The Everyday Political Economy of Southeast Asia

This book explores the way that forms of economic policymaking are sustained and challenged by everyday practices across Southeast Asia.

Juanita Elias (Edited by), Lena Rethel (Edited by)

9781107558830, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 March 2018

283 pages, 5 b/w illus. 1 map 10 tables
23 x 15.3 x 1.6 cm, 0.44 kg

'Policy-makers and pundits are seduced by visions of an 'Asian century' ahead. In this context, the authors' carefully crafted volume grounds the discussion of Asia in the global economy by advancing scholarship on the everyday experience of sweeping economic changes. In focusing on Southeast Asia, the contributors to the volume highlight a region that has pioneered political-economic trends that have transformed our world in recent decades: the rise of export oriented economies, huge flows of migrants and remittances, and varying experiences of boom and bust. The interdisciplinary perspectives offered in the component chapters serve both to deepen our understanding of how Southeast Asian political economy plays out on a human scale, and extend important theoretical debates. The volume is a worthy successor to the work of scholars like James Scott and Benedict Kerkvliet who have immersed themselves in the study of the region to teach us about politics everywhere.' Jason Sharman, Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations, University of Cambridge

In this empirically rich collection of essays, a team of leading international scholars explore the way that economic transformation is sustained and challenged by everyday practices across Southeast Asia. Drawing together a body of interdisciplinary scholarship, the authors explore how the emergence of more marketized forms of economic policy-making in Southeast Asia impacts everyday life. The book's twelve chapters address topics such as domestic migration, trade union politics in Myanmar, mining in the Philippines, halal food in Singapore, Islamic finance in Malaysia, education reform in Indonesia, street vending in Malaysia, regional migration between Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia, and Southeast Asian domestic workers in Hong Kong. This collection not only enhances understandings of the everyday political economies at work in specific Southeast Asian sites, but makes a major theoretical contribution to the development of an everyday political economy approach in which perspectives from developing economies and non-Western actors are taken seriously.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Southeast Asia and everyday political economy Juanita Elias and Lena Rethel
Part II. From Development to Multiple Modernities: 2. Policies and negotiated everyday living: a view from the margins of development in Thailand and Vietnam Johnathan Rigg
3. Everyday agents of change: trade unions in Myanmar Nicholas Henry
4. Neoliberalism, resource governance and the everyday politics of protest in the Philippines Jewellord T. Nem Singh and Alvin A. Camba
Part III. Widening and Deepening Markets: 5. The political economy of Muslim markets in Singapore Johan Fischer
6. Islamic finance in Malaysia: global ambitions, local realities Lena Rethel
7. Resisting marketization: everyday actors, courts and education reform in post-New Order Indonesia Andrew Rosser
Part IV. People, Mobilities and Work: 8. From formal employment to street vending: Malaysian women's labour force participation over the life course Anja K. Franck
9. Everyday identities in motion: situating Malaysians within the 'war for talent' Adam Tyson
10. Regional disputes over the transnationalization of domestic labour: Malaysia's 'maid shortage' and foreign relations with Indonesia and Cambodia Juanita Elias and Jonathan Louth
11. Everyday agency, resistance and community resources for Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong Carol G. S. Tan
Part V. Conclusion: 12. Everyday international political economy meets the everyday political economy of Southeast Asia John M. Hobson, Juanita Elias, Lena Rethel and Leonard Seabrooke.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Economic growth [KCG], Regional government [JPR], Asian history [HBJF]