Asia in Focus

Inter-Korean Dialogue and Cultural Memory Practices

Katrine Emilie Brandt — 2020-07-15

The Inter-Korean Summit of 27 April 2018 reinstated dialogue between North and South Korea after a decade of little diplomacy between the two states. In doing so, it drew significant international media attention. Heavy debates on how to interpret both the meeting itself and the prospects of further peace negotiations were raised. Among the spectators, several critics argued that the summit was merely an exercise in symbolism. This article aims to challenge this perception because it disregards the important dynamics of the negotiation process that took place. Using a Cultural Memory Studies approach, this study sets out to demonstrate the significance and complexity of the memory negotiations that took place during the summit. The study looks at some of the internal remembrance processes and employed modes of addressing the past. Furthermore, it investigates how the two actors of diplomacy temporarily altered the dominant “mode of remembering” their past and, through this, recontextualised inter-Korean relations within the time and space of the meeting. More specifically, this study examines how cultural artefacts and different forms of cultural memory in performative acts can be said to have created a “civil space” within which diplomatic talks were enabled.

Labour Power Control and Resistance

Chunsen Yu — 2020-07-15

Under the process of global capitalism, neoliberalism, and globalisation, many studies have discussed the dormitory labour regime and the student labour regime in the Chinese manufacturing industry. There are also many studies on the working conditions of Chinese agency workers. However, very little of the literature has been concerned with why Chinese agency workers still lose their freedom of mobility and freedom to choose where and to which employers they sell their labour services under the agency labour regime. Chris Smith (2006) argues theoretically that the indeterminacy of labour structures and worker relations exists between workers and employers as a result of mobility power, which is one of two important components within labour power (the other is effort power). Mobility power focuses on dynamics that arise from workers’ abilities to change employment (Smith, 2006). In this article, I apply this theory to the case of China, and I argue that labour agencies use three managerial strategies to control agency workers’ mobility power: checking workers’ employment experiences; checking workers’ ID cards on recruitment systems if re-entering the same labour agencies; penalising workers with delays and salary deductions if they quit the job without any notice or in violation of agency procedures.

Articulating the Shan Migrant Community in Thai Society Through Community Radio

Hyeonsoo Jeon — 2020-07-15

Community media as an alternative public sphere for minorities has emerged separately from mainstream media and formal public spheres. In particular, its ethos of understanding community participation as a key component of operating a station highlights its potential to empower community members as active social agents. This study examines the social consequences of an ethnic migrant community radio station, Map Radio FM 99, to explore its role for the Shan migrant community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Fieldwork was conducted for seven weeks between December 2015 and January 2016 to collect data using semi-structured interviews, participant observation and relevant documents. Employing a qualitative approach, this study found that participation in community radio helps participants be socially active in Thai society by maximising their participation in the social sphere using media. This study concludes that participation in Map Radio enables the Shan migrant community to better adapt to Thai society by providing and obtaining information necessary for their lives in Thailand and by contributing to the formation of a collective identity as ethnic migrant workers, thereby creating community cohesion. Nonetheless, lack of political efficacy as a result of the challenging political environment in Thailand might partly prevent Map Radio from functioning completely as an alternative public sphere.

Articulating the Shan Migrant Community in Thai Society Through Community Radio

Arzuu Sheranova — 2020-07-15

Traditional pre-tsarist institutions in Central Asia (CA) are viewed as being crucial in domestic politics, democratisation, transition and nation-building. Political scientists have focused on clan identities and clan politics, whereas anthropologists have proposed kinship and patronage as alternative analytical frameworks. Each side of the debate, however, has not adequately explained or portrayed traditional institutions that affect political voting and mobilisation simply because it is a combination of both proposed frameworks at the same time. This article suggests using Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis framework (IAD) to gain a more comprehensive analysis of the issue. Ostrom’s IAD is particularly useful to frame and explain this phenomenon because it was designed as an instrument to understand complex situations for which individuals set rules. Due to difficulty in terming the phenomenon found in the literature, this article favours using the local terms “uruu/uruk” that denote patrilinear genealogy and “uruuchuluk” that broadly stands for patrilinear bonds identity to describe traditional pre-modern institutions that affect political voting and mobilisation. In addition, this article stresses that the uruu/uruk genealogy system is closely linked with its inhabited geographic area and generates a parallel regional identity which tends to be crucial in the political life of Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, the paper treats uruu/uruk and region together as one phenomenon. The uruu/uruk genealogy system is explained via Ostrom’s IAD framework and is informed by the existing literature on contemporary elections in Kyrgyzstan along with the author’s observations of elections in Kyrgyzstan since 2009. Based on the IAD, I conclude that uruu/uruk-based voting and the development of regional identity in Kyrgyzstan are attractive practices for both individual voters and political candidates because they both benefit from the situation and are committed to maintaining the “structure” of the situation.

Letter from the Editor

Nicol Foulkes Savinetti — 2020-07-15