A large difference in income today among East Asian countries was brought about mainly by different economic growth rates in the second half of the twentieth century. How do we explain this difference? Neoclassical economists would argue that it was due to difference in the rates of capital formation and export growth. This is true, but the question still remains as to why they differed. This paper, focusing on Malaysia, explains its relative performance in terms of institutions and culture. Due to the growing influence of neo-institutionalists, institutions have been gaining importance, but culture is still an unpopular subject among the social scientists who are looking at the cause of development. But if we ignore it, it is difficult to explain the better economic performance of South Korea vis-à-vis Malaysia (or more generally, Northeast Asian countries vis-à-vis Southeast Asian countries). Of course, culture is not the only explanatory variable. Neo-institutionalists are right in emphasizing the importance of institutions. For example, the better performance of Malaysia vis-à-vis the Philippines and Indonesia seems to be largely due to the fact Malaysia could make its institutions more favorable to economic growth. But we also have to recognize the fact that culture influences people's economic decision, shapes institutions, and mediates their effect on economic growth.

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This article explores unmarried factory women's family networks and personal identity formation in an industrial community in northern Thailand. It focuses on these young women's strong and sustainable ties to family members, and the importance of maintaining these ties in order to form a positive self-identity after leaving their rural villages. By maintaining reciprocal relationships with their families and contributing substantially to their rural households economically, these women are able to construct ideal images of themselves as dutiful village daughters while also approximating themselves to the image of “modern” women in the industrial community. Creating an ideal image of themselves illustrates the way that “modernity” and “tradition” are interpreted and embodied among these female factory workers. While theories about modernization have traditionally assumed that modernization weakens the ties among families, kin groups, and communities, more recent literature demonstrates that such theories are not applicable to many Asian societies. This study builds upon such research, revealing that in the case of young factory women in northern Thailand, family support networks actually enable these women to maximize their opportunities to work at the estate, contribute financially to their rural families, and gain some degree of financial independence and social autonomy. On the other hand, this study also shows that factory women's practice of maintaining family ties is not just a remnant of a village-based social norm, but takes on a new meaning in their new community. Retaining reciprocal relations with their families becomes an active and creative strategy young women use in order to adjust to the rapid social change in their community and to develop a positive self-identity.

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As a consequence of the economic crisis in early 1997, one of the most prominent and urgent problems was unemployment. There were reports of almost two million migrants having to return to their villages of origin in the Northeast, besides those seeking refuge in the urban “informal sector.” Certainly, this would create great pressure on rural households, not only in terms of the reduction of their off-farm income, but also in having to bear the burden of unemployed family members. Adding to the crisis was a weakened baht value that caused a hike in the cost of consumable goods and agricultural inputs, thus affecting rural households and communities as a whole. This paper aims to reveal how the economic crisis impacted on rural households; and how they coped with it; as well as to what extent the agricultural sector couldaccommodate the returned labor force. To explore these issues a qualitative approach with three main concepts was used for the analysis: (1) agricultural base of households, (2) necessary dependence on external resources, and (3) social networks.
 From the empirical cases in four villages that varied in terms of agricultural and non-agricultural resources within and in their vicinity, the paper shows the impact rural households received varied in terms of degree and diversity depending on their existing agricultural resources and dependency on external resources. Three groups of households were classified based on the degree of impact created by the economic crisis: those least affected, moderately affected, and strongly affected. In relation to how the crisis affected each type, these households also reflected different degrees of coping with the crisis, ranging from households needing no adjustments to households still unable to adjust. Their differing coping mechanisms were based on social networks that could be kinship or non-kinship based in nature. It was also found that the agricultural sector supporting the returned labor could be considered as direct and indirect, and closely related to households and village agricultural resources. However, most returned migrants preferred to do off-farm work. Their decision making concerning agricultural or offfarm activities depended on their skills, capital and social networks.

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One of the threats to the practice of sustainable forest management in Sarawak is shifting cultivation. Ongoing rehabilitation measures taken by the State Forest Department in former shifting cultivation areas include natural regeneration, reforestation and agroforestry programs. Reforestation is making slow progress while agroforestry programs suffer from a lack of interest in tree planting by participants. The introduction of the cultivation of medicinal plants and wild fruits, which also addresses concerns about the depletion of the wild stock, may revitalize these programs. However, the venture faces many issues and challenges. In the light of these, a strategy for such an introduction is proposed.

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This paper focuses on a village festival in Southern Laos in which a water buffalo is sacrificed to the village guardian spirit. The village in which fieldwork was conducted in 1998-99 was established by six families from Ngae, a Mon-Khmer group. In 1966, they fled the bombardment around their village, which was located in a remote area, and resettled in their present location near a big town. Since the establishment of the new village, people with different religious customs, not only Lao, but other Mon-Khmer people from groups such as Alak and Talieng, have moved into the village. Younger generations of Ngae villagers have been influenced by Lao culture and are becoming less attached to the Ngae traditional customs. In this multi-cultural setting, maintaining the village's annual festival as one based simply on Ngae tradition has become difficult. In some respects, this festival has come to substitute for the Lao New Year festival pi:may. In addition, when the village elders and leaders mobilize the village to participate in the festival, they adopt the Lao word sa:makki. This term, meaning solidarity, was originally used by the government of the Lao PDR in the propagation of its socialist policies. Through the examination of these various aspects, this article discusses the complexities of traditional ritual and authority among minority groups living in multi-ethnic environments.

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