In colonial sources the designation and condemnation of certain indigenous acts of maritime violence as piracy are presented as self-evident. This confronts modern historiography with many problems of conceptualisation, interpretation and assessment. Discourse analysis may be an effective tool. Comparing divergent representations of piracy by Dutch administrators in colonial Indonesia shows how piracy was constructed in the confrontation of colonial and indigenous states.

After making a comparative study of the Chinese Batavia Kong Koan archives between its earlier and later periods, this article discusses what was an apparently inevitable localisation of immigrants' identities, in the context of immigration, settlement and, in particular, intermarriage.

Although Cold War propaganda is now the subject of close scholarly scrutiny, the main method by which it was communicated – language – has been overlooked. The Malayan Emergency illustrates how the British government grappled with the issue of political terminology within the broader context of anti-communist propaganda. This article will analyse the use of political language; the change from ‘bandit’ to ‘communist terrorist’; and the problems of delineating the Malayan from the international audience.

Focusing on land, forests and coastal resources of Southeast Asia, this collection of articles explores an emerging interest in exploring local development and change in national, regional (Asia Pacific) and global terms. Specifically, the authors are interested in steering clear of viewing ‘global’ forces (of market production and environmentalism) as the privileged sites of action with the ‘local’ relegated to a ‘mediating’ role vis–à–vis these larger influences. On the contrary, the articles suggest that local groups actively engage in reshaping discourses and practices of the global (Majid Cooke, Tomforde). Local groups grow crops, often changing from subsistence to cash-producing ones or from one cash crop to another for a complexity of reasons – often not of their own choosing – which reflect local, regional, national and global power differentials (Majid Cooke, McKay, Sato).

This paper compares the trajectories over the last two decades of two export-oriented ‘boom crops’ in Southeast Asia: industrial shrimp aquaculture and industrial plantation forestry. It focuses on differences in the establishment, operation and politics of these sectors to explain why they have experienced very different kinds of ‘booms’.

This article examines differences and overlaps in imagined spatial ideas of rural Sarawak which underpin official and community mapping. It looks at the ways in which ‘counter-mapping’ is used by indigenous communities to support their claims to traditional land rights when these are contested by other parties.

In the Philippines, female migration for contract domestic work transforms the local landscape. The changes in land, labour, crops and cropping patterns that are occurring may not reflect local ecology or economic opportunity as much as they represent gendered versions of new local futures, envisioned on a new global scale.

Among the array of pressing development requirements facing East Timor is the need to create a new strategic national management approach for forest resources. This article explores the historical and environmental factors that have contributed to the contemporary pattern of forest lands and discusses policy options to support the development of a sustainable forestry future.

This article begins by summarising the recent debate over the Community Forestry Bill in Thailand and traces the history of competition over public and communal land in that country. It is argued that community forestry that is truly beneficial for the locals must be based on an understanding of where common land is located within the multi-layered politics of power.

The Karen and Hmong in Thailand have been significantly impacted by global and national environmentalist discourses. The Karen, traditionally viewed as conservationists, have had to abandon much of their local knowledge. Conversely, the Hmong – long stigmatised for their allegedly destructive swidden practices – have made significant modifications in their use of resources.