Asian Studies Centre

David Timberman speaks at the Southeast Asia seminar. Drawing primarily on his own research, interviews and observations, David Timberman will address three topics: 1) the May 9 elections and what they reveal about contemporary Philippine politics, 2) the Aquino administration’s accomplishments and likely legacy, and 3) the political and socio-economic challenges facing the next administration.

David Timberman is a political analyst and development practitioner with 30 years experience analyzing and addressing political and governance challenges, principally in Southeast and South Asia. For the last nine months he has been a Visiting Professor of Political Science at De La Salle University in Manila, where he has taught courses on Southeast Asian politics and policy reform in the Philippines. Currently he is producing an edited volume assessing the political economy of budget reform in the Philippines and also is working on a book on the political economy of democratic governance and development in the Philippines. He is also a Technical Director at Management Systems International, a US-based consulting firm that conducts assessments, studies and evaluations intended to inform US government development strategies and programs. He has served as a senior democracy and governance (DG) advisor in USAID Washington’s Asia Near East Bureau and in USAID Indonesia, where he was deeply involved in the design and implementation of elections, civil society, parliamentary strengthening and anti-corruption programs. Through positions with the National Democratic Institute and the Asia Foundation he has worked closely with political parties and NGOs across Asia. He has lived and worked in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, including experiencing first-hand the democratic transitions in the Philippines (1986-1988) and Indonesia (1998-2001). He has written extensively on political and governance issues in the Philippines and has edited or co-edited multi-author volumes on the Philippines, Cambodia and economic policy reform in Southeast Asia. He holds a MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA in political science (with honors) and history from Tufts University.

Dr Sanghamitra Choudhury speaks at the launch of her book on Women and Conflict in India The book launched at this talk analyses the impact that prolonged socio-political conflict in India has had on political and social spaces for women. Focusing in particular on Assam in the North East of India, it looks at how the conflict can be restricting, and yet can also have the potential to expand these spaces for women owing to the collapsing of boundaries of gender roles, thereby creating niche areas that may be leveraged for socio-political transformation.

Sanghamitra Choudhury is Assistant Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Sikkim University, India, and is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include Gender and Peace Building, Human Rights, Folklore and Identity Issues and Movements in India.

Uday Chandra speaks at the South Asia Seminar Two decades ago, the historical anthropologist K. Sivaramakrishnan noted with a sense of irony that "elites assuming the task of building a national culture and providing it with a liberatory/progressive history have turned to modes of knowledge and reconstruction produced in the colonial period". This paper builds on this ironic comment to understand and critique Subaltern Studies' rediscovery of the "primitive" tribal subject in the forests of Middle India. Seeking to turn away from colonial, nationalist, and Marxist historiographic traditions, Uday Chandra argues, the Subalternists' quest for the quintessential subaltern ended when it encountered an erstwhile favourite of colonial ethnology, namely, the tribal or aboriginal subject. Once merely an anthropological curiosity, this quintessential subaltern figure came to be reworked in the 1980s and 1990s as the anti-colonial rebel par excellence with his own impenetrable lifeworld and habits that stood in opposition to the modern state and capitalism. The old colonial tropes of irreducible cultural difference, underwritten by a paternalistic ideology of "primitivism," now re-emerged, most notably in the writings of Ranajit Guha, as the basis of a new historiographic and theoretical turn in postcolonial India. The rediscovered primitive of the radical historian’s imagination could do what the Subalternist demanded: revel, riot, and rebel. Much like Alexis de Tocqueville's reflections on the Kabyles of mid-nineteenth century Algeria or his British Indian counterparts’ concerns over vanishing tribes in a predominantly caste-based society, the radical postcolonial historian thus came to rely on the dramaturgy of tragedy to re-tell adivasi pasts.

To show what such Subalternist historiography leaves out and why, the author turns to Ranajit Guha's evocative description of the Santal Hul of 1855. For Guha, as for his colonial predecessors, the Hul represented the outburst of the irrational savage, entirely at odds with the workings of the modern world. Yet, as this paper will show, colonial records clearly document, on the one hand, the Santals’ well-established grievances against moneylenders, their petitions and appeals to the local state, and, on the other hand, the influence of Christian missionaries in the rebels' articulation of "millennarian" ideas.

Reflecting on the problems inherent in Guha’s historical methods and turning afresh to the same colonial archive, an altogether different view emerges of adivasi engagements with the modern state and economy in the mid-nineteenth century. This view of the past depicts the modern tribal subject within the logics of modern state-making and capitalism, not outside or prior to it. Such a reading points to the limits of neo-romantic representations of the exotic beyond “reason and evidence.” Acknowledging how state and tribe constitute each other in the margins of modern India is, Uday Chandra argues, a necessary step to undo the colonial legacies that inhere ironically yet not surprisingly in neo-romantic representations of adivasi pasts.

This seminar series is organised with the support of the History Faculty.

Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir (Menteri Besar - Chief Minister - of Perak, Malaysia) speaks at St Antony's College Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir was appointed as the 11th Chief Minister of Perak, a state in West Malaysia, in 2009. His academic background includes a PhD in Political Thought from Temple University, Pennsylvania and a Master's degree in Political Philosophy and Comparative Religion, also from Temple University.

He became active in Malaysian politics upon his return from the United States in 1995. Starting his political journey in the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) as the Pangkor (in Perak) UMNO branch chief, Dr Zambry rose to the position of the Perak UMNO Youth Chief. In the 2004 general election, he contested and won the Perak State Legislative Assembly seat for Pangkor and successfully defended the seat in the 2008 and 2013 general elections. Dr Zambry is currently the head of Perak UMNO. He has had his share of political bitterness when he was detained under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act in 1998.

Dr Zambry's academic specialisation includes political economy, political thought, Southeast Asian contemporary politics, Malaysian politics and Islamic political thought. In addition to his political duties and responsibilities, he also currently serves as an Adjunct Professor in the political science faculty at the International Islamic University, Malaysia.

Dr Ward Keeler speaks at the Southeast Asia Seminar. Traffic on city streets is the first of three scenes from everyday life Ward Keeler will use in this lecture to illustrate principles of hierarchy and power as they obtain in contemporary Burmese social life. The second is the public "Dhamma talks" or Buddhist sermons sponsored increasingly frequently at pagodas and neighbourhood festivals. The third is the interaction among customers and servers at tea shops, where hot and cold drinks and a variety of snacks can be had at most hours of the day. The very ordinariness of these phenomena shows how concerns for relative standing—hierarchical understandings—and the privileges and obligations they entail, pervade Burmese social interaction. At the same time, differences among these scenes makes it possible to illustrate how hierarchy inflects behaviour in diverse ways according to the nature of the situation at hand: when interaction is anonymous and therefore implicates only differences in power; when situations elicit enthusiastic displays of subordination; and when arrangements provide hints of what superior standing without implications of reciprocal obligation would feel like, which is to say, why the market economy exercises such seductive allure.

Ward Keeler is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph. D from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, following undergraduate studies at Cornell University. During the first part of his career, he did research on the performing arts, language, and gender in Java and Bali (Indonesia). More recently he has conducted fieldwork in Mandalay (Burma). His published works include two books on the Javanese shadow play tradition, the annotated translation of a postmodernist Indonesian novel, a textbook for the Javanese language, three CDs of Burmese classical music, as well as a number of articles on both Indonesia and Burma. He and a collaborator, Allen Lyan, have prepared materials for foreign learners of Burmese, which they hope to publish in the near future. The lecture is based on the opening chapter of a book, The Traffic in Hierarchy: Masculinity and Its Others in Buddhist Burma, based on recent fieldwork in Mandalay, to be published by the University of Hawaii Press.

Dr Poh Soo Kai speaks at the Southeast Asia seminar on May 4th, 2016. Living in a Time of Deception is a study of Singapore history from the post-war period to 1965, which the author describes as a historical memoir. Part of Singapore’s agitation against colonial rule, Dr Poh Soo Kai remains one of the most respected former political prisoners in Singapore.

While the establishment’s account of Singapore’s history maintains that the battle was one between the communists and non-communists, Dr Poh firmly puts anti-colonialism, nationalism and socialism as the forces that drove the young men and women who were his contemporaries. He also delves into how being imprisoned without trial, potentially indefinitely without any recourse, leaves none of them unscathed.

The People’s Action Party, Singapore’s only ruling party to date, continues to justify the mass arrests and imprisonment of the most able left-wing leaders as security measures against communist subversion.

In this seminar, Dr Poh will discuss his book, his political career, and the lessons drawn from his long experience.

Dr Poh Soo Kai was the president of the University of Malaya Socialist Club in 1954-55 and its secretary general in 1955-56. He was a member of the eight-person editorial board of the Socialist Club newsletter, Fajar, who were charged by the colonial government in 1954 with sedition. He was a founding member of the People’s Action Party in 1954 and was later the Assistant Secretary-General of Barisan Socialis when it was established in 1961. In 1963, he was detained without trial under Operation Coldstore and was held for a total of 17 years. He has recently published his memoir, Living in a Time of Deception, which has just launched in Singapore and Malaysia.

Dr Pia Jolliffe speaks at the Southeast Asia Seminar Focusing on the Karen people from Burma/Myanmar in Thailand and in the United Kingdom, this talk analyses how global, regional and local developments affect patterns of learning. Based on Marcel Mauss' theory of the gift, the speaker will suggest considering "education" as a gift that establishes unequal relationships between those who give and those who receive education. Pia Jolliffe argues whether or not relations between educators and pupils remain unequal largely depends on the opportunities learners have to pass on their knowledge to younger generations, or to render it useful for their elders. But if such opportunities do not exist, for example within the constraints of refugee camps - an awkward situation is created in which the young remain unable to return the 'gift' they received from their elders. In hertalk Dr Jolliffe will illustrate this argument with ethnographic research conducted among Karen refugees from Eastern Myanmar who live in Thailand and as resettled refugees in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate the high value Karen people place on traditional and modern forms of learning including increasing aspirations for formal higher education. At the same time, the speaker's research evidences that, when the young receive education without being able to use their knowledge to access higher education or professional occupations, they feel disappointed and question the use of formal learning.

Dr Pia Jolliffe is a member of the Las Casas Institute as a research scholar of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. She is also Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. Her publications focus on life transitions and aspirations within a context of migration and international development, refugees as well as the role of prisons and forced labour during the colonization of Japan´s northern island Hokkaido.

Arshad Mohamed Ismail speaks on Islamic Finance at the Southeast Asia seminar Islamic finance is often seen as a segment that is experiencing exponential growth within the global financial arena. The industry is founded upon Islamic principles that prohibit charging of interest and engaging in speculative or gambling transactions, among others. Over the years, the industry has grown not just in terms of volume but also in terms of the breadth of products available to clients of varying degrees of sophistication. Islamic bankers used to be repackaged conventional bankers who taught themselves Islamic finance on-the-job whilst being guided by learned Sharia scholars. The current stream of Islamic bankers, however, often comprises professionals who have had some form of formal education in Islamic principles; it is no longer acceptable for front-line Islamic bankers to wholly delegate the responsibility of ensuring Sharia compliance to Sharia scholars.

Malaysia is often acknowledged as a leader in Islamic finance, and rightly so. The authorities have spent a lot of time and effort to establish a robust Islamic financial system that operates alongside the conventional interest-based financial system. The market share of Islamic banking products has been steadily growing since the establishment of the first Islamic bank in Malaysia in 1983. However, the journey has not been without challenges and issues. Some pertinent questions remain: Is Islamic finance a fad? Is it really different to conventional banking and finance? These are all issues that continue to be debated passionately by proponents on both sides of the divide.

Arshad Mohamed Ismail is currently the SC-OCIS Visiting Fellow in Islamic Finance at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and an Executive Vice President and Head of Corporate and Investment Banking at Maybank Islamic, Malaysia. He oversees the corporate banking and investment banking businesses of Maybank Islamic within Malaysia and regionally. Arshad started his career as a lawyer in the mid 90s with a focus on Islamic finance and banking, corporate and commercial work. He subsequently joined CIMB Islamic in 2003 as one of its pioneer members and spent a significant amount of time originating, structuring and executing Sukuk transactions. Arshad then relocated to the United Arab Emirates to take on the role of Global Head of Sukuk at HSBC Amanah. During his time there, Arshad and his team successfully originated, structured and executed many Sukuk transactions in the GCC region and Asia. After HSBC Amanah, he had stints in Saudi Arabia and again in the United Arab Emirates where he focused on real estate fund management, corporate finance and investment banking before returning to Malaysia at the end of 2011.

Arshad holds a LLB from the International Islamic University, Malaysia and a MBA from the London Business School.

José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Former President of East Timor, speaks at St Antony's College. What the experience of Timor-Leste teaches us is that there are no short cuts to peace; peace is a journey that must be reached step by step, a foundation that has to be built block by block. In my country we had to heal the wounds of the body and the heart; we honoured the victims, we are caring for the survivors; and we decided not to be hostage of the past, not to succumb to anger and hatred.

When we fight for freedom, human dignity and justice, we fight because of our convictions and our conscience; but we only succeed in these noble endeavours if we also use our brains, our intelligence and common sense in pursuing these noble ideals and goals; we would be doomed to fail if we do not evaluate each and every situation and each and every step. After 24 years of a tumultuous relationship, Indonesia and Timor-Leste parted ways; in 2002 Timor-Leste achieved independence.

In spite of the tragic past of violence, even as almost every Timorese family were still mourning the loss of loved ones, the leaders of the two countries began a process of reconciliation and normalization of relations.

An illustration of how far and deep Indonesia-Timor Leste's relationship has developed after the tumultuous years of occupation and resistance (1975-1999), is the fact that Timor-Leste's ASEAN membership application has been most passionately championed by Indonesia. While in our own region, some had reservations about Timor-Leste's readiness to join ASEAN and become an effective member, Timor-Leste is playing a constructive and pro-active role elsewhere in the world and gaining sympathy and respect.

Dr Hugo Meijer gives a talk at the International Political Economy of East Asia seminar. In light of the intertwining logics of military competition and economic interdependence at play in US-China relations, Trading with the Enemy examines how the United States has balanced its potentially conflicting national security and economic interests in its relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC). To do so, Hugo Meijer investigates a strategically sensitive yet under-explored facet of US-China relations: the making of American export control policy on military-related technology transfers to China since 1979. Trading with the Enemy is the first monograph on this dimension of the US-China relationship in the post-Cold War. Based on 199 interviews, declassified documents, and diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks, two major findings emerge from this book. First, the US is no longer able to apply a strategy of military/technology containment of China in the same way it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This is because of the erosion of its capacity to restrict the transfer of military-related technology to the PRC. Secondly, a growing number of actors in Washington have reassessed the nexus between national security and economic interests at stake in the US-China relationship -- by moving beyond the Cold War trade-off between the two -- in order to maintain American military preeminence vis-à-vis its strategic rivals. By focusing on how states manage the heterogeneous and potentially competing security and economic interests at stake in a bilateral relationship, this book seeks to shed light on the evolving character of interstate rivalry in a globalized economy, where rivals in the military realm are also economically interdependent.

Hugo Meijer is Lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London, UK. He is also Research Associate at the Center for International Studies (CERI), Sciences Po, France. Previously, he was postdoctoral research fellow at the Strategic Research Institute of the Military Academy (IRSEM), France, and Visiting Scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University, USA. He received his PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Sciences Po. His current research focuses on US foreign and defense policy, US-China relations, transatlantic perspectives on China’s military modernization, the transformation of European armed forces, and the politics of international arms transfers. Recent and forthcoming publications: Trading with the Enemy: the Making of US Export Control Policy toward the People’s Republic of China (Oxford University Press, 2016); The Handbook of European Armed Forces, Oxford University Press, co-edited with Marco Wyss (forthcoming, 2016); Origins and Evolution of the US Rebalance toward Asia: Diplomatic, Military, and Economic Dimensions (ed) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); "Balancing Conflicting Security Interests: US Defense Exports to China in the Last Decade of the Cold War," Journal of Cold War Studies 17(1) 2015.