Archaeologists have long sought to identify the key indicators which would allow them to measure the level and rate of cultural development. Technology and energy capture are two of the indicators which have been proposed, but there are grounds for objecting that these are still variables dependent on another factor: the capacity of a culture to record and process information. The communication of information has been studied by archaeologists but their paradigms, such as the diffusionist model, have been found wanting and discarded. The goal of studying ancient communication processes is an ideal, but achieving it with the data available to archaeologists will be very difficult.

The appointment of a Russian General-Consul, V. Vyvodtsev to Singapore in 1890 was reflective of the “Asiatic Mission” of the last Tsar of Imperial Russia, Nicholas II, and the direction of Russian imperialism in the Far East and its link to Russia's diplomatic presence in Southeast Asia. This article utilizes consulate materials from the Archive of Foreign Policy, Moscow as well as published primary materials, to discuss the specific nature of Russia's interests in Southeast Asia during this period.

This paper attempts to trace, using survey evidence, the electoral behaviour of Baguio City voters during two years beginning with the 1986 Presidential election contest between Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino. The revolutionary aftermath to this election issued in a new political regime, which held a series of elections. By January 1988 there had been a plebiscite to ratify a new Constitution, Congressional and Senatorial elections, and finally local elections for the Mayor and City Council. For all of these elections, local surveys were conducted in the City of Baguio.

With the exception of Alfonso de Albuquerque in the 16th century, Marquis de Pombal in the 18th and Oliveira Salazar in the 20th, Portugal can hardly boast of any special genius for administration, whether of the colonies or of the mother-country. This lack of administrative acumen is matched by lack of interest in administrative matters among Portuguese chroniclers and historians. While the secular historians concentrated on the heroic deeds of a rather limited era, their Jesuit counterparts concerned themselves with exaggerating the scanty exploits in their evangelical enterprise. The administration was not elaborate and, therefore, the records were scanty. Portugal did not have a budgetary system; no systematic accounts were maintained either for Portugal or for the colonies, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consequently, one might with justification lament with Professor Charles R. Boxer upon the paucity of material for an administrative history of the Portuguese colonial possessions. Even so, one might study the Portuguese colonial administration in the larger context of interests, policies, and prejudices.

No satisfactory account of the Cox mission to Burma has been available up till now. Such traditional texts as those by Bayfield, Yule, Phayre, and Harvey deal with it extremely briefly and with a deep anti-Burmese prejudice. In 1955, D. G. E. Hall provided an account of the mission in the introduction to his edition of Michael Symes's journal of his mission of 1802. 1 Even this, however, is inadequate; it is again rather brief, is often inaccurate, and while placing the main blame for Cox's difficulties on the envoy himself, also attributes some responsibility to the Burmese. This is seriously misleading: Cox's responsibility, the documents show, was total, while the Burmese displayed great restraint in the face of importunate and even pathological behaviour on the envoy's part.

This article investigates the gender role attitudes and domestic division of labour of young couples in northern Vietnam. Based on separate interviews with 30 couples living in rural and urban areas, it explores young people's thoughts about the roles of a wife and a husband and how these translate into their allocation of housework. Analysis of the interviews indicates that the perceptions and expectations of young people remain influenced by traditional gender ideology, in that wives are still considered mainly responsible for housework. However, in practice, gender roles are highly flexible and demonstrate significant mutual support. In addition, the similarities or differences between spouses in terms of gender role attitudes contribute to levels of relative satisfaction regarding the current division of labour in households.

This article examines the cinematic representation of identity through an analysis of the well-known Philippine film, Badjao. Produced in the late 1950s, Badjao successfully commercialized the idea and expression of conflict between the Tausug and Badjao ethnic groups. The study focuses on how the enactment and enunciation of identity through difference presented itself in cinema and how such representations, imbued with stereotypical cultural and religious codes, were re-formulations within nationalist discourses in the Philippines.

Military consideration had been given top priority by the Japanese policy-makers in formulating policy towards Burma immediately prior to and after the outbreak of the Pacific War. This was evident in their decision to establish military administration in Burma in March 1942, and in granting independence to the Burmese in August 1943. These decisions, however, had an adverse effect for Japan during the war years, since they were largely responsible for turning the Burmese against Japan.

Although the rate of land use for agriculture as a percentage of total area of the different islands varies tremendously, we have no operable definition of arable area, and therefore cannot determine how much of the arable area is being used agriculturally. We cannot begin to define when a “limit” to land use occurs. Even in certain parts of Jawa and Bali, increases in land use were found between the censuses, although 40 per cent to 50 per cent were already being used for agriculture.

When the history of Chinese social institutions in Malaya comes to be written it will, I suspect, be especially difficult to construct a picture of the life associated with the domestic family and ties based upon common descent and marriage. The sources of material on these matters are likely to be very limited, at least in regard to the nineteenth century. Yet, as a social anthropologist I shall draw attention to a number of facts drawn from published material on nineteenth-century Singapore, hoping to show that there are some interesting problems in the analysis of the Chinese kinship institutions of the period and that, however hard it may be to come by the data, a worthwhile task awaits the historian with some sociological insight.

Long before the time of Majapahit there had been small communities of Arab merchants living in South East Asia. Groeneveldt (1880, 14–5) quotes a Chinese source dated 674 A.D. as mentioning an Arab settlement which he believed was on the west coast of Sumatra. By 915 Arab traders had sailed across the Bay of Bengal and discovered a large trade market south of the Isthmus of Kra. But by 1300 Islam had begun to appear east of India as a proselytizing force. Its power was to bring about the downfall of Majapait two centuries later, and politically to change the face of South East Asia.

The question of a national identity for Vietnam has long plagued historians, both Vietnamese and foreign. Some see Vietnam throughout its pre-modern history as a minor appendage of the Chinese Empire, one whose culture and institutions are so thoroughly influenced by the Chinese tradition that they evade meaningful individual scrutiny. A few apply the tools of Sinology in such a way as to reach conclusions which, while cogent in themselves, cannot escape the confines of their methodology. Others, including a majority of scholars from Vietnam itself, reject the former view and are continuously searching for evidence to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Vietnamese experience. There is little merit in the a priori assumptions of either school, but this does not invalidate the question. It would be of particular interest to know not simply whether some significant differences existed between Vietnamese and Chinese institutions at various points throughout history but whether these institutional differences had a significant bearing on a sense of nationalism and whether such differences resulted at least partially from a selfconception on the part of Vietnamese thinkers, one consciously held and pursued. The Binh Ngo Dai Cao provides us with some intriguing clues. It is, as well, a narrative document of great literary worth and the subject of constant allusion, the background of which could bear illumination for purely historical interest.

This paper is a summary of my recent studies on the Taoist creed and common Chinese religious beliefs, in particular the religious customs of poeh (the practice of seeking divination) and the worship of the local god of the soil. While a number of papers have been published by scholars from the Singapore-Malaysia region, their findings have been somewhat limited in scope because they were confined to the Southeast Asian context. My study will be broader in scope. It will cover the relationship between the Chinese culture of China itself and that of Southeast Asia. In other words, this paper will give (1) a comparison between the cultural styles of North China, South, and Central China, (2) a study of Chinese culture in Southeast Asia viewed as an extension of the culture of South China, especially the provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung, and (3) a summary of my research on the conflict between Chinese culture in China on the one hand and that of the Singapore-Malaysia region on the other.

The term “cooperative nationalism” is a difficult one in the Indonesian context. In the Netherlands Indies the terms “cooperation” and “non-cooperation” had a much more restricted meaning than they did, for instance, in connection with Indian nationalism. The determining factor was merely the decision whether or not to seek seats in the representative councils established by the Dutch. Although in this sense the period 1936–1942 can be called an era of cooperative nationalism in the Indies, because at that time most active nationalist parties agreed to participate in the councils, it is doubtful whether the term is very useful. The cooperating nationalists were themselves reluctant to be classified as such, and the Dutch, with whom the expression implies they were cooperating, generally regarded them as far from cooperative. To the uninitiated the term would seem to indicate that the cooperators took a more moderate, pro-Dutch stand than did the non-cooperators, and because it gives rise to such preconceptions the label may prove a hindrance. Various questions arise. What did the Indonesians and the Dutch understand by cooperation? In what way, apart from participation in the councils, did the cooperators differ from the non-cooperators? Why did the nationalists decide to “go back to cooperation” as they themselves phrased it? What did they hope to gain by the move? Why did cooperation fail to achieve results in terms of political reforms? The answers depend very largely on how the Dutch and the cooperators regarded each other. This paper will consider these problems in relation to the first and largest of the cooperating parties, Partai Indonesia Raja, or Parindra.

This article offers an examination of the gendering of the Philippines' Muslim South under American military rule (1899–1913) through discourses of violence against women. It explores the exposition and discussion of cases involving abuse, murder, enslavement, and violence in both official and unofficial reports, which revealed a critical discourse of gender construction for both coloniser and colonised in Moro Province.

Nationalism developed in a peaceful constitutional and political manner in Malaya during the 1950s. Beginning with the reactions to the Malayan Union scheme and the contrasting political attitudes towards the 1948 Federation proposals, political bargaining led to the emergence of various political parties advocating different platforms and adopting contrasting policies on the major issues facing Malaya until the first federal elections in 1955. However, it is significant that political parties were formed and party politics grew principally as the result of constitutional changes which were introduced during that period. Constitutionalism and the rise of party politics thus combined to help Malaya achieve its ultimate goal of independence and nationhood.