The Second International Conference in the History of Medicine in Southeast Asia (HOMSEA): treating diseases and epidemics in Southeast Asia over the centuries.

Date / Place: 9-10 January 2008, Penang, Malaysia

Organizer: Asia-Pacific Research Unit (APRU), School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Content: First Announcement and Call for Papers / Panels

The Second International Conference in the History of Medicine in Southeast Asia with the theme Treating Diseases and Epidemics in Southeast Asia over the Centuries intends to explore how the inhabitants of Southeast Asia faced the ravages of innumerable diseases and epidemics over the ages. Adopting a liberal time frame (prehistoric to modern times), participants are encouraged to trace the development of medical and religious responses to diseases and the devastation of epidemics. Further lines of thought are offered for deliberation, viz. "How did the peoples fight off diseases that might spell their extinction?"; "What did communities do to prevent the spread of certain illnesses?": "Were European colonial administrations more successful in disease containment than indigenous authorities?" These are just some of the questions that deserve attention.

Deadline for Abstracts: 1 May 2007

Deadline for Working Papers: 15 November 2007

Individual Participants: Individuals are invited to present a 20-minute working paper relevant to any aspect of the conference's theme. They are requested to submit an abstract (150-200 words) to the Secretariat.

Specialized Panels: Scholars who wish to organize a panel (4-5 presenters; 1-hour per panel) based on a particular topic relevant to the conference's overall theme are to submit to the Secretariat the following materials:

Proposed Panel:          Abstract (350-400 words)
Convenor / Panelist I:   Abstract (150-200 words)
Panelist II:             Abstract (150-200 words)
Panelist III:            Abstract (150-200 words)
Panelist IV:             Abstract (150-200 words)
Panelist V:              Abstract (150-200 words)

Organizing Committee

Associate Professor Dr. OOI Keat Gin (Chairperson) ([e-mail]), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Professor Rethy CHHEM ([e-mail]), University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

Professor Harold COOK ([e-mail]), Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL, London, UK

Associate Professor Dr. Laurence MONNAIS ([e-mail]) University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada

Dr SHAKILA Abdul Manan (Secretary) ([e-mail]) Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Further Information

The Conference Secretariat The Second International Conference HOMSEA Asia-Pacific Research Unit (APRU) School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia 11800 Penang Malaysia

Tel: [phone] Ext. 3377; Fax: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail] Website: www.usm.my/APRU/index.html

7th EuroSEAS CONFERENCE University of Naples, Italy, 12-15 September 2007

Call for Papers for Panels

CULTURAL POLITICS IN THE ASEAN REGION

Convenors: Felicia Hughes-Freeland (Dept of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Wales Swansea, United Kingdom) and Nora Taylor (Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, USA)

This panel invites papers that present original case materials from particular ASEAN states to explain and analyze how globally originated policies on cultural diversity and cultural management affect national and local practices. In particular we are interested in UNESCO's policies associated with world heritage sites and intangible heritage, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) which aims to protect Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Cultural Expression, and Genetic Resources. We particularly welcome papers that address different aspects of cultural production, including the plastic and performing arts, "folk" performance, musical composition, and film, but papers about intellectual property and genetic resources which consider the uses of plants and medical traditions would also be welcome.

The object of the panel is to consider the issues from the perspective of particular situated practices and cases, and not just from the macro, top-down perspective.

Questions to be addressed are as follows:

1. How do cultural property, intellectual, and artistic creations contribute to cultural identity?

2. What aspects of social practice and creation should count as intellectual property?

3. What problem does the concept of individual authorship present for Asian societies and/or individual artists?

4. What problem does the concept of legal ownership present for Asian societies?

5. Is intellectual property a Western concept? If so, how might it be amended to fit cultural patterns in ASEAN, and what might these patterns be?

6. How are specific governments in ASEAN states using these kinds of policy to strengthen their control of national identity?

7. What kind of contestation arises when the state attempts to implement such policies? This refers to issues of indigeneity, ethnicity, and minority statuses.

8. Are there any discernible patterns emerging within ASEAN that might develop into future lines of fracture?

We intend to produce an edited book from our discussions that will contribute to crosscultural and cross-disciplinary debates about cultural property, and provide case materials that will be helpful for furthering the debate, in both theoretical and practical terms.

Please send abstracts of 200-300 words to both F. [e-mail] and [e-mail] by 1 March 2007 at the very latest.

7th EuroSEAS CONFERENCE University of Naples, Italy, 12-15 September 2007

Call for Papers

LOCALITIES OF VALUE: AMBIGUOUS STRATEGIES OF ACCESS TO LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Convenors: Laurens Bakker (Radboud University, [e-mail]) Gerben Nooteboom (University of Amsterdam, [e-mail]) Gerard Persoon (Leiden University, [e-mail])

Please contact Laurens Bakker if you are interested in participating.

Lack of empty lands as well as an increased demand for natural resources such as land, forests, fossil fuels and minerals make gaining or maintaining access to land or forests increasingly difficult for the poorer part of populations in Southeast Asia. Nonetheless attempts to gain access are continuously being made at the grassroots level, not always without success. These attempts are often marked by conflicting, self-destructive and paradoxical stratagems. In this panel we shall look at the peculiarities and ambiguities behind these strategic attempts.

The economic value of resources such as land, forests, coal deposits and minerals is considerable, yet, unlike other resources, they are immovable and constitute localities of value which, in case of conflict, cannot be relocated to more favorable areas. However, to cash in the economic value of natural resources they need to be moved to the market first; an ambiguous process as well that is often surrounded by conflicts and illegal or illicit practices, and usually diminishes the locality's value for other users. A counter idea is of course the economic value contained in the environmental services a locality can provide, once a market demand for such value is created. Nearly always, one party in such a conflict consists of poor land users.

Our focus is on how local groups such as poor land users deal with these conflicts and employ ambiguous ways of access, and whether shifts in strategies can be distinguished. Adas (1981), discussing peasants, describes how strategies of conflict avoidance were replaced by unobtrusive occupations or direct confrontation when unclaimed lands ran out early in the twentieth century. Today, "peasants" are a diverse category including migrants looking for land, indigenous peoples claiming land, and urban poor occupying land. All share in the same predicament: how do they maintain or gain access to the land (or what is on or under it)? Recent years have seen an increased emancipation of these groups. Rights are claimed on the basis of indigeneity while others creatively use (what is perceived as) government law or influential contacts to sustain claims. Clearly, such approaches are frequently ambiguous from a formal legal perspective, but they may be more effective on the local level then national law. Simultaneously, the first beginnings of international networks of NGOs and other civil organizations with a grassroots background have been established. Are the grassroots becoming "globalized" as has been suggested (cf. Appadurai, 2001), and are global notions adapted to become practically implemented in conflicts at the grassroots level (Tsing, 2005)?

The aim of this panel is to bring together research experiences from across Southeast Asia on ambiguous strategies of local populations in order to gain insight into changing contestations and claims to "localities of value" in various national contexts.

Paper proposals including 250-word abstracts and a 5-line biosketch should be submitted to Laurens Bakker (Radboud University, [e-mail]) by December 2006. Successful applicants will be advised by 15th February 2007 and will be urged to send in a completed paper by June 1st.

7th EuroSEAS CONFERENCE University of Naples, Italy, 12-15 September 2007

Call for Papers

WHY CULTIVATE? UNDERSTANDINGS OF PAST AND PRESENT ADOPTION, ABANDONMENT AND COMMITMENT TO AGRICULTURE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Convenors: Dr. Monica Janowski (Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, UK) and Prof. Graeme Barker (McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge, UK)

There has been debate about the origins of agriculture in Southeast Asia in recent years, relating to the history of rice, the role of root and tree crops and of minor grains, and the management/cultivation of "wild" resources such as the sago palm.

In this panel we want to focus on reasons for cultivating (or not cultivating) different crops, focusing on such factors as their role as items of trade, their role in structuring local social and political relations and/or their cultural/cosmological significance.

We welcome papers which draw on data from current and recent studies within all relevant disciplines including anthropology, economics, archaeology, history, politics, sociology and botany. Our intended focus is on evidence and reasons for present-day and recent dynamics of change as well as historical change.

We plan to produce an edited book deriving from the panel.

Please submit abstracts as soon as possible, and by 1 March at the latest, sending them to both Monica Janowski ([e-mail]) and Graeme Barker ([e-mail]).

The Museum of Art and Archaeology of Laon, France, invites BRC members to view the exhibition: