This paper explores the government purchase system implemented by the Nguyễn Dynasty in the first half of the nineteenth century. A close examination of dynastic records reveals that the Nguyễn court purchased a vast range of natural and manufactured products, both those produced in its domain as well as various commodities imported from foreign countries. In order to procure foreign items, the court did not simply rely on commercial networks of Chinese merchants but also dispatched government vessels abroad. Official records demonstrate that government purchases assumed multiple functions in the fiscal administration of the Nguyễn Dynasty. In addition to obtaining necessary goods to maintain the state apparatus, these purchases were also designed for other purposes, such as increasing the money supply, famine relief through rice disbursement at cost, as well as collecting export products for the state-run trade. The massive sugar purchases undertaken in Central Vietnam are very useful in illuminating this point. Unquestionably, the central and regional authorities faced difficulties in their management of this institution; nevertheless, an analysis of the government purchase system provides fresh insight into the economic rationality underlying the fiscal policies of the Nguyễn Dynasty.

Indonesia has a vast area of state forests (kawasan hutan) covering 65 percent of the country’s land surface. State forests provide timber and enable the protection and conservation of forests. They also provide a living environment for local people, which comes with many problems, including overlapping land rights, illegal logging, and serious environmental degradation. This study looks into the origin of the state forest system during the colonial era, paying particular attention to the establishment of the Forest Service. Faced with deforestation at the end of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth, a forest administration system was established in the name of forest protection and conservation, to implement a bureaucratic system of administration based on wage labor. Finally, the Forest Service was set up. The Forest Service supplied timber for the government’s infrastructure development, such as state railway construction, and supplied timber and firewood for local people. The Forest Service’s revenue covered its expenditure and even created a budget surplus that contributed to state revenue. The system was quite unsympathetic to local people—for example, slash-and-burn practices were prohibited, and defiant locals were punished—and the government never attempted to involve local people in the implementation of the forest conservation program. The government attempted to stabilize the system in part by issuing permits allowing certain activities. However, the permit system barely functioned, and almost nobody tried to get permits. The number of forest offenses such as stealing trees increased until the end of the 1930s. The fundamental problem was that local people regarded their use of the forest—such as for cutting trees and gathering fallen trees, leaves, and branches—as their customary right; the colonial government, on the other hand, denied them this right, confining it within the permit and police system.

This article aims to analyze the limitations of rail transport in Thailand and Burma before World War II, focusing on inland transport between entrepôts and their hinterlands. Before the arrival of the railway age, the main forms of transportation were by water and by animal power on land. The introduction of steamships in lower river basins and coastal areas improved transport conditions in terms of time and cost. In inland areas where traditional water transport by boat or animal-powered land transport was indispensable, these forms of transport remained unchanged until the opening of the railways. Inland railways inevitably absorbed almost all the traditional forms of transportation, with two exceptions: teak logs and animal transport from inland areas. Teak logs from the Shan highlands and Northern Thailand were still floated down rivers to their destinations, and draught animals such as cattle and buffalo were still brought to market on foot even after the opening of the railways. As these modes of transport were apparently regarded as free, the railways could not dislodge them until people recognized the actual costs involved. The end of traditional forms of transport was not ushered in by the modernization of transport, but by government prohibitions.

The practice of installing residential street barriers (RSBs) has become widespread in Jakarta. Although RSBs are a most common and familiar manifestation of a collective sense of insecurity in the city, the phenomenon has received scant scholarly attention. This paper presents the first comprehensive study of RSBs in Jakarta. It examines the diversity of the socioeconomic background of communities with the desire to create RSBs. The study finds that the cross-class spread of RSBs is characterized by: (1) a general pattern of inner-city-concentric distribution; (2) sparsely located local contagion spots; and (3) the coexistence of crime-related and traffic-related concerns. Finally, such spatial patterns are discussed in light of the recent socio-spatial changes in the city.

This article discusses how Eastern Indonesian merchants maneuver into politics to expand their networks, while on the other hand they have to grapple with being perceived as foreigners. In Maluku Province, Eastern Indonesia, traders are considered orang dagang (foreigners, migrants) who do not belong to the local culture, even though they may have lived in the Malukan islands for centuries. Orang dagang are mostly migrants from Sulawesi Island (Butonese, Buginese, and Makassarese). Using a still undertheorized concept of hospitality, conveying cordial gestures toward potentially dangerous strangers to oblige them into a manageable relationship, this article elaborates on how hospitality and distributive activities come into play when traders navigate their tricky circumstances. Traders, often consisting of a few select ethnic groups in Indonesia, indeed occupy ambiguous and precarious positions in their locales. Their ambivalence has also been utilized, whether by ethnic groups, themselves, or others. This article also discusses the limits of hospitality. Despite traders trying to change their circumstances, there are still prejudices and societal structures that are consistently unchanged at the very core.

Land is a means of production, a source of income, a form of valuable property, and a space for life. When land is compulsorily acquired by the state for development purposes, farmers react in different ways to protect their land benefits. This paper relies on resistance theories, combining both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in order to explore how farmers in Hue’s peri-urban areas reacted to the decisions of land acquisition for urban expansion. By exploring the multiple forms and the diverse outcomes of land reaction adopted by the farmers, the study contributes to the literature on responses to land conflicts in Vietnam and elsewhere. The results show that the complaint is a common reaction of many farmers in expressing their attitude toward compulsory land acquisition, while collection resistance or rightful resistance are rare in the studied villages. This might be due to several reasons, but losing land—while still staying in their own social and physical environment, within the more dynamic economic context—has a significant influence on the forms of resistance toward land loss. We argue that the existence of complaints is logical, reflecting social tensions on the ground. They are however not strong enough to influence any fundamental changes in local government decisions.