This article critically engages with ‘apolitical warriors’ as a conceptual tool for understanding how Gurkhas and their families are discursively embedded in political discourses. The analysis offered will shed light on the limited scholarly attention given to the implications of this soldiering community's ‘impartial’ and ‘martial’ identity in shaping ideas of (non-)belonging within Southeast Asia. By focusing on remembrances, this article draws out how a nation's past is produced vis-à-vis commemorative events and, within this context, it comparatively examines how Gurkhas, as military migrants, are remembered and represented during ceremonies held at, for example, the Gurkha Cemetery in Ipoh, Malaysia and the Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore. A central question involves evaluating the role of historical memory in informing the extent to which the Gurkha community is incorporated within the national narratives of countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei. Herein, I argue that their perceived apolitical tenor has long served a dual purpose which, in turn, forms the axis of their ambivalent belonging. While Gurkhas are celebrated as foreign warriors reputed for their invaluable contribution to these nations, they are excluded through policy measures that rule out the prospect of citizenship and govern their status as transient migrants.

This study explores the Philippine government’s response to COVID-19, focusing on public policy initiatives, intergovernmental cooperation, and securitisation. It also examines how the Philippines compares to other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Using a qualitative, descriptive-analytic approach, the research identifies leadership as the most significant factor in managing pandemics. Despite efforts like the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act and Bayanihan to Recover as One Act and the involvement of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging and Infectious Disease (IATF-EID), the Philippines ranked poorly in pandemic response, suffering from limited resources, weak institutions, and gaps in healthcare infrastructure. The securitisation of COVID-19, marked by security sector involvement and war metaphors, played a prominent role but did not result in better outcomes than other nations. Key findings suggest that public trust, leadership, and timely decision-making are critical for managing health crises, particularly in democracies where consensus-building can delay urgent responses. The study identifies gaps in preparedness, including insufficient research capabilities and poor coordination between government agencies. It concludes that addressing these deficiencies through reform and better leadership will improve the Philippines’ response to future health crises, ensuring faster, more coordinated, and effective public health measures.

The researcher developed the Seguyub Lasem Dance (SLD) practice videos to increase students’ interest in dance learning and help teachers inculcate the Profil Pelajar Pancasila (P3) character or moral education in students of junior high schools. Agustina Ayu Andira created simple dance steps to present the multicultural society of Lasem (a sub-district in Rembang Regency) which has non-Muslims (including Buddhists and Hindus) and Muslim communities. The videos were uploaded to the YouTube website using the Agustina Ayu Andira channel. After showing the students, the SLD videos, the researcher tested the effectiveness of the dance videos on students’ moral and ethical understanding through the simple dance steps. In this regard, 162 students from five junior high schools in the Rembang Regency filled out an online questionnaire. The data gathered through the questionnaire was analysed with the help of Dick and Cary’s (1978) ADDIE model comprised of five research stages: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The dance video was tested for validity and reliability on a small scale to 32 SMP Negeri 1 Lasem students and tested on a large scale to 123 students in four schools. Students were asked to take part in learning using the SLD learning media, and scores were taken from the summative test. Student scores were first tested for normality using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov technique. The SLD’s effectiveness was tested using the One Sample T-Test test formula. Based on the study’s results, the researcher provides suggestions to dance educators so that dance learning media can be utilised in dance practice learning to increase students’ interest in dance practice learning, especially for male junior high school students.

This Forum reflects the stimulating conversations we had as participants in a roundtable at the 2023 Boston meeting of the Association for Asian Studies. The discussion centred on the position of women (as both contributors and subjects) in competing visions of modernity in Southeast Asia. Our overall goals were to explore how women contributed to these visions and the extent to which their hopes were realised. In the process, numerous questions arose: What were women's experiences in these modernities? How were their roles influenced by class, ethnicity, religion, and age? And, finally, how do analyses of women-centred involvement inform broader understandings of social, cultural, economic, and political transformations in the region? The contributors reflect on their own trajectory in the study of women's history, the sources they have been able to leverage, the intersection between ‘modernity’ and nationalism, the related issue of women's position in postcolonial nation-states, and the question of how ideas of sexuality (in the family, society, politics) were changing. Throughout the Forum, we argue that the experience of women, and their (often but not necessarily agentic) contribution, is necessary to fully grasp the region's multiple entanglements with ‘modernity/ies’ in a variety of fields.

In the long history of Chinese emigration, men left home to work abroad, leaving family members behind. While overseas, they sent money to their relatives along with remittance letters (qiaopi). Many qiaopi were formulaic documents prepared by professional letter writers, but those sent by Huang Kaiwu to his wife between 1903 and 1916 provide information on changing family values and gender norms in the years leading up to the Chinese Revolution and Republic. Huang was a textile merchant in the Philippines, a leader of the Chinese community in Manila, and a revolutionary who actively supported the 1911 Revolution. His wife lived with members of his family in his home village. His letters reveal tensions between tradition and change both on his part and on hers. Written at a time of momentous socio-political change and under the influence of Chinese nationalism, they provide insights into how modernist thinking played out in one Chinese migrant family and enrich academic understanding of the Chinese diaspora especially in the early twentieth century.

While 1880 is remembered in the Philippines for a great earthquake that struck Manila and 1882 for a highly destructive typhoon that caused untold damage, the everyday disasters that happen all too often across the archipelago are soon forgotten. The interest is in the ‘big’ event, and historiography rarely focuses on less spectacular occurrences. 1881 was one such year when ‘nothing really much’ happened. And yet, a closer examination of the archival record reveals 12 months of earthquake, volcanic eruption, typhoon, storm, flood, and fire that afflicted people across the archipelago. These everyday calamities are historically such an integral part of Filipinos’ lives that they have shaped both their histories and their customs. More than the severity of the event, it is the frequency with which people have had to deal with calamity as an everyday event that has engendered socio-economic adaptation and cultural change. By examining the full range of disasters that people in the Philippines faced in 1881, this article examines the significant impact that geophysical and meteorological forces have had in influencing the daily lives of Filipinos in the past as they continue to do so in the present.

Asia. Transregional trade and traders: Situating Gujarat in the Indian Ocean from early times to 1900 Edited by Edward A. Alpers and Chhaya Goswami New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 397. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. - Volume 55 Issue 1