A Thai foodseller on the streets of Bangkok, a cyclo driver in a Vietnamese village, a Pahari migrant laborer in the Himalayas, a Parsi-Christian professional social worker shuttling back and forth between London and Calcutta—Trans-Status Subjects examines how these and other South and Southeast Asians affect and are affected by globalization. While much work has focused on the changes wrought by globalization—describing how people maintain foundations or are permanently destabilized—this collection theorizes the complex ways individuals negotiate their identities and create alliances in the midst of both stability and instability, as what the editors call trans-status subjects. Using gender paradigms, historical time, and geographic space as driving analytic concerns, the essays gathered here consider the various ways South and Southeast Asians both perpetuate and resist various hierarchies despite unequal mobilities within economic, social, cultural, and political contexts. The contributors—including literary and film theorists, geographers, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists—show how the dominant colonial powers prefigured the ideologies of gender and sexuality that neocolonial nation-states have later refigured; investigate economic and artistic production; and explore labor, capital, and social change. The essays cover a range of locales—including Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Borneo, Indonesia, and the United States. In investigating issues of power, mobility, memory, and solidarity in recent eras of globalization, the contributors—scholars and activists from South Asia, Southeast Asia, England, Australia, Canada, and the United States—illuminate various facets of the new concept of trans-status subjects. Trans-Status Subjects carves out a new area of inquiry at the intersection of feminisim and critical geography, as well as globalization, postcolonial, and cultural studies. Contributors. Anannya Bhattacharjee, Esha Niyogi De, Karen Gaul, Ketu Katrak, Karen Leonard, Philippa Levine, Kathryn McMahon, Andrew McRae, Susan Morgan, Nihal Perera, Sonita Sarker, Jael Silliman, Sylvia Tiwon, Gisele Yasmeen

Taking as its premise the belief that communalism is not a resurgence of tradition but is instead an inherently modern phenomenon, as well as a product of the fundamental agencies and ideas of modernity, and that globalization is neither a unique nor unprecedented process, this book addresses the question of whether globalization has amplified or muted processes of communalism. It does so through exploring the concurrent histories of communalism and globalization in four South Asian contexts - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - as well as in various diasporic locations, from the nineteenth century to the present. Including contributions by some of the most notable scholars working on communalism in South Asia and its diaspora as well as by some challenging new voices, the book encompasses both different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. It looks at a range of methodologies in an effort to stimulate new debates on the relationship between communalism and globalization, and is a useful contribution to studies on South Asia and Asian History.

This book investigates the concept of colonial globalization to show how knowledge, information, technology, capital and labour have the potential to move freely across the world. It studies the experience of globalization "from below", rather than from the perspective of the British imperial centre. Focusing on the impact of colonial globalization on the people of Sylhet, East Bengal, and Assam, the volume seeks to analyse the "global" as a process in constant negotiation with the "local". It discusses various issues such as the opening of the hills of Sylhet and Assam for tea plantation. the involvement of local entrepreneurs with overseas planters in the global tea industry, the phenomenon of regional labour migration into eastern India, and Sylheti seamen and their involvement in the merchant marine. The author also highlights the contribution of peasants, labourers and women in the independence movement and the irreversible changes that they brought about. A unique contribution to the study of colonial globalisation, this volume will be indispensable for students and researchers of colonial history, modern Indian history, Northeast India, border studies, globalization, political economy, minority studies, globalization studies, third world studies, colonialism and postcolonialism, and South Asian studies.

It is well known that Taiwan and South Korea, both former Japanese colonies, achieved rapid growth and industrialization after 1960. The performance of former European and American colonies (Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) has been less impressive. Some scholars have attributed the difference to better infrastructure and greater access to education in Japan’s colonies. Anne Booth examines and critiques such arguments in this ambitious comparative study of economic development in East and Southeast Asia from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1960s. Booth takes an in-depth look at the nature and consequences of colonial policies for a wide range of factors, including the growth of export-oriented agriculture and the development of manufacturing industry. She evaluates the impact of colonial policies on the growth and diversification of the market economy and on the welfare of indigenous populations. Indicators such as educational enrollments, infant mortality rates, and crude death rates are used to compare living standards across East and Southeast Asia in the 1930s. Her analysis of the impact that Japan’s Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and later invasion and conquest had on the region and the living standards of its people leads to a discussion of the painful and protracted transition to independence following Japan’s defeat. Throughout Booth emphasizes the great variety of economic and social policies pursued by the various colonial governments and the diversity of outcomes. Lucidly and accessibly written, Colonial Legacies offers a balanced and elegantly nuanced exploration of a complex historical reality. It will be a lasting contribution to scholarship on the modern economic history of East and Southeast Asia and of special interest to those concerned with the dynamics of development and the history of colonial regimes.

The rapid postwar economic growth in the Southeast Asia region has led to a transformation of many of the societies there, together with the development of new types of anthropological research in the region. Local societies with originally quite different cultures have been incorporated into multi-ethnic states with their own projects of nation-building based on the creation of "national cultures" using these indigenous elements. At the same time, the expansion of international capitalism has led to increasing flows of money, people, languages and cultures across national boundaries, resulting in new hybrid social structures and cultural forms. This book examines the nature of these processes in contemporary Southeast Asia with detailed case studies drawn from countries across the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. At the macro-level these include studies of nation-building and the incorporation of minorities. At the micro-level they range from studies of popular cultural forms, such as music and textiles to the impact of new sects and the world religions on local religious practice. Moving between the global and the local are the various streams of migrants within the region, including labor migrants responding to the changing distribution of economic opportunities and ethnic minorities moving in response to natural disaster.

Although South Asian cookery and gastronomy has transformed contemporary urban foodscape all over the world, social scientists have paid scant attention to this phenomenon. Curried Cultures–a wide-ranging collection of essays–explores the relationship between globalization and South Asia through food, covering the cuisine of the colonial period to the contemporary era, investigating its material and symbolic meanings. Curried Cultures challenges disciplinary boundaries in considering South Asian gastronomy by assuming a proximity to dishes and diets that is often missing when food is a lens to investigate other topics. The book’s established scholarly contributors examine food to comment on a range of cultural activities as they argue that the practice of cooking and eating matter as an important way of knowing the world and acting on it.

This collection explores how South Asian migrations in modern history have shaped key aspects of globalization since the 1830s. Including original research from colonial India, Fiji, Mexico, South Africa, North America and the Middle East, the essays explore indentured labour and its legacies, law as a site of regulation and historical biography. Including recent scholarship on the legacy of issues such as consent, sovereignty and skilled/unskilled labour distinctions from the history of indentured labour migrations, this volume brings together a range of historical changes that can only be understood by studying South Asian migrants within a globalized world system. Centering south Asian migrations as a site of analysis in global history, the contributors offer a lens into the ongoing regulation of labourers after the abolition of slavery that intersect with histories in the Global North and Global South. The use of historical biography showcases experiences from below, and showcases a world history outside empire and nation.