The Family in Flux in Southeast Asia addresses the need to understand new trends affecting basic family structures in the region: decreases in fertility rates, aging populations, rising divorce rates, increases in female-headed households, smaller families, and increasing mobility of migrant workers. Leading scholars from disciplines including history, political science, economics, sociology, literary studies, and anthropology address topics including legal institutionalization, polygamy, national identity, gender roles, migration, and transnational marriage. They present cases of complementary, alternative, or parallel developments form Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The authors provide a critical look at how notions of the family are negotiated amidst worries over the family's disintegration in the face of globalizing trends and increasing mobility, and how it is affected by increasing flows in the globalizing world.

Research on the family has expanded considerably across Asia but studies tend to be fragmented, focusing on narrow issues within limited areas (cities, towns, small communities) and may not be accessible to international readers. These limitations make it difficult for researchers, students, policy makers, and practitioners to obtain the information they need. The Routledge Handbook of Families in Asia fills that gap by providing a current and comprehensive analysis of Asian families by a wide range of experts in a single publication. The thirty-two chapters of this comparative and multi-disciplinary volume are organized into nine major themes: conceptual approaches, methodological issues, family life in the context of culture, family relationships across the family life cycle, issues of work and income, stress and conflict, family diversity, family policy and laws, and environmental setting of homes. Each chapter examines family life across Asian countries, studying cultural similarities and differences and exploring how families are changing and what trends are likely to develop in the future. To provide a fruitful learning experience for the reader, each chapter offers examples, relevant data, and a comprehensive list of references. Offering a complete interdisciplinary overview of families in Asia, the Handbook will be of interest to students, academics, policy makers and practitioners across the disciplines of Asian Studies, Sociology, Demography, Social Work, Law, Social Policy, Anthropology, Geography, Public Health and Architecture.

Southeast Asia is one of the most diverse regions in the world – hosting a wide range of languages, ethnicities, religions, economies, ecosystems and political systems. Amidst this diversity, however, has been a common desire to develop. This provides a uniting theme across landscapes of difference. This Handbook traces the uneven experiences that have accompanied development in Southeast Asia. The region is often considered to be a development success story; however, it is increasingly recognized that growth underpinning this development has been accompanied by patterns of inequality, violence, environmental degradation and cultural loss. In 30 chapters, written by established and emerging experts of the region, the Handbook examines development encounters through four thematic sections: • Approaching Southeast Asian development, • Institutions and economies of development, • People and development and • Environment and development. The authors draw from national or sub-national case studies to consider regional scale processes of development – tracing the uneven distribution of costs, risks and benefits. Core themes include the ongoing neoliberalization of development, issues of social and environmental justice and questions of agency and empowerment. This important reference work provides rich insights into the diverse impacts of current patterns of development and in doing so raises questions and challenges for realizing more equitable alternatives. It will be of value to students and scholars of Asian Studies, Development Studies, Human Geography, Political Ecology and Asian Politics.

This Handbook provides a cutting-edge survey of the state of research on religions and global development. Part one highlights critical debates that have emerged within research on religions and development, particularly with respect to theoretical, conceptual and methodological considerations, from the perspective of development studies and its associated disciplines. Parts two to six look at different regional and national development contexts and the place of religion within these. These parts integrate and examine the critical debates raised in part one within empirical case studies from a range of religions and regions. Different religions are situated within actual locations and case studies thus allowing a detailed and contextual understanding of their relationships to development to emerge. Part seven examines the links between some important areas within development policy and practice where religion is now being considered, including: Faith-Based Organisations and Development Public Health, Religion and Development Human rights, Religion and Development Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Religion Global Institutions and Religious Engagement in Development Economic Development and Religion Religion, Development and Fragile States Development and Faith-Based Education Taking a global approach, the Handbook covers Africa, Latin America, South Asia, East and South-East Asia, and the Middle East. It is essential reading for students and researchers in development studies and religious studies, and is highly relevant to those working in area studies, as well as a range of disciplines, from theology, anthropology and economics to geography, international relations, politics and sociology.

Southeast Asia has long been a crossroad of cultural influence and transnational movement, but the massive migration of Southeast Asians throughout the world in recent decades is historically unprecedented. Dispersal, compelled by economic circumstance, political turmoil, and war, engenders personal, familial, and spiritual dislocation, and provokes a questioning of identity and belonging. This volume features original works by scholars from Asia, America, and Europe that highlight these trends and perspectives on Southeast Asian migration within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach -- with contributions from sociology, political science, anthropology, and history -- and anchored in empirical case studies from various Southeast Asian countries, it extends the scope of inquiry beyond the economic concerns of migration, and beyond a single country source or destination, and disciplinary focus. Analytic focus is placed on the forces and factors that shape migration trajectories and migrant incorporation experiences in Asia and Europe; the impact of migration and immigration status on individuals, families, and institutions, on questions of equity, inclusion, and identity; and the triangulated relationships between diasporic communities, the sending and receiving countries. Of particular importance is the scholarly attention to lesser known populations and issues such as Vietnamese in Poland, children and the 1.5 generation immigrants, health and mental consequences of state sponsored violence and protracted encampment, ethnic media, and the challenges of both transnational parenting and family reunification. In examining the complex and creative negotiations that immigrants engage locally and transnationally in their daily lives, it foregrounds immigrant resilience in the strategies they adopt not only to survive but thrive in displacement.

Weaving Women’s Spheres in Vietnam offers an in-depth study of the status of women in Vietnamese society through an examination of their roles in the context of family, religious and local community life from anthropological, historical and sociological perspectives. Unlike previous works on gender issues relating to Vietnam which focus on women as passive subjects and are restricted to specific spheres such as family, this book, through a series of case studies and life stories, not only examines the suppressive gender structure of the Vietnamese family, but also demonstrates Vietnamese women's agency in appropriating that structure and creating alternative spheres for women which they have interwoven in between the dominant realms of public and private spheres in the areas of family, religious practice, community organizations, and politics, including their participation in the (re)construction of national identity. Accordingly, this volume is expected to become an important new benchmark relating to gender issues in Asian societies, especially in the context of so-called ‘transitional’ societies, such as China and Vietnam. Contributors include: Kirsten W. Endres, Ito Mariko, Ito Miho, Kato Atsufumi , Hy V. Luong, Miyazawa Chihiro, Thien-Huong T. Ninh, Tran Thi Minh Thi.