The Asia Society wants to let you know about an upcoming webcast, Tearing the Land Apart: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand, featuring the author, Duncan McCargo, Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds. This event will take place at the Asia Society headquarters in New York tomorrow, Friday, November 6, 2009 from 1:00-2:00 p.m., ET (New York).

We hope that you will join us online by visiting our website, and following the directions there. The webcast will be available 30 minutes before the program begins. Listeners will also have opportunities to send their questions in to moderator@asiasociety.org, where they will be addressed during the program. Please also feel free to forward the flyer below to your contacts as well. Please let me know if you have any questions. We look forward to your participation!

New Mandala will be experimenting with some live coverage of the update using Twitter. Our Twitter account is newmandala.  If you don’t already have a Twitter account create one (here) and add newmandala to the list of accounts you follow (it’s easy!).

We are hoping to have some Thai language commentary too, so please pass this message on to Thai web boards etc.

We will be using what Twitter calls a “hashtag” to categorise all Twitter posts (tweets!) related to the Update. The hashtag will be #2009thaiupdate. So you if you want to make any of your own comments, put #2009thaiupdate somewhere in the tweet (anywhere is ok) so others can easily search for all tweets relating to the Update. If you want to follow all the tweets tagged with #2009thaiupdate the simplest way is to go to http://search.twitter.com/ and just insert the tag (including the hash). I have been having a few problems with this search function and I am finding that the posts show up best if you search all languages. All language search will also be useful to pick up Thai language tweets.

Sorry if all this sounds a bit complex. It’s not difficult at all once you get the hang of it!

I look forward to some lively online discussion on Monday!

National Thai Studies Centre, ANU
Thailand Update Conference, 2009

Date: Monday 2 November 2009
Venue: Hedley Bull Theatre, Hedley Bull Centre (next to Coombs Building), ANU
Theme: Thailand in Turmoil: Crisis, Coalition and Corruption

9.00 to 9.05: Welcome: Professor Paul Hutchcroft, Director, School of International, Political and Strategic Studies, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU

9.05 to 10.15: Session 1. Chair – Professor Paul Hutchcroft

Dr Chris Baker, Bangkok – politics update
Professor Peter Warr, ANU – economics update

10.30 to 12.15: Session 2. Chair – Professor Hal Hill

Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok – aspects of economic and political equity in Thailand
Mr Nicholas Farrelly, ANU – Red vs. Yellow Online: The Role of the Internet in Thailand’s Political Debates
Dr Bhanupong Nidhiprabha, Thammasat University, Bangkok – The military budget cycle, the coup, and corruption

1.15 to 3.00: Session 3. Chair – Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit

Dr Nualnoi Treerat, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok – corruption and institutions in Thailand
Dr Sirilaksana Khoman, Thammasat University, Bangkok – corruption in Thailand within an East Asian comparative perspective
Dr Ross McLeod, ANU – the economics of corruption in Indonesia: Lessons for Thailand

3.15 to 5.00: Session 4. Chair – Professor Raghabendra Jha

Dr Isra Sarntisart, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok – the role of economic deprivation in the Southern conflict
Dr Marc Askew, University of Melbourne and Prince of Songkhla University – Social and Political Origins of the Southern Conflict
Professor Des Ball and Mr Nicholas Farrelly, ANU – Thailand’s paramilitaries

5.00 to 5.05: Special presentation: Ms Saowapha Viravong – The Thai collection at the National Library of Australia

Note: Each speaker will be allocated 25 minutes, followed by 10 minutes questions and comments from the audience, which must be brief, please.

Thailand in Turmoil: Crisis, Coalition and Corruption
Date: Monday, 2 November 2009
Venue: Hedley Bull Theatre, Hedley Bull Centre (next to Coombs), ANU
Time: 09:00 HRS – 17:00 HRS

• Dr Chris Baker, Bangkok –politics update
• Professor Peter Warr, ANU –economics update
• Professor Bhanupong Nidhiprabha, Thammasat University, Bangkok – Thai military budget cycle, the coup and the corruption
• Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok –aspects of economic and political equity in Thailand
• Dr Nualnoi Treerat, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok –corruption and institutions in Thailand
• Dr Isra Sarntisart, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok –the role of economic deprivation in the Southern conflict
• Dr Ross McLeod, ANU –the economics of corruption in Indonesia: Lessons for Thailand
• Dr Sirilaksana Khoman, Thammasat University, Bangkok – corruption in Thailand within an East Asian comparative perspective
• Mr Nicholas Farrelly, ANU –Red vs. Yellow Online: the role of the Internet in Thailand’s political debates
• Professor Des Ball and Mr Nicholas Farrelly, ANU –Thailand’s paramilitary groups
• Dr Marc Askew, University of Melbourne –social and political origins of the Southern conflict

Asia-Pacific Week at the ANU will be held from 8-11 February 2010. Applications close 31 October. Tyrell Haberkorn and I will be convening the Southeast Asia group and we encourage PhD, Masters and advanced Undergraduate students to apply. It will be lots of fun!

Here are the details from the Asia Pacific Week website. Go online to apply.

Asia-Pacific Week is a conference and summer school that brings together hundreds of PhD candidates from Australia and overseas to workshop projects, benefit from master classes and form networks committed to understanding the world’s most dynamic region. … Asia Pacific Week is a container for a number of “Graduate Summer Schools” focusing on different areas of the Asia-Pacific region (the Pacific Islands, China, Japan, Indonesia, South Asia and Southeast Asia).

During a week of activities, graduate students have a chance to present their research interests, meet other students and academics, participate in a wide range of training activities, be introduced to the rich holdings on Asia and the Pacific at the ANU Library and the National Library of Australia and participate in a stimulating program of events including cross-area workshops, keynote speeches, seminars and master classes, film screenings, cultural performances and social events.

How to participate.

We provide a limited number of small grants to partially cover travel, accommodation and board while in Canberra. The number and amount can vary from program to program, but candidates who are accepted can count on room and board for the four days of Asia-Pacific Week (8-11 February) and a contribution towards their domestic travel. (Please note that no financial help is available for travel from overseas).

Undergraduate and Masters students

A small number of bursaries will be made available for advanced undergraduate students and Masters students to attend the event as observers. Bursaries will only cover accommodation

The details are:

Asian Borderlands: Enclosure, Interaction and Transformation – CALL FOR PANELS / PAPERS

2nd Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network

Chiang Mai University (RCSD), Thailand

5 – 7 November  2010

State-centered views of the world continue to predominate, but it is increasingly apparent that these restrict perspectives on dynamics within broader regional fields. In an attempt to leapfrog a definition of the world in terms of national economies, societies, cultures and histories, ‘borderland’ centered perspectives have emerged. But whereas borderland studies have quickly developed in Africa, Europe and North America, the field is still in its infancy in Asia. ‘Asian Borderlands: Enclosure, Interaction and Transformation’ intends to encourage scholarship that looks across Asian borders.

The conference takes its cue from an important new book by James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale UP, 2009). In this book, Scott focuses on the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and its lower ranges that run from the Central Highlands in Vietnam, most of Laos, Northern Thailand, Southwest China, Northern Burma, Northeast India, Eastern Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet. The 200 million people living in this huge region (over 15 million km²) are geographically dispersed and culturally diverse, yet they share crucial cultural, economic and social characteristics: hill agriculture, physical mobility, relatively egalitarian social structures, as well as commonalities in material culture and outlook. National borders often appear utterly arbitrary to them as many groups spill across two or more national borders. In this way they distinguish themselves from the lowland populations who dominate the states in which they live. Scott refers to this region as ‘Zomia’, a term coined by Willem van Schendel (2002/2005).

What is the viability and relevance of a concept such as Zomia for the study of Asian borderlands? To what extend are people in such border zones sharing ideas, practices and attitudes? Why and how do they remain different? How are relationships, alliances and conflicts between hills and plains people defined? In what ways are cultural and social dynamics in and beyond such a region influenced by political boundaries? How do people engage in, and are engaged by, processes of modernization and globalization?

We invite conceptually innovative papers, based on new research, which address questions such as these, in order to develop new perspectives on the study of Asian borderlands. Panels will be considered that have a thematic focus, are of a comparative character, and involve scholars affiliated to distinct research institutions. Click here to submit proposals. Participants will be notified by February 1st, 2010.

Deadline to send in abstracts / panel proposals: 1 December 2009

Participants are expected to fund their own travel and stay. Very limited financial support may be made available to specific scholars residing in Asia. If you would like to be considered for a grant: please submit with your abstract for a panel and/or paper a short letter motivating your request. Please specify the kind of funding that you have applied for or will receive from other sources. The conference operates on a very limited budget, and will not normally be able to provide more than a partial coverage of costs of travel and stay.

Convenors:
Dr. Chayan Vaddhanaphuti
Prof. Willem van Schendel
Dr. Erik de Maaker

Invitation to lecturers and academics from every institution who disagree with the abolition of the lese majeste law to join a discussion meeting and press conference.

Friday 13 March 2009

10:30 am discussion meeting,  1:30 pm press conference

At the 9th floor meeting room, Malai Huwanan Building

National Institute of Development Administration

If any readers do attend this event we would, of course, be delighted to host a short report.  Please get in contact if you would like to write one.