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AbstractThis article describes post-colonial state-making in the absolute monarchy of Brunei. After detailing the Sultan's powers, contextualizing the monarchy's stability, and introducing its state ideology, Melayu Islam Beraja ("MIB"), the article addresses formal laws, such as Brunei's Constitution and a new Islamic penal code, which are symbolically significant for the MIB state's (self-)legitimation but have little immediate relevance to many Bruneians' lives. The article, therefore, shifts its focus to normative spheres that receive much less scholarly attention but, arguably, should—namely state-rituals like the Sultan's three-week-long birthday celebrations. These, and other non-legal spheres, including, also, royal speeches, contain normative aspects that reflect and impact key developments in the MIB state. Grounded in the Royal Birthday's and Islamic penal code's analysis, the final part problematizes stereotypes of Brunei being a "sharia state" vis-à-vis its multidirectional normative messages and ability to hybridize broad cultural influences for the ruling system's benefit.

Letter from the Chair . 2 John A. Lent Prize and Provencher Travel Prize . 4 Announcement: MSB panel "Haze, Sand, Fire, Water" Environmental Crises in Southeast Asia" at AAS 2022 Hawaii . 6 Article: Educating the Sultanate: The Melding of Higher Education and Islam in Brunei Darussalam, by Moez Hayat . 10 Book Review: Local Democracy Denied: A Personal Journey into Local Government in Malaysia (Lim Mah Hui) by Koay Su Lyn . 14 Book Review: The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Singapore and Malaysia (Meredith L. Weiss) by Mohamed Salihin Subhan . 17 Review Essay: Multispecies and post-humanist work in Borneo - Recent Contributions and Possible Futures, by Asmus Rungby . 20 Publications and Articles . 28 Editorial Information . 32 ; https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/berita/1046/thumbnail.jpg

Letter from the Chair . 2 Announcement . 3 Prizes: John A. Lent Prize 2019 Commendation & Ronald Provencher Grant . 3–4 Panel Reports: AAS Annual Conference 2019 (Denver, CO) . 5–12 Article: "To Harmonize or Not Harmonize? Shariah Criminal Law in Malaysia" (Kerstin Steiner) . 12–14 Article: "Reflections from the Field: On a Quest to Save the Poor: a Day in a "Zakat Camp" (Tímea Gréta Biró) . 14–17 Article: "A Contemporary Ghost Story: The Tale of the Pontianak" (Rosalia N. Engchuan) . 17–19 Book Review: Through Turbulent Terrain: Trade of the Straits Port of Penang (Loh, Wei Leng & Jeffrey Seow) by Cheong-Soon Gan . 20–22 Publication: Michael G. Peletz (2020, forthc.) Sharia Transformations: Cultural Politics and the Rebranding of an Islamic Judiciary . 22–23 Publication: Mareike Pampus (2019) Heritage Food: The Materialization of Connectivity in Nyonya Cooking . 23–24 Job Opportunities . 25 Call for Papers . 25–26 Member Notes . 26 BERITA History Reprint: John A. Lent (2002) "History of Berita and Malaysia/Singapore /Brunei Studies Group" . 27–28 Editorial Information. 28 ; https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/berita/1044/thumbnail.jpg

This article investigates the bureaucratisation of Islam in Brunei and its interlinkages with socio-cultural changes. It elucidates how realisations of state-enforced Islamic orthodoxy and purification produce locally unique meanings, while simultaneously reflecting much broader characteristics of the contemporary global condition. The article first introduces a theoretical perspective on the bureaucratisation of Islam as a social phenomenon that is intimately intertwined with the state's exercise of classificatory power and related popular processes of co-producing, and sometimes appropriating symbolic state power. Second, it outlines the historical trajectory of empowering Brunei's national ideology, Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB). It then explores social imaginaries and bureaucratic representations of "deviant"-declared practices, before illustrating how these practices become reinvented within the parameters of state power as "Sharia-compliant" services to the nation state. Simultaneously, national-religious protectionism is paradoxically expressed in thoroughly globalised terms and shaped by forces the state cannot (entirely) control. Newly established Sharia-serving practices become culturally re-embedded, while also flexibly drawing upon multiple transnational cultural registers. In the main ethnographic example, bureaucratised exorcism, Japanese water-crystal photography and scientisation fuse behind the "firewall" of MIB. These hybrid pathways to orthodoxy complicate the narratives through which they are commonly framed.

Table of Contents Letter from the Chair . 2 Announcements . 3 John A. Lent Prize 2018 Commendation . 4 Ronald Provencher Travel Grant Commendation . 4–5 Panel Report: Food, Belonging, and Identity in Colonial and Post-Colonial Malaysia/Singapore . 7–8 Article: Social Categorization and Religiously Framed State-Making in Brunei. 9 Article: A New Dawn for Malaysia: The Election that Tipped the Balance . 22 Project Report: Project M: Campaigning with a "Dictator" . 29 Book Review: Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects: British Malaya, 1786-1941. 31 Call for Panelists and Book Chapters: Revisioning 2020 . 32–33 Call for Book Chapters: Malaysian Politics and People, Vol. 3 . 33–34 Job Opportunities . 34 Call for Papers: Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs . 34 Member Notes . 35 Editorial Information . 35 ; https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/berita/1040/thumbnail.jpg

The government of Brunei is currently coming in for sharp criticism from international observers and human rights organizations for enforcing a far-reaching Sharia law reform which carries drastic maximum penalties such as stoning to death for religious offences. This article contextualizes Brunei's approach to Islamic governance vis-à-vis its domestic discursive context. It ethnographically illustrates how religious policies are interrelated with normative changes in everyday life, particularly pertaining to long-established Malay cultural practices that have been outlawed and socially marginalized in recent years. However, although Brunei society is often portrayed as streamlined and docile, the state's exercise of classificatory power does not simply determine social behaviour. Despite sophisticated disciplining strategies, some practices declared as deviant continue to persist, either concealed as everyday forms of resistance or creatively reframed and controlled by government institutions. It would, therefore, be inadequate to simplify the dynamics of socio-legal change in one-dimensional totalizing terms, despite undeniable tendencies of "Shariatization" in the post-independence era.

Brunei continued in 2016 to suffer from declining oil and gas prices. The budget deficit grew. The Sultan made economic diversification and "prudent spending" the year's central political themes. He criticized several government institutions during "surprise visits" and sharply attacked the Ministry of Religious Affairs for "delaying" the full enforcement of an Islamic legal reform.

Brunei and Malaysia are promoting the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration but enforce a brand of Islamic law that systematically violates it. The paradoxical ways in which policymakers are navigating between the two, and the empirical realities of Islamic governance, impede the project of a transdoctrinal justification of human rights.

The oil price decline of 2015 caused significant losses for Brunei's economy. The country is still preparing the second phase of its Sharia reform that began in 2014. In addition to his other government positions, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah appointed himself as minister of foreign affairs and trade, replacing Prince Mohamed Bolkiah.