The rapid postwar economic growth in the Southeast Asia region has led to a transformation of many of the societies there, together with the development of new types of anthropological research in the region. Local societies with originally quite different cultures have been incorporated into multi-ethnic states with their own projects of nation-building based on the creation of "national cultures" using these indigenous elements. At the same time, the expansion of international capitalism has led to increasing flows of money, people, languages and cultures across national boundaries,...

The rapid postwar economic growth in the Southeast Asia region has led to a transformation of many of the societies there, together with the development of new types of anthropological research in the region. Local societies with originally quite different cultures have been incorporated into multi-ethnic states with their own projects of nation-building based on the creation of "national cultures" using these indigenous elements. At the same time, the expansion of international capitalism has led to increasing flows of money, people, languages and cultures across national boundaries,...

Providing a comprehensive treatment of a full range of migrant destinies in East Asia by scholars from both Asia and North America, this volume captures the way migrants are changing the face of Asia, especially in cities, such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Hamamatsu, Osaka, Tokyo, and Singapore. It investigates how the crossing of geographical boundaries should also be recognized as a crossing of cultural and social categories that reveals the extraordinary variation in the migrants' origins and trajectories. These migrants span the spectrum: from Korean bar hostesses in Osaka to African...