Philip Hirsch

Michael B. Dwyer

Natalia Scurrah

Kevin Woods

Under the guise of development, land is being commodified and concentrated at the expense of the rural poor In Southeast Asia reversals of earlier agrarian reforms have rolled back "land-to-the-tiller" policies created in the wake of Cold War–era revolutions. This trend, marked by increased land concentration and the promotion of export-oriented agribusiness at the expense of smallholder farmers, exposes the convergence of capitalist relations and state agendas that expand territorial control within and across national borders. Turning Land into Capital examines the contradictions produced by superimposing twenty-first-century neoliberal projects onto diverse landscapes etched by decades of war and state socialism. Chapters in the book explore geopolitics, legacies of colonialism, ideologies of development, and strategies to achieve land justice in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. The resulting picture reveals the place-specific interactions of state and market ideologies, regional geopolitics, and local elites in concentrating control over land.

Development and Dispossession in the Mekong Region

Turning Land into Capital

Carol Warren

The Politics of Environment in Southeast Asia charts the emergence of the environment as an issue of public debate in the region. Through a series of case studies the authors explore the coalescence of social forces around environmental issues, the process of alliance formation, and the role of state institutions, media and NGOs in the complex political battles over resource allocation. The volatile tensions between the winners and losers in this struggle for the environment will make Southeast Asia a focus of increased attention.

The Politics of Environment in Southeast Asia

Fleur Johns

Ben Saul

Ben Boer

An international river basin is an ecological system, an economic thoroughfare, a geographical area, a font of life and livelihoods, a geopolitical network and, often, a cultural icon. It is also a socio-legal phenomenon. This book is the first detailed study of an international river basin from a socio-legal perspective. The Mekong River Basin, which sustains approximately 70 million people across Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, provides a prime example of the socio-legal complexities of governing a transboundary river and its tributaries. The book applies its socio-legal analysis to bring a fresh approach to understanding conflicts surrounding water governance in the Mekong River Basin. The authors describe the wide range of uses being made of legal doctrine and legal argument in ongoing disputes surrounding hydropower development in the Basin, putting to rest lingering caricatures of a single, ‘ASEAN’ way of navigating conflict. They call into question some of the common assumptions concerning the relationship between law and development. The book also sheds light on important questions concerning the global hybridization or crossover of public and private power and its ramifications for water governance. With current debates and looming conflicts over water governance globally, and over shared rivers in particular, these issues could not be more pressing.

The Mekong: A Socio-legal Approach to River Basin Development

Nicholas Tapp

This volume traces the threads that tie together an understanding of Thailand as a dynamic and rapidly changing society, through an examination of the work of one major scholar of the country, Andrew Turton. Turton's anthropological studies of Thailand cover a wide spectrum from politics and economy to ritual and culture, and have been crucial in shaping evolving understandings of Thai society. In this collection, ten leading specialists on Thailand from a variety of disciplines critically consider aspects of Turton's work in relation to the changing nature of different aspects of Thai society. The book tracks the links between past and present scholarship, examines the contextuality of scholarship in its times, and sheds light on the current situation in Thailand.

Philip Hirsch

Books

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