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"Access to new information and communication technologies (ICT) remains extremely unequally distributed across and within societies. While there have been a good deal of popular discussions about this "digital divide", not much is known about the quantitative significance of its various determinants. By undertaking a set of crosscountry regressions, the paper finds that income, education, and infrastructure play a critical role in shaping the divide. Based on this analysis, the paper also offers some policy suggestions as to how to promote wider diffusion of ICT in poorer societies."

Reuse of record except for individual research requires license from Congressional Information Service, Inc. ; "Oct. 1973." ; CIS Microfiche Accession Numbers: CIS 73 S382-30 ; CIS Index 1973. ; Microfiche. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This article brings together a Muslim theologian from colonial India and a contemporary artist from postcolonial Pakistan, namely Ashraf 'Alī Thānvī and Naiza Khan, respectively. In their different yet related ways, Thānvī and Khan both repurpose the idea of "ornamental femininity." Khan's artworks further problematize some of the key assumptions about sexual difference in Thānvī's body of work, such as "women's ruination," feminine fragility, and chastity. Khan eschews the reduction of the feminine to the ornamental, but also embraces the transcendental possibilities of the ornamental. She thus welcomes the mediating function of ornaments, which facilitate experiences of transcendence that are essential for becoming an aesthetic subject. Khan is able to achieve this because of an internal contradiction in the logic of ornamental femininity within Thānvī's moral theological tradition. By becoming attuned to her art objects, we are in a better position to analyze how traditionalist theologians construct the idea of sexual difference in Muslim South Asia. The article also comments on Khan's more general theoretical contribution to contemporary art, which consists of highlighting the ongoing tension between our named, sexed bodies and the potentialities of flesh.

Most headhunting traditions in island Southeast Asia link ritual violence to grief and mourning. Some of the more persuasive analyses of these practices pivot on notions of rage and catharsis, arguing that turbulent emotions motivate persons to take up cleansing acts of violence. This paper seeks a more complex understanding of how ritual may connect bereavement and violence through a look at case materials from highland Sulawesi (Indonesia). Ritual practices there suggest that the resolution of communal mouming is more significant than personal catharsis in motivating violence; that individual affect is refigured collectively as "political affect;" and that varied discursive forms, such as vows, songs, and noise mediate the ways in which people put grief behind them and resume their lives. Indeed, such discursive forms appear to be generative sites for violence and solace. ; I gratefully acknowledge support from the Social Science Research Council; the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Program (Project No. G00-82-00543); the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Grant No. 4144); the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities; and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Most headhunting traditions in island Southeast Asia link ritual violence to grief and mourning. Some of the more persuasive analyses of these practices pivot on notions of rage and catharsis, arguing that turbulent emotions motivate persons to take up cleansing acts of violence. This paper seeks a more complex understanding of how ritual may connect bereavement and violence through a look at case materials from highland Sulawesi (Indonesia). Ritual practices there suggest that the resolution of communal mouming is more significant than personal catharsis in motivating violence; that individual affect is refigured collectively as "political affect;" and that varied discursive forms, such as vows, songs, and noise mediate the ways in which people put grief behind them and resume their lives. Indeed, such discursive forms appear to be generative sites for violence and solace. ; I gratefully acknowledge support from the Social Science Research Council; the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Program (Project No. G00-82-00543); the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Grant No. 4144); the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities; and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Is democracy emerging as the universally preferred political system, as advocates of the global democratization thesis claim? This paper seeks to explore this question in the context of East Asia, a region known for democratic underdevelopment. To this end, we first provide a critical review of how previous survey-based studies were conducted to estimate the relative preference of democracy as a political system. We then introduce hybridization as a new conceptual tool for ascertaining the emerging patterns of political orientations among citizens of authoritarian and post-authoritarian societies and for analyzing the contours of cultural change taking place in those societies. Finally, we analyze the latest, third wave of the Asian Barometer surveys conducted in eleven East Asian countries conducted in 2010 and 2011. On the basis of this analysis, we argue that it is premature to claim that democracy is emerging as the universally preferred system. Further, we argue that hybridization, unlike democratization, can serve as a concept capable of revealing and illuminating the true nature of cultural change taking place in post-authoritarian and authoritarian societies.

This paper reviews the boundary concepts that have emerged in interdisciplinary irrigation studies in South Asia, particularly India. The focus is concepts that capture the hybridity of irrigation systems as complex systems, and cross the boundaries of the natural and social sciences. Concepts capturing the materialisation of rights, design-management relations and the social construction of technology, the notions of landesque capital and (the valuation of) ecosystem goods and services, and finally the broader issues of space-time relations and a cultural politics of water, are explored. The paper takes the analysis forward by suggesting starting points for more comprehensive interdisciplinary social theory on irrigation. On the side of formal theory a focus on a combination the emerging concept of hydrosocial cycle with structure-agency theorisation as morphogenesis is proposed; on the side of substantive theory three avenues for investigation of the materiality of the social process of irrigation are proposed in the commodity form, a materialist institutionalism and the embodiment of agency. The paper concludes by listing five further research activities.

The development of international law in South and Southeast Asia exemplifies myriad ideological strands, historical origins, and significant contributions to contemporary international law doctrines' formative and codification processes. From the beginnings of South and Southeast Asian participation in the international legal order, international law discourse from these regions has been thematicallypostcolonialand substantivelydevelopment-oriented.Postcolonialism in South and Southeast Asian conceptions of international law is an ongoing dialectical project of revisioning international legal thought and its normative directions — towards identifying, collocating, and applying South and Southeast Asian values and philosophical traditions alongside the Euro-American ideologies that, since the classical Post-Westphalian era, have largely infused the content of positivist international law. Of increasing necessity to the intricacies of the postmodern international legal system and its institutions is how the postcolonial project of South and Southeast Asian international legal discourse focuses on areas of international law that create the most urgent development consequences: trade, investment, and the international economic order; the law of the sea and the environment; international humanitarian law, self-determination, socio-economic and cultural human rights.

This pioneering monograph examines how culture informs popular understandings and experiences of mental health in East Asia, as well as providing resolutions for the future. Questions about mental health problems have gained new urgency as their consequences are growing more visible in East Asia. Yet, our understanding, funding, and evidence has not kept pace. Anson Au explores the social and psychological concepts, and network structures that make up the blueprint of East Asian cultures and untangles their myriad of influences on how people think, feel, and trust with respect to mental health experiences. Chapters explore themes such as cultural beliefs about mental health, the role of social support and social media, and mental health stigma.Drawing on the latest quantitative evidence, network science, and novel qualitative data, this book paints a portrait of mental health in the region and articulates culturally sensitive policies and practices tailored for East Asian cultures that improve mental health experiences

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious project aiming to transform the economic landscape along its route in the areas of trade, investment, and energy supplies. It makes as its focal point the connectivity between China and Eurasia, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean. South Asia's location presents China with significant strategic opportunities as Beijing seeks to expand its economic presence in the subcontinent by providing resources in infrastructural development, particularly the construction of seaports. With growing Chinese trade and investment in the region, Beijing is also extending its diplomatic influence into what has long been considered as India's sphere of influence. With longstanding strategic distrust and unresolved territorial disputes, New Delhi is suspicious of Beijing's intentions and concerned over the latter's growing influence into a region it has long considered its sphere of influence. In this context, the BRI has the potential to intensify Sino–Indian rivalry, and the Modi government has indeed explored and launched initiatives to counter Chinese diplomatic activities. It remains a challenge whether and how Asia's rising powers can reduce their trust deficits and explore areas of cooperation made possible by the BRI, working toward a cooperative, mutually beneficial future for Sino–Indian relations and the region as a whole.

Through an examination of East Asian economies, this paper proposes two new capitalist ideal types: family market economies and state market economies. In contrast to coordinated and liberal market economy types, the new capitalist ideal types proposed here display alternative forms of hierarchical coordination. These ideal types are also genuinely novel models of capitalism because they exhibit distinct and stable institutional structures and comparative advantages. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

In this article we challenge the conventional wisdom that COVID-19 and related legal restrictions invariably reinforce a global trend of shrinking civic space. We argue that the legal guarantee (or restriction) of civil society rights is not the sole factor configuring civic space. Instead, we reconceptualize civic space by broadening its determinants to also include needs-induced space and civil society activism. Investigating five countries with flawed democracic or competitive autocracic regimes in Southeast Asia, we propose a three-pronged mechanism of how these determinants interact in the context of COVID-19. First, legal restrictions on civil society rights intertwine with the space created by health and economic needs to create new opportunities for civil society activism. Second, these new opportunity structures lead to the cross-fertilization between service delivery and advocacy activism by civil society. Third, this new trajectory of civil society activism works to sustain civic space.