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The past few decades have seen growing interest in the study of the body. However, the increasing number of exciting and influential publications has primarily, if not exclusively, focused on the body in Western cultures. The various works produced by Asian scholars remain largely unknown to Western academic debates even though Asia is home to a host of rich body cultures and religions. The peoples of Asia have experienced colonization, decolonization, and now globalization, all of which make the 'body in Asia' a rewarding field of research. This unique volume brings together a number of scholars who work on East, Southeast and South Asia and presents original and cutting edge research on the body in various Asian cultures.
Design and the Vernacular explores the intersection between vernacular architecture, local cultures, and modernity and globalization, focussing on the vast and diverse global region of Australasia and Oceania. The relevance and role of vernacular architecture in contemporary urban planning and architectural design are examined in the context of rapid political, economic, technological, social and environmental changes, including globalization, exchanges of people, finance, material culture, and digital technologies. Sixteen chapters by architects designers and theorists, including Indigenous writers, explore key questions about the agency of vernacular architecture in shaping contemporary bu...
This book presents new ways of understanding heritage and heritage work. It addresses the ways physical processes of creation, maintenance and decay are entangled with cultural and political processes of management, access and care. The book analyzes a critical practice of heritage work oriented to recognizing and collaborating with diverse knowledge holders and their practices of caring for heritage. This requires rethinking accepted heritage concepts, such as heritage management, artifact, site and the definition of heritage itself. The book presents an engaging and applied approach to this task through examples that include Majapahit statues and temples in Indonesia, skating in London, an...
Jakarta is being transformed in an unknown speed and manner by new types of urban authorities and drivers of transformation. These actors are moving in a field of opportunity that was created by recent and severe changes in the economic, socio-political and natural environment of Jakarta. Including chapters written by contributors who have lived and worked in Jakarta for years, this book shows how urban space in Jakarta is increasingly created by the entanglement of different layers that co-exist in political and socio-economic life, with actors criss-crossing between formal and informal spheres. In each case the authors explore who are the drivers of urban change, and what are the processes...
This book explores the interconnection between geopolitical context and the ways this context frames our knowledge about Asia, highlighting previously neglected cause–effect relations. It also examines how various knowledge institutions promote and shape Asian Studies. The authors seek to explain why Asian Studies and its subfields developed in the way they did, and what the implications of these transformations might be on intellectual and political understandings of Asia. The book not only builds on the current debates on the decolonization and de-imperialization of knowledge about Asia; it also proposes a more multifaceted view rather than just examining the impact of the West on the framing of Asian Studies.
This book brings together a range of case studies in the areas of religion, religious tourism and pilgrimage in Asia. It assesses the increasing linkages and interconnections between religious tourism and secular spaces on a global stage, and explores key learning points from a range of contemporary case studies of religious and pilgrimage activity related to ancient, sacred and emerging tourist destinations, new forms of pilgrimage, faith systems and quasi-religious activities. The development and marketing of religious tourism are also addressed in a few chapters. The book has 17 chapters, a list of discussion questions, and a subject index.
This book provides a clear reading, with numerous examples, of the impact of globalization on local arts and culture.
Culture, Power, and Authoritarianism in the Indonesian State is a critical history of cultural policy in one of the world’s most diverse nations across the tumultuous twentieth century. It charts the influence of momentous political changes on the cultural policies of successive states, including colonial government, Japanese occupation, the killing and repression of the left and their affiliates, and the return of representative government, and examines broader social changes like nationalism and consumer culture. The book uses the concept of authoritarian cultural policy, or cultural policy that was premised on increased state control, tracing its presence from the colonial era until today. Tod Jones’ use of historical and case study chapters captures the central state’s changing cultural policies and its diverse outcomes across Indonesia.
The orientation of academic institutions has in recent years been moving away from highly specialized area studies in the classical sense towards broader regional and comparative studies. Cultural studies points to the limitation of Western approaches to non-Western cultures – a development not yet reflected in actual research and data collections. Bringing together scholars from all over the world with specialized knowledge in both Western and non-Western languages, literatures, and cultures, this collection of essays provides new insights into the agency of non-Western literatures in relation to the West – a term used with critical caution and, like other common binary dualisms, challe...
The Guide provides a comprehensive survey of researchers, institutes, university departments, museums, organisations and newsletters in the field of Asian Studies in Europe.