SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia Vol. 40/2 (July 2025)

Contents

• SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia Vol. 40/2 (July 2025)
  [Whole Publication, ISSN: 17932858]
• Preliminary pages

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• ARTICLES
• The Science of Sea Voyages: Challenges to Discourses of Difference in Travel Literature About Southeast Asia, by Christopher Leslie, author see abstract
  This article reconsiders the relationship between non-fiction travel literature and the formation of a new racial discourse during the Enlightenment. Some scholars have suggested that information from sea voyages served as raw data from which the new discourse emerged inductively. Examining travel literature about Southeast Asia before and after the Enlightenment, though, shows how authors wrote against the burgeoning discourse. Historicizing travel literature about Southeast Asia demonstrates that the strict racialization found at the end of the nineteenth century was not an unchallenged, inductive scientific enterprise. It also shows how the new discourse shaped the reception of new ideas.
• The Rise of Cinema Culture in Malayan Towns and Chinese Towkays, 1900s–1960s, by Wong Yee Tuan, author see abstract
  Cinemas had decades-long popularity and influence in Malayan towns. This article adopts the concept of cultural entrepreneurship to explore how Chinese towkays and their entrepreneurship transformed the cultural sphere in Malayan towns by way of cinemas and films from the 1900s to the 1960s. In particular, it traces the historical agency of cultural tycoons and the collective cultural enterprises in animating Malayan entertainment history by channelling their investments into film production and distribution as well as promoting mass consumption via regional and local networks.
• Everyday Nationhood: Complexities of Identity and Belonging Among the Chinese Minority in Brunei Darussalam, by Md. Zaidul Anwar Hj. Md. Kasim, author see abstract
  This article underscores the diverse and often toned-down experiences of everyday nationhood among the ethnic Chinese minority in Brunei, highlighting the complexities of their identity and belonging. This marginalized ethnic minority simultaneously experiences aspects of everyday nationhood while being excluded from many of its facets. These exclusions are shaped by authority-defined narratives of nationhood that influence interpretations of citizenship and create dilemmas of identity and belonging. At the grassroots level, the study demonstrates how everyday nationhood is both expressed and contested through a sense of (non-)belonging by the ethnic Chinese, stemming from non-conformity to the dominant national discourse rooted in ethno-religious homogeneity.
• Interrogating Ideologies in Thai Language Textbooks: Phasaphathi and the Protest for Reform, by Pitchayada Mekhirunsiri, Mala Rajo Sathian, authors see abstract
  There is a disconnect between Thailand’s primary school Thai language textbooks (or Phasaphathi chan prathomsueksa) and the Thai youth of today because the textbooks echo dated ideological principles that are not in keeping with contemporary social developments. Language textbooks have been subjected to less scrutiny than history and moral studies textbooks even though they contain similar lessons on civic rights and values. This article examines the nationalist, gender and class-based leanings of the Phasaphathi and relates them to current demands for democratic reform. It explains why the textbooks are criticized and suggests that education reform should incorporate curricular changes that consider diverse expert views and contemporary realities.
• BOOK REVIEWS
• BOOK REVIEW: Temple Tracks: Labour, Piety and Railway Construction in Asia, by Vineet Sinha, by Minh Nguyen, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: Losing Hearts and Minds: Race, War, and Empire in Singapore and Malaya, 1915–1960, by Kate Imy, by Jeremy Taylor, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: Sikh Pioneers of Perlis Malaysia 1906–1957: A Community History, by D.S Ranjit Singh Darar, by Charanjit Kaur, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: Forging the Nation: Land Struggles in Myanmar’s Transition Period, by Mark SuiSue, by Miles Kenney-Lazar, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar, by Ken MacLean, by Samson Lim, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: Christianity and the Chinese in Indonesia: Ethnicity, Education and Enterprise, by Chang-Yau Hoon, by Juliette Koning, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia, by Benjamin Hegarty, by Diego Garcia Rodriguez, author

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• BOOK REVIEW: Kebalian: The Dialogic Construction of Balinese Identity, by Michel Picard, by Ryan Tans, author

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