While Indonesia's burgeoning private television industry has prospered through the country's democratic transition and the rise of popular Islam, it has remained ideologically constrained by many of the content restrictions established during Suharto's New Order era. One area in which producers have broken these norms is in the field of religious imagery, and the adaptation of religiously-themed narratives and tropes. This article – based on a long-term ethnographic study of television producers in Indonesia and the social institutions that influence them – explores the strategies and goals behind the industry's handling of the imagined religious audience. It asserts that the tension of appeasing cultural conservatives has been redirected by the industry into content that appeals to the much larger demographic of moderate Muslims, through the adaptation of narrative conventions and stylistic forms that draw on an array of global media traditions. It examines new genres and conventions invoked by producers in their efforts to both placate and mobilize religious sentiment among Indonesia's culturally heterogeneous population, arguing that these practices promote a successful, commercial Islam that largely comports with neoliberal subjectivity.

In the conduct of prewar Japanese foreign relations, political associations (seiji kessha) – we might also call them pressure groups – exerted considerable political influence, particularly on Japan's relations with China and other Asian nations. One of the best known of these political associations is the Kokuryūkai (the “Amur Society,” also known as the “Black Dragon Society”), which was founded in 1901 and, in 1946, was banned as an ultranationalist association by the American occupation authorities. The Kokuryūkai was also identified as the center of an expansionist conspiracy to steer Japan towards war with the Western powers.

In the absence of detailed studies of the Kokuryūkai, this article aims to clarify the organization's political views and activities and to demonstrate its influence on Japanese foreign relations and involvement in East Asia in the early twentieth century. Drawing on primary sources such as the association's publications and its leaders' memoranda and letters, I show that the Kokuryūkai engaged in intensive networking activities and the accumulation of social capital involving not only Japanese but also Chinese and Korean politicians and diplomats. Nevertheless, I conclude that the association's influence on the origins of the Asia-Pacific War should not be overstated, since its activities reached a climax in the late 1910s and effectively ended with the death of founder Uchida Ryōhei in 1937.

From the 1870s to the 1940s, the construction of lineages among the Han settlers on the frontier between China's Yunnan province and Burma became significant. Through these lineages the construction of Han identity was also extended toward Burma along various transportation routes. In the continuing reformation of frontier society, gentry power, based on lineage corporations, expanded and performed a crucial role in the construction of a new style of border, as well as functioning as a leading force for ethnic competition by extending state power into the borderland. After the colonization of north Burma by the British in 1886, new economic opportunities attracted more Chinese merchants who built networks along transportation routes between cities in Burma and commercial centers in Yunnan, which also changed the social landscape of the frontier. The construction of lineages as a Han system not only overlapped with trade networks, but also provided sufficient economic and political resources to build a Han identity, which competed with other types of identity-polity systems – such as those of the Dai, the Lahu and the Wa – between the Mekong River and the Salween River.

Studies that examine the effects of decentralisation for social change or stasis have placed necessary attention on its institutional dynamics: the ways social institutions have transformed as a result of new governance regimes, or alternatively, how the existing institutional context and attendant power relations determine its actualisation. The second facet of the structure/agency dialectic is often overlooked however, that is, the actors themselves. This article seeks to overcome this lacuna by exploring the effects of citizens' engagement in practices associated with decentralised governance for individuals' understandings of self, society, and their relationship with the state. A comparison of two villages in Telangana, India, and Central Lombok, Indonesia reveals how differences in the distribution of welfare benefits have implications for the potential of such interactions to be sites of creative self-formation. Differences such as the regularity and ability to demand entitlements, preferential versus equal access to resources, and the levels at which citizens engage with the state, may be crucial for processes of subjectification, and by extension, social transformation.

The 1728 Musin Rebellion was a failed attempt by factional members to overthrow militarily King Yŏngjo's government. Between 1736 and 1837, six stelae, dedicated to loyal subjects who resisted the rebels, were erected in three different provinces. These stelae contain historical descriptions of the rebellion, its suppression, and the political aftermath. Previous research centred on one stele, represented as evidence of worsening discrimination against Kyŏngsang province elites. This article considers the six stelae in relation to the wider political context of 1728–1837 and analyses consistencies in the text, political connections, location, and the target audience. The stelae reveal complex political struggles in post-rebellion Chosŏn, including a struggle for court recognition by loyalists in areas of rebel strength. Most significantly, the stelae reveal a struggle amongst the victors of the rebellion. The authors attempted to set the record straight over the loyalty of their officials – especially those who had been involved in some form of controversy during the Musin Rebellion – thereby proving their loyalty to Yŏngjo and their right to administer government. To show they were trustworthy court officials, moderate Disciple's faction supporters were also distancing themselves from Disciple's faction extremists that had led the Musin Rebellion.

Through an examination of issues arising from mahjong playing, this article explores changes in daily life and popular culture at the turn of the twenty-first century and argues that these changes reflect political, economic, social, and cultural transformations, in which conflicts between individual rights and collective interests have become increasingly prominent. This study discusses issues relating to mahjong from stories at four different levels: individual, community, the city, and the nation, which, respectively, look at conflicts among neighbors, examine the role of the Residential Committee in the neighborhood, observe the responses of the municipal government and official media to the city's image, and reveal the dilemma when the socialist state confronts mahjong issues. From the specific issues arising from mahjong, we can see how the new culture of the market economy in today's China coexists with elements from a more traditional lifestyle.

During the late 1930s and early 1940s Japanese researchers carried out a large and well-funded study of customary law in rural North China. The results of that research, published in the 1950s, have been one of the major sources for theories about prewar Chinese rural society. In the last twenty years Japanese and Chinese researchers have undertaken follow-up studies of the same villages. This review article introduces Chinese and Japanese follow-up studies on the kankō chōsa villages, the new materials and approaches they have used, and their contributions to on-going debates about Chinese rural society and social change.