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Papers by Masao Imamura
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2015
… Journal of the …, Jan 1, 2007
Many of the critical tensions around conservation with people in upper tributary watersheds invol... more Many of the critical tensions around conservation with people in upper tributary watersheds involve challenges of scale. Ecosystem goods and services derived from these watersheds are frequently used and valued by people at several different spatial levels, making these resources difficult to manage effectively without taking cross-level interactions into account. A multi-level perspective allows a more nuanced understanding of the governance challenges in conservation. Rather than assuming that the correct and best levels are known, we look at how discourses and social practices privilege certain levels over others and help shape the way decisions are made.
Ecology and Society, Jan 1, 2005
The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously deriv... more The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously derived from physical characteristics of water resources. Scales are a joint product of social and biophysical processes. The politics-of-scale metaphor has been helpful in drawing attention to the ways in which scale choices are constrained overtly by politics, and more subtly by choices of technologies, institutional designs, and measurements. In doing so, however, the scale metaphor has been stretched to cover a lot of different spatial relationships. In this paper, we argue that there are benefits to understanding -and actions to distinguish-issues of scale from those of place and position. We illustrate our arguments with examples from the governance of water resources in the Mekong region, where key scientific information is often limited to a few sources. Acknowledging how actors' interests fit along various spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, and other social scales helps make the case for innovative and more inclusive means for bringing multi-level interests to a common forum. Deliberation can provide a check on the extent of shared understanding and key uncertainties.
Book Chapters by Masao Imamura
Blog Postings by Masao Imamura
Book Reviews by Masao Imamura
, 2005), is a remarkable book not only because it is a rare monograph about the Iu Mien people bu... more , 2005), is a remarkable book not only because it is a rare monograph about the Iu Mien people but also, and more importantly, because it presents an exceptionally sensitive and sensible ethnography, capturing both the historicity and the everydayness of an upland people in Southeast Asia. Jonsson's ethnographic analysis, especially of how the Mien today maintain their communities through seemingly mundane activities of "serious fun," like sports festivals, makes a particularly rewarding and memorable reading. Slow Anthropology is, however, very different from Mien Relations. It is a strikingly polemical work. Jonsson denounces many of the existing studies on upland Southeast Asia. He bemoans how academics have been preoccupied with the same old theme of "marginalization and dispossession" and laments that "we have not come up with many alternatives" (p. 21). The scope of his criticism is not limited to a narrow circle of upland anthropologists. Doyens of Southeast Asian history, from Anthony Reid and Victor Lieberman to Thongchai Winichakul, are also brushed aside by Jonsson, who contends that their well-established studies are marred by the binary of remote highlanders versus central states (p. 19). Indeed, very few survive his sweeping assessment. Thomas Kirsch and Yoko Hayami seem to be the only anthropologists of Southeast Asia who are consistently approved. Jonsson "wish[es] to declare this state of academic affairs an emergency, and to take some steps against it" (p. 19).
who were armed and serving as covert agents of the state to defend what they saw as the Muslim th... more who were armed and serving as covert agents of the state to defend what they saw as the Muslim threat against Buddhism. He acknowledges that he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder during this research. His compassion for both the Muslims and Buddhists he worked with during this time is moving and compelling. In chapter 5, Jerryson not only documents trauma, but also shows particular paths for a better future by showing how Buddhists cope with violence in southern Thailand (and other places). Writing with Wattana Prohmpetch and David A. Kessler, he reports on a long-term study of Muslim-Buddhist strategies for preventing violence and working through trauma. Jerryson moves far beyond his expertise in Thailand, though, and I learned much from the examples he draws from Tibet and Taiwan in particular. In the latter, for example, he looks at the curious case of Buddhist attitudes toward the killing of cockroaches. Drawing of the work of Mireille Mazard, he writes, "Some of her informants express delight in the killing of cockroaches and Mazard finds that many Buddhists have difficulties seeing cockroaches as 'sentient.' Even though Buddhists will admit that insects have a Buddha-nature, there is a general disregard of their consciousness" (p. 90). It is through a wide diversity of evidence that readers begin to get a broad picture of the Buddhist thinkers and their responses to acts of violence. The one criticism I have of this book is in chapter 1, where Jerryson surveys Buddhist textual sources for justifying or even promoting violence. This work has been previously taken up by scholars such as Tessa Bartholomeusz, Alan Sponberg, and others (which Jerryson knows and cites). While Jerryson certainly expands on their work, I found that a general lack of discernment between languages, historical contexts, genres, and rhetorical styles in premodern textual history. Comparing narrative, systematic, commentarial, homiletic, cosmological, metaphysical, and documentary texts across two thousand years and multiple languages relatively haphazardly would frustrate any scholar of Buddhist texts. Moreover, he does not engage in any real reader-reception history to see how these texts have been actually collected and taught or how they were or were not extensively the subject of vernacular commentaries and incorporated into sermons. However, Jerryson is not a textual scholar, and this was not his aim; he is an anthropologist and religious studies scholar, and this is where he shines. He is provocative politically and socially and thought-provoking theoretically. There is a danger that Jerryson's study is so broad that each example could be picked apart by experts in individual languages, textual genres, or historical periods, but for an introduction to the subject, readers would be hard-pressed to find a better book to launch their research and start productive and important discussions not just about Buddhist pasts, but also Buddhist futures.
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 2015
… Journal of the …, Jan 1, 2007
Many of the critical tensions around conservation with people in upper tributary watersheds invol... more Many of the critical tensions around conservation with people in upper tributary watersheds involve challenges of scale. Ecosystem goods and services derived from these watersheds are frequently used and valued by people at several different spatial levels, making these resources difficult to manage effectively without taking cross-level interactions into account. A multi-level perspective allows a more nuanced understanding of the governance challenges in conservation. Rather than assuming that the correct and best levels are known, we look at how discourses and social practices privilege certain levels over others and help shape the way decisions are made.
Ecology and Society, Jan 1, 2005
The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously deriv... more The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously derived from physical characteristics of water resources. Scales are a joint product of social and biophysical processes. The politics-of-scale metaphor has been helpful in drawing attention to the ways in which scale choices are constrained overtly by politics, and more subtly by choices of technologies, institutional designs, and measurements. In doing so, however, the scale metaphor has been stretched to cover a lot of different spatial relationships. In this paper, we argue that there are benefits to understanding -and actions to distinguish-issues of scale from those of place and position. We illustrate our arguments with examples from the governance of water resources in the Mekong region, where key scientific information is often limited to a few sources. Acknowledging how actors' interests fit along various spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, and other social scales helps make the case for innovative and more inclusive means for bringing multi-level interests to a common forum. Deliberation can provide a check on the extent of shared understanding and key uncertainties.
, 2005), is a remarkable book not only because it is a rare monograph about the Iu Mien people bu... more , 2005), is a remarkable book not only because it is a rare monograph about the Iu Mien people but also, and more importantly, because it presents an exceptionally sensitive and sensible ethnography, capturing both the historicity and the everydayness of an upland people in Southeast Asia. Jonsson's ethnographic analysis, especially of how the Mien today maintain their communities through seemingly mundane activities of "serious fun," like sports festivals, makes a particularly rewarding and memorable reading. Slow Anthropology is, however, very different from Mien Relations. It is a strikingly polemical work. Jonsson denounces many of the existing studies on upland Southeast Asia. He bemoans how academics have been preoccupied with the same old theme of "marginalization and dispossession" and laments that "we have not come up with many alternatives" (p. 21). The scope of his criticism is not limited to a narrow circle of upland anthropologists. Doyens of Southeast Asian history, from Anthony Reid and Victor Lieberman to Thongchai Winichakul, are also brushed aside by Jonsson, who contends that their well-established studies are marred by the binary of remote highlanders versus central states (p. 19). Indeed, very few survive his sweeping assessment. Thomas Kirsch and Yoko Hayami seem to be the only anthropologists of Southeast Asia who are consistently approved. Jonsson "wish[es] to declare this state of academic affairs an emergency, and to take some steps against it" (p. 19).
who were armed and serving as covert agents of the state to defend what they saw as the Muslim th... more who were armed and serving as covert agents of the state to defend what they saw as the Muslim threat against Buddhism. He acknowledges that he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder during this research. His compassion for both the Muslims and Buddhists he worked with during this time is moving and compelling. In chapter 5, Jerryson not only documents trauma, but also shows particular paths for a better future by showing how Buddhists cope with violence in southern Thailand (and other places). Writing with Wattana Prohmpetch and David A. Kessler, he reports on a long-term study of Muslim-Buddhist strategies for preventing violence and working through trauma. Jerryson moves far beyond his expertise in Thailand, though, and I learned much from the examples he draws from Tibet and Taiwan in particular. In the latter, for example, he looks at the curious case of Buddhist attitudes toward the killing of cockroaches. Drawing of the work of Mireille Mazard, he writes, "Some of her informants express delight in the killing of cockroaches and Mazard finds that many Buddhists have difficulties seeing cockroaches as 'sentient.' Even though Buddhists will admit that insects have a Buddha-nature, there is a general disregard of their consciousness" (p. 90). It is through a wide diversity of evidence that readers begin to get a broad picture of the Buddhist thinkers and their responses to acts of violence. The one criticism I have of this book is in chapter 1, where Jerryson surveys Buddhist textual sources for justifying or even promoting violence. This work has been previously taken up by scholars such as Tessa Bartholomeusz, Alan Sponberg, and others (which Jerryson knows and cites). While Jerryson certainly expands on their work, I found that a general lack of discernment between languages, historical contexts, genres, and rhetorical styles in premodern textual history. Comparing narrative, systematic, commentarial, homiletic, cosmological, metaphysical, and documentary texts across two thousand years and multiple languages relatively haphazardly would frustrate any scholar of Buddhist texts. Moreover, he does not engage in any real reader-reception history to see how these texts have been actually collected and taught or how they were or were not extensively the subject of vernacular commentaries and incorporated into sermons. However, Jerryson is not a textual scholar, and this was not his aim; he is an anthropologist and religious studies scholar, and this is where he shines. He is provocative politically and socially and thought-provoking theoretically. There is a danger that Jerryson's study is so broad that each example could be picked apart by experts in individual languages, textual genres, or historical periods, but for an introduction to the subject, readers would be hard-pressed to find a better book to launch their research and start productive and important discussions not just about Buddhist pasts, but also Buddhist futures.