, to help us understand the processes and consequences of social transformation in this complex and diverse region. vii King_NIAS-prelims.indd 7 7/9/07 9:46:41 The Sociology of Southeast Asia Nevertheless, I must emphasize, perhaps unsurprisingly, that had I written this book in the 970s it would have been very different. What must strike any inter- ested observer of Southeast Asia over the last thirty years are the rapid pace, depth and breadth of change. In comparison with the late 960s, when I first encountered Southeast Asia as a student, the region in the early years of the new millennium is a very different place. Thirty years ago its economies were still predominantly rural-based with an overdependence on the production or extraction and export of primary products. The manufacturing base and urban population were mod- est in size; infrastructure, welfare and educational facilities in many parts of the region were rather rudimentary. These characteristics were to a significant extent the legacy of the colonial period and the uneven development which it occasioned. But, although Western colonialism opened the region to a capitalist world and transformed what some social scientists refer to as ‘traditional’ societies, it was only after 945 that the pace of modernization quickened. Moreover, during the period of decolonization Southeast Asia saw serious military conflicts and wide- spread political instability as these newly-independent countries struggled to forge a national identity from ethnically and culturally diverse constituencies and address problems of economic underdevelopment. Rural insurrection, often closely linked with communist political organizations or ethnic-based separatist movements, continued to preoccupy several of the governments of the region. Southeast Asia was also the focus of superpower engagement following decolonization and the vacuum which this left, particularly in the Indochinese countries of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The preoccupations of academic books published in the late 960s and 970s express those years of turmoil, uncertainty and instability: ‘region of revolt’, ‘dimensions of conflict’, ‘war and revolution’, ‘prel- udes to tragedy’, ‘the search for survival’. In the economic sphere the prognosis for the region was equally pessimistic: ‘modernization without development’, ‘the development of underdevelopment’, and ‘poverty and inequality’ were the main themes of the day. Even in the second half of the 970s and the 980s the communist victories in Indochina paved the way for further conflict, tragedy and bloodshed – the Cambodian ‘killing fields’ and the merciless regime of Pol Pot, the exodus of the Vietnamese ‘boat-people’, the Sino–Vietnamese conflict, the invasion and oc- cupation of Cambodia by Vietnamese forces, and the continuing military struggles and civil war between the Vietnamese-backed government and the ousted Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, despite these continuing political problems, from the mid-970s we began to witness a period of sustained economic growth in those countries comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and – notwith- standing the Asian economic crisis of 997–98 and its aftermath, which in turn severely dented the progress of such countries as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia – standards of living are significantly higher now than they were in the 960s. Economies are more broad-based, and industrialization and urbanization have continued apace.

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