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Victor King

University of Leeds, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Emeritus

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Universiti Brunei Darussalam

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University of Amsterdam

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National University of Singapore

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Nanyang Technological University

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Papers by Victor King

SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES Conceptualising Culture, Identity and Region: Recent Reflections on Southeast Asia

Debates concerning the definition of Southeast Asia as a region are intense and ongoing , and the... more Debates concerning the definition of Southeast Asia as a region are intense and ongoing , and the delimitation and rationale for regional analysis have become increasingly problematical in the era of globalisation. Southeast Asia is characterised, though not clearly and unequivocally defined by cultural diversity and openness. It has a long history of cultural connections with other parts of the world and it demonstrates the importance of physical migrations and cultural flows into, across and out of the region, which have generated cross-cultural encounters and social intercourse, with the Indian sub-continent, East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. These interactions have in turn resulted in cultural hybridisation, synthesis and mixed or mestizo communities, the phenomena of pluralism and multiculturalism within national boundaries, and in the coexistence of culturally different majority and minority populations. The processes of cultural differentiation and interact...

Origins, History and Social Structure in Brunei Darussalam

This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Daru... more This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Darussalam, the origins of the sultanate, its genealogical foundations and the structure and administration of Brunei society. Contributors draw on the seminal work of Donald E. Brown whose major monograph on the sultanate was published in 1970 and marked the beginnings of advanced sociological, anthropological and historical research on Brunei. Among the key issues addressed are status systems, titles and social stratification, Chinese sources for the study of Brunei, Malay oral and written histories and traditions, the symbolism, meanings and origins of coronation rituals, previously unknown sources for the study of Brunei history and the processes of incorporation of minority populations into the sultanate. Contributions by leading scholars of Brunei, Borneo and the wider Indonesian-Malay world, both from within Brunei Darussalam and beyond, address some central preoccupations which Brown raised and which have been the subject of continued debate in Austronesian and Southeast Asian studies. A novel contribution to the study of the history of Brunei Darussalam, this book will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian history, Asian history, Colonial and Imperial history and anthropology.

Claiming Authority

Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-No... more

Ancestors in Borneo Societies: Death, Transformation and Social Immortality

Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2014

Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand Søren Ivarsson and Lotte Isager (eds) Pl... more Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand Søren Ivarsson and Lotte Isager (eds) Plaited Arts from the Borneo Rainforest Bernard Sellato (ed.) Cambodia's Economic Transformation Caroline Hughes and Kheang Un (eds) Ancestors in Borneo Societies Pascal Couderc and Kenneth Sillander (eds) Creative Spaces Denise Gimpel, Bent Nielsen and Paul Bailey (eds) NIAS Press is the autonomous publishing arm of NIAS-Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, a research institute located at the University of Copenhagen. NIAS is partially funded by the governments of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden via the Nordic Council of Ministers, and works to encourage and support Asian studies in the Nordic countries. In so doing, NIAS has been publishing books since 1969, with more than 300 v Contents Maps vi Figures vi Contributors viii 1. Ancestors as Sources of Authority and Potency among the Bentian of East Kalimantan Kenneth Sillander 62 2. Recalling the Dead, Revering the Ancestors: Multiple Forms of Ancestorship in Saribas Iban Society Clifford Sather 114 3. Separated Dead and Transformed Ancestors: Two Facets of Ancestorship among the Uut Danum of West Kalimantan Pascal Couderc 153 4. "These are Things we have not Seen. How can we Know What They are Like?"

Images of the Wildman in Southeast Asia

1. Introduction 2. The Story of Ebu Gogo 3. Other Florenese Hominoids 4. Other Eastern Islands 5.... more

Batek Negrito Religion: The World View and Rituals of a Hunting and Gathering People of Peninsular Malaysia

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1981

An academic directory and search engine.

Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality:Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality

American Ethnologist, 2001

Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States.:Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States

American Anthropologist, 2000

Human Security, Marginality and Precariousness in Southeast Asia

PSN: Strategies of Self-Defense (Topic), 2021

Besides the more obvious threats and impediments to human security posed by conflict or natural d... more Besides the more obvious threats and impediments to human security posed by conflict or natural disaster, a central problem in examining and addressing multiple insecurities in Southeast Asia is at what level. Each country confronts a different context of human security and faces a host of intersecting circumstances that render situational day-to-day forms of precariousness difficult to recognise and interpret. How then are we to proceed? This article considers a range of social science concepts and approaches (which have not been brought together in this form before) and their utility for investigating human security in the region. It argues that more disaggregated and grounded perspectives can open the way for human security to gain fuller analytical purchase on contemporary marginality and precariousness in Southeast Asia.

Internet, Youth and Democracy: Political Participation of Malaysian Youth

Scholars argue that participation in voluntary associations of a non-political nature is an impor... more Scholars argue that participation in voluntary associations of a non-political nature is an important companion of political involvement, and some scholars even go further to suggest that participation in non-political voluntary organisations breeds political involvement. This article examines the nature of political involvement and participation in terms of its definition and activities. It focuses on changes in the modes of action and participation that were facilitated by internet. Young people's political participation is different i.e. they have different political attitudes with newer and different forms of participation than those practised by adults, and these [other/informal] forms are not always surveyed (Quintelier 2007: 1, 3, 6, 7). It is claimed that "young people prefer local community actions, political consumerism, new social movements and activities, single issue politics, protest politics, etc ... " (Quintelier 2007: 3). This claim is parallel with ot...

Origins, History and Social Structure in Brunei Darussalam

Origins, history and social structures in Brunei Darussalam, 2021

This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Daru... more This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Darussalam, the origins of the sultanate, its gene-alogical foundations and the structure and administration of Brunei society. Contributors draw on the seminal work of Donald E. Brown whose major monograph on the sultanate was published in 1970 and marked the beginnings of advanced sociological, anthropological and historical research on Brunei. Among the key issues addressed are status systems, titles and social stratification, Chinese sources for the study of Brunei, Malay oral and written histories and traditions, the symbolism, meanings and origins of coronation rituals, previously unknown sources for the study of Brunei history and the processes of incorporation of minority populations into the sultanate. Contributions by leading scholars of Brunei, Borneo and the wider Indonesian-Malay world, both from within Brunei Darussalam and beyond, address some central preoccupations which Brow...

Substantive and Conceptual Issues in Tourism Research: A Personal Engagement with Southeast Asia

The field of tourism studies has generated the same kinds of issues and problems as other multidi... more The field of tourism studies has generated the same kinds of issues and problems as other multidisciplinary fields of study including area studies. This paper reflects on the progress of tourism research in Southeast Asia from the early 1990s when the field began to gain some momentum. These reflections help chart the ways in which research develops and the reasons that it takes the pathways that it does. Many of the issues which have been addressed recently in debates in area studies, especially with regard to the definition of and rationale for Southeast Asian Studies are also evident in tourism studies and it is worthwhile to compare different multidisciplinary endeavours. The main concerns relate to the definition and rationale of a field of studies in a globalising post-modern world, as well as concerns about methodology, concepts and theories. These issues also require critical observations on recent attempts to move the agenda of tourism research forward, in particular in rel...

Reconsidering an Ethnic Label in Borneo

Name is surely the simplest, most literal, and most obvious of all symbols of identity. But, like... more Name is surely the simplest, most literal, and most obvious of all symbols of identity. But, like everything simple, it is complicated.' (Harold Isaacs, Idols of the tribe.) Ethnicüy in Borneo Ethnic identity is, as Isaacs suggests, paradoxically simple and complex (Isaacs 1975:71). J At its simplest, ethnic self-identification throughout Borneo (as elsewhere) is like an onion with multiple layers, but which 'layer' is important depends upon who the interlocutor is and how f ar from home the self-identification occurs (Sellato forthcoming; King 1982). 2 Close to home and in speakingto people from other communities and other nearby rivers, people primarily identify themselves by community membership and river of origin. Among themselves, they might also resort to an autonym in distinguishing themselves from other groups. Further afield, an upstream-downstream distinction becomes important, with people identifying themselves 1

The Middle Class in Southeast Asia: Diversities, Identities, Comparisons and the Vietnamese Case

Much interest has been devoted since the 1980s to the new urban, educated middle class in Southea... more Much interest has been devoted since the 1980s to the new urban, educated middle class in Southeast Asia which has emerged primarily as a result of stateled modernization and capitalist transformation. These processes have also been occurring recently in the former centralized socialist economies of Southeast Asia mainland. However, there has not been a great deal of comparative region-wide research on the new middle class and we still know very little about such countries as Vietnam. As Lui proposes we must explore the "richness of class analysis….by probing people's values, outlook, lifestyles, moral perspectives, perceptions of social change and political choices" (2006: 47). As part of a research project which examines the diversities and changing identities of the new middle class in the region, this paper presents some initial thoughts on the problems of defining and delimiting the middle orders of society and some preliminary findings on the young educated middl...

Current Issues in Tourism : Thailand and Beyond Introduction to Special Issue

Tourism studies as a definable field of study is now experiencing something of an impasse. There ... more Tourism studies as a definable field of study is now experiencing something of an impasse. There have been recent attempts to rejuvenate and redefine it, and to rescue it from the dominance of Euro-American perspectives in the analysis of the tourist experience and of cultural encounters generated by and derived from Western travellers on holiday and at play in countries other than their own. In this regard, tourism has been seen increasingly in the context of what has been referred to as the "mobilities" paradigm, particularly in sociological approaches. In other words, tourism as a discretionary form of travel to seek relaxation, pleasure, leisure and new experiences is now seen as one kind of mobility among other kinds of movement from one place to another (Urry 2000, 2007). It is also argued that this approach helps remove tourism studies from Eurocentric perspectives and it enables tourism studies to widen its range and to address new and emerging tourisms including long-stay, retirement, visiting friends and family, business and conventions, and volunteering, among others (Cohen and Cohen 2012, 2014; King and Porananond 2014: 1-21). The early focus on Western tourists visiting other places, often in less developed or emerging countries, which could provide sun, sand, sea, shopping (and in the case of some tourist sites, sex), encouraged researchers in the developing field of tourism studies to examine issues of inequality and economic, social and cultural exploitation. It also gave rise to a set of concepts which were more relevant to a western leisure experience: Urry's influential "tourist gaze," MacCannell's seminal proposition of "staged authenticity," Graburn's excursion into rites of transition and the anthropological concept of a "sacred journey," and Nash's economic underdevelopment and globalisation thesis of "tourism as a form of imperialism," among others (

Brunei Darussalam: Origins, early history and social structure

The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evalu... more The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evaluate Professor Donald Brown’s pioneering studies on the Brunei sultanate. It is just over 50 years since Professor Brown undertook anthropological research in Brunei (1967–1968) for his Cornell University doctorate, which led to his seminal volume Brunei: The Structure and History of a Bornean Malay Sultanate published by The Brunei Museum as a special monograph in 1970 (see Prologue); it too celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. He also wrote more than 20 related papers on the history and social organisation of Brunei. These have become standard references for our understanding and appreciation of the society, culture and history of the Brunei sultanate. The chapter proposes that in any scholarly historical and social-science-based research on Brunei, and on historically and culturally related territories in Borneo and on Malay states more generally, Brown’s work is frequently cited. Though other studies were undertaken after the publication of Brown’s monograph, without his crucial scholarly contribution we would have had no major points of reference before the declaration of the full independence of Negara Brunei Darussalam from the British Crown on 1 January 1984.

Identities, Nations and Ethnicities: A Critical Comparative Study from Southeast Asia

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research

The paper focuses on images of identity in Southeast Asia and argues that it is analytically usef... more The paper focuses on images of identity in Southeast Asia and argues that it is analytically useful to distinguish these identities and their "modes of representation" at different levels or scales of magnitude. In this regard, it is necessary to examine images of nationhood or the identities expressed and displayed at the national level in interaction with identities at the sub-national level which comprise what are usually referred to as ethnic groups or alternatively "peoples" or "communities". Identity and its specific expression in "ethnicity" comprises a form of social cleavage and is a means of organizing social and cultural relations and encounters in terms of similarity and difference. It is argued that identity cannot exist apart from the establishment and maintenance of "cultural difference" and the construction and operation of boundaries, and is generated and sustained in relationships, both at the level of ideas and in practice with others who are perceived to be and categorized as "not us" or "other". In other words, the ways in which identity and ethnicity in particular operate are "relational". Comparative case-studies are taken from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to illustrate these propositions.

A Sociological-Anthropological Gaze on Changing Perspectives on Southeast Asia: Personal Interventions in Discipline and Area

Fieldwork and the Self

Culture and Identity on the Move: Malaysian Nationhood in Southeast Asia

Discourses, Agency and Identity in Malaysia

Brunei Darussalam: Origins, early history and social structure

Origins, History and Social Structure in Brunei Darussalam, eds Victor T. King and Stephen C. Druce., 2021

The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evalu... more The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evaluate Professor Donald Brown’s pioneering studies on the Brunei sultanate. It is just over 50 years since Professor Brown undertook anthropological research in Brunei (1967–1968) for his Cornell University doctorate, which led to his seminal volume Brunei: The Structure and History of a Bornean Malay Sultanate published by The Brunei Museum as a special monograph in 1970 (see Prologue); it too celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. He also wrote more than 20 related papers on the history and social organisation of Brunei. These have become standard references for our understanding and appreciation of the society, culture and history of the Brunei sultanate. The chapter proposes that in any scholarly historical and social-science-based research on Brunei, and on historically and culturally related territories in Borneo and on Malay states more generally, Brown’s work is frequently cited. Thou...

SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES Conceptualising Culture, Identity and Region: Recent Reflections on Southeast Asia

Debates concerning the definition of Southeast Asia as a region are intense and ongoing , and the... more Debates concerning the definition of Southeast Asia as a region are intense and ongoing , and the delimitation and rationale for regional analysis have become increasingly problematical in the era of globalisation. Southeast Asia is characterised, though not clearly and unequivocally defined by cultural diversity and openness. It has a long history of cultural connections with other parts of the world and it demonstrates the importance of physical migrations and cultural flows into, across and out of the region, which have generated cross-cultural encounters and social intercourse, with the Indian sub-continent, East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. These interactions have in turn resulted in cultural hybridisation, synthesis and mixed or mestizo communities, the phenomena of pluralism and multiculturalism within national boundaries, and in the coexistence of culturally different majority and minority populations. The processes of cultural differentiation and interact...

Origins, History and Social Structure in Brunei Darussalam

This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Daru... more This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Darussalam, the origins of the sultanate, its genealogical foundations and the structure and administration of Brunei society. Contributors draw on the seminal work of Donald E. Brown whose major monograph on the sultanate was published in 1970 and marked the beginnings of advanced sociological, anthropological and historical research on Brunei. Among the key issues addressed are status systems, titles and social stratification, Chinese sources for the study of Brunei, Malay oral and written histories and traditions, the symbolism, meanings and origins of coronation rituals, previously unknown sources for the study of Brunei history and the processes of incorporation of minority populations into the sultanate. Contributions by leading scholars of Brunei, Borneo and the wider Indonesian-Malay world, both from within Brunei Darussalam and beyond, address some central preoccupations which Brown raised and which have been the subject of continued debate in Austronesian and Southeast Asian studies. A novel contribution to the study of the history of Brunei Darussalam, this book will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian history, Asian history, Colonial and Imperial history and anthropology.

Claiming Authority

Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-No... more

Ancestors in Borneo Societies: Death, Transformation and Social Immortality

Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2014

Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand Søren Ivarsson and Lotte Isager (eds) Pl... more Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand Søren Ivarsson and Lotte Isager (eds) Plaited Arts from the Borneo Rainforest Bernard Sellato (ed.) Cambodia's Economic Transformation Caroline Hughes and Kheang Un (eds) Ancestors in Borneo Societies Pascal Couderc and Kenneth Sillander (eds) Creative Spaces Denise Gimpel, Bent Nielsen and Paul Bailey (eds) NIAS Press is the autonomous publishing arm of NIAS-Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, a research institute located at the University of Copenhagen. NIAS is partially funded by the governments of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden via the Nordic Council of Ministers, and works to encourage and support Asian studies in the Nordic countries. In so doing, NIAS has been publishing books since 1969, with more than 300 v Contents Maps vi Figures vi Contributors viii 1. Ancestors as Sources of Authority and Potency among the Bentian of East Kalimantan Kenneth Sillander 62 2. Recalling the Dead, Revering the Ancestors: Multiple Forms of Ancestorship in Saribas Iban Society Clifford Sather 114 3. Separated Dead and Transformed Ancestors: Two Facets of Ancestorship among the Uut Danum of West Kalimantan Pascal Couderc 153 4. "These are Things we have not Seen. How can we Know What They are Like?"

Images of the Wildman in Southeast Asia

1. Introduction 2. The Story of Ebu Gogo 3. Other Florenese Hominoids 4. Other Eastern Islands 5.... more

Batek Negrito Religion: The World View and Rituals of a Hunting and Gathering People of Peninsular Malaysia

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1981

An academic directory and search engine.

Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality:Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality

American Ethnologist, 2001

Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States.:Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the United States

American Anthropologist, 2000

Human Security, Marginality and Precariousness in Southeast Asia

PSN: Strategies of Self-Defense (Topic), 2021

Besides the more obvious threats and impediments to human security posed by conflict or natural d... more Besides the more obvious threats and impediments to human security posed by conflict or natural disaster, a central problem in examining and addressing multiple insecurities in Southeast Asia is at what level. Each country confronts a different context of human security and faces a host of intersecting circumstances that render situational day-to-day forms of precariousness difficult to recognise and interpret. How then are we to proceed? This article considers a range of social science concepts and approaches (which have not been brought together in this form before) and their utility for investigating human security in the region. It argues that more disaggregated and grounded perspectives can open the way for human security to gain fuller analytical purchase on contemporary marginality and precariousness in Southeast Asia.

Internet, Youth and Democracy: Political Participation of Malaysian Youth

Scholars argue that participation in voluntary associations of a non-political nature is an impor... more Scholars argue that participation in voluntary associations of a non-political nature is an important companion of political involvement, and some scholars even go further to suggest that participation in non-political voluntary organisations breeds political involvement. This article examines the nature of political involvement and participation in terms of its definition and activities. It focuses on changes in the modes of action and participation that were facilitated by internet. Young people's political participation is different i.e. they have different political attitudes with newer and different forms of participation than those practised by adults, and these [other/informal] forms are not always surveyed (Quintelier 2007: 1, 3, 6, 7). It is claimed that "young people prefer local community actions, political consumerism, new social movements and activities, single issue politics, protest politics, etc ... " (Quintelier 2007: 3). This claim is parallel with ot...

Origins, History and Social Structure in Brunei Darussalam

Origins, history and social structures in Brunei Darussalam, 2021

This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Daru... more This wide-ranging book re-evaluates in detail the early history and historiography of Brunei Darussalam, the origins of the sultanate, its gene-alogical foundations and the structure and administration of Brunei society. Contributors draw on the seminal work of Donald E. Brown whose major monograph on the sultanate was published in 1970 and marked the beginnings of advanced sociological, anthropological and historical research on Brunei. Among the key issues addressed are status systems, titles and social stratification, Chinese sources for the study of Brunei, Malay oral and written histories and traditions, the symbolism, meanings and origins of coronation rituals, previously unknown sources for the study of Brunei history and the processes of incorporation of minority populations into the sultanate. Contributions by leading scholars of Brunei, Borneo and the wider Indonesian-Malay world, both from within Brunei Darussalam and beyond, address some central preoccupations which Brow...

Substantive and Conceptual Issues in Tourism Research: A Personal Engagement with Southeast Asia

The field of tourism studies has generated the same kinds of issues and problems as other multidi... more The field of tourism studies has generated the same kinds of issues and problems as other multidisciplinary fields of study including area studies. This paper reflects on the progress of tourism research in Southeast Asia from the early 1990s when the field began to gain some momentum. These reflections help chart the ways in which research develops and the reasons that it takes the pathways that it does. Many of the issues which have been addressed recently in debates in area studies, especially with regard to the definition of and rationale for Southeast Asian Studies are also evident in tourism studies and it is worthwhile to compare different multidisciplinary endeavours. The main concerns relate to the definition and rationale of a field of studies in a globalising post-modern world, as well as concerns about methodology, concepts and theories. These issues also require critical observations on recent attempts to move the agenda of tourism research forward, in particular in rel...

Reconsidering an Ethnic Label in Borneo

Name is surely the simplest, most literal, and most obvious of all symbols of identity. But, like... more Name is surely the simplest, most literal, and most obvious of all symbols of identity. But, like everything simple, it is complicated.' (Harold Isaacs, Idols of the tribe.) Ethnicüy in Borneo Ethnic identity is, as Isaacs suggests, paradoxically simple and complex (Isaacs 1975:71). J At its simplest, ethnic self-identification throughout Borneo (as elsewhere) is like an onion with multiple layers, but which 'layer' is important depends upon who the interlocutor is and how f ar from home the self-identification occurs (Sellato forthcoming; King 1982). 2 Close to home and in speakingto people from other communities and other nearby rivers, people primarily identify themselves by community membership and river of origin. Among themselves, they might also resort to an autonym in distinguishing themselves from other groups. Further afield, an upstream-downstream distinction becomes important, with people identifying themselves 1

The Middle Class in Southeast Asia: Diversities, Identities, Comparisons and the Vietnamese Case

Much interest has been devoted since the 1980s to the new urban, educated middle class in Southea... more Much interest has been devoted since the 1980s to the new urban, educated middle class in Southeast Asia which has emerged primarily as a result of stateled modernization and capitalist transformation. These processes have also been occurring recently in the former centralized socialist economies of Southeast Asia mainland. However, there has not been a great deal of comparative region-wide research on the new middle class and we still know very little about such countries as Vietnam. As Lui proposes we must explore the "richness of class analysis….by probing people's values, outlook, lifestyles, moral perspectives, perceptions of social change and political choices" (2006: 47). As part of a research project which examines the diversities and changing identities of the new middle class in the region, this paper presents some initial thoughts on the problems of defining and delimiting the middle orders of society and some preliminary findings on the young educated middl...

Current Issues in Tourism : Thailand and Beyond Introduction to Special Issue

Tourism studies as a definable field of study is now experiencing something of an impasse. There ... more Tourism studies as a definable field of study is now experiencing something of an impasse. There have been recent attempts to rejuvenate and redefine it, and to rescue it from the dominance of Euro-American perspectives in the analysis of the tourist experience and of cultural encounters generated by and derived from Western travellers on holiday and at play in countries other than their own. In this regard, tourism has been seen increasingly in the context of what has been referred to as the "mobilities" paradigm, particularly in sociological approaches. In other words, tourism as a discretionary form of travel to seek relaxation, pleasure, leisure and new experiences is now seen as one kind of mobility among other kinds of movement from one place to another (Urry 2000, 2007). It is also argued that this approach helps remove tourism studies from Eurocentric perspectives and it enables tourism studies to widen its range and to address new and emerging tourisms including long-stay, retirement, visiting friends and family, business and conventions, and volunteering, among others (Cohen and Cohen 2012, 2014; King and Porananond 2014: 1-21). The early focus on Western tourists visiting other places, often in less developed or emerging countries, which could provide sun, sand, sea, shopping (and in the case of some tourist sites, sex), encouraged researchers in the developing field of tourism studies to examine issues of inequality and economic, social and cultural exploitation. It also gave rise to a set of concepts which were more relevant to a western leisure experience: Urry's influential "tourist gaze," MacCannell's seminal proposition of "staged authenticity," Graburn's excursion into rites of transition and the anthropological concept of a "sacred journey," and Nash's economic underdevelopment and globalisation thesis of "tourism as a form of imperialism," among others (

Brunei Darussalam: Origins, early history and social structure

The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evalu... more The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evaluate Professor Donald Brown’s pioneering studies on the Brunei sultanate. It is just over 50 years since Professor Brown undertook anthropological research in Brunei (1967–1968) for his Cornell University doctorate, which led to his seminal volume Brunei: The Structure and History of a Bornean Malay Sultanate published by The Brunei Museum as a special monograph in 1970 (see Prologue); it too celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. He also wrote more than 20 related papers on the history and social organisation of Brunei. These have become standard references for our understanding and appreciation of the society, culture and history of the Brunei sultanate. The chapter proposes that in any scholarly historical and social-science-based research on Brunei, and on historically and culturally related territories in Borneo and on Malay states more generally, Brown’s work is frequently cited. Though other studies were undertaken after the publication of Brown’s monograph, without his crucial scholarly contribution we would have had no major points of reference before the declaration of the full independence of Negara Brunei Darussalam from the British Crown on 1 January 1984.

Identities, Nations and Ethnicities: A Critical Comparative Study from Southeast Asia

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research

The paper focuses on images of identity in Southeast Asia and argues that it is analytically usef... more The paper focuses on images of identity in Southeast Asia and argues that it is analytically useful to distinguish these identities and their "modes of representation" at different levels or scales of magnitude. In this regard, it is necessary to examine images of nationhood or the identities expressed and displayed at the national level in interaction with identities at the sub-national level which comprise what are usually referred to as ethnic groups or alternatively "peoples" or "communities". Identity and its specific expression in "ethnicity" comprises a form of social cleavage and is a means of organizing social and cultural relations and encounters in terms of similarity and difference. It is argued that identity cannot exist apart from the establishment and maintenance of "cultural difference" and the construction and operation of boundaries, and is generated and sustained in relationships, both at the level of ideas and in practice with others who are perceived to be and categorized as "not us" or "other". In other words, the ways in which identity and ethnicity in particular operate are "relational". Comparative case-studies are taken from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to illustrate these propositions.

A Sociological-Anthropological Gaze on Changing Perspectives on Southeast Asia: Personal Interventions in Discipline and Area

Fieldwork and the Self

Culture and Identity on the Move: Malaysian Nationhood in Southeast Asia

Discourses, Agency and Identity in Malaysia

Brunei Darussalam: Origins, early history and social structure

Origins, History and Social Structure in Brunei Darussalam, eds Victor T. King and Stephen C. Druce., 2021

The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evalu... more The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book, to acknowledge, celebrate and evaluate Professor Donald Brown’s pioneering studies on the Brunei sultanate. It is just over 50 years since Professor Brown undertook anthropological research in Brunei (1967–1968) for his Cornell University doctorate, which led to his seminal volume Brunei: The Structure and History of a Bornean Malay Sultanate published by The Brunei Museum as a special monograph in 1970 (see Prologue); it too celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. He also wrote more than 20 related papers on the history and social organisation of Brunei. These have become standard references for our understanding and appreciation of the society, culture and history of the Brunei sultanate. The chapter proposes that in any scholarly historical and social-science-based research on Brunei, and on historically and culturally related territories in Borneo and on Malay states more generally, Brown’s work is frequently cited. Thou...