Critical scholars and intellectuals are often viewed as vanguards of intellectual rigor, moral integrity, and left-leaning/left-liberal politics. In particular, their trajectories tend to be examined from a sympathetic lens: as supporters of lower-class social movements. Unfortunately, this approach overlooks the varied agency of these critical scholars and their complex relationship with the very movements that they often claim to represent. It obscures their potentially unequal socioeconomic status and cultural gap with the movements they engage with. This is not to dismiss their contribution or deny the reality of state repression against some of them, but a more grounded, sober approach to studying these cognitive workers is needed.

This study investigates the value-appropriating, politically-moderating, status-seeking tendency in some parts of critical knowledge production and activism. It advances several claims. First, the increasing neoliberalisation of the research sector exacerbates the process of class differentiation among critical scholars and intellectuals. The majority join the swelling rank of precarious cognitariat, whereas a selected stratum becomes part of the professional managerial class. Second, the latter stratum contains new intellectual actors who enjoy economic, cultural, and, political benefits from their advantaged position at the expense of precarious scholar-activists and marginalised communities, as exemplified in their public celebrity status or appointment into policymaking decisions. Lastly, as an illustration, and a form of self-criticism, I interrogate my position as an early-career researcher of Indonesian politics, show my own role and complicity in the neoliberal research industrial complex, and reflect on possible ways out of this politico-intellectual impasse.

Transnational marriage is a controversial topic in Hmong communities in the United States, Laos, and Thailand, and has sometimes led to intra-ethnic disputes and conflicts. Initially, many of the Hmong American men who travelled overseas to marry Hmong Lao or Thai women were already married. Furthermore, the Hmong American community has frequently come to believe that economic gain is the primary motivation for Hmong Lao/Thai women to marry Hmong American men. On the other hand, some activists have referred to these marriages generally as “abusive transnational marriages.” The association of economic resources with transnational marriage, including remittances, increased bride prices, and opportunities for migration to the United States, has perpetuated negative stereotypes that frequently overshadow the personal stories of many Hmong Lao/Thai women who do not fit with the stereotypes. For these women, marrying a Hmong American man signifies not only personal gain but also economic advancement for their families. This paper reviews the intricacies related to the topic of Hmong transnational marriage between Hmong American men and their Hmong Lao and Hmong Thai brides. In doing so, we argue that it is important to consider the complexity and nuances associated with Hmong transnational marriages, as they take on various forms that go beyond standard stereotypes.

During the Third Indochina War (1979-1991), the ideological alignments of involved parties differed from those during the Second Indochina War, also known as the Vietnam War. Whereas the Second Indochina War pitted communists squarely against non-communists and anti-communists, the Third Indochina War was more complicated and less ideological or political, with communists often fighting against other communists due to the Sino-Soviet ideological split. The enemy of one's enemy was frequently viewed as a friend, often leading to unlikely alliances not rooted in ideological or political similarities. In this article, I argue that it is important to consider the unlikely alliances that emerged during the Third Indochina War by focusing on the particular cross-border interactions and conflicts between communists and non-communists that occurred in the Emerald Triangle, the tri-border region between Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Focusing particularly on the Lao insurgent perspective, I consider how Lao anti-communist insurgents, the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party of Thailand, other armed groups, and the Thai military participated in transnational collaboration in this region during the Third Indochina War. In particular, based largely on Lao-language interviews with key figures in the Lao insurgency conducted for over a decade, I examine how Lao insurgents interacted with Khmer Rouge to oppose a common enemy, communist Vietnam and their allies, the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and how the Thai military supported them, but only insofar as it enabled them to maintain control over security inside Thailand.

In recent years, a number of online outlets aligned with the right has emerged in Thai politics. Though it is often assumed that such actors are merely an extension of the Thai state propaganda apparatus, as the moniker “IO (short for Information Operation)” implies, closer inspection of their contents suggests a more complicated picture. Employing the morphological approach of ideological analysis, this article argues that the Thai Online Right articulates a decidedly conservative worldview, upholding a social order centred around the monarchy, and opposing particular instigators of change, similar to more traditional Thai conservatives. The concepts and ideas they deploy to bolster these core ideas, however, seem to emphasise more materialistic and personalised elements, as well as draw from more contemporaneous “Western” right-wing conspiracy theories, making their conservative expression a strange blend of the old and the new. The findings have implications to the study of conservatisms, both in the Thai context and comparatively.

The international solidarity movement for the East Timorese was developed in Southeast Asian nations during the 1990s as ‘the issue of East Timor’ became a primary concern for the ASEAN countries’ civil society. Proponents of liberal democracy have assumed that international solidarity movements for human rights and democracy during the 1990s resulted from the powerful momentum of liberal democracy that universally linked foreign people. However, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri and their marxist followers have explained these transnational movements as a transnational network that overcomes national borders against the capitalist Empire. Nevertheless, the political history of transnational solidarity movements from East Timor to Southeast Asia in the post-Cold War 1990s makes clear that nationalism has continued to be an ideological driver to link people from different nations.

Focusing on the international solidarity for the East Timorese independence struggle, this paper demonstrates a transnational function of nationalism through which international solidarity movements are created, resonate and function. The East Timor international solidarity struggle successfully created a transnational platform through the APCET conferences held in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand in the 1990s. Socio-historical analysis of APCET reveals that nationalists in Southeast Asia shared collective memories of national struggles beyond their spaces and times to create a transnational force to support self-determination for the East Timorese. Through its analysis, this article extends the theoretical framework of nationalism that has explained nationalist movements to serve as a more powerful tool to explain international solidarity in the age of globalisation. (247 words)

In the past decade, the Vietnamese lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other sexual orientations and gender identities (LGBT+) movement has succeeded in repositioning this population from the stigmatising label of “social evils” to a more positive social representation. Despite the limited space for civil society in this authoritarian environment, Vietnamese activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have effectively changed public attitudes, improved visibility, and gained legal recognition for this marginalised community. This study uses qualitative data from interviews with twelve activists and fieldwork observations to explain how activist strategies in this setting align with the “service delivery” function of civil society. By examining how activists have addressed healthcare and education deficits, I demonstrate that activism in authoritarian regimes can be effective when it assists instead of challenges the government. The findings contribute to scholarship on global queer activism by demonstrating how a service delivery approach can achieve social change, highlighting the role of NGOs and international development in this process. Additionally, the findings expose existing challenges that hinder these activists’ efforts, showing how funding dependency and inadequate legal recognition can significantly limit the creativity and autonomy of grassroots activist groups.

‘Thainess’ [khwam-pen-Thai] or Thai identity has long been a state-constructed ideology linked to nationalist sentiment. However, in the 21st century, internal politics and globalisation have come to challenge its monopoly. Against this backdrop, reinventing classical literature and folklore has emerged as a way to reimagine and rethink ‘Thainess’ in Thai literature. This holds particular relevance since transnational cultures, ranging from classical Indian mythology to the contemporary Korean wave, continue to be hybridised and reconstructed. This paper examines the hybridity of Thainess in contemporary Thai literature, focusing on two different genres: fantasy and fanfiction. Firstly, I explore the fantasy novel series ‘Nawa Himmaphan’ [New Himmaphan] (2013–2018), depicting an apocalypse and creating a new world inspired by the Indian mythical forest named Himavanta. The novel adapts and reinterprets the roles and meanings of Deva (the god) and Asura (the demon) in an upside-down future. Secondly, I examine an adaptation of the Ramakien, the Thai version of the Indian Ramayana, published on the internet and transformed into Boys Love (BL) fanfiction referencing Korean idols called ‘Huachai Thotsakan KAIHUN’ [The Heart of Thotsakan KAIHUN] (2016–2017). It reconstructs the Ramakien, challenging its traditional meaning while asserting the aesthetics of K-pop fans. Through the lens of the hybridity framework, this paper argues that these texts not only illustrate cross-regional cultural hybridisation but also challenge the top-down construction of Thainess. Hybridity creates a ‘liminal space’ for Thainess, establishing a new power structure that highlights the significance of marginalised voices against the backdrop of political polarisation and the influence of transnational flows.

Religion and trans studies are a relatively new domain of study, one which surrounds subjects gendered and sexed as (religiously) “Other,” and in the articulation of such voices in a public space. In this paper we employ a case study of a transgendered monastic teacher named Khun Mae Tritrinn in northern Thailand to highlight a case of gendered religious “Othering,” and the construction of the third-way religiosity in the context of traditional hetero-patriarchal Buddhist monasticism. We refer to this thematic domain in the context of an emergent third-way religiosity; theorising in an experiential knowing of transgender subjects, which emerges from their trans-other lives. In the case study we show by resisting the gender binary of Buddhist monasticism how a particular transgendered person seeks a third-way monastic alternative; how she established her own hermitage and religious community, and manages the relationship between discourse and institutions that act upon and through her. The ethnographic focus sheds light on historical moments and voices that have been referred to elsewhere as forms of “subjugated knowledge” (Foucault 1980; Hartman 2000). However, despite being subject to religious Othering, recent trans-other identities have gained an increasingly de-subjugated and respected third-space alternative; an intelligibility and opening beyond a heteronormative binarism. It is argued that religious “thirding” creates a turning point for those seeking alternative spiritual bases, and as a salvific epistemology in an engaged religiosity and praxis.

Due to the widescale impact of 212 Action's anti-blasphemy campaign in 2016, there has been a spike in Islamic moral panic discourse and religiously driven vigilante attacks targeting LGBTQ citizens in Indonesia. Simultaneously, gender nonconforming citizens who have gained social recognition, like a segment of transwomen communities called waria, have continued to carve out alternative spaces and subvert anti-LGBTQ discourse. Waria activists in Yogyakarta, for instance, created the world's first trans-led Islamic boarding school in 2008. Despite suffering attacks from Front Jihad Islam members in 2016, the school has managed to reopen and even to expand its services further for waria communities. In capturing the recent trajectory of activism at the waria Islamic boarding school, this article highlights the multifaceted conditions of precarity faced by Muslim waria in Yogyakarta in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenting ethnographic data from the summer of 2022, this paper argues that since the pandemic, in addition to demanding the right to practice Islam, Muslim waria activists have increasingly focused on wellbeing (e.g., food sustainability and emergency shelter) in their rights advocacy in Yogyakarta. Merely perceiving the Islamic boarding school as a site of religious activism diminishes a fundamental aspect of its current grassroots efforts, which is to gain access to basic welfare — a key strategy for the survival of LGBTQ citizens in Yogyakarta and beyond. With greater socioeconomic and psychological uncertainties sparked by COVID-19, human rights for waria and what holistic security means for Indonesian LGBTQ citizens, must also be carefully understood through a lens of health, welfare, and wellbeing.

This study explores and understands transnational activism in Asia, specifically focusing on the crucial role played by individuals, particularly Thai youth activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, in shaping and constructing transnational networks and relations. The study argues that the networks individuals establish with other transnational actors serve as the primary source of inspiration for other individuals to engage in transnational activism. These networks are rooted in everyday life interactions in the era of globalisation, with activism reflecting this embeddedness and interconnectedness. The case study of Netiwit demonstrates how connections between Thai activists and activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan stem from the increased mobility of individuals in the globalised world, facilitating physical interactions. By analysing this dynamic, the study aims to offer a more nuanced explanation of transnational activism, the movement of knowledge, and the concept of globalisation in Asia.

Local citizens’ perceptions of their own cities are often neglected when assessing cities’ performance. Using the perceived international image and collective pride in Hong Kong as the entry point, this article aims to discover the relationship between citizens’ trust in public authorities and urban technologies. Four angles of investigation are developed: the impact of cities’ promotion of their international image on local pride; the attitudinal and demographic characteristics of proud citizens; the linkage of local pride with public trust, and digital trust. This article uses data from a Hong Kong-based territory-wide survey in 2021 to conduct the analysis. The result suggests that public trust is an elemental factor having a positive relationship with collective pride and digital trust in Hong Kong. This article also identifies the group of citizens with the least pride. Regaining the citizen's trust is the best remedy for facilitating smart city development.

Research on public health, crime, and policing regularly discusses sex workers in Southeast Asia but rarely recognises them as agents of social and political activism. This paper shows that sex workers and their allies in Singapore and the Philippines have long and rich histories of challenging their criminalisation and stigmatisation through cultural activism, political advocacy, consciousness-raising, and the provision of direct services to fellow sex workers. Using feminist ethnography, including interviews and participant observation with Project X in Singapore and the Philippine Sex Workers Collective, this paper explores how sex work activists have strategically adapted to their political environments. In Singapore, they maintain resistance through ‘shape-shifting,’ working within state-sanctioned mechanisms, positioning themselves as public health service providers, and creating spaces for radical political advocacy. In the Philippines, where an anti-sex work position is more deeply entrenched within dominant social blocs, sex work activists aggressively criticise state policies on social media and in carefully vetted forums but remain strategically invisible to avoid exposure, harassment, misrepresentation, and prosecution. This paper looks at how sex work activists engage in claims-making — underscoring the differences in the political resonance of human rights in both countries — and interrogates how sex work activism challenges social hierarchies, especially concerning migrants and trans individuals. Overall, it contributes to a richer understanding of non-traditional forms of political activism in Southeast Asia and makes visible sex workers’ contributions to feminism and labour movements in the global south and non-Western contexts.

This article surveys and analyses the available materials on Dato Mogul, the putative first ruler of Singora (present-day Songkhla) in the early seventeenth century. It argues that the narrative in Thailand surrounding Dato Mogul and his emergence is sketchy at best. In reviewing the literature and drawing on new and extant primary sources, we argue that Dato Mogul was likely a Malay governor authorised by Ligor. This reappraisal presents a more accurate biographical narrative and provides greater insight on polity formation in Lower Siam in the period under review.

Spatial practice is at the core of postcolonial geography's response to the geography of colonialism. However, the methodology of postcolonial spatial practice is linked to pessimisms within the postcolonial debate. This study aims to overcome pessimisms of postcolonialism by analysing a case of postcolonial spatial practice through literature review, expert interview, and field study. The case under investigation is Fatahillah Square in Jakarta, which has been transformed through postcolonial spatial practices from a space that symbolised the tragedy of colonialism into one of culture and art. Here, the characteristics of Homi K. Bhabha's “third space” are apparent, but this case may also be interpreted as an extension of the concept. Through the hybrid and emancipatory plurality of its spatial practice, it refutes the pessimisms of postcolonialism and calls for further postcolonial practice and analysis.

The legal evidentiary approach to “solving” statelessness can sometimes lead to the issue being framed in terms of certain groups of people not meeting objective citizenship criteria or lacking required legal documents. Building on critical interdisciplinary scholarship in anthropology, history and legal studies, this article demonstrates the “constructedness” of citizenship and statelessness through the lens of the politics of recognition and documentation. Using Thailand as a case study, I highlight how global economic, political and social contexts play a significant and dynamic role in delineating the legal line of membership. By tracing how Thai nationality has been instrumentalised by the state throughout the twentieth century, this article contextualises statelessness as a legal and social by-product of statemaking. As such, it challenges the framing of nationality as a non-discriminatory mode of recognition founded in legal objectivity and reiterates the politics of statelessness. In emphasising the fragility of citizenship when granted without genuine social, political and moral recognition, I argue that the objective of statelessness advocacy should not simply be about turning stateless persons into citizens, but rather about creating a more equitable society wherein one's rights are upheld regardless of legal status.

The primary purpose of this article is to reconstruct the date, location, and significance of Ayutthaya's Shi‘ite enclave within the former Siamese capital during the seventeenth century. This reassessment is based on a mixture of Persian, Thai, and European sources that clarify the confused picture generated by European cartographers that has for too long cast a shadow over Muslim studies in Thailand. Following a summary of extant explanations and a description of my primary sources and methodological approach, I summarise two aspects of Muslim presence in Ayutthaya. First, I introduce readers to connections between the incremental growth of the Muslim presence in Ayutthaya during the sixteenth century with geopolitical developments on the eastern littoral of the Bay of Bengal. Second, I present the range of accounts provided in primary sources specifically mentioning Ayutthaya's Muslim enclave. Having orientated readers to the origins of the Muslim presence within Ayutthaya's citadel, I incrementally introduce annotated portions of Thai and European maps. These clarify confusion about where and when this Shi‘ite mosque was constructed. I conclude with comments about how this reassessment brings into focus the presence of Shi‘ite ‘alid piety, Shi‘ite polemics about local Sunnis, Siamese conversion to Shi‘ism, and distinctions between these “Moors” and “Malays.”

While scholars commonly see nation-building as a modernist project or a cultural assertion, we suggest that a “third way” is equally important. Analysing data from a representative survey of 2,001 Singaporean residents collected in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrate that everyday social networks have been key to creating and maintaining Singaporean nationalism. We make the point that despite ambitious plans at transforming society, modernist projects must rely upon organic, routinised, and quotidian mechanisms such as friendship-making within and between ethnic groups for national cohesion to materialise.

The literature on civility navigates the gravitational pulls of binary camps: civility sceptics tend to emphasize how it operates as an instrument of power; civility optimists tend to emphasize its emancipatory potentials. While some scholarship has attempted to reconcile these perspectives by showing how civility can be both negative and positive, such theorization tends to describe this relation in terms of ambivalence. While these approaches rightly indicate that normative judgments about civility are largely a matter of perspective, the concept of twisted civility developed here focuses on the ways in which actors become trapped by the dynamic shifts of force embedded within civility. Comparisons across seemingly incommensurate examples suggest that such multidirectional dynamics are not culturally specific but rather more generalizable. Building our theoretical conception of twisted civility from a comparative approach based on research in Kuching and Saigon, and then using the concept to consider examples from the United States and Denmark, this article also reverses the direction of theorizing typically employed in scholarship on civility. Using postcolonial Southeast Asia as the source of theory rather than its afterthought, the method here uses anthropological comparison to generate theory and to problematize assumptions that universalize Euro-American trajectories of civility.

Debates on the causes of Indonesia's recent democratic decline have mostly focused on institutional, political and attitudinal–behavioural causes. By bringing the rural political economy dimension into this conversation, this article presents another picture of the illiberal turn in Indonesian democracy. Specifically, it examines the implications of elite control over land and coal resources on democratic quality. Based on in-country fieldwork materials and relevant secondary data, it analyses instances of episodic repression, the contraction of democratic spaces and the corrosive effects of coal-fuelled intra-elite clientelism by looking at the elite control of land resources and the influence of political and economic elites benefitting from the coal industry in elections and the broader political arena. Finally, it also discusses the capitulation of key agrarian social movement actors to state interests and its impact on the movement's ability to resist democratic regression. This elaboration shows how the current contour of elite control over rural resources contributes to the declining quality of Indonesian democracy.