The Tracking Development project aims to explain the divergences in development outcomes sub‐Saharan Africa and South‐East Asia over past fifty years through pair‐wise comparison of four countries each region. trajectories reveal that transition sustained growth has consistently been associated with policies aimed at (i) macroeconomic stabilisation; (ii) improving life rural sector, increasing agricultural productivity ensuring an ample supply food; (iii) liberalising economy creating...

Peter Boomgaard, Introducing environmental histories of Indonesia Harold Brookfield, Land degradation in the Indonesian region, interpreted as landscape history Anthony Reid, Inside-out: The colonial displacement Sumatra's population David Henley, Carrying capacity, climatic variation and problem low growth among swidden farmers: Evidence from North Sulawesi Han Knapen, Epidemics, drought other uncertainties Southeast Borneo during eighteenth nineteenth centuries J.W. Nibbering, Upland...

There is an influential view that South‐East Asia's economic success based on export‐oriented industrialisation, and African states should above all imitate this aspect of Asian development strategy. This article, however, uses evidence from Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia Kenya to argue: (i) the historical roots actually lie in pro‐poor agricultural rural development; (ii) even when it has been pro‐rural, as case Kenya, strategy not pro‐poor; (iii) development, be first priority seeking...

Historians of Indonesia often think states, and especially colonial as predatory institutions encroaching aggressively on the territory autonomy freedom-loving stateless peoples. For Barbara Leonard Andaya, early European expansion in Sumatra Moluccas was synonymous with distortion or destruction decentralized indigenous political systems based cooperation, alliance, economic complementarity, myths common ancestry (B. W. Andaya 1993; L. Y. 1993). Anthony Reid (1997: 81) has described tribal...

Abstract This article examines the revival of adat (custom) in post-Suharto Indonesia, a movement which few Indonesia-watchers predicted. Four general reasons for rise revivalism are identified. The first is support, both ideological and concrete, international organizations networks committed to rights indigenous peoples. second uncertainty, together with opportunities, attendant on processes democratization decentralization followed end Suharto's authoritarian rule. third oppression...

This book describes and analyses Minahasan regional nationalism in the period up to 1942. Attention is given precolonial antecedents, transformations brought about by compulsory coffee cultivation, Christian mission activity Western education, role of local representative councils, privileged position which Minahasans came occupy relative other Indonesians within colonial state, ambiguous relationship between Minahasa Indonesian nationalist movement.

In one chapter of Imagined Communities , Benedict Anderson draws attention to an obvious, yet seldom remarked, contrast between the anticolonial nationalist movements in prewar Dutch East Indies and French Indochina. This concerns not class, ideology, or politics but ethnicity geography. colony, Indonesian movement sought unite all scattered islands diverse ethnic groups into a single nation based upon ambiguous principle unity diversity. Indochina, by contrast, existing ethnogeographic...

The "regional nationalisms" of early twentieth century Indonesia are often portrayed either as mere components the Indonesian nationalist movement or expressions "primordial" ethnic sentiments. Minahasa, however, displayed a local nationalism which was neither.Minahasan an autonomous development conditioned by many same modernising processes generated its counterpart, but operating on smaller scale, and beginning at earlier date.The territorial framework for Minahasan created in seventeenth...

Abstract This paper presents empirical evidence to support the labour demand theory of rising reproductive fertility in colonial Indonesia. According this theory, birth rates nineteenth-century Java rose as a direct result burden imposed upon women and their children by Cultivation System compulsory services. The was conceived 1970s reaction against assumption that rapid population growth Indonesia must have reflected improvements economic health conditions under Dutch rule. difficulty...

One influential view blames Nigeria's failure to translate its oil wealth into national prosperity on the country's social, political and institutional fragmentation, which means that there is little incentive for technocratic planning or adoption of policies based shared growth public good. This article explores an alternative theory: at certain periods development trajectory has in fact been influenced by but strategy followed typically neglected agriculture, subjected markets excessive...

This article attempts to provide a long historical perspective on the relationship between population, environment, and use of economic resources (particularly agricultural land) in island Southeast Asia. Historically speaking, it is argued, both size distribution Asia’s human population have been determined mainly by factors: geography has reflected geography, growth followed growth. Partly because densities were adjusted, roughly local conditions, practices typically sustainable sense that...

This article outlines the long-term historical development of body modification in East (Northeast and Southeast) Asia, from intentionally transformative practices prehistory, such as tattooing tooth blackening, to “naturalistic” 20th century, cosmetic surgery, which aim leave no visible evidence change. Attention is also paid recent postmodern revival fashions. Asian developments are discussed global context, comparative international statistics provided on surgery prevalence. The remainder...

This paper explores the relationship between stranger-kingship and contractual authority in history of island Sulawesi (Indonesia). In most parts Sulawesi, social political stratification were always pronounced. At same time power kings chiefs was restricted by more or less explicit contracts defining their rights duties with respect to community as a whole, typically consisting an oligarchy local nobles. These contracts, spelled out during inauguration ceremonies on other ritual occasions,...

the phenomenon of low population growth in pre-colonial southeast asia is often interpreted terms epidemic disease, internecine warfare or cultural idiosyncracies affecting birth rate. modern boom, these analyses, results from medical and public health improvements, military pacification foreign influences. this article, by contrast, argues that indonesia philippines has typically been a result economic growth, general sparsity early historical times reflected ‘carrying capacity’...