Dreams of Prosperity

Dreams of Prosperity offers a critical composite reflection on Southeast Asia as a progressively integrated and globalized space of production, exchange, and circulation within and beyond national boundaries. Through a broad array of contexts united by the theme of integration, the essays describe the successful or unsuccessful entry of specific individuals or groups into wider markets and networks in their quest for prosperity—in Thailand, by Lua peasant farmers, slum families, the last century’s teak laborers, and ethnic tour hosts; in Indonesia, by the urban poor and communities resisting environmental destruction; and in Vietnam, by human trafficking returnees. The authors examine how these groups are socially and symbolically defined and redefined in the process of integration, and consider the imaginaries of future that enable both active participation and unmitigated manipulation. Two key topics are the cognitive struggle that peasants and laborers face with their material environment and the process of sense-making that characterizes many destitute people in urban contexts. 

 

This fresh and unusual collection lays the ground for a comparative grassroots approach to inequality and integration in Southeast Asia. It is a uniquely useful resource for area studies and social science students, and also provides insight for those engaged in humanitarian and political action. 

 

Contributors are Matteo Carlo Alcano, Amnuayvit Thitibordin, Monika Arnez, Giuseppe Bolotta, Olivier Evrard, Karnrawee Sratongno, Runa Lazzarino, Manoj Potapohn, Amalia Rossi, Sakkarin Na Nan, and Silvia Vignato.

Foreword

Acknowledgement

 

Introduction: Resisting, Enduring, and Desiring Integration in Southeast Asia

Silvia Vignato

 

1. Green Aspirations and the Dynamics of Integration in Two East Kalimantan Cities

 

2. Neoliberalism and the Integration of Labor and Natural Resources: Contract Farming and Biodiversity Conservation in Northern Thailand

 

3. Integration and Marginality in the Tourist Economy: The Geopolitics of Trekking in Chiang Mai Province

Olivier Evrard, Manoj Potapohn, and Karnrawee Sratongno 

 

4. Migration and the Ethnic Division of Labor in Siam’s Teak Business, 1880s–1910s

 

5. After the Shelter: The Nuances of Reintegrating Human Trafficking Returnees in Northern Vietnam

 

6. Playing the NGO System: How Mothers and Children Design Political Change in the Slums of Bangkok

 

7. Making Sense of Poverty in Aceh and Surabaya

Silvia Vignato and Matteo Carlo Alcano

 

Contributors

Index