Ulbe Bosma, The Making of a Periphery. How Island Southeast Asia Became a Mass Exporter of Labor. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. ISBN 9780231188524 and ISBN 9780231547901

Many books have been written about the incorporation of the Caribbean region, South Asia, Africa and Latin America into the global economy. Remarkably, few have dealt with Island Southeast Asia or Maritime Southeast Asia as a macro-region. For the Caribbean nations, it has been amply discussed how the legacies of the plantation economies consisted of meagre economic growth and massive unemployment. Conversely, scant attention has been given to the question how societies in Island Southeast Asia were turned into providers of cheap commodities and how this impacted their long-term development prospects. This silence is even more remarkable considering some striking parallels with Caribbean socio-economic trajectories. Today, emigration of millions is the fate of Island Southeast Asia, as it is for the Caribbean region. To break the silence and to invite further discussion I wrote The Making of a Periphery: How Island Southeast Asia Became a Mass Exporter. After reading the review by Dr Aguilar on this book in a previous issue of this journal, I felt that it could be worthwhile to highlight some of the main points of my argument about the peripheral integration of Island Southeast Asia in the global economy. I am grateful to the editors of the International Journal of Asian Studies for granting me the opportunity to do so.

From bandit nests to Sakura orchards: colonial rule, press images, and the stating of Taiwan's Northern Mountains, 1896–1908

Addressing a question of how states in both Asia and the world have resolved the dilemma posed by ecologically recalcitrant “nonstate spaces,” this essay examines a refuge in Taiwan's Northern Mountains. Resistance to Japanese rule from 1896, sheltered in the Grass Mountain uplands, precipitated not just colonial pacification, but a platform of “modern” (Western-modeled, but Meiji Japanese and Qing Chinese influenced) transformation. This was promoted through the educational and symbolic cultivation of Zhishan Rock, a press discourse of nature for public edification, as well as policies that strengthened policing, guided resettlement, and opened the area to recreation. Such tailored “stating” processes altered the image of the region, infused a culture of ecological veneration, and established a more sustainable system of oversight. A critical phase to Grass Mountain becoming a national park, these changes presented a template for Japanese (as subsequent) authorities as they struggled to manage Taiwan's unruly highland frontiers.