EDITORI AL
AS ' **«I t u f o r A*10"
HAS N E W SL E T T E R K? ip
June 1999
56 p a g e s
■ E D I T O R I A L OF F I CE Visiting address: N on n en steeg 1-3, Leiden Mailing address: HAS. P.O. Box 9515,
2300 RA l e id e n , The N etherlands Telephone: + 31-71-527 22 27 Tcle/ax: +31-71-527 41 62 E-Mail: iiASNews@RULLET.LeidenUniv.NL Homepage: http://iias.leidenuniv.nl ■ E D I T O R I A L STAFF Managing Editor - Elzeline van der Hoek Central Asia Editor - Ingrid Nooijens South Asia Editor - N etty Bonouvrié Insular Southwest Asia Editor - Sandra Evers Southeast Asia Editor - Dick van der Meij East Asia (China) Editor - Marieke te Booij East Asia (Japan) Editor - Margarita Winkel East Asia (Korea) Editor - Koen de Ceuster Asian Culture Editor - The GATE Foundation English Editor - Rosemary Robson-McKillop ■ CORRESPONDENTS Ann Beard (AAS, Ann Arbor) Victor A. van Bijlert (Bengal Studies) Leo Douw (Qiaoxiang Programme) Sabine Kuypers / Marieke te Booij (ESF Asia Committee) Leo Schmidt (EU, Brussels) Mario Rutten (CASA, Amsterdam) RatnaSaptari (Changing LabourRelations in Asia, CLARA) Willem Vogelsang Research School CNWS, Leiden) ■ CONTRI BUTORS Helene Basu, Victor A. van Bijlert, Henk Blezer, Marieke te Booij, Karin Bras, Jan Brouwer, Use Chin, Ching Lin Pang, Matthew Isaac Cohen, Robert Cribb, Heidi Dahles, Arif Dirlik, Leo Douw, Werner Draguhn, Bert Edstrom, Christina Eghenter, Peter Fliigel, Stephan van Galen, Marjan van Gerwen, Rajesh Giri, Michael Godley, Hashim Bin Muza, Michael Hitchkock, Cen Huang, David Ip, Alessandra Iyer, Huub de Jonge, Lena Jonson, R.S.Kami, Khun Eng Kuah, John Kleinen, Sabine Kuypers, Nicolai Kuleshov, Erik de Maaker, Pancha N. Mahaijan, Alex McKay, Toon van Meijl, Karen Middleton, Angelika C. Messner, Evelyne Micollier, Karen Middleton, Martin Mooij, Otto van den Muijzenberg, Maung Myint, Romualdas Neimantas, M. Nicholson, Nigel Philips, Franjoise Pommaret, Martin Ramstedt, Ellen Raven, Wim Ravesteijn, Paul A. Rodell, Henry Sandee, Ratna Saptari, Michael Schoenhals, James Scott, Judith Schlehe, Birgit Schlyter, Gunter Senft, Emile Schwidder, Eric Kline Silverman, Alan Smart, Josephine Smart, Max Sparreboom, Wim Stokhof, Yuri Tambovtsev, David J. Telfer, Gerda Theuns-de Boer, Jaap Timmer, Dallen Timothy, Hae-kyung Urn, Cathelijne Veenkamp, Eric Venbrux, Marc de Vries, Alex de Voogt, Geoffrey Wall, Michael Walsh, Helmut Weber, T. Wignesan, Yang Enhong, Zhang Maizeng, Ines Zupanov ■ DE S I GN De Kreeft, Amsterdam ■ PRI NTI NG Dijkman O ffset, Diem en ■ MSN 0929-8738 ■ CI RCULATI ON
22,650 ■ N E X T I SSUE Deadline: 15 September 1999 Release: 15 Novem ber 1999 Special theme: ‘W ildlife Trade’
Editorial N o tw ith sta n d in g th e p ositive reactions to our N ew sletters over th e years, so m etim es u n d er currents o f rum ours reach ou r ears u rg in g us to ch an ge its form at and focus and to trans form it in to a so lid academ ic jou rn al. We still b elieve th at th e con cep t for our N ew sletter as d evelop ed ab ou t six years ago is an effective on e. It has been d esig n ed as an in form al ch an n el for all colleagu es in Asian Studies: a loosely structured , p a m p h let-lik e project, its pages crow ded w ith all k in d s o f in form ation . See it as a sign o f life, a postcard from th e HAS, to be read in b etw een activities or in bed on a Sunday m o rn in g and th en to be discarded: use it to wrap you r fresh fish in or to s t u f f you r w et sh oes w ith after a rainy day.
P AGE
H ow ever, to accom m od ate th o se w h o w o u ld like to have m ore su b stan ce, we have in vited a series o f co-ed ito rs to add th eir ta len ts to su b seq u en t n ew sletters. They have been asked to in tro d u ce a certain research to p ic and to ap proach co llea g u es for reactions. T he first coed itors are H eid i D ah les (Free U n iversity o f Am sterdam ) and T oon van M eijl (U niversity o f N ijm eg en ). T heir th em e is ‘Local Perspec tives o n G lobal T ou rism in th e Asia-Pacific R egion'. T he lea d in g article in th e n ext issue w ill be by John K night (HAS) on ‘W ild Life Trade’. N eed less to say, reactions and co n tr ib u tio n s from readers are very w elcom e. ■ WIM S T O K H O F Di r e c t o r o f t he HAS
C O- E DI T OR S
HEIDI DAHLES & TOON VAN MEIJL closely into this matter, but anthro pologists need more rime for con ducting fieldwork.
■ By ELZELINE V.D. HOEK
Heidi Dahles (HD) wrote her PhD thesis on an Anthropological study of hunting in the Netherlands. Shortly after, she redirected her inter est to more distant places. Since she was the only anthropologist working at the Department of Leisure Studies, Tilburg University, it seemed logical she would be the staff member to be sent abroad, to Indonesia. There she studied tourism, the local people, and small entrepreneurs such as guides, becak drivers, and salesmen. In In donesia she coached students in the framework o f a research programme that resulted in the publication ‘Tourism and Small Entrepreneurs: Development, Policy, and Entrepre neurial Culture’. During the first half of 1998 Heidi Dahles worked at the International Institute for Asian Studies as a research fellow and now she holds a post at the Free Universi ty of Amsterdam. Toon van Meijl (TvM) wrote his PhD on the politics of tradition of the Maori in New Zealand at the ANU, Australia. After that he was appointed a research fellow at the Royal Nether lands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Currently he also teaches Anthropology, Development Studies, and Research Methods at the Univer sity of Nijmegen. In addition, he is Academic Secretary of the Centre for Pacific Studies in Nijmegen. The cen tre co-ordinates research on the Pacif ic and disseminates information on the Pacific in the Netherlands. (‘The strangest question we were asked was ‘How much does a stuffed bird of paradise cost?’). Toon van Meijl stud ies New Zealand, Hawai’i, and the Pacific in general from an anthropo logical-historical point o f view.
■ A D V E R T I S E ME N T S Contact the m anaging editor at the HAS office Reservation: 15 October 1999 Submission: 25 October 1999 See also page 56 THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR FACTS AND OPIN IO N S EXPRESSED IN THIS PUBLICATION RESTS EXCLUSIVELY W ITH THE AUTHORS AND THEIR INTERPRETATIONS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE INSTITUTE OR ITS SUPPORTERS. THE HAS NEWSLETTER (IIASN) IS PUBLISHED BY HAS AND IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE.
Z • H A S N E W S L E T T E R W 19 - June 1999
Qj_ How did the two o f yo u team up? And how did you bring the rest o f the authors together? TvM: I had never actually done re search on tourism, but I was annoyed by the one-sidedness of the discourse. The general view was that tourism disturbs local communities. I then organized a workshop on the subject and that is from where the co-opera tion with Heidi started. Opinion has done an about-face since then. It is
Toon van Meijl and Heidi Dahles in the Botanical Garden, Leiden.
gradually being recognized that local communities also benefit from tourism. HD: We have worked on a special issue ofThc PacificTourism Review, yet to be published, with some work shop participants. This formed the basis for the current HAS Newsletter special. We found the other authors through our personal networks. TvM: O f course, in the seventies Heidi and I had already studied an thropology together at the University ofNijmegen. Q^Why is it so important to study tourism? TvM: The implications of tourism are tremendous, both socio-culturally and economically, and publications have an enormous spin-off Many students are taking up the subject. HD: The tourism sector is so high ly susceptible to various factors. The image people have of a country is rapidly affected by negative news. Po litical instability makes tourism col lapse immediately, but on the other hand it does not take long to put this to rights. Indonesia provides a good example of this. The year 1991 was promoted as the ‘Visit Indonesia’year. This failed because of the war in the Gulf. But soon after business was booming again. Qj_Are the effects o f the Asian economic crisis purposely being left out in this issue? HD: The economic crisis does not play a role in this issue, since all the research was done before the crisis. Historians, sociologists, and political scientists are now looking more
Q^Doyou plan to continue working on this subject? TvM: 1would like to carry on studying tourism in New Zealand and Hawai’i, while I am curious about Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Also I would like to continue the dia logue we initiated here. I therefore welcome any reactions to this first endeavour from other scholars. HD: The tourism industry in Indonesia is temporarily in recession, but as soon as the situation takes a turn for the better, it will revive again. Indonesia is crying out for educated people at every level of the sector. There were plans for setting up an educational programme for Indonesians (and at a later stage other Asians) in the Netherlands. At the moment this would be far too expen sive, in the light of the crisis. There fore we have opted for a less costly project. With some colleagues from Tilburg University, the University of North London, and ITB Bandung, I shall teach a summer course on Tourism Management for govern ment officials in Indonesia. In addition, I have been seconded to the Brokers in Capital Knowledge pro gramme at CASA (Centre for Asian Studies) for two years, to study the service sector in Asia. This has roused my interest for cross-border regions in Southeast Asia. The growth tri angle Singapore-Malaysia-I ndonesia invests heavily in tourism. While the service sector is burgeoning in Singa pore and manufacturing takes the lead in Malaysia, Indonesia again seems destined to cater for tourists, not only from Australia, Europe, and the United States but increasingly for visitors from the region itself. So, in the end, my research will lead me back to tourism again. ■
Please refer to page 7 for the special issue on ‘Local Perspectives on Global Toursim in the Asia-Pacific Region’. Heidi Dahles can be reached at h.dahles@scw.vu.nl,Toon van Meijl at Lvanmeijl@mailbox.kun.nl.
M A S The International Institute for Asian Studies is a post-doctoral institute jointly established in 1993 by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam (VUA), the University of Amsterdam (UvA), and Leiden University (RUL). It is mainly financed by the Netherlands' Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sciences. The main objective of the HAS is to encourage Asian Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (the alpha and gamma sciences, ranging from linguistics and anthropology to political science, law, environmental, and developmental studies) and to promote national and international scientific co-operation in these fields. One of the tasks undertaken by the HAS is to play an active role in the gathering, co ordination, and dissemination of information on Asian Studies.The Institute plays a facilitating role by bringing (inter)national parties together. Situated in a small country of which the political influence is rather limited, the Institute has opted for the flexible role of intermediator on an international level. Furthermore, in keeping with the Dutch tradition of transferring goods and ideas, the HAS serves as a clearing-house for knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services; constructing an international network; setting up international co-operative projects and research programmes; and providing facilities for Dutch and foreign scholars to conduct research at the HAS (and/or at corresponding institutes in the Netherlands and abroad).Through its socalled ‘Schiphol function’ the HAS establishes contacts between Asianists from all over the world. Research fellows at a post-PhDIevel are temporarily employed by or affiliated to the Institute, either within the framework of a collaborative research programme, or on an individual basis. The HAS organizes seminars, workshops, and conferences, publishes a newsletter (circulation approximately 20,000 copies), and has established a database which contains information about researchers and current research in the field of Asian Studies within Europe and worldwide. The Guide to Asian Studies in Europe, a printed version of parts of this database, was published in l998.The Institute also has its own server and a website on the Internet to which a growing number of institutes related to Asian Studies are linked. In 1994 the HAS was appointed to run the secretariat of the European Science Foundation Asia Committee (Strasbourg). The HAS shares with this committee the objective of improving the international co-operation in the field of Asian Studies (additional information can be acquired at the HAS). In 1997 the IIAS-NIAS Strategic Alliance was established: an international co operation between the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen, and the IIAS.The Alliance was set up to enhance research on (contemporary) Asia and to create networks in Asia and Europe with academic and non-academic institutions and actors. Both the Dutch Minister for Education and the Nordic Council of Ministers have contributed to this new form of co-operation.The Alliance was recently joined by the Institut fur Asienkunde in Hamburg. Upon the initiative of the HAS, and in close co-operation with NIAS, the Programme for Europe-Asia Research Linkages (PEARL) was established in Seoul in October 1998 during a meeting of 35 researchers from ASEM (Asia-Europe Meetings) member countries, representing leading Asian and European Studies departments and institutions for research funding. PEARL seeks to enhance AsiaEurope research co-operation and a top level Asian/European presence in the ASEM process. The HAS provides the secretariat for PEARL.