Asian Journal of Social Science最新文献

The indigenous tea plant in Upper Assam was subjected to multilayered experiments where the 19th century British quest for scientific superiority resulted in a severe and prolonged rejection of it. The article argues that the continuous comparison of the Assamese variety with that of the Chinese was not just the consequence of science but also of racism inherent in it. Even after the successful cultivation of the indigenous variety which emerged as the sole means of rescuing Britain from the “vice like control of China” over tea, negligence toward it was not completely vanished. The article argues this point by locating it within the context of “tropical – temperate” dichotomy that the colonial science invented.

Personnel dismissals of high-ranking elites in authoritarian regimes are ubiquitous. However, the consequences of these events have not been thoroughly examined. This study explores the economic consequences of political dismissals in China, one of the most durable authoritarian regimes in the world. In the face of dismissals, a regime's concern lies in ensuring that the dismissed officials do not cause antiregime sentiments toward the public. Therefore, the regime is willing to preempt the possibility by enhancing the state–public relationship. To realize this cooperation, the regime distributes economic benefits to the public. The satisfied public is unlikely to support the dismissed elites against the regime. By examining the government spending data of China's provinces, this paper demonstrates that the Chinese government compensates the local public by increasing government expenditures in the locality that has recently experienced a dismissal of one of its high-ranking officials.

The Indus River delta is characterised by extreme issues: loss of 0.5 million hectares of fertile land and local livelihoods, environmental degradation including salinity and waterlogging, and significant reduction of freshwater flows into the delta where climatic changes further exacerbate existing complexities. These concerns and local people's marginality are typically conceptualised through different but singular lens of either biodiversity conservation, techno-managerial water management solutions, or lately climate change by different actors. Conversely, fishing communities advance a highly political discourse about the delta and situate their marginality in the historical socio-political processes and large-scale projects for taming the Indus River waters for agriculture development by the Pakistani state that reorganised their social space. This paper aims to understand how knowledge(s) about the Indus Delta are produced, legitimized, mobilized, and deployed to “solve” the “problems,” whereas other discourses such as those of the indigenous fishing communities remain marginal. It explores the consequences of this for people living in the delta.

The framework of ‘lived Islam’ overshadows the study of Islam in South Asia, presupposing a ‘local Islam’ against a ‘global Islam’. In the post-9/11 context, the global is immediately associated with the political and the political with the undesirable. On the other hand, the local is portrayed as peaceful, accommodative and, hence, desirable. Such teleological approaches produce a priori desire for the local and undermine the political, foreclosing Muslim political legitimacy. By shifting attention to the Muslim movements in Kerala, I emphasise the significance of the political and jurisprudence in the exploration of Muslim lives. I conclude that while the Muslim subjectivity is decisively framed within the constraints of security concerns, Hindu sensibility and modern citizenship, jurisprudence enables the Muslim subject to engage substantially within and beyond these constellations of power, imagining a sovereign register of Islamic ethos.

Activism has gone beyond the streets. Not only has social media connected billions of people worldwide, but it has also provided opportunities for activists to reach a broader audience and altered the way political participation is exercised. This paper will apply the uses and gratifications framework and seek to understand how young Filipino activists utilize social media platforms amid two critical junctures: a strongman at the helm of the government and a virus that has been inundating the world with uncertainties. Three general points will be discussed: digital activism before and during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte; utility of social media platforms in the contemporary period; and the perils and limitations of digital activism. Further explorations of the digital environment are imperative, particularly on how it can be maximized for more meaningful engagements and reduce, if not eliminate, its deleterious impacts.