Reading Responses
Alka Menon’s paper, “Cultural gatekeeping in cosmetic surgery: Transnational beauty ideals in multicultural Malaysia” delves into the role of cosmetic surgeons as “aesthetic agents” in medical and cultural gatekeeping through their ability to perpetuate and concretize beauty ideals (Menon, 2019, p.2). Menon makes several key arguments throughout her piece. First, she argues that cosmetic surgeons facilitate the transnational spread of beauty ideals through concrete surgery, acting as...
In her article “Cultural Gatekeeping in Cosmetic Surgery: Transnational beauty ideals in multicultural Malaysia,” Alka Menon makes the following overarching claims: First, Malaysian cosmetic surgeons draw upon sources of and facilitate “transnational beauty ideals” from China, India, Korea, and the United States as they practice in Malaysia. Additionally, they help define those very ideals by encouraging the “looks” of Chinese and Indian features and...
In Md Mizanur Rahman’s piece, “The Bangladeshi Worker,” he explores the reality of migrant workers in Singapore through conversations with Habibul, a young Bangladeshi worker. Throughout the reading, Rahman switches from historical and data-driven explanations of the Singaporean economy to personal anecdotes from Habibul’s own experiences. The paper’s methodology heavily relies on integrating personal accounts and historical evidence to discuss...
Nicole Lim and Anju Mary Paul’s “Stigma on a Spectrum: Differentiated Stigmatization of Migrant Domestic Worker’s Romantic Relationships in Singapore” unpacks the layered socioeconomic experiences of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in romantic relationships within the context of Singaporean society. The authors contend that the profound sense of stigmatisation exists for FDWs because of three unique qualities: 1) their migrant (foreign) label, 2) their vulnerable economic position as...
In the introduction to Migration in the Time of Revolution, Taomo Zhou examines the political history and relationship between China and Indonesia and how the interactions between the two countries developed unique social positions for the many Chinese people residing in Indonesia. In particular, Zhou explores migration and political loyalty as means of developing an evolving national identity during times of war and chaos.
...In the introduction to her book, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War, Taomo Zhou defines the concept of the “overseas Chinese” to which she will refer as she explores the Cold War-era politics of Chinese identity in Indonesia. Zhou’s account of this period focuses on the “China-oriented” ethnic Chinese population, or totok, and how it found itself entangled in the geopolitics of the day. Zhou argues that...
The first two chapters of James. C Scott’s book, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, explores the extreme ends of the social classes in the farming village of Sedaka, Malaysia, and the concepts of peasant rebellion in the workplace and how it is viewed and understood by each social class. Scott follows the storyline of a childs death to describe to the reader the father of the child who possess traits of the extreme lower end....
i. Overview
Geoffrey Aung’s Dead Generations offers personal experience and insight into how to place the February 1st coup within the tumultuous history of Myanmar. He does so by complicating widespread perceptions of the coup. Rather than seeing the coup as a return to the past, he views it within the “cycles of upheaval” that have characterized Myanmar since its independence in 1948.
Mya Thwe The Khaing was shot on February 9th. She was sheltering from water...
Kiernan, Ben (2004). The Cambodian Genocide, 1975-1979. A Century of Genocide Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. Samuel Totten et al, Ed. New York, Routledge: 338-373.
ResponseBen Kiernan, in “The Cambodian Genocide, 1975-1979”, provides a detailed account of the Pol Pot regime’s systematic attempt to exterminate ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities from Cambodia. The essay is divided...
In Bomb Ecologies, Leah Zani shows that the institution of war cannot be separated from everyday life through her study of bomb ecologies. Zani defines bomb ecologies as “zones in which war profoundly shapes the ecological relations, political systems, and material conditions of living and dying.” Zani’s work focuses on the former battlefields of the Vietnam-American War in Laos. From 1964 to 1973, the United States military dropped 260 million...