• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.109-131
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• 2022

This paper compares the French Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) and the Vietnamese Vũ Trọng Phụng (1912-1939), and explores transformations of their aesthetic experiences that led to the autonomization of French literary field in the nineteenth century and Vietnamese in the early twentieth century. Inspired from the term "archive" coined by Michel Foucault, this article argues that Flaubert, in abandoning the bourgeois tastes, contested realism and built his own writing ideology and style, which is called subjective realism. On the other hand, it also argues that Vũ Trọng Phụng, through the popular report genre, he gained success and evolved his own novel writing style, aptly called the realism of speech. It is ostensible that the transformation in the two authors' writing style and aesthetic experience was derived from the way they distanced themselves from their contemporaries' common tastes while making use of free indirect speeches, all with the aim of granting readers the autonomy of reading.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.119-140
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• 2020

Emerging from Portuguese colonialism and Indonesian occupation to become one of the newest states, Timor-Leste is an interesting example of modern nation-building. Geographically, Timor-Leste is located in the area covered by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In such context, Timor-Leste has a strong claim to belonging to Southeast Asia. Timor-Leste nevertheless has not yet been admitted formally as a member despite its application for membership in March 2011. This paper locates Timor-Leste in a broader context of their construction of regional identity and as part of Southeast Asia. Drawing upon the constructivist approach, this paper suggests that the complexity of Timor-Leste's regional affiliation with ASEAN is made more challenging with its quest to assert itself as a nation-in-the-making.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.201-224
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• 2020

The term Anthropocene encapsulates the idea that the human impact on earth has already reached the level of a geological force with catastrophic consequences, such as global warming or climate change. The envisioning of an apocalyptic future of the possible demise of the human race is central to this idea. This paper seeks to explore the implications of the Anthropocene on the very idea of history and area studies. Does the planetary scope of the Anthropocenic condition, and the concerted effort in the global scale in the need to address it, mean the end of area studies, which is premised on a particularity of an area? Is a posthumanist history feasible? If yes, how can it really help address the problem? Or, it will merely muddle the issues?

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.49-88
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• 2020

Two utilitarian and symbolic objects associated with womanhood in Cambodian culture are the stove and the pot. The pot is a symbol of both the womb and female sexuality; the stove is a symbol of gendered feminine labor. This article argues that the sexist representations of the Khmer female body by modern Cambodian male artists demonstrate an inherited legacy of Orientalist stereotypes. These images were formed : under French colonialism and often depict Khmer women as erotic/exotic native Others. Starting in the 1970s, however, if not earlier, Cambodian women began to question the gendering of social roles that confined them to domestic space and labor. This form of social questioning was especially present in pop songs. In recent years, contemporary Cambodian woman artists such as Neak Sophal and Tith Kanitha have made use of rice pots and stoves in their art as freighted symbols of femininity. Neak created an installation of rice pots from different households in their village, while Tith rebelled against this gendered role by destroying cooking stoves as an act of defiance against patriarchy in her performance art.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.89-110
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• 2020

Singapore and Thailand have been rapidly ageing. There has been a growing demand for eldercarers in the home-setting for which migrant domestic workers have filled the role. This paper examines the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Consensus governing women migrant workers entering the eldercare sector. It argues that because the ASEAN Consensus is not legally binding, it only serves to reinforce the sovereignty of states in the treatment of migrant workers instead of member states acting in unison to ensure labour protections for this group; as a result, Singapore and Thailand do not feel the need to step up protections for this group of workers according to national labor laws and hence low-skilled women migrant workers entering the eldercare sector continue to be vulnerable to labour abuses. Thus as with globalization, the ASEAN Economic Community manifests the paradox of borders: that while states are economically interconnected and interdependent, they are simultaneously disconnected and independent from each other.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.225-244
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• 2020

Area Studies, by definition, conjure ideas of emplaced knowledge; in-depth interdisciplinary understanding of language, history, culture and politics of a nation or region. Where detractors might see this approach as overly empirical, therefore precluding theoretical sophistication, others argue that "places" are either artificially constructed, or that processes of globalisation have obliterated the cultural zone. But what if we turn an ethnographic eye to those very processes and technologies themselves? Can Area Studies take to the air, and if so, what are the attendant challenges and benefits? Based on insights from ethnography amongst airline customer service workers, ground and cabin crews in Thailand and Myanmar, this research examines the airline cabin as a field for ethnographic study, and as an emplaced site for political and cultural processes. With participant observation-based knowledge of Southeast Asian cabin crews, this paper examines the 1990 hijack of Thai Airways TG 305 from an emplaced cultural perspective.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.111-130
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• 2020

This paper introduces the different Southeast Asian Studies academic programs of three universities in northeast Asia namely: Peking University (China); Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Japan); and Busan University of Foreign Studies (Korea). This study mainly focuses on the Philippines as part of Southeast Asian studies program in the said universities. The researcher utilized archival work related to the Southeast Asian studies programs of each university. The study also examined the curriculum of the program, background of faculty, and motivations of students in studying Southeast Asian studies by conducting interviews and surveys. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Analysis was employed by the researcher in analyzing the data from the different universities. Finally, in mapping out the teaching of Filipino language and Philippine-related subjects, this paper argued that Northeast Asian universities established a Southeast Asian Studies focused on Philippines because of various socio-economic-political factors, and not only because of the Filipino diaspora in the region.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.131-142
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• 2020

This article explored how the introduction of the Gregorian calendar transformed the Buddhist traditional practices of a noble class family who lost power in the royal court during the emergence of the British in Upper Myanmar. It examined in micro-level, the said changes by way of Wekmasuk Wundauk U Latt's diary, which recorded the social and economic conditions of Mandalay, then the capital of the Myanmar kingdom, from 1886 to 1898. When Burmese kings reigned in Mandalay, the court closed on Sabbath day, when the Buddhist Burmese went to monasteries to fulfill religious obligations. The introduction of the Gregorian calendar turned Sunday into a regular day off, which left Sabbath day to be used for more work. This prevented the then noblemen to attend to monastic duties as they had to use the day, for example to go to the bank to draw their pension. This research reveals that the Gregorian calendar has transformed the day off from "holy day" to "holiday."

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.89-116
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• 2022

During the Covid-19 pandemic's first term of April-June 2020, the general public throughout Indonesia became familiar with the slang term "local lockdown." This term emerged in response to disorderly implementation of the half-hearted government policy called Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar (PSBB). In villages around the country, people started to build portals to restrict "strangers" or "outsiders" from entering their village areas. These portals were also meant to publicly signal the villagers' fear of the spread of the virus. This paper will discuss two things: first, how fear was produced, using frameworks drawn from Giorgio Agamben's notable works State of Exception and Homo Sacer, and how governance reproduces it; and second, how people come to accept the state of emergency and then publicly express their acceptance of the situation. Critical discourse analysis is applied to read government policy and its reception. The research took place at Rempoah, Kedungmalang, and Pabuwaran villages in Banyumas, the southern regency of Central Java, Indonesia. The villagers' responses to the government's policy are visually represented through written warning signs.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.207-231
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• 2022

From being understood as a dwelling, the concept of home is extended to denote belongingness and a sense of attachment in which spiritual, ethnic, religious and historical identities shape a sense of self. Hence, home with its expanded definitions is considered as a cross-cutting and fundamental theme in works by Võ Phiến, one of the diaspora's towering minds who devoted his life to capturing the rich details of Vietnamese culture, its villages and locals. This article pays attention to the cultural space created through Võ Phiến's tuỳ bút written when he lived in Saigon and California. Many representations of home were argued as evidence of subtle influences of the historical and social context on the way Võ Phiến perceived and built his own homeland. By observing disruption and continuity through the expressions of the home in Võ Phiến's writing, we shed light on how Võ Phiến managed to create an indigenous cultural space towards social interactions of Western ideology in South Vietnam from 1964 to 1975.