Academics and policy makers have grown increasingly interested in the ways that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may encourage better governance, democratic politics, and perhaps ultimately a global civil society. In Civil Life, Globalization and Political Change in Asia, Robert Weller has brought together an international group of experts on the subject, whose chapters address these questions through a series of extensive case studies from East and Southeast Asia including Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Academics and policy makers have grown increasingly interested in the ways that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may encourage better governance, democratic politics, and perhaps ultimately a global civil society. However, critics of these organizations have pointed out that NGOs tend to be undemocratic in their internal politics, they speak for groups of people to whom they are not accountable through elections or financial support and they often represent the interests of people in wealthy countries at the expense of truly indigenous people. The main questions revolve around whether, and how NGOs actually lead to democratization, and the ways in which NGOs relate to broader global forces.
In "Civil Society, Globalization and Political Change in Asia," Robert Weller has brought together an international group of experts on the subject whose chapters address these questions through a series of extensive case studies from east and southeast Asia including Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Written by eleven leading anthropologists from around the world, this volume extends the insights of Fredrik Barth, one of the most important anthropologists of the twentieth century, to push even further at the frontiers of anthropology and honor his memory. As a collection, the chapters thus expand Barth's pioneering work on values, further develop his insights on human agency and its potential creativity, as well as continuing to develop the relevance for his work as a way of thinking about and beyond the state. The work is grounded on his insistence that theory should grow only from observed life.

Written by eleven leading anthropologists from around the world, this volume extends the insights of Fredrik Barth, one of the most important anthropologists of the twentieth century, to push even further at the frontiers of anthropology and honor his memory. As a collection, the chapters thus expand Barth's pioneering work on values, further develop his insights on human agency and its potential creativity, as well as continuing to develop the relevance for his work as a way of thinking about and beyond the state. The work is grounded on his insistence that theory should grow only from observed life.

Free markets alone do not work effectively to solve certain kinds of human problems, such as education, old age care, or disaster relief. Nor have markets ever been the sole solution to the psychological challenges of death, suffering, or injustice. Instead, we find a major role for the non-market institutions of society - the family, the state, and social institutions. The first in-depth anthropological study of charities in contemporary Chinese societies, this book focuses on the unique ways that religious groups have helped to solve the problems of social well-being. Using comparative case studies in China, Taiwan and Malaysia during the 1980s and onwards, it identifies new forms of religious philanthropy as well as new ideas of social 'good', including different forms of political merit-making, new forms of civic selfhood, and the rise of innovative social forms, including increased leadership by women. The book finally argues that the spread of these ideas is an incomplete process, with many alternative notions of goodness continuing to be influential.

How can we order the world while accepting its enduring ambiguities? Rethinking Pluralism suggests a new approach to the problem of ambiguity and social order, which goes beyond the default modern position of 'notation' (resort to rules and categories to disambiguate). The book argues that alternative, more particularistic modes of dealing with ambiguity through ritual and shared experience better attune to contemporary problems of living with difference. It retrieves key aspects of earlier discussions of ambiguity evident in rabbinic commentaries, Chinese texts, and Greek philosophical and dramatic works, and applies those texts to modern problems. The book is a work of recuperation that challenges contemporary constructions of tradition and modernity. In this, it draws on the tradition of pragmatism in American philosophy, especially John Dewey's injunctions to heed the particular, the contingent and experienced as opposed to the abstract, general and disembodied. Only in this way can new forms of empathy emerge congruent with the deeply plural nature of our present experience. While we cannot avoid the ambiguities inherent to the categories through which we construct our world, the book urges us to reconceptualize the ways in which we think about boundaries - not just the solid line of notation, but also the permeable membrane of ritualization and the fractal complexity of shared experience.

This pioneering, interdisciplinary work shows how rituals allow us to live in a perennially imperfect world. Drawing on a variety of cultural settings, the authors utilize psychoanalytic and anthropological perspectives to describe how ritual--like play--creates "as if" worlds, rooted in the imaginative capacity of the human mind to create a subjunctive universe. The ability to cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for empathy. Ritual, they claim, defines the boundaries of these imagined worlds, including those of empathy and other realms of human creativity, such as music, architecture and literature.
The authors juxtapose this ritual orientation to a "sincere" search for unity and wholeness. The sincere world sees fragmentation and incoherence as signs of inauthenticity that must be overcome. Our modern world has accepted the sincere viewpoint at the expense of ritual, dismissing ritual as mere convention. In response, the authors show how the conventions of ritual allow us to live together in a broken world. Ritual is work, endless work. But it is among the most important things that we humans do.

Robert P. Weller's richly documented account describes the extraordinary transformations which have taken place in Chinese and Taiwanese responses to the environment across the twentieth century. Indeed, both places can be said to have 'discovered' a new concept of nature. The book focuses on nature tourism, anti-pollution movements, and policy implementation to show how the global spread of western ideas about nature has interacted with Chinese traditions. Inevitably differences of understanding across groups have caused problems in administering environmental reforms. They will have to be resolved if the dynamic transformations of the 1980s are to be maintained in the twenty-first century. In spite of a century of independent political development, a comparison between China and Taiwan reveals surprising similarities, showing how globalization and shared cultural traditions have outweighed political differences in shaping their environments. The book will appeal to a broad readership from scholars of Asia, to environmentalists, and anthropologists.

Robert P. Weller's richly documented account describes the extraordinary transformations which have taken place in Chinese and Taiwanese responses to the environment across the twentieth century. Indeed, both places can be said to have 'discovered' a new concept of nature. The book focuses on nature tourism, anti-pollution movements, and policy implementation to show how the global spread of western ideas about nature has interacted with Chinese traditions. Inevitably differences of understanding across groups have caused problems in administering environmental reforms. They will have to be resolved if the dynamic transformations of the 1980s are to be maintained in the twenty-first century. In spite of a century of independent political development, a comparison between China and Taiwan reveals surprising similarities, showing how globalization and shared cultural traditions have outweighed political differences in shaping their environments. The book will appeal to a broad readership from scholars of Asia, to environmentalists, and anthropologists.

Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China is the first study in English to offer a systematic introduction to the Chinese pantheon of divinities. Until now, Chinese deities have often been presented as mere functionaries and bureaucrats. The essays in this volume eloquently document the existence of other images that allowed Chinese gods to challenge the prevailing power structures and traditional mores of Chinese society. Here are deities who kill their parents, who refuse to marry, who depose their predecessors, who demand cigarettes instead of incense - in short, who challenge all preconceptions about Chinese divinity. The authors draw on a variety of disciplines (history, anthropology, literary studies) and methodologies to throw light on various aspects of the Chinese supernatural. In addition to reflecting the existing order, Chinese gods shaped it, transformed it, and compensated for it, and, as such, this study offers fresh perspectives on the relations between divinity and society in China.