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Putting the mandala in its place: a practice-based approach to the spatialization of power on the Southeast Asian 'periphery'- the case of Akha

Article Abstract:

Practices from a periphery group are analysed to demonstrate alternative interpretative approaches to the mandala polity of Southeast Asian societies. A study of the Akha upland minority suggests that their use of spatial codes combined with a movement of potency and hierarchal status deviates from the centrist model by setting up alternative hierarchial patterns. This is evident in the contextual shifts in hierarchial status between the myan, the village, and the household. Indigenous concepts of potency and power symbols reveal the spatialization of power in the context of intergroup relation.

Social aspects, Political aspects, Study and teaching, Southeast Asia, Political anthropology, Tribes

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The permanence of 'temporary' migration: The 'structural embeddedness' of Japanese-Brazilian immigrant workers in Japan

Article Abstract:

Japan was the only advanced industrial country that did not rely on unskilled foreign labor for many decades. It effectively mechanized and rationalized production and utilized untapped sources of labor. However it finally succumbed to the pressures of global migration and the most important category of immigrants were the nikkejin, mostly second and third generation Japanese-Brazilians, who became a permanent part of Japanese society.

Japan, Immigrants

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Migration and native place: qiaokan and the imagined community of Taishan county, Guangdong, 1893-1993

Article Abstract:

Issues are presented concerning the influence which magazines printed in Chinese had on the migrants from Taishan county, Guangdong, in reminding them of their obligation to financially support the community they had left behind.

History, Influence, Emigration and immigration, Chinese literature, Taishan, China

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