2003 SEMINAR SCHEDULE - WOLLONGONG: ABSTRACTS

9 April: East Indonesia, the VOC and the China Market

Heather Sutherland
(Free University of Amsterdam)

Abstract: Perhaps the most important historiographical debate in the post war period has concerned the causes of Western dominance. Post colonial historians have moved from believing that this dominance, like the rise of the nation-state itself, was an inevitable culmination of post-Enlightenment progress. Positive views of the global role of the West were first replaced by negative (dependency theory, modes of production, world system), which are now in their turn being fiercely debated as the contingent nature of the power of “the West” over “the rest” is explored (Frank, Landes, Pomeranz et al). The role and impact of the great European trading companies in Asia is a central issue in this discussion. In this presentation I consider varying views of the role of the VOC, the EIC and British country traders in maritime, eastern Southeast Asia. The particular focus is upon the production of maritime commodities for the China market (trepang, tortoiseshell). I suggest that the role of Chinese capital has been underestimated, and also that the Chinese presence was responsible for a commercialisation of production relationships earlier, and more profoundly, than has been argued by I.A. Jim Warren. This has led to an over emphasis of coercion in labour relationships, and of elite control, and an underestimation of market incentives.

28 May: Indonesia's Infamous Manulife Insolvency: Formal Versus Informal Enforcement in Asian Practice

David Linnan
(Faculty of Law, University of South Carolina)

Abstract: The Manulife Indonesia saga involves a long-running dispute between a Canadian multinational corporation and its former Indonesian joint venture partner after the Canadian parent decided to buy out, via an Indonesian bankruptcy court, its insolvent Indonesian partner. This article looks behind the curtain in examining the story of Manulife Indonesia, reaching back to the mid-1980s, from three perspectives: those of foreign private investors, the local ethnic Chinese business community and governments/IFIs. Manulife is a particularly rich case study because it enables us to see formal and informal enforcement mechanisms coexisting at both government/IFI and private party levels. Its ultimate lesson is that globalisation theories, literature and rule of law programs would profit by a more sophisticated understanding on the detailed level of actual events, offering theoretical insight into what is actually occurring on the ground within and between business communities in Asia.

23 July: Labour Emigration and Government Regulation in India: 1870-1940

Jim Hagan and Rob Castle
(CAPSTRANS)

Abstract: By mid-century, British investment in tea gardens had created a huge demand for labour that would not be supplied locally. Plantation companies brought labour from hundreds of miles away from regions badly affected by famine and/or the application of new forms of taxation. The labourers were brought under indentures, and the law prescribed heavy penalties for those who broke them. Gradually this system gave way to one of “free” labour, but the superior bargaining position of the planters and their government connections meant that the result was much the same: the plantations secured a ready supply of labour at rates below those applying to similar work elsewhere.

24 July: Modern science in India : Colonial compulsions, nationalist aspirations and global circumventions

Rajesh Kochhar
(National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies)

Abstract: Modern science was introduced into India by the British to further their colonial interests; and natives were assigned a peripheral role. In course of time Indians took to pursuit of science in their own right, with J C Bose and P C Ray who began their work in the closing years of 19th century becoming world's first non-white mainstream scientists. During this nationalist phase Indian scientists saw their accomplishments as an extension of the country's freedom struggle. Post-independence, international phase, was characterized by less impactful research, with emphasis on foreign training, visits and collaboration. Middle class was displaced from political leadership, but was still valuable in national building exercise. Research was not as impactful as in the earlier phase, emphasis on international visits and collaborations, with an eye on Western post-war scientific manpower requirements. The third and current phase (denationalization phase) is characterized by globalization-induced decoupling of the middle class from rest of the country, resulting in disinterest in science education and an across-the-board decline in scholarship. Even at the best of times Indian science was not self-appraising. Theoretical research was not integrated into production of wealth. It has remained a middle class affair, responding to the changing role of middle class in the country.

6 August: Sexing the nation: normative heterosexuality and the “good” Singaporean citizen

Lenore Lyons
(CAPSTRANS)

Abstract: The place of the Singapore government's eugenicist reproductive policies in the construction of the nation has been a source of interest for many scholars. Heng and Devan's¹ pivotal work is frequently cited as an example of the discourses surrounding the biological reproduction of the nation. While scholarly attention to reproductive policy has highlighted the roles that families, and women as mothers, play in naturalising the nation-state, such work continues to reinforce a view of dominant heterosexuality. What is missing in these accounts is an examination of the ways in which non-reproductive sexualities (homosexual and celibate sexualities) and alien sexualities (migrant workers) are inscribed as deviant; and how sexuality, reproduction and patriotism intersect in shaping models of “good” citizenship. Closer attention to the presence/absence of issues of sexuality in state discourses of nation-building reveals not only the extent to which heterosexual reproductive relations are inscribed as normative, but also the ways in which sexually “deviant” groups challenge dominant constructions of citizenship and nation.

Through an analysis of state policy in Singapore I examine four intersecting aspects of sexuality: 1) homosexuality; 2) non-reproductive sexual relations; 3) sexual relations outside of marriage; and 4) the sexuality of non-citizens. I am interested in the ways in which sexual behaviour and sexual orientation become intrinsically tied to both the state's legitimacy and the nation's future. Debate about “Asian values” is central to this analysis; dominant constructions of femininity and masculinity are constructed in opposition to “western values” and “tradition” is often deployed in the service of modernity. Exploring the tensions between cultural and reproductive constructions of the nation provides a means to explore the contradictions inherent in the state's own discourses. At the same time, by focusing on the politics of subjectivity, that is, how these positions/subjectivities are created and produced, it is possible to avoid the tendency to see the state as all-powerful, a risk that is heightened in the case of Singapore because of its common association with authoritarianism.

¹ Heng, G. and J. Devan, State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore, in Bewitching Women and Pious Men: gender and body politics in Southeast Asia, A. Ong and M.G. Peletz, Editors. 1995, University of California Press: Berkeley. p. 195-215.

7 August (Thursday): Neo-liberalism and Domestic Capital: The Political Outcomes of the Economic Crisis in Thailand

Kevin Hewison
(Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong)

Abstract: The 1997 economic crisis in Thailand provided an opportunity for a reinvigoration of neo-liberal economic policies. International financial institutions, together with Thailand's Democrat-led government, emphasised further market reforms, liberalisation, deregulation, decentralisation, privatisation and a reduced role for the state. The deep economic downturn saw a popular rejection of such policies, meaning that the neo-liberal interregnum was short-lived. The landslide electoral victory of the Thai Rak Thai Party indicated the intensity of opposition to neo-liberalism. It also showed that national governments remain critical in shaping markets and that domestic economic actors continue have significant political roles. In Thailand, far from neutering domestic capital's political capacity, the crisis and opposition to neo-liberalism saw this enhanced. One reason for this was that neo-liberal restructuring was not simply about the efficient operation of the market. Rather, it demanded a fundamental transformation of the operations of government and in the ways that business was organised and conducted. This threatened domestic capital. Its economic survival required that it seize the state so that it could control economic policy making. This was achieved through the Thai Rak Thai electoral victory. This article details the manner in which domestic capital contested neo-liberalism by protecting its political and economic interests through a re-negotiation of its social contract with other classes. This has potentially significant results.

13 August: The implications for Labour of China's Direct Investment in Cambodia

Stephen Frost
(Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong)

Abstract: For over a decade most research linking foreign direct investment (FDI) to labor practices has centered on large and prominent companies—such as Nike and Reebok—headquartered in the US and Europe. As a result, scholars have not only overlooked the influence of FDI by small and medium enterprises (SMEs), but they have also failed to notice the growth of direct investment from non-traditional sources. For instance, although researchers have noted the growth in FDI outflows from the People's Republic of China, almost none have paid attention to its current position as one of the most important sources of investment in Cambodia, particularly in the garment sector. In the absence of any research exploring the impact of Chinese FDI on labor, this article draws from empirical research conducted by the Cambodian Labor Organization on factory conditions in the garment sector during 1999–2000. The paper argues that over and above conventional analysis of FDI—such as firm motivation and inter- and intra-firm networks—analyses of the Chinese government's foreign and aid policies, the US-Cambodia Textile Agreement, the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, aspects of cultural and linguistic affinity, and Cambodia's economic situation are prerequisites to understanding the complex relations between Chinese FDI and Cambodian workers.

3 September: Performing Global Law: Court Reforms at the Intersection of the Local and the Universal

Rick Mohr
(Faculty of Law, University of Wollongong)

Abstract: The relationship between the local and the global is a key theme in current debates on rights, sovereignty and international legal regimes. This is particularly important in considerations of fundamental or 'human' rights, which are asserted to be universal principles, yet must be enacted in specific settings. Some attention has been given to the relationship between global orders and national or regional laws. Courts, on the other hand, as the institutional foundation of the legal systems, receive little attention as a space in which the global meets the local. Courts intersect with global orders in several ways, ranging from international programs to strengthen judicial systems, to judicial responsibility for enforcing laws which have grown out of international agreements. In this study I focus on instances of two such intersections in domestic courts in specific times and places (Indonesia, Venezuela). By looking at the local sites where disputes are resolved and rights enforced, the paper elucidates the interaction between 'universal' principles of law and the local setting of the legal decision.

17 September: Indonesia's Public Sector Reforms and the Role of an Equalisation Formula: Legitimation, Authority or Obfuscation?

Mary Kaidonis and Lee Moerman
(Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Commerce, University of Wollongong)

Abstract: This paper looks at a resource allocation technique used in the public sector reforms of Indonesia, a developing country, involving decentralisation of fiscal responsibilities. The decentralisation occurred to quell seccesionist aspirations of resource rich regions. To enable all regions to participate in regional autonomy an elaborate system of equalisation grants was introduced to compensate for regional inequities. These grants rest on notions of “Western rationalism” which value the role of calculative apparatus to achieve a sense of objectivity. We demonstrate that the equalisation formula used to determine grants is calculated using a series of estimates, proxies and indices. Hence, the formula, which determines the resource allocation for a region obfuscates several compounding subjectivities. In this way, the politically contentious resource allocations can be perceived as objective so that the outcomes can be afforded legitimacy and authority necessary to assuage regional disputes.

24 September: Union Developments in Indonesia, 1998-2003

Michele Ford
(CAPSTRANS)

Abstract: The liberalisation of requirements for trade union formation and operation after the fall of Suharto has fundamentally changed the landscape of organised labour in Indonesia. However, those developments have not yet produced a strong, unified labour movement. This paper discusses recent developments in trade unionism and possible directions in the future of organised labour in Indonesia.

9 October: Overseas Chinese and the Water Frontier of Southeast Asia, 1700-1900

Li Tana
(CAPSTRANS)

Abstract: The term “Water Frontier” tries to conceptualize the long coastal region from the lower Mekong delta to the Malay Peninsula, and its immediate riverine hinterland, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Within this framework, I will try to show how crucial western technology transfers help stimulate elements of modernity in Vietnam, and to deconstruct the notion of fixed ethnicities at this time and place by demonstrating the complexity of ethnicity among the various groups of “Chinese” on the Water Frontier and also among indigenous Thai and Khmer peoples. The concept of this area as a “Water Frontier” allows us to perceive region-wide similarities and to understand the significance of events or activities in a much fuller context than conventional state-centered histories permit. By decentring the later nation-states, whose roots sprung directly from the dynamism of the Water Frontier, a multiethnic and fluid zone is revealed with an historical integrity of its own.

15 October: Ethnic Conflict and the Displaced: The Reang in North-East India

Sanjay Roy
(Department of Sociology, University of North Bengal)

Abstract: The State-sponsored package of integration encoded in Indian nationalism is being constantly challenged by the tribal communities in North-East India (consisting of seven states, namely, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura), who take to militancy in their quest for alternative identities, autonomy and independence. The root of “dissent” lies in their long history of independent existence, strong attachment to their separate culture, absence of emotional bond with Indian nation and in inadequacies in the “integration package” offered by the Indian Sate. The insurgency operations of the outlawed tribal outfits, directed both against the State and “other” tribal communities and the “counter-insurgency” operations unleashed by the hegemonic State have turned the region into a battlefield resulting into millions fleeing their homes for “safety”. The seminar explores the nature of “ethnic conflict”, and examines how the displaced live without the fundamental rights of the citizens. The analytical arguments have been constructed in the frame of a critique of the concept of “nations from below”.

22nd October: Behind the Carter-Park Standoff: South Korea's nuclear weapons and missile capability program, 1974-1979

Hyung-a Kim
(CAPSTRANS)

Abstract: The reference to North Korea as part of the “Axis of Evil” epitomises President Bush's loathing of Kim Jong Il, the “Dear Leader” of North Korea. This Bush-Kim relationship bears an uncanny resemblance to President Jimmy Carter's loathing of President Park Chung Hee (1963-1979). A core factor in both cases has been US absolute opposition to the development of nuclear weapons and missile capability by either North or South Korea. At the same time, however, North Korea has experienced nuclear bomb threats from the US for over fifty years, from the winter of 1950 when General MacArthur sought permission to drop atomic bombs on North Korea to the present.

Indeed, US double standards in its dealings with North Korea are astounding. While the US demands that North Korea dismantle its nuclear facilities, President Bush is seeking to develop new types of smaller nuclear weapons “with a yield of less than 5 kilotons” a little under half the size of the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima. The irony of the current US-North Korea nuclear standoff is that Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who was also at the forefront in dealing with President Park's nuclear weapons and missile capability program in the 1970s, is now anchoring President Bush's pre-emptive war strategy against North Korea. The parallels between then and now are quite obvious, and lessons can therefore be learned from Park's experience in this regard.

This article examines President Park's nuclear weapons and missile capability program in the 1970s, especially from 1974 to 1979, which ultimately led to severe tension between Park and Carter, to the extent of a major standoff. Unlike the US-North Korea stand-off, very few knew about the real basis for the US-Korea conflict, which was publicly portrayed as a Park-Carter squabble. The article shows how US inconsistency in arms control policy, particularly in regard to the sale and/or development of high-technology weapons, including nuclear bombs and missiles, combined with the US policy of troop withdrawal from Korea, led to Park's clandestine pursuit of nuclear capability for Korea. His insistence, in effect, caused Washington to turn its back on him. In fact, Washington not only dumped Park, but also backed yet another military dictator, Major-General Chun Doo Hwan, as reward for his and his clique's dismantling of Park's clandestine nuclear weapons and missile capability program.

3 November: Premanisme and the Indonesian Press

Koentjoro
(Gadjah Madah University)

5 November: Film policies in Korea during Japanese colonial rule, 1919-1937

Brian Yecies
(Social Sciences, Media and Communication, Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong)

Abstract: This paper reviews the development and implementation of film policies and censorship regulations in Korea during Japanese colonial rule. The time period between 1926 and 1937 has been chosen for this story because it marks the beginning of Korea's boom of silent filmmaking and the expansion of Hollywood and Japanese distribution exchanges in Seoul, and leads to the tightening of Japanese censorship. It analyses the development and enforcement of film policies during the period generally known as the ascent of imperialistic policies in the Japanese Empire. Given Japan's occupation of Korea between 1910 and 1945, this period of Korean cinema is intertwined with the history of Japanese cinema. Key Japanese industry events and initiatives as well as government regulations had a significant impact on the development of film culture in Korea.

12 November: Saving Pennies for the State: A New Role for Migrant Workers?

Kathleen Weekly
(CAPSTRANS)

Abstract: One of the latest developments in the work of groups representing, assisting or advocating for non-professional migrant workers is the promotion of economic “reintegration” strategies. These include training in savings and investment, business planning and entrepreneurship, and credit management. The immediate objective is to help the migrant to increase their income, hopefully as an alternative to continued working overseas. The longer-term objective is to encourage national economic development “back home” to alleviate the need for labour migration. However, even in the early stages of the programs, it is becoming evident that there are problems in their theory and practice. Focussing on non-government organisations working among female domestic helpers (mainly Filipinas) in Hong Kong, this paper analyses the motivations and assumptions behind the development of these reintegration schemes and the philosophical and economic principles that shape them. It argues that programs aiming to teach migrant women to become entrepreneurs are incorporating them in insidious ways into the global neoliberal—or “popular”—capitalism that drives contemporary economic migration. These programs represent individualistic solutions to structural problems, attempts to create self-motivating “stake-holders” who can be held responsible for their own failures. The appearance of such schemes among migrant workers fits a more general problematic pattern in the economically advanced world of turning citizens into “stakeholders” and welfare state democracies into “shareholder democracies,” with all the attendant inequalities and inequities.

26 November: The Teachings of Confucius

Ross Grainger

Abstract: In the West we are inclined to refer to the ingenuity and influence of such prominent political philosophers as Plato, Machavelli, Locke, Kant, Hegel and Marx. Yet the influence of these philosophers does not compare to that of the great Chinese sage Confucius. No other individual has so deeply influenced the life and thought of so many people and moulded their culture for so long as Confucius. The philosophy of Confucius has not only played a major role in the development and continuity of Chinese civilisation but, also, that of Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. While many East Asians have professed themselves to be Buddhists, Taoists or even Christians, seldom have they ceased to adhere to the doctrines of Confucius. In other words, an understanding of Confucianism is absolutely essential for anyone wishing to understand the thinking and behaviour of the peoples of East Asia. This paper begins by examining some of the concepts Confucius inherited from Chinese tradition and shows how he employed them in terms of promoting order and good government. We then use the traditional Chinese method of explaining each of the principles or virtues Confucius sees as the mark of a of a true gentlemen? the Chun Tsu. In the process of explaining the Confucian virtues we shall, at the same time, be examining his prescription for good governance, justice and politics. The paper concludes with a summary of the development of Confucianism up until the present day.