ISSN : 2092-738X
With a view to contributing to the epistemological and methodological debates in Southeast Asian Studies, the aim of this paper is to examine critically the epistemic concepts and approaches in the social sciences and then to seek an epistemic reflexivity and its potential methodological applications to Southeast Asian Studies. Although the field of social sciences has attempted to search for a means of tackling the ontological and epistemological dilemmas in its major paradigms, Southeast Asian Studies still demands a more ‘actor-centered’ epistemic account of reflexive interaction between actors and social structures. Bearing in mind the need for a more ‘actor-centered’ epistemic approach, this paper continues to discuss the ‘epistemic reflexivity’ in the social sciences and its potential applications to Southeast Asian Studies. In this paper, I will consider ‘epistemic reflexivity’ as an alternative methodological orientation. It emerges as interlinked with the ontological standpoint of what is called ‘reflexive approaches’ and its application to the detailed ‘reflexive methodology’ which I am proposing in this paper. In doing so, this paper discusses the autobiographical experiences of the author arising from his ethnographic field research in North Sulawesi, Indonesia and their implication for a reflexive methodology in Southeast Asian Studies. In conclusion, the paper argues that we need a ‘more actor-centered’ epistemic framework to compensate for the epistemological and methodological dilemmas in the social sciences and the alternative framework will equip Southeast Asian Studies with a reflexive methodology relevant to the life-dynamics of the social world in the process of developing its inquiries, methodological technics, analysis, and validation.
Government websites provide useful and timely information to the public such as government’s history, organizational values, codes of ethics, public services, facts about public official, among others. Using language choice as framework, the study seeks to examine what language is used, in what contents, and in what kind of website. The study employed online observation in 235 Philippine government websites (.gov.ph) via content analysis. As a result, English is overwhelmingly used; while Filipino, the Philippines’ national language, and only a handful of regional languages, are minimally used in the contents. Discussion will follow how multilingualism can improve the dissemination of information and communication more conveniently and efficiently from the government to its citizens.
This study attempted to investigate the effects of collectivism as an individual cultural value and leadership practices on employees’ organizational commitment of six commercial banks in Vietnam. The study used collectivism and the implementation of five leadership practices as the independent variables, the three components of organizational commitment as the dependent variables and employees’ personal factors served as controlling variables. The study utilized a quantitative method of research with questionnaires as the main data collection instrument. The findings of the study have revealed that the individual cultural value of collectivism positively, but to a marginal degree, affected the level of employees’ organizational commitment. Among five leadership practices, only the implementation of encourage the heart, positively, but to a marginal degree, influenced employees’ affective and normative commitment. The leadership practice of challenge the process had a negative impact on the employees’ affective commitment. The personal factors of employees did not have an impact on organizational commitment. The findings and conclusions of this study may be used by the leaders to create the favorable working environment, improve the relationship between leaders and followers and to increase organizational commitment.
The Ramayana is a very popular epic in Southeast Asia. It is the story of King Rama who must save his kidnapped wife, Sita. After Sita was abducted by the Demon King Ravana (Tosakanth) and taken to Lanka, Rama and his brother rescued her with the help of the monkey warriors, especially with the help of the Monkey King Hanuman. Along the way, the epic teaches Hindu life lessons. Today The Ramayana is told and retold through literature, theatre, orally, in movies, and is referenced in many other forms of popular culture. Nowadays, in Thailand, Ravana and Hanuman deconstruct the role of divine and become folk deities that also find their places in calendar art, advertising and stamps, etc. And in Vietnam, Ravana and Hanuman have become the two figures that can’t be absent from Southern Vietnam Khmer ceremonies. In this article, our aim is to show how Ravana and Hanuman became symbols of popular culture (case studies in Thailand and Vietnam). The data provided in this article is drawn from field surveys with reliable reference resources.
In 1882, after the French defeated Tonkin for the second time, the Nguyen Dynasty led by King Tự Đức 嗣德 appointed Phạm Thận Duật 范慎遹 and Nguyễn Thuật 阮述 as envoys to the Qing Dynasty to seek the Chinese’s help to deal with the French invasion. The trip’s information from 1883 such as the schedule, the content, the discussion, and the progress was specifically reflected in the two envoys’ diaries, including “Notes of Voyage to Qing Dynasty in The First Year of Jianfu” 建福元年如清日程 (Phạm Thận Duật and Nguyễn Thuật), “Notes of Voyage to Tianjin” 往津日记 (Nguyễn Thuật). This article presents the origin of these documents and their historical values in order to provide insights into the study of diplomatic relations between the Nguyen Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty in the late 19th century through the 1883 mission.
Thơ mới (Vietnamese New Poetry, 1932-1945) is a literary movement in colonial Vietnam that is broadly considered to have marked the modernization of Vietnamese literature. This paper examines depictions about natural disasters, ecological wounds, and about relationships between humans and nature in New Poetry, asking how those descriptions reflect social and political issues in colonial Vietnam. The paper argues that ecocriticism, developed in Western academy, brought to the New Poetry Movement new meanings, associated with a material world. That is the specific reality of colonial Vietnam in the early twentieth century, when the colonial modernization resulted in natural and social collapses in the area. This approach is especially significant, given that New Poetry is largely seen as the embodiment of the expansion of Western romanticism by Vietnamese scholars. Moreover, in examining Thơ mới (Vietnam) from perspective of ecocriticism, this paper extends the ecocritical approach to non-Western literatures. Specifically, although ecocriticism developed in the West, particularly in United States and England, it has become an effective approach to non-Western literatures, particularly since the early twentieth first century. In this context, Asian literatures, particularly Southeast Asian literatures, potentially offer ecocriticism new meanings, amany of which are associated with local social and political conditions and histories.