8 th Euroseas conference Vienna, 11–14 August 2015

— Community-Based Tourism in Rural Bali: Questions of Empowerment 
Claudia Dolezal (University of Brighton)
Empowerment as a terminology is increasingly employed in tourism in less developed countries, particularly in the 
context of alternative forms of tourism that are aimed at stimulating development and contributing to poverty allevia-
tion. Community-based tourism (CBT) is such an example that should give power to community members in initiat-
ing, organising, managing and operating tourism. However, the notion of empowerment is largely problematic due to 

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its blurry and ambiguous nature. What is more is that empowerment in CBT seemingly replaces ideas of participation 
while lacking an in-depth understanding of the complex interactions and power relations between the actors involved.
This paper is based on the author’s PhD research, which investigates ‘social empowerment’ as emerging from social 
relationships in three rural villages in Bali that engage in CBT. Using ethnographic methods and a symbolic interac-
tionist position, this research departs from the idea that the social ties between community members, intermediaries 
(including the tourism ministry, local NGOs and funding bodies) and tourists can bear potential for (dis)empower-
ment. The focus of this paper lies in a discussion of the empirical findings, including aspects of CBT organisation, 
participation and operational processes. It explores agency as a basis for empowerment as well as the obstacles and 
complex power relations that prevent villagers from realising and articulating their agency. The findings reveal that 
empowerment opportunities are unequal in the villages under study, with bottlenecks, such as language, tourism skills 
and caste hindering the communities’ empowerment process. A local elite, the ‘village tourism committees’, dominates 
CBT as a village activity while possibilities of empowerment for other villagers are limited to economic empowerment, 
mainly due to a lack of training and the elite’s unwillingness to delegate. Although CBT creates hope for change and 
empowerment for community members, it currently remains empowering for a few, while others participate silently.
— From the First Souvenirs to Modern ‘Airport Art’ – A Social and Economic Analysis of the Commodification 
of Handicraft as Demonstrated by the Example of Southeast Asia
Lukas Christian Husa (University of Vienna)
The aim of the following paper is to deal with the process of commodification of “tra-ditional” handicraft products 
to modern souvenirs in Southeast Asia in the period be-tween the late 18th and the early 21st century. To prove the 
hypothesis that these pro-cesses are mostly historic long-term developments and not just a product of modern mass 
tourism, as suggested in modern ethnologic literature, a corpus of textual and material sources is analyzed. These 
sources include pre-colonial and colonial travel reports written in the period between the late 18th and early 20th 
century and material objects in museums. It is also important to deal with the preserving and destructive side effects 
of theses processes. Modern ethnological research argues that the latter effects are the more likely ones. In this context 
also the question comes up if produc-ing and selling souvenirs constitute a significant and supplementary income 
stream for people in peripheral regions with few other economic alternatives. In order to an-swer this issue the types 
and form of production of items sold in contemporary touris-tic hotspots in Thailand are analyzed and interviews 
with producers of souvenirs in handicraft villages in Northern Thailand and Laos are conducted.
 As a theoretical frame John Urry’s and Jonas Larsen’s concept of the so called tourist gaze will be used. This concept is 
based on the idea that travelers and tourists have a very special kind of view of the “unknown” and the cultural “other”. 
For the present study it seems necessary to divide this tourist gaze into two subcategories, influencing each other per-
manently: an individual and a collective tourist gaze. Another theoreti-cal basis is Maxine Berg’s concept of the 18th 
century’s Asian consumer revolution. Here I argue that the practice of souvenir collecting in the 19th and even in the 
20th century has to be seen as a late result of this consumer revolution.
— Community-Based Tourism – A Livelihood Resilience of Indigenous in the Vietnam’s Central Highlands 
Thai Huynh Anh Chi (Heidelberg University)
 
The Vietnam’s Central Highlands are mountainous area where are home of a large population of ethnic group who 
historically made up the majority of the population. Traditionally, they heavily depend on agriculture until now. Af-
ter Vietnam War and during the Doi Moi period (an economic reforms initiated in Vietnam in 1986), Vietnamese 
government implemented a series of institutional and policy reforms in this area (ARD, 2008; Ha& Shively, 2008). 
Through such policy reforms, this area has undergone dramatic social, economic and environmental changes. High 
agricultural output and diversification in agricultural production has already gained, however, incipient conflict has 
been simultaneously triggered. While almost benefits go to the Vietnamese ethnic, the ethnic minorities still lagged 
serious behind (WRITENET, 2006). Due to the lack of capital (includes material and non-material capital), the in-
digenous people cannot invest for productive crops. The high rate of natural degradation and high level of poverty of 
ethnic minorities are the most difficult issues and constraint in this area (USAID, 2008).
Under this vulnerability context, tourism is considered as one of livelihood strategies in which the indigenous peo-
ple response these dynamic conditions. Applying the assets approach, we conducted the in-depth interview with 40 
households in two different study sites in these Highlands, then in the relation between the concept of resilience and 

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sustainability the study evaluated the indigenous people’s assets which they own to develop CBT as a livelihood dy-
namics.
— Tourism, Migration and Development: Perspectives for Urban-based Hilltribes in Thailand 
Alexander Trupp (University of Vienna)
Throughout the last decades, rural-urban migration of the ‘hilltribes’ of Thailand has become an increasingly impor-
tant phenomenon. In this context migration into own-account work as souvenir selling street vendors in Thailand’s 
urban tourist areas may offer a promising alternative compared to labor jobs at petrol stations, construction sites or 
the gastronomy. Framed by concepts of ethnic economies, informality and social capital this research uses the case 
of Akha ethnic minority souvenir vendors in order to discuss development perspectives of highland ethnic groups in 
Thailand’s urban tourist contexts. Based on nine months fieldwork in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and selected beach desti-
nations, I explore the vendors’ socioeconomic success, the challenges they face with state authorities, and their social 
relations at the market place as well as with their left-behind families.
Panel: Movement, Intra- And Inter-Networking in Southeast Asia 
conveners: Volker Grabowsky (Hamburg Unuiversity), Amnuayvit Thitibordin (Hamburg University)
panel abstract
Southeast of Asia is located between China and India. There has always been a significant connection among the 
diverse populations in Southeast Asia. This is evident given the continuous and uninterrupted flow of people, ideas, 
and goods throughout the centuries. As a result of such interaction and cooperation, acculturation and integration 
flourished in these ethnically and religously diverse and mixed societies. However, the same processes have also the 
potential to create conflicts and tensions at various levels – local, national, and regional.
The intra- and inter-networking, especially of exchanges at the regional level across the borders of the modern nation-
state, have always been an integral part of life in Southeast Asia. New approaches of intra- and inter-networking in 
Southeast Asia deal not only with modern technological inovations, networks, economies and/or interconnectivity, 
but also pertain to phenomena such as nationalism, transnationalism, constructions of ethnicity, histories and cul-
tures of Southeast Asia. Scholars who want to contribute to one of these most relevant topics are invited to participate 
in this panel which will put the focus on the following broad areas:
1.  Histories of intra- and inter-networking in the region of Southeast Asia
2.  Cross-border intersections (social, economic, cultural and language, etc.)
3.  National and transnational cultural movements
4.  Southeast Asian identities and their impact on regional and local networks
5.  Ethnicity, ethnic nationalism, ethnocentrism in Southeast Asia
6.  Ethnic, religious and cultural diversity in Southeast Asia
— Ethnic Diversity, Networks and Environmentalism in Urban Centers of Kalimantan
Monika Arnez (Hamburg University)
Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island Borneo, and Java, have a long history of cultural exchange. Transmigra-
tion programmes initiated by the government, the hope to find a well-paid employment in Kalimantan and exchanges 
between religious institutions such as pesantren are among the factors that prompted many Javanese to migrate to 
Kalimantan. In the more recent past, the flow of immigrants to Kalimantan and the fact that they often acquire higher 
positions than local people have resulted in ethnic conflicts with indigenous Dayak, who feel threatened by the pres-
ence of the Javanese. In this paper, I wish to answer the question how ethnic groups in urban centers of Kalimantan 
use networks to assert their claims in central fields such as environmentalism.
 

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— The Quest for Zhuang Identity: Transnational Movements of the Tai-Sibling 
Somrak Chaisingkananont (The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre) 
In the 1950s the term “Zhuang” was first used in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as an official minzu name for 
Tai-speaking peoples who live mainly in the Sino-Vietnamese border. The Zhuang have constructed their identities as 
a response to tremendous social and political changes initiated by the communist regime.
 This paper explores the complicated social process of creating a self-image. It demonstrates that Zhuang ethnic 
formation is an ongoing process of dialogue of Self and Other driven by a complex array of factors. In response to 
the “politics of difference” in the post-Mao era, Zhuang intellectuals have highlighted the same origin between the 
Zhuang and other Tai-speaking groups in Southeast Asia. Zhuang ethnic consciousness has been increasingly stimu-
lated by new economic policies of China-ASEAN economic cooperation. The transnational flows of information, cul-
tural industry, people and capital encourages not only Zhuang elites and scholars, but also commoners and the young 
generation to exercise transnational mobility and to articulate the imaginary of Zhuang common culture with other 
Tai-speaking groups in Southeast Asia. A linguistic commonality enables this young generation have created a range 
of online communities with Thai friends and have begun to assert Zhuang identities with reference to a linguistic and 
cultural link with the Thais in Thailand.
— Belief and Movement Related to Hero Cults in Lan Na (Northern Thailand) 
Pantipa Chuenchat (Universität Hamburg)
In the cultural sphere, historical legends and myths of Lan Na (nowadays Northern Thailand) have been used during 
the last two decades to construct a particular ethno-regional Lan Na identity. The belief and movement of the hero 
culture, historical legends and myths are represented by the worship. Base on ancient beliefs, heroes were leaders 
whose spirits are still present in the actual world and who have powers for protecting, safeguarding and defending the 
areas and people who pay respect to them. This process of worshiping has led to the construction of monuments for 
spirit worshiping at sacred locations and through sacred ceremonies. Beside these powers directly attributed to the 
heroes, the belief also spread to a level of mental representation through spirit worshippers who find a binding thread 
between the worship, the philosophy and the psychology. Therefore, the worshippers find a way to demonstrate the 
force of the worshiping using their specific actions and techniques.
The sources of this study are the cultural representations and contexts around the monuments used for hero spirit 
worshiping in Lan Na. The aim of this paper is to examine the repercussion and consequences of the different repre-
sentations of hero worshiping focusing in three heroes: Queen Chamathewi (the legendary female-founder of Har-
iphunchai who introduced Buddhism to present-day Lamphun), King Mangrai (the founder of Chiang Mai and Lan 
Na), and King Kawila (ruler of Lampang who, in alliance with Siam, defeated the Burmese in the late 18th century). 
The worships are compared and explained in their specific contexts and some patterns can be concluded from their 
individual study. The paper also explores the processes of the construction of monuments for spirit worshiping in the 
area of study as well.
— From Buffer State to Market Place: Migration, Ethnicity and Development in the Lao Border Town 
of Müang Sing 
Volker Grabowsky (Hamburg University)
Located in the extreme northwestern corner of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the district of Müang Sing has 
become one of the main tourist destinations in landlocked Laos. Hardly accessible for a long time by foreigners, owing 
to wars, revolutions and social dislocatons that haunted the region especially during the Cold War period, this bor-
derland has gradually recovered since the late 1980s. It belongs to an increasingly dynamic region known as the “Eco-
nomic Quadrangle” linking Laos, China, Burma and Thailand. In my paper I will explain from a historical perpective 
how processes of migration and inter-ethnic relations had a formative influence on Müang Sing and the surrounding 
countryside and how they had an impact on social and economic development. My analysis is largely based on local 
chronicles and historical accounts reflecting the indigenous point of view or at least the perspective of those members 
of the local elite who were able to express their ideas about the past, present and future of their particular müang – 
to use the traditional Tai term for polity. Apart from the various extant versions of the Chiang Khaeng Chronicles, I 
heavily rely on a history of Müang Sing written from 2002 until 2004 by Mai Thamdi Thammavong, during his tenure 

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as acting district chief of Müang Sing. Mai Thamdi’s still unpublished manuscript contains a lot of insights on politi-
cal developments in Müang Sing during the Indochina wars (1945–1975) and after the victory of Communist forces. 
Other sources on which I rely are official statistics and field data taken by myself and other scholars – such as Paul 
Cohen and the late Houmphan Rattanavong – over the last two decades. I will first provide some basic information on 
the ethnic makeup of Müang Sing district, then discuss the how migrations and inter-ethnic relations influenced po-
litical developments in Müang Sing since the late nineteenth century. Finally the dramatic socio-enomomic changes 
of the last twenty years will be analyed against the background of demographic dynamics.
— The Identity Politics of the Rakhine and “Rohingya”: Internal Developments and External Impacts
Kyaw Minn Htin (National University of Singapore)
Rakhine State, located in Western part of the Union of Myanmar, is the home for two dominant communities, the 
Rakhine Buddhists and the Muslims, most of whom define today as “Rohingya”, that co-exist with other much smaller 
ethnic groups. Post-World War II nationalist movements of Rakhine and Rohingya communities were key factors 
which shaped the communal identities of both communities in Rakhine State. The paper will explore the importance 
of colonial narratives in formulating and strengthening cultural, ethnic and linguistic identities. How did the Ro-
hingya and Rakhine integrate external elements from colonial discourses into the building of their own narratives? 
Currently, how do they deal with the aftermath of the 2012 communal violence in Rakhine State to express their 
identities? The paper will also study the existing situation in Rakhine State where the presence of the UN and INGOs 
involved in humanitarian aid have had an impact on the perception and the discussion of the conflict. A critical ex-
amination has also to be made of the role of international journalists and the media. The roles of outsiders who had 
never been previously linked to the identity formation processes in Rakhine State has indeed been essential in pro-
moting a Rohingya identity within the context of recent political change in Myanmar. This leads to the question what 
the relationship between external inputs and the quest for local identities is. What push factors are in play to impact 
Rohingya identity construction? The paper will look into current Rakhine and Rohingya efforts to strengthen their 
identities in a national and globalized context.
— Differentiating Ethnic Identity: Migrant and Diasporic Indians in Singapore
Laavanya Kathiravelu (Nanyang Technological University)
Singapore’s resident population has grown rapidly in the past decade with the incorporation of new citizens into the 
city-state but also due to large increases in the transient labour force of low waged labourers and an expatriate mana-
gerial class. Within this mix, Indians are an ethnic minority, making up nine per cent of the citizen and permanent 
resident population. This expands significantly when temporary resident Indians are taken into account. Despite the 
state’s attempts at integration, and shared affinities of religion, language and culture, there are significant tensions at 
structural and interpersonal levels between these different diasporic and migrant waves of ethnic Indians. Studies of 
Indians outside the sub-continent have focused on the North American region and primarily on the issue of remit-
tances. Southeast Asia as a locus for people of Indian descent has been generally addressed in historical terms. This 
paper, in updating the literature, examines Indians in contemporary Singapore to demonstrate how ethnicity is used 
as a resource in invoking solidarity in nation-building, and conversely, in expressing differentiation within quotidian 
social relations. In interrogating how the raced and ethnicised notion of ‘Indian’ is variously invoked and defined by 
the state and in everyday life by diverse groups of citizens and migrants, this paper contributes to understandings of 
ethnicity, nationalism, and cultural diversity in Southeast Asia.
— Trekking in Mountain Villages of Chiang Mai Province: Economic and Anthropological Perspectives 
Manoj Potapohn (Chiang Mai University)
Our research aims at contributing to a better understanding of the geopolitics of tourism in ethnic areas of Chiang 
Mai province. We inquire into the social, economic and political relations underlying the organization of trekking in 
highland ethnic villages in order to identify its territorial patterns and its implications for the development and the 
“integration” of marginal populations in the Thai national space. We focus especially on two issues: first, the geo-
graphic concentration of the trekking industry and its highly competitive structure and second, the current dynamics 
of the trekking routes and the unequal success of a few destinations. Ultimately, we intend to provide analytical tools 

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that can be useful for the management of trekking in Northern Thailand, one of the oldest destinations for this kind of 
tourism in mainland Southeast Asia, as well as in other, more recent, destinations of trekkers in the region, especially 
Laos and Vietnam.
— The Maoist Veteran Network and the Work of Post-War Memories in Northern Thailand - Nan Province 
Amalia Rossi (University of Milan- Bicocca)
Today the Maoist veteran network, made up of people escaping in the forest to fight the Thai Army during the Cold 
War, is still lively and shapes the identity of marginal people both in North Eastern and in Northern Thailand. In this 
presentation I will address the issue of Maoist veterans memory as a diachronic networking dimesion, gathering and 
connecting different generations and different spaces shaping what Benedict Anderson would probably define an 
“imagined community”. The discussion will particularly focus on communist surrenders that the Thai state aimed at 
co-opt and absorb in the mainstream Thai society officially calling them “partners in the development of the Thai Na-
tion”. By showing visual records collected during fieldwork conducted in Nan province (Northern Thailand) in recent 
years, is my aim to offer a portrait of Post- Cold-War commemorative actions adopted by surrenders to keep alive the 
memory of the civil war occurred between 1967 and 1990. After about thirty years from the defeat of the Communist 
Party of Thailand, and despite communist ideologies and parties are formally outlaw since many decades, public com-
memorations and individual gestures that remind to war memories are still a salient identity mark for these people (in 
many cases middle aged hill people born and grown in the forest where parents decided to join the Maoist rebellion). 
Veteran identity here appears as a sub-culture emerging by multiple - nationwide - spatial connections and translo-
cal relations among ex-comrades sharing experiences of war, a sense of friendship and even common aesthetics and 
poetics of resistance. I argue that the material texture of war collective memories – often metonimically represented 
by the persistence of the ubiquitous symbol of the red star across the landscape of former battleground areas - works 
as a legitimizing tool that allows people and social spaces marginalized by the State to embody and display resistant 
collective identities throughout decades.
— Emergent Identity as a Characteristic of Diasporic Subjects: The Javanese in Southeast Sulawesi, c. 1930 – 2014
Agus Suwignyo (Gadjah Mada University and University of Freiburg)
The twentieth-century mobility of the Javanese people from Java to other Indonesian islands has received a wide range 
of scholarly attention in the frame of the trans-migration resettlement programs of the governments, either colonial or 
post-colonial. While many studies have focused on the political, economic, administrative and environmental aspects 
of the mobility, the socio-cultural dimensions of the migrants’ life in their new home have been generally overlooked. 
In addition, while resettlement programs often immediately create intertwined issues incurred from questions of 
land ownership (Kinsey and Binswanger 1993), the long-term socio-cultural dimensions that concern re-formation 
of identity, space orientation and subjectivity of the settlers in a hybrid intercultural setting are largely neglected. In 
this paper we attempt to explore the social mobility and shared sense of belonging of the Javanese community in 
Southeast Sulawesi. We particularly seek to understand why both social mobility and shared sense of belonging played 
crucial role in the making of the “emergent identity” (Elhmirst 2000: 488) of the Javanese migrants in the new home. 
We traced relevant official and unofficial archives, visited the transmigration localities of the Javanese in Southeast 
Sulawesi and conducted interviews with some of the Javanese there.
We argue that the way the Javanese in Southeast Sulawesi developed their horizon and shared sense of belonging and 
cultural attachment depended as much on the economic resources they had enjoyed as on the social network that 
they had successfully built in the new place. Gradually “feeling at home while away”, these Javanese people remained 
to see themselves Javanese in terms of world-view and macrocosmic principles of life. By way of daily practices, for 
example in terms of language code-switching, inter-ethnic marriage and space orientation as we noted, however, 
they had performed a mixed cultural attachment. They developed an emergent identity. We also argue that, although 
some researchers have believed that the transmigration resettlement program was designed as to re-create “a peasant 
Javanese society” outside of Java (Evers and Gerke 1988), in the case of Southeast Sulawesi the making of a diasporic 
subject and a new middle class society among the Javanese migrants did take place in non-agricultural and non-rural 
settings in which formal education played considerable role.

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