Since the end of the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste in 1999, a significant revival of local cultures and identities in public life has been occurring. In this article I discuss aspects of identity and culture among Fataluku-speaking people in relation to the recent establishment of the Nino Conis Santana National Park over much of their homeland. Today Fataluku cultural and historical stories provide a basis for their status as an autonomous and sovereign cultural group, as well as a legacy of intercultural negotiation and alliance that arguably reflects regional patterns of migration and social change over thousands of years. With the park's 15,000 residents continuing to rely on its forests and reefs for subsistence, recent restrictions on hunting have highlighted the need for increased local community support if the park is to achieve its conservation aims. I argue that long-standing traditions surrounding the negotiation of social and political change within Fataluku society provide a potential basis for cooperation with the new nation–state and for developing community-oriented park management policies.

All observers and stakeholders agree that the Cambodian state's capacity for development has been rather limited, although there are signs of expansion. The management of its important fisheries is no exception. Drawing upon existing literature, primary documents, and field interviews in two provinces and in Phnom Penh with various state and non-state actors, this study provides a background to the reasons for Cambodia's failure to manage its fisheries, enforce compliance within fishing lots, and curtail corruption in the fishing industry. It shows how fishing concessionaires' power has grown vis-à-vis that of the state and other actors. This study concludes that the considerable power held by concessionaires to make and enforce their own rules, together with their ability to accommodate or co-opt relevant state agents, has impeded Cambodia's capacity to fully benefit from, conserve, and manage its fisheries.

Indonesia's state-owned mosques are important sites for observing changes in religious life that have taken place since the demise of the Suharto regime. During the New Order period, ideological and political factors restricted access to mosques owned and managed by provincial and regency governments. In contemporary West Java, access to such mosques has been broadened, and they now display a diversity of religious programs and practices. Drawing on recent fieldwork, this article makes a case study of the intercession ritual known as manakiban which has recently emerged in government-owned mosques of West Java. It identifies two dominant factors behind the new inclusiveness: a desire for visibility and public legitimacy on the part of some members of the Sufi order that promotes the ritual, and secondly, a broadening of access to state-owned mosques as a result of more inclusive participation in the electoral process. The article contributes to knowledge of the politicisation of religion in contemporary Indonesia, and suggests new possibilities for understanding the meanings of public Islamic infrastructure.

Set in Manila in 1813 during the implementation of the Liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812, this case study of the conflict between natives and Chinese mestizos over seating arrangements in a small parish church demonstrates how the new charter challenged the hierarchies of colonial political space. Despite its centralist aim, the Constitution instead empowered multiple ethnic groups, while reinforcing local notions of self-government and autonomy. Though a brief period, it was a significant one, as natives and Chinese mestizos constructed complex political identities. In turn, these identities set a political precedent which re-emerged during the second constitutional period (1820–23) with more wide-ranging political consequences.

A new perspective has begun to challenge both the conventional portrayal of the Vietnamese revolution and the communist account of its success. This essay takes stock of new research that presents revolutionary Vietnam in a more complex and less triumphal way. It is argued that Vietnam's nationalist revolution (1945–46) should be conceptually distinguished from the subsequent socialist revolution (1948–88). The former had a distinctly urban and bourgeois character, was led by a coalition of the upper and middle classes, and lacked ideological intensity. The latter was imposed from above, based on socialist visions, and dependent on foreign assistance. The failure to disentangle the two revolutions in existing narratives assigns little agency to Vietnamese actors and leads to triumphs being exaggerated while tragedies are overlooked.