The indigenous people of Southern Vietnam, the Khmer Krom, live in a region over which Vietnam and Cambodia have contesting claims. Regarded by nationalists in both countries with ambivalence and under pressure to change their way of life, they have coped with destructive wars, environmental re-engineering and nation-building policies by selectively engaging the world beyond, while continuing to draw upon local resources, self-help networks and understandings. This path-breaking study uncovers the sophistication of the Khmer Krom ecological repertoire and charts their diverse adaptations to...

The crowded, bustling, 'squatter' kampongs so familiar across Southeast Asia have long since disappeared from Singapore, leaving no visible trace of their historical influence on the social life in the city-state. Fifty years have passed since the great fire at Bukit Ho Swee destroyed the kampong, left 16,000 people homeless, gave rise to a national emergency and led to the first big public housing project, a seminal event in the making of modern Singapore. Loh Kah Seng grew up in one-room rental flats in the HDB estate built after the fire. Drawing on oral history interviews, official...

This is is a remarkable study of urban society in one of Indonesia's main port cities. It views Surabaya from the experiences of the people who occupy its alleyways, riverbanks and muddy roadsides, a group that has had little say in the making of policy or the writing of Indonesia's history. The setting is a crowded low-income neighbourhood (kampung) that lies between the Surabaya River and the city's main southern boulevard. For those who live along this kampung's narrow alleyways, the city can be a violent landscape of exclusion and social asymmetry. From this perspective, Indonesia's...