Salary: Approx. £10 per hour (plus holiday pay)

Location: Residence in Nottingham is not required

Hours: 10-15 hours per month

About

The Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies is seeking applications for four paid internships to work with the Editor of the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies’ soon-to-be-launched new blog platform – IAPS Dialogue – Professor Katharine Adeney. In the first instance the positions will be for 6 months and will be renewable by mutual consent (up to a maximum of 18 months).

The interns will work closely with Professor Adeney on administrative and other matters relating to the blog and associated social media. Tasks will include identifying topics to cover on the blog, liaising with scholars and practitioners working on Asia to write blogs on these topics, particularly covering the countries in South and South East Asia, editing the blog posts, promoting the blog material on social media.

The internship will be managed by Professor Adeney, who will provide training and supervision throughout. The internship will provide experience of working in an academic environment, external engagement and academic network building. The position will be most suitable for PhD students working on South and South East Asia. The successful applicants will have specialist knowledge about the contemporary affairs of at least one South or South East Asian country.

Person specification

• Graduate degree (in hand or in prospect) in Asian studies
• An academic training in the contemporary affairs of least one country in South or South East Asia.
• Excellent communication skills in English
• Excellent editorial and proof reading skills
• A professional and responsible attitude
• Good attention to detail and strong organisational skills
• Ability to work independently (after receiving guidance)
• Experience of using WordPress, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram an advantage

How to apply

All applicants must have the right to work in the UK.

Please submit a CV (2 pages maximum) and a one page cover letter (addressing each point in the person specification) to katharine.adeney@nottingham.ac.uk with the subject line Intern Application. Any queries about the role should be addressed to Professor Adeney. More information about IAPS can be found at www.nottingham.ac.uk/iaps

Closing date: Friday 9 December, 4pm (UK time).

We will only notify those candidates who are shortlisted. Unfortunately, we are not able to give feedback to candidates not shortlisted.

Image: Pixabay

The post IAPS Blog Assistant Paid Internships appeared first on Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies.

Written by Carole Spary.

I recently had the privilege of participating in a conference on ‘Inclusive Governance in South Asia’ in Bangladesh on 8-9 May in the capital Dhaka. The conference was organised by Professor Nizam U. Ahmed, Chief Co-ordinator of the Public Administration and Governance Research Network and Professor at the Department of Public Administration of the University of Chittagong, in collaboration with colleagues at the Universities of Chittagong (Dr Amir Mohammad Nasrullah) and Dhaka (Dr Sadik Hasan). The conference was sponsored by The Asia Foundation, Southern University (Bangladesh), as well as the Universities of Dhaka and Chittagong. My local hospitality was generously provided by the conference organisers, and my international travel was kindly funded by the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies as well as the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham.

Several delegates came from elsewhere in South Asia, including India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, as well as other parts of Bangladesh. Participants included Dr Subhash Kashyap, former Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha (lower house) of the parliament of India, scholars from Universities of Delhi and Mangalore; parliamentary secretariat officers and scholars from Nepal; and scholars from Sri Lanka including Professor IMK Liyanage from the University of Peradeniya, among others. Scholars from further abroad came from Turkey, US, UK, and Canada. Several international agency representatives attended and participated in the conference, including from The Asia Foundation, the British Council, and UNDP. In addition to the convenors, several scholars from Bangladesh led and participated in the sessions, including members of the Bangladesh civil service and journalists. Two panels were chaired by Bangladesh Members of Parliament.

The conference keynote was given by Professor Ahmed Shafiqul Huque (McMaster University, Canada) on the topic of governance. He offered a critical assessment of the concept of governance, discussed its slipperiness, as well as issues related to the conference theme of inclusive governance. I was pleased to see that panels on the topic of women in parliament, women in local government, and women in the civil service in South Asia formed a prominent theme of the conference.

I had been invited to present a paper on my research on women MPs in the Indian parliament. Our panel was the first of the conference after the more formal opening ceremony and we had papers on the same theme but covering different parliaments – Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The panel was chaired by a female MP from Bangladesh who provided some interesting insights into her own political experience. Nusrat Chowdhury, a scholar from Bangladesh kicked off the panel with her impressive presentation on women MPs in the Bangladesh parliament. As I was listening, it became clearer how, despite different contexts, women in electoral politics in the two South Asian nations face similar challenges within parliamentary institutions. The parallels with India were clear, even if women’s routes to elected office in Bangladesh were slightly different because of gender quotas in the national parliament. India has not yet managed to pass proposed legislation on a similar national quota or ‘reservation’, despite repeated high profile and sometimes controversial debates for many years, and especially since the mid-1990s.

It was then my turn to present my paper and I focused on gender norms in parliamentary debates and committees in India. My findings drew on several years of research on the Indian parliament, formerly as part of the Leverhulme Trust-funded Gendered Ceremony and Rituals in Parliament project led by Professor Shirin Rai at the University of Warwick, but most recently work funded by a British Academy Small Grant on women parliamentarians in India. Professor Kamala Liyanage (University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka) presented interesting insights into women’s participation in electoral politics in Sri Lanka. Given the very low numbers of women in the Sri Lankan parliament, she noted how hard it was to provide comparisons, and instead found it more instructive to discuss the barriers women face in electoral politics in Sri Lanka. Finally, the last presenter offered insights into women in electoral politics in Nepal. We carried on the conversations after the panel, and heard other scholars presenting their work in the related panels on women in governing institutions.

Other panels at the conference gave a good flavour of research on other aspects of governance in South Asia. Conference organiser Prof Nizam Ahmed (Chittagong) and Prof Zahir Ahmed (Jahangirnagr) along with Ruth Fox (Hansard Society, UK) presented some preliminary research findings from their multi-country project on MPs and public engagement. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the fruits of the ethnographic approach to analysing the work of MPs’ as many of the themes resonated with our own methodology on the performance of representation. Another lively panel on Election Management in South Asia discussed questions that any scholar of democratisation processes would be keenly interested in.

Throughout the conference the hospitality was superb – we were all very much taken care of, including one overseas participant who was really looking forward to reputed Bengali fish! A few of us visiting from overseas were treated to a tour of the national parliament, a meeting with the Deputy Speaker, and an awe-inspiring step inside the parliament chamber. I was interested to note the large screens inside the chamber, which were also a recent addition to the chambers of the national parliament of India, and allowed MPs to see the broadcast of proceedings – themselves and others – whilst sat in the chamber. The architecture of the building was striking, and the green landscapes and lake bordering the building were vast, lush and grand. They stood in contrast to the busy streets bustling with vegetable sellers, couriers and rickshaw pullers, juxtaposed with tall ultra-modern office buildings and shopping malls. I was keen to see something of the country’s garment manufacturing industry and hear local perspectives, but as time was short, my exposure was limited to the retail side for the domestic market only, and I spoke to several local conference participants about the state of the industry and any developments in workers’ rights since the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013.

Apart from the outstanding hospitality, the conference was commendable for the encouragement it gave to younger scholars, postgraduate and early career, from Bangladesh and abroad, some of whom were presenting research at an international conference for the first time. This was a good sign that both scholars and scholarship on the topic of inclusive governance in South Asia is being nurtured. When international participants were invited to make comments during the closing ceremony, I strongly encouraged the conference organisers to continue this worthwhile regional collaboration. For me, comparisons always prompt questions that non-comparative analyses might take for granted or that may not occur to the researcher to ask, deepening our understanding of individual institutions and the importance of context as well as commonalities among institutions. For a first trip to Bangladesh, it was a memorable one. I left Dhaka looking forward to returning again, and excited about continuing conversations from afar with new friends and colleagues.

Dr Carole Spary is an Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies at the University of Nottingham. Image credit: Author’s own.

The post Conferencing in Dhaka appeared first on Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies.

We are delighted to announce that recent School of Politics and International Relations graduate Zoe Kemp is the winner of the Tomlinson 2015/16 BA dissertation prize for the best dissertation on Asia. Congratulations Zoe! The award will be presented at the Tomlinson 2016/17 Annual Lecture. Below we have reproduced with permission a blog post written by Zoe where she summarises her dissertation.

Neoliberalism has faced intense scrutiny over the years from Trade Unionists and Marxists alike for its exploitation of workers and insistence of an economic ‘trickle down’ effect that has yet to materialise. When you look closer, however, another troubling aspect of this industry emerges. Again and again, it seems to be women who are left behind by this system. In many countries in the global South, women are drawn into employment in the lowest paid and most undervalued work in the global economy at the end of Global Commodity Chains in the manufacturing, fresh produce and garment industries.

This information alone is extremely troubling, as is the fact that the experiences of these women are repeatedly ignored and undervalued. Not only this, but these experiences, once listened to, are crucial in forming a full image of neoliberal globalisation from the people who are most affected by it. The ‘feminist standpoint’ approach to understanding neoliberal globalisation therefore acknowledges that we must start from the knowledge of the most unprivileged social groups in order to uncover the truth, and that this claim tends to be strongest where these experiences intersect, particularly strong amongst poor women in the global South, disadvantaged by their gender, geographical location, class and often their race. Looking at neoliberal globalisation from the standpoint of these women, therefore, reveals a dark insight into the extent of neoliberalism’s exploitative tendencies, and the ways in which neoliberal globalisation is interlinked with gender inequalities (Mohanty 2003: 144).

Super-exploitation of women in the garment industry

Nowhere is this more evident than in the garment industry of Bangladesh, an industry cited by many as demonstrative of the “success” of neoliberalism through its fast growth and increased employment opportunities for women (Rhee 1990: 333). Today, the garment industry in Bangladesh is enormous, accounting for 80% of the country’s total exports and employing over three million people, 85% of which are women (Alam et al 2011: 2). Initially, it would seem that this is a good thing, especially considering the number of initiatives in the UK and elsewhere to increase the number of women in the workplace. And it is true that to an extent, the opportunity for employment has brought many women in Bangladesh a degree of economic independence and personal empowerment not otherwise available. Nevertheless, through actually listening to these women, it soon becomes clear that the benefits that many women experience through these jobs are being offset by intense exploitation and the denial of the full fruits of their labour.

This exploitation presents itself in multiple ways. To start with, the majority of women work without a contract, and for those with a contract, they are usually short-term or temporary (Oxfam 2004: 5). Women workers are seen as expendable by their employers; easily replaced by a cohort of women ‘desperate’ for work no matter how insecure it may be. Not only is this exploitative in its own right, but it also severely limits women’s abilities to fight harassment or campaign for better conditions in the workplace out of fear that any protest will lead to their losing their job.

Women’s abilities to negotiate for higher wages is also extremely limited, and most are paid far below what Bangladeshi trade unionists calculate to be a ‘living wage’, with the minimum wage in 2010 being the equivalent of a meagre £25 a month, compared to the £42 living wage advocated by trade unionists (Alam et al 2011: 4). To add to this, many workers are under immense pressure to work long hours and frequent overtime, for which they are regularly underpaid, with one women describing how she and others work until 9 or 10pm most evenings, and sometimes until 3 or 6 in the morning to meet deadlines, while still being expected to be back at work by 8am to start the next day’s work (Akhter, cited in Fairclough 2013). At work, conditions are often substandard, with factories described as overcrowded, poorly ventilated and with atrocious health and safety standards, exemplified by the disastrous collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka in 2013 which killed over 1,100 of the 5000 mostly female workers who worked in the garment factories inside. The majority of women workers have faced some form of violence or harassment at work, with many describing how this treatment has often come to be used as a tactic against them to prevent trade union organisation (Hurley 2005: 126). This is enabled by the fact that women are concentrated in the lowest paid rungs of garment production, while it is men who make up the majority of the ownership, management and administration roles, and who therefore continue to benefit at the expense of women workers.

Neo-liberalism and the super-exploitation of women

So what is it about the neoliberal structure of global production that has led to these effects? In short, it comes down to the very nature of neoliberalism as an economic model. As a system that prioritises the free market and overall economic growth, the power of global brands and multinational retailers has been hugely strengthened, as they are now able to potentially source their productions from a wide selection of countries and producers. Thus, they push costs and risks down the supply chain as factories are forced to accept lower prices for their labour as a result of the increased competition. Retailers and factory owners are therefore compelled to employ a labour-force for the lowest wages and highest productivity levels that they possibly can in order to maximise their own profits.

From the global North to the global South, women are still seen as holding a secondary status in the labour market thanks to the male breadwinner/female homemaker definition of gender that has tended to dominate traditional gender roles. Women are therefore almost automatically thought to require less income than men as well as less stable work, as anything that they earn is regarded as extra support, especially in patrilineal societies such as Bangladesh, where women are expected to be economically dependent on men. It is this that is exploited by multinational employers in their assumption that they can keep wages low, productivity high and factory conditions poor by employing women rather than men. Job opportunities for women in countries such as Bangladesh are often extremely limited. This combined with an often urgent need for income can force many women to accept work in the garment industry or other manufacturing sectors in less than acceptable conditions.

Neoliberalism and the patriarchy are inexplicably linked, with neoliberalism guilty of incorporating and reinforcing the social inequalities faced by women in their daily lives in order to further exploit them as a workforce. The cycle becomes self-fulfilling, perpetuated by neoliberal dimensions, whereby women are thought of as requiring lower pay than men, global supply chains setting wages accordingly, and women therefore having no better options than to accept these conditions. Consequently, neoliberal policies and practices have a considerable, and harmful, effect on the lives of women in developing countries. Whilst these inequalities may originate elsewhere, the demand for cheap labour created by neoliberal globalisation takes advantage of these social dimensions and creates an environment where these inequalities are not challenged, but are instead recreated and reinforced in multinational factories (Lim 2003: 227).

So yes, there are more women in work in the global South thanks to neoliberal globalisation than before, but at what price? Under neoliberal globalisation, overall profit is the benchmark for success while the experiences of workers, particularly women, are considered of lesser importance, and exploitation is consequently justified so long as it generates economic growth for the men who own the means of production. Transnational corporations and local producers are able to maximise their own profits and competitiveness by pushing the costs onto their female workforces, taking advantage of their vulnerable positions in society and limiting their ability to challenge exploitation.

We cannot continue to ignore the voices and experiences of women in the global South. A neoliberal model that does not sufficiently value the lives and interests of its most vulnerable groups is not sustainable, despite the benefits that it may bring to those at the top of the chain. The international community needs to listen to these women, and make the changes that will help them, not hurt them.

Zoe’s article was originally published on Professor Andreas Bieler’s blog here. Image credit: Wikipedia Commons.

The post Neoliberalism’s Exploitation of Women Workers: the true price of our clothing appeared first on Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies.

Written by Esther Bott.

Thanks to generous IAPS seed-corn funding, my study leave got off to a brilliant start in February with a successful research trip to Sapa in northern Vietnam. The purpose of the trip was to generate pilot data on ethnic tourism, a niche market that is growing rapidly in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia. Much of my research to date has been concerned with the racialisation of local people in tourism advertising, and this current project is interested in how racialised representations, or ‘tropes’ of ethnicity and indigeneity are being drawn upon by tourists.

Ethnic tourism, also sometimes called ‘tribal’ tourism, involves remote villages being visited by coach parties of tourists who are encouraged to photograph ‘tribal’ people, purchase ‘traditional’ artefacts and ‘collect memories’. The underlying principal of ethnic tourism, which is to seek out and gaze upon ‘Othered’ peoples, is not new; there are strong colonial echoes when organised ethnic tours in former colonies in the developing world are marketed though heavily Orientalist reproductions of the Global South. Global and domestic tour agents are beginning to capitalise on tourists’ desire to visit ever more remote areas in search of ‘authentic’ experiences and adventures, and this often involves gazing upon indigenous peoples. Such ‘tourism of difference’ is growing in developing countries in Asia, South America and Africa, but Vietnam is especially interesting, and potentially vulnerable, because it is developing its tourism industry in the aftermath of a deeply embedded post-colonial war, whose violence and suffering are themselves now commodified for tourism. Vietnam’s tourism grows in a context of orientalist commodification of cultures, history and the performative presence of ‘Others’. There are unexplored layers of complexity to the cosmopolitan idea of what John Urry (1997) has called a ‘right to tour’, because not only does such cosmopolitanism exclude those outside of its economic advantages, but indeed relies upon that exclusion for its commodifying power. Its destroyed post-war infrastructure, poisoned natural environments, severe displacement and extreme poverty make Vietnam and neighbouring countries especially vulnerable to laissez-faire, neo-liberal development policies (or lack of), and this research is concerned with the implications of that fact for indigenous people, whose indigeneity is being understood and reproduced as being outside of ‘time’ and who are therefore potentially denied access to benefits of tourism development. Tropes of primitivism, backwardness and difference prevail in the depictions of indigenous people in ethnic tourism promotion.

It is argued that these representations are carried through into embodied trips to ‘faraway’ lands and, in many contexts in the developing world, tourists’ discourses, behaviour, consumption, photography and so on reinforce a narrative mastery in which tourists ‘fix meaning, encapsulate and control the other, to stop motion and time, to exert power’ (Bruner 2005:195), meaning that tourists are able to ‘bring back a disembodied, decontextualized, sanitized, hypothetical Other, one they can possess and control through the stories they tell about how the souvenirs were purchased and the photographs taken’ (Bruner 2005:194). These arguments are persuasive yet remain theoretical; no research exists to date that traces narratives of desire from conceptualisation through to embodied travel and considerations of the future of the communities.

This research examines the ways that minority ethnic groups are represented in ethnic tourism promotional material and how those tropes are drawn upon by tourists before, during and after actual tours. Therefore it explores the impact of the imagery and words used to describe and position indigenous people, highlighting the powers of discourse and the urgent need for its monitoring and guidance in this emergent context. The project asks:

• How are culture and history commodified in tourism to Vietnam?
• How do these notions shape the expectations and conceptions of tourists? Do tourists seek out versions of ethnicity to which they have been exposed in marketing material? How and why do they do this?
• How are indigenous people, ‘captured’ and consumed by tourists and what does this imply for their welfare and rights?

The IAPS-funded study has been very revealing and is being worked into a journal article and large ESRC funding bid. Findings suggest that ethnic tourism has had a marginalising effect on minority ethnic groups, who are becoming excluded from the market for behaviour that is not deemed ‘authentic’ (e.g. using mobile telephones and other technological devices, smoking cigarettes, ‘hard – selling’ goods and so on). I conducted ten qualitative interviews with tourists on ‘ethnic tours’ and collected/recorded photographs, souvenirs and other mementos. This pilot data shows that tourists are drawing on a narrow range of ethnic/racial tropes throughout their participation in ethnic tourism and are carrying forward their pre-conceptions into tourism environments. The data suggest that the ways in which ethnicity is packaged for tourists and the ways that tourists ‘authenticate’ ethnicity shapes their desires, which then shape their behaviour and interactions with locals. The impacts of ethnic tourism on Sapa are considerable and troubling, with the whims and desires of tourists steering tourism organisation, including the surveillance and controlling of ethnic minority groups in and around the town. The study illustrates the need for further examination of the market for ‘Otherness’ in a broader geographical context in Southeast Asia, and for policy recommendations and outreach to the full scope of public, private and third sector stakeholders in the ethnic tourism industry.

Dr Esther Bott is a Lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham. Image credit: Author’s own.

The post Ethnic tourism in Vietnam appeared first on Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies.

Written by Jing Cheng.

A much-anticipated ruling on the South China Sea dispute initiated against China by the Philippines finally came down – and unsurprisingly, the Hague-based international tribunal that judged it ruled in favour of the Philippines, rejecting China’s claims of historical rights to the sea’s resources.

The Philippines welcomed the ruling, and celebrated it as a devastating legal blow to China’s claims in the contested waters. Filipinos coined a new word, “Chexit”, inspired by the term Brexit, to symbolise that China is out of the South China Sea.

The reaction from China was furious. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediatelydeclaredthat “the award is null and has no binding force”, and that China “neither accepts nor recognises it”. Xinhua, the state news agency, said the tribunal was “law-abusing” and its award “ill-founded”. Meanwhile Beijing released a white paper reiterating its claims to the South China Sea and adhering to the position that the dispute should be settled through negotiations.

Chinese internet users overwhelmingly expressed their patriotic sentiments and support for the government claim. On Sina Weibo, China’s hugely popular social sharing site, state newspaper People’s Daily said “there is no need for others to rule on China’s territorial and maritime rights”, with an image and slogan stating, “China: we can’t lose even one single dot”.

Within a few hours, this message had attracted more than 1m retweets and hundreds of thousands of supporters among Weibo users. Its hashtag has totted up more than 3.7 billion shares.

In the global media, by contrast, China has been widely accused of disregarding international law and needlessly heating up the dispute in the region.

In what still thankfully remains a war of words, at least for now, it may be worth looking into the reasons why China rejects the authority of international arbitration in the first place.

China says no

Right after the Philippines appealed to the court in 2013, Beijing stated that it would not participate in the tribunal proceedings because the Philippines had no legal grounds to unilaterally initiate compulsory arbitration. And in December 2014, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an official position paper stating that it would neither recognise nor participate in the arbitration.

Its argument was that the UN Convention on the Law of Sea cannot be used to decide issues of sovereignty in the South China Sea. It also pointed to an official declaration of optional exception that China made in 2006, which stated that China accepted no compulsory settlement procedures provided by the convention on territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation.

Beijing takes the position that the South China Sea dispute should be resolved firstly by negotiations among the countries involved before any international arbitration takes place. Under the UN convention, compulsory arbitration can only be sought after other procedures, including bilateral negotiations, have been exhausted – something China does not believe has happened yet.

China is under severe criticism for its position. The US in particular has long urged China to respect international law; back in December 2014, the US State Department released a report subjecting China’s claims to legal scrutiny. And since 2015, in the name of “freedom of navigation exercises”, the US Navy has deployed more and more military patrol warships near the contested waters, despite the fact that it is not a party to the territorial claims in the disputed waters.

From the perspective of hawkish US politicians, China has a choice. As senior members of the Senate Armed Services committee put it: “China can choose to be guided by international law, institutions, and norms. Or it can choose to reject them and pursue the path of intimidation and coercion”.

Nonetheless, confronted by all these criticisms and warnings, the Chinese government has vowed to take all necessary measures to defend its territorial claims. Prior to the ruling, when presenting at the China-US dialogue on the South China Sea, Dai Bingguo, a former state councillor, made the remark that the ruling is “nothing but a piece of paper”, and China would not be intimidated even if the US sent ten aircraft carriers to the disputed waters.

In China, the US has been widely regarded as the principal supporter of the arbitration case, since Washington sees the South China Sea issue as a critical part of its much-vaunted “pivot to Asia. Scholars in China pointed out the West’s double standards, raising the cases of the UK-controlled Chagos Islands and a case involving the US in Nicaragua.

Liu Haiyang, a researcher at the South China Sea Research Centre at Nanjing University, claimed that the US had been deliberately muddling the concepts governing the debate in an international media campaign. He regards the arbitration as “American political trickery” in the name of law. In a recent article about the UK’s Chilcot Report on the Iraq War he even made a reference to what was happening in Asia-Pacific, implicating the US as a troublemaker in the region.

What now?

This year, the contested waters have seen an uptick in US military activities, and just the day before the ruling came down, China had just finished a week-long military drill. This was unsettling enough in itself, but the situation post-ruling will be even more worrying.

As China continues its rise towards superpower status, it’s only becoming more assertive in defending its core interests and more confrontational in its foreign relations. As Beijing sees it, the South China Sea is a crucial arena for defending core national interests, including state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security – all crucial to the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic political legitimacy.

This leaves it little room to back down, and as a result, naval and military forces of all kinds are rapidly convening in a hotly contested area. And while a full-blown conflict may not be imminent, this is not something to be complacent about.

So what’s to be done? Paul Gewirtz, the director of Yale Law School’s China Centre, has looked into the limits of law in the South China Sea. He argued that although a rules-based and law-based approach is an admirable aspiration, it cannot solve the dangerous problem in the region. He suggested that the most realistic path forward would be bilateral and multilateral negotiations.

The dangers in the South China Sea must not be underestimated, and misconceptions and misjudgements still abound. This latest case may be over, but the dispute at its core is far from settled.

Jing Cheng is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. This article was first published on The Conversation and can be found here. Image credit: Screencap/Youtube.

The post Why China won’t back off the South China Sea – whatever the world might say appeared first on Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies.

Written by Carlotta Panchetti.

I let two weeks pass before putting some thoughts on (digital) paper to elaborate on my 3 weeks in Myanmar. Due to the country’s size (it is in fact the fourth biggest country in the world) and the difficulties in transportation, I only had the chance to scratch its surface, spending most of my time in between the pastel tone colonial alleys of Yangon and the North-Eastern hills of the Shan state. This is pretty much the standard path of the tourists who venture to Myanmar and the path the government wants you to follow in order to see only one face of the country: the smiley Buddhist Burmese one.

Having read and researched about the country’s history, politics and customs for the past few months I landed in Yangon with a backpack full of pre-conceptions and confused ideas. Yangon is the sprawling capital in which an attentive eye can catch the not so surprising concentration of Muslims and Hindus shops, small businesses and eateries in a small area made up of a few streets in the heart of downtown where these two communities (seemingly) coexist pacifically.

Similarly, in Mandalay, the Buddhist centre of the country and starting point of the 969 movement, a Buddhist extremist organization led by the prominent monk U-Wirathu, I was not surprised to hear, whilst chatting with a Burmese English teacher, that ‘yes, there are some good Muslims but mainly, Muslims are illegal Bangladeshi migrants (in reference to the Rohingya community), present in the country in order to marry our women and take over’.

However, what struck me the most and represented the most fascinating part of my trip was the Northern area of the Shan state, a region only recently open to tourism and, even more recently, temporarily banned for a resurgence in fights against the plethora of local militias. The sense of Shan identity is clear from the Shan state flags waving on every house, to the numerous T-shirts invoking a Shan independent state, through the regional food varieties and the exclusive use of the Shan language in its numerous variants.

Whilst trekking in the countryside north of Hispaw, my local guide taught me how to say ‘Hi’ and ‘thank you’ in three different dialects as, on my two-day hike, I was passing different villages with different variants of Shan language. That he also advised me not to great locals with a cheerful ‘Mingalabar’, the Burmese form for ‘Hi,’ is quite an understatement. Once we reached Pankam, a typical Palaung village, the atmosphere was surreal. The village was the base of the Southern Shan State Army (which was occupying the local school). Whilst foreign tourism is now allowed after a temporary ban, the village is pretty much deserted all day long, with only soldiers (most of them child soldiers) walking around heavily armed.

This contradiction is worsened by the fact that the SSSA is fighting a local militia, in a sort of tacit agreement with the villagers: the army is allowed to stay in the village whilst fighting in some defined areas, not targeting the civilian population. The conflict is related to economic reasons more than ideological ones at this stage. Due to the language barrier and the climate of forced coexistence between villagers and soldiers, talking with locals about this situation as well as with army members was challenging even though on the villagers’ side, answers were pretty much the same: a sense of resignation to the army’s presence whilst being positive over the assurance that civilians will not be targeted.

One of the last stops of my trip was the recently built capital of Naypyidaw; in 2006, the capital of Myanmar was moved from Yangon to this ghost town with deserted six-lane highways in the middle of a dusty and hot plain resulting in a capital that is empty and dotted with ‘Communist style’ monuments.

Overall, Myanmar confirmed many of my expectations whilst surprising me with other points of view. While I was excepting a general reluctance in people’s willingness to talk or speak out about certain topics, mainly the very contested ones of the inclusion of Muslim communities in the process of democratization or the inability of Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD government to take a position on the ethnic minorities issue, I was surprised by the extreme fragmentation of the society and the marked sense of identity in minority communities. Most of the people I met did not identify themselves as Myanmar(ese) – if this term will ever come into existence – but rather as Shan, Chin, Kachin, Bamar and so on. This is not surprising if one looks at an Identity card released by the government in which religion and ethnicity are stated in order to formally categorize and classify the entire population.

Whilst ethnicity prevails in every single aspect of Myanmar’s society and four decades of isolationism, military rule and ‘demonization’ of ethnic minorities still permeate daily life, it will take more than one generation and a re-organization of the state at an institutional level with further devolution of power and a re-consideration of the education system in order to integrate ethnic minorities and create a sense of national identity.

Carlotta Panchetti is studying on the Asian and International Studies MA programme in 2015/16.

The post Impressions of Identity in Myanmar appeared first on Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies.

Written by Griseldis Kirsch.

“Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed. No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated.” (Article 21, Constitution of Japan)

In spite of this clear embracement of Freedom of Press, Japanese politicians, most notably of the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP for short) have long been engaged in fights to maintain control over the media. How is this even possible in a country that has a democratic constitution in which all human rights are enshrined?

Looking back at the history of the mass media in Japan, censorship was a common practice before 1945. State-controlled censors made sure that the news that were put on the air, or printed, were in line with government policy. This, naturally, worsened during the Asia-Pacific-War (1937-1945), as Japanese failures had to be disguised as successes. During the Occupation (1945-1952), a democratic Constitution was drafted, yet ‘tradition’, or customary right, continued to co-exist alongside. The press clubs, kisha kurabu in Japanese, is one such example. Founded in the late 19^th century, they are informal gatherings between authorities and media, accessible only by invitation. Generally, all media outlets would have access to the important press clubs, and they have become the most important means of passing on information. As a result, newspaper headlines in Japan, at least of the big national newspapers, are fairly similar, and articles tend to be descriptive rather than analytical – as they all share the same source of information.

While it is debatable that the press clubs themselves are a form of direct censorship, after all, it would be possible to spill the beans on the politicians based on the information acquired during these meetings, few journalists would bite the hand that feeds them, however sparsely, with the information they need to fill their columns. It thus at the very least encourages self-censorship, too controversial issues would not be reported if it endangers the relationship between the informant and the journalist. In addition to that, the Japanese Broadcasting Law spells out in its Article 4 that controversial topics must be covered from as many angles as possible – yet there is no independent watchdog that could ensure the coverage is truly unbiased and the control over broadcasting lies with the Ministry of the Internal Affairs and Telecommunications. Investigative journalism thus is a rare occurrence.

Consequently, although the Constitution guarantees Freedom of Press, mechanisms for media control are in place. The ruling LDP previously made use of those in 1993, after losing the general election. One television station, TV Asahi (which is affiliated with the left-wing newspaper Asahi Shimbun), had crossed the invisible line. Two commentators had asked viewers on air to stop voting for the LDP as they were suffering under previous corruption scandals. While these calls could have been put down as Freedom of Speech, the editor-in-chief of the news desk of TV Asahi admitted that these actions had had company backing. When he made those statements, the LDP had been voted out of office, but, crucially, the new government had not yet been formed. As a result, TV Asahi was accused of a violation of the broadcasting law and nearly lost its broadcasting licence.

It is this particular background that has to be kept in mind when looking at recent events in Japan. Ever since the Triple Disaster in March 2011, and more precisely, the nuclear disaster in the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant, which happened under a government headed by the Democratic Party of Japan, it became evident that Freedom of Press may be enshrined in the Constitution, but that there is room for manoeuvre. Given the sensitivity of the topic, the glass walls and ceilings that engulf journalism in Japan became visible. The annual self-assessment of journalists in the Freedom of Press Index compiled by Reporters without Borders shows a steep drop for Japan, particularly since 2010. In 2009, Japan ranked 17, while in 2013 it was down to 53 and 2016, it was at 72. And, in April 2016, the UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye warned Japan about its freedom of press, particularly targeting the press club system as it hindered free journalism.

What else has happened that led to such an open criticism? Particularly considering that Japan aims to come across as ‘cool’ in its cultural productions? In 2012, the LDP came back into power and while reporting on Fukushima had already been difficult, the years 2013/14 gave first indication of a sea change in the relationship of the LDP with the media. The State Secrecy Law of 2014 was the first sign of the direction in which Japan is heading. Under this Act, state secrets must not be reported in the media, threatening journalists with jail if they do. As it is unclear what is designated as state secret, journalists are put at hazard. In the same year, the chairman of the public broadcasting station NHK also changed. Yet this position is nominated by the prime minister, and the current holder of the post is a close friend of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s – Momii Katsuto, who has made headlines by saying things like “the media should never be too far away from the government.”

But the crackdown was not limited to laws and the public broadcaster, it also extended into the world of private media coverage, and the left-wing Asahi Shimbun became the next target. Exemplary of this is the case of the former journalist Uemura Takashi, who was the first to report about comfort women (women held as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII). It was claimed that he, and thus the paper he had worked for, the Asahi Shimbun were ‘fabricating’ the claims on the former comfort women. But this was not all, journalists from foreign countries report being asked by Japanese government officials to change the tone of their articles, if they are too critical.

Reporting on controversial issues thus becomes dangerous, so many choose not to run stories in the first place. The 2015 protests against the plans of the Abe administration to enact a bill about ‘collective self-defence’ which effectively hollows out the much revered Article 9 of the Constitution (the renouncement of war), was not widely reported in the main stream media – and if it was picked up, the reports were inaccurate, as I witnessed in July/August 2015 when the numbers were grossly downplayed. The latest in pursuit of the quest of directing public opinion is the simultaneous dismissal of three anchors from various channels in February 2016, including NHK and TV Asahi. Labelled as ‘time for a face change’, all three of them were known to be tough interviewers, and critical of the government.

With all mechanisms legally in place, it is easy to exercise control. However, a deep rift between population and government has opened up in Japan, and the traditional media, forced to toe the government line, have fallen into that rift. Yet while the Abe administration keeps on clamping down on Freedom of Press by making use of the press clubs and the broadcasting law, people turn towards the internet, more notably social media. This results in a more active civil society, strengthened by the agency over collecting and disseminating information in an otherwise tightly controlled media landscape.

Griseldis Kirsch is a Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Culture at SOAS University, London. Image credit: CC by Mike George/Flickr.

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Written by Basanta E. P. Thapa.

The Philippines’ democracy is an unfinished project. The country’s strong civil society, which is usually considered a driving force of democratisation, has become a keeper of the status quo. A close look at three local chambers of commerce and industry and how they interact with their local governments makes plain why the current system is at a deadlock.

Rodrigo Duterte, the newly elected president of the Philippines, successfully ran on an anti-establishment platform against the political dynasties, which gained influence based on their land ownership during US-American colonial rule, and clung to economic and political power throughout Japanese occupation, independence, and the Marcos regime of the 1980s. Even after the People’s Power Revolution toppled Marcos in 1986, the formally democratic political structures still serve as an arena where these families vie for power.

This is baffling, since the country possesses a full set of formal democratic institutions, its citizens are enthusiastic about politics, and civil society is vibrant. Conventional wisdom in political science holds that a strong civil society drives democratisation, and Philippine civil society played a key role in the 1986 revolution and saw its positions strengthened in the post-1986 political order. Nonetheless, the Philippines seem to be stuck in a clientelistic “halfway house” democracy.

How is civil society supposed to contribute to rendering democracy “the only game in town”? Classically, civil society is thought to act as a “school of democracy”, where citizens gain experience with democratic decision-making. Civil society also serves as a watchdog that holds government accountable. Functioning as an intermediary between government and citizens, civil society can, on the one hand, keep certain spheres of society from direct government intervention while at the same time enact state regulations in those spheres. Lastly, civil society organisations aggregate and articulate collective interests and feed them into the political arena.

Most of these functions assume a sufficient autonomy and the ability to stand up to government. Despite the key role Philippine civil society played in the 1986 revolution, observers like Howard Loewen argue that civil society in the Philippines has grown too close to government to fulfil their democracy-facilitating functions.

A closer look at three Philippine local chambers of commerce and industry sheds light on the push and pull factors that lead to this outcome. Chambers of commerce and industry (CCIs) may not be obvious representatives of civil society, but they make for an instructive case in the Philippines. As the “voice of business”, with a privileged access to government due to the Local Government Code of 1991, and at least some entanglement with the political-economic elite, chambers can choose from a wider range of political strategies than grassroots organisations, for example. As traditional interest groups, the way the chambers behave within the system of interest intermediation is more relevant to the deepening of democracy than the actions of protest-oriented groups. Therefore, the rationale and political strategies of CCIs are especially telling of the nexus of civil society and democracy in the Philippines.

The three chambers I present exemplify different political strategy, from highly confrontational to extremely cooperative. The three cases are typical chambers with around 100 members, all located in economically dynamic medium-sized cities in the Visayas and Northern Mindanao. Quotes are taken from interviews conducted in summer 2012.

Chamber I has a good working relationship with its local government and sits on several local special bodies. The chamber prefers to pursue its policies through official processes. “In special cases, maybe we can go to the mayor directly. But as much as possible we do it through formal process. So that you won’t feel that you are indebted to [the politicians]”, the chamber president says. However, close (family) ties facilitate matters: “The current mayor is close to my family [and has been] for three generations. These people running for political office, they are actually friends; families are close. […] I don’t just go [to official consultations] as chamber, but I also go there as my family. So they respect you.”

A wariness to antagonise the city’s competing political camp keeps the chamber from growing too close to the current government, evident, for example, from the chamber president’s refusal to run with the current mayor in the local elections. The possibility of political backlashes also explains why the chamber does not openly criticise the local government. The chamber president explains, “You don’t shout, you don’t do it on the radio, you don’t do it on the media”, because “If there were conflicts in the policies, the chamber people were so afraid to fight the mayors, because they can easily just close down the [business] establishment”, as the mayor observes.

Chamber II has a symbiotic relationship with its local government, based largely on close personal ties. The chamber president elaborates: “Because of the good relations we have retained over the years, it’s so easy to call the vice-mayor or the mayor: ‘Let’s have dinner, let’s talk. […] We have a problem with this, we have a problem with that. Can you take care of it?’” The chamber even encourages its members to run for city council on the ruling party’s ticket. This highly cooperative strategy is likewise motivated by a fear of the consequences of open confrontation. The chamber president argues that “You can’t fight City Hall; they’ll make your life miserable. […] Instead of fighting on committees, we resolve conflicts in backdoor negotiations.”

Chamber III exhibits the deadlock created by confrontations between chamber and city hall. This chamber is dominated by a family network rival to the one currently holding city council. Thus, the chamber’s political actions are seen in the light of family politics. “[Local government] says we are only complaining about the business climate because we are from the opposition”, as a chamber official puts it. The mayor doubts the chamber’s legitimacy: “How can you represent [businesses here] if your membership is only 100 out of 4,000?” As a result, chamber officials claim that only strategy at their disposal is public criticism: “What can we do? We go to the media. […] Where else can you go?” This, in turn, has hardened the fronts “because they criticize the mayor a lot. This is one of the reasons why the mayor is very cold as far as the chamber is concerned”, a local bureaucrat explains.

Being active in the chamber has already cost many of the officials: “To be identified with the chamber was dangerous to your business. Contracts would no longer be approved, and even your business licenses would no longer be released.” The chamber’s only hope now is a change in local government, and to hit it off with the new government on a more cooperative note.

Across all three cases, we see how dependent the chambers are on local government for political influence and their members’ economic well-being. The dominant strategy is to cultivate a close relationship with government without open criticism, for fear of retribution. The chambers thus achieve their political goals, but fail to fulfil most of their democracy-facilitating functions. Rather, they end up reproducing the established clientelistic system.

Therefore, to consolidate the Philippines’ democracy, it is not closer cooperation between civil society and government that is needed. Rather, they need to prove “civic restraint”, keeping a professional distance both in cooperation and confrontation, to overcome the current deadlock that holds Philippine democracy from deepening.

Basanta E. P. Thapa is a Doctoral Researcher at the at the University of Potsdam, Germany. This blog post is based on his article “An Ambivalent Civil Society in Democratic Consolidation – The Case of Local Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the Visayas and North Mindanao” published in ASIEN – The German Journal on Contemporary Asia. Image credit: Blumentritt Market in Manila by Thomas Moritz. 

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Written by Roland G. Simbulan

All ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons-Free ZoneTreaty (SEA-NWFZT) on 15 December1995 in Bangkok. The ‘Bangkok Treaty’, as it became known, entered into force on 28 March 1997.

The NWFZT is considered a model for regional de-nuclearization.  The treaty covers not just state territory but also Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and Continental Shelves. It prohibits the dumping or discharge of radioactive material or nuclear waste. This is why, predictably, even today, all five Nuclear Weapons States (NWS), Russia, the US, China, the UK and France, refuse to sign its Protocols. But are the states of Southeast Asia, genuinely Nuclear Weapons-Free today?

Despite its twenty years existence four provisions and issues in the Bangkok Treaty explain why the NWS have refused to sign the Protocols to the treaty:

1. Transit rights and port/airfield visits incorporated in compliance mediation.

2. Sovereignty of states over EEZs and continental shelves.

3. Negative Security Arrangements by NWS treaty protocols.

4. The issues above pertain to the exclusion of the military forces of NWS in regard to nuclear weapons and nuclear propulsion in the territories and waters defined by the Bangkok Treaty.

In many ways the NWFZT was inspired by the Philippines’ prohibition of nuclear weapons under the 1987 Constitution, drafted and ratified after the 1986 People PowerRevolution. At that time the only other country with a nuclear weapons-free provision in its Constitution was Palau. It was not a coincidence that on 12 December 1987, during an ASEAN meeting in Manila, that the ASEAN Declaration to establish the Southeast Asian NWFZ was first made. The first SEA-NWFZT Review Conference also took place in Manila in June 2007.

The 1987 constitutional ban on nuclear weapons had consequences for the sprawling US military bases in the Philippines, the largest naval and air force bases in the world at that time. On 16 September 1991 a Senate Resolution rejected the renewal of the treaty that would have extended the tenure of US military bases in the Philippines for at least another ten years. During the Philippine Senate’s ratification process, US officials insisted on their ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy with regards to the deployment and transit of nuclear weapons on their bases in the Philippines. Thus, the Philippine government assumed that the US kept and transited nuclear weapons in the Philippines, in violation of the Constitution.

This raises a question. If you are banning something from your territory, do you negotiate the terms with the potential violators or drug lords, or do you ban it outright with the enforceable laws in your territory?  This is comparable to the standard customs requirement to declare that you are not importing contraband, and with an option to inspect.

Should ASEAN states be informed of movement, within the region, of nuclear-armed and even nuclear-propelled vessels or fleets, whether they belong to the US China, France, UK, Russia, whenever such vessels enter ASEAN territorial waters and their EEZs in compliance with the NWFZT?  Or would the NWS always invoke ‘freedom of navigation’and preposterous unilateral claims such as the Chinese Nine Dash Line.

Can the ASEAN state parties require NWS, entering the nuclear weapons free zone, to certify that they are not carrying nuclear weapons?  If the possession of nuclear weapons is illegal in the ASEAN region, could the state and municipal laws of ASEAN be activated to ensure that the NWFZT is effectively enforced?  A visiting foreign traveler or tourist cannot declare that ‘I neither confirm nor deny’ that I am carrying narcotics or contraband material upon entering a foreign territory, including its territorial waters. Should a state be allowed to do this?

As expected, the strongest objections to the NWFZT’s Protocol under which the five NWS are asked to respect the treaty and not to violate it, have come from the US. The US Navy and US 7th Fleet is one of the most active users of the South China Sea, long treated by the US as part of its ‘American Lake’.  The global economic rise of China especially in the ASEAN region means that the US and China are jockeying for dominance of the South China Sea. However, long before China began its recent fantastic claims to sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, the US perceived the treaty as restricting, if not challenging, the unhampered operations in the region of the US Seventh Fleet.

The South China Sea is now a regional if not a global flashpoint as a result of China’s assertiveness in the area and the rebalancing of US military forces through its ‘Asian Pivot’.  Thus, can we blame the ASEAN countries for being concerned about the South China Sea when this is an active lake for the Russian, American, Chinese, British and French navies which have, according to the 2014 Federation of American Scientists, the largest nuclear arsenals in the world? Among NWS, only China has verbally committed to sign the Protocol but this has not happened yet; to this day no NWS has signed the Protocols of the Bangkok Treaty.

IN 1994, the Nuclear Free Philippines Coalition (NFPC), which I chair, recommended the following proposals to the ASEAN Commission for the SEA-NWFT through the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs:

First, ASEAN should seek concrete steps and measures to enforce and effectively implement the spirit and letter of its NWFZ treaty and put more muscle into the SEA-NWFZT Commission, which ASEAN established precisely to put teeth to the treaty. The treaty was signed by ASEAN 20 years ago, yet we still have to see it enforced.

Second, being the only state with a nuclear weapons-free Constitution, the Philippines, following the spirit of the SEA-NWFZT which it inspired, should encourage the nine other ASEAN states to adopt nuclear weapons free policies including implementing rules and regulations in their Constitutions (like the Philippines), or through parliamentary legislation (as in New Zealand).  Why should a state enforcer be burdened with transit rights and port/airfield visits, with sovereignty issues and zones of applications, when NWS treat these as natural rights in their respective territories, but do not apply it to others?

Finally, to make an enforceable and effective NWFZT, we should consider a situation where ASEAN can tap the expertise of its very vibrant civil society organizations, especially non-state entities and non-government organizations in monitoring and implementing the SEA-NWFZT.

Only then will ASEAN’s nuclear weapons-free zone treaty make an impact on efforts to attain genuine regional peace and security, secure environmental security in the region and contribute to global nuclear disarmament.

The Philippines is the only ASEAN member country that has adopted a nuclear weapons-free policy in its national constitution. It is no small feat that its policy has now become not just a regional aspiration, but a reality as expressed in a formal treaty signed twenty years ago by the 10-member ASEAN. It is now imperative that ASEAN member states enforce the spirit and letter of the Southeast Asian NWFZT. This means putting more collective muscle through the Commission on the NWFZT, a mechanism that ASEAN established in 2014 in Manila. Currently this ‘Commission’ does not even have a secretariat of its own.

This collective endeavor will go a long way in easing the current tensions in the South China Sea, a sea that embraces almost the entirety of Southeast Asia. It may also get us closer to sustaining regional and global peace and economic prosperity.

Roland G. Simbulan is a Professor in Development Studies and Public Management at the University of the Philippines. He was the National Chairman of the Nuclear-Free Philippines Coalition (NFPC), which succeeded in lobbying for the freedom from nuclear weapons provision in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. This blog is drawn from the keynote lecture delivered to the General Assembly of the Ecumenical Bishops Council in Southern Luzon, Tagaytay City, 29 February 2016. Email: profroland@gmail.com. Image credit: CC by Prachatai/Flickr.

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Written by Claire L. Berja.

Leyte in the Eastern Visayas of the Philippines was one of the areas hardest hit by Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. Tacloban, the city that became the ‘poster town’ of the disaster, is located in Leyte facing the Pacific Ocean at the head of the Leyte Gulf. Leyte is one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines. There is a high incidence of poverty and many people also move in and out of poverty (transient poverty) due to a high degree of vulnerability to shocks.

Typhoon Yolanda left many people devastated. It did not discriminate by class. In the aftermath of disasters the wealthy tend to be able to rehabilitate themselves more quickly, as they may have savings or extended family support to fall back on. However in the immediate aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda the devastation was total in many areas. In the longer term the disaster increased poverty overall.

Post disaster relief efforts require good data. Good data helps aid agencies efficiently target the victims of disaster. It also helps to scale up rehabilitation efforts in a sustainable fashion. The need for good data probably explains why aid agencies conducted their own surveys in areas devastated by Typhoon Yolanda. The specific data needs of aid agencies were not otherwise readily available. Immediately after the typhoon the relief operations of UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) made use of the national household targeting system  of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). However, the list included only the beneficiaries of the government run conditional cash transfer program. There was no list of non-beneficiaries.

Two years after the Yolanda disaster our team gathered data on poverty alleviation in selected communities in Tacloban, Palo and Tanauan. We selected 20 barangays, 17 most affected and three least affected. We surveyed 800 households and conducted a number of focus groups.  I expected that data gathering would be challenging because of the sensitivity of the subject matter but in general people were willing to participate in our study. Many of respondents were able to answer questions swiftly but some expressed survey ‘fatigue’. I observed that surveys had become a routine for beneficiaries of Yolanda aid. Many respondents considered surveys as their “ticket” to aid or a way to be included in the “listahan” (list of those who will be given aid) so they participated even with hesitance.

It is important to address survey fatigue because it could severely affect the quality of the data gathered. Having gone through different types of surveys, including rapid needs assessment surveys, social surveys, impact surveys and evaluation surveys, in all post disaster phases respondents can understandably develop survey fatigue. This can lead to overly brief answers or responses that simply follow the path of least resistance.

Survey fatigue can also be experienced during the course of an interview. Considering that the average attention span of adults is only 20 minutes, long interviews must be avoided. In our survey, to minimize the length of interviews, we included only questions relevant to the research objectives. Questions were worded simply so that they were easy to understand. The logical and chronological sequencing of questions also helped our respondents to answer the survey. This also helped respondents to remember facts. Interviews rely a lot on memory recall so this also impacts on data quality. It is the responsibility of the field researchers to come prepared for the interviews. Survey interviews go smoothly when the interviewer knows what questions to ask. Clear questions result in clear answers and comparable data.

The quality of the research is also contingent on trust. Building a relationship of trust is important for community based research. Our project is set to run over three years (2015-2018). Our fieldworkers will be  regular visitors so it is important that we are accepted in and trusted by the communities. People share their experiences, thoughts and feelings only to those whom they trust. Honesty and integrity throughout the study is important. We make it clear to the respondents that they will not receive any aid or grant, bar a token gift for their time, for participating in the research. We are also aware that the best people to conduct surveys at the community level are members of the communities themselves. For this reason we have hired recently graduated students from the communities to help with data gathering. Foreigners and even researchers from Manila could distort survey respondent answers simply by their presence. There is the danger that respondents could exaggerate their plight in the expectation that aid would be forthcoming.

During training sessions we were also able to tap into the fieldworkers’ local knowledge of how questions would be perceived. For instance they pointed out that the distinction between community and family is blurred in many communities as extended families are the norm. Therefore the distinction between helping your family and helping your community is a blurred line. Many respondents are also most comfortable speaking in the local Waray language so it made sense to hire fieldworkers with approprate language skills.

We also deliberately avoided working in our chosen communities during the recentelection period as respondents could have tailored their answers to favour their preferred candidates or condemn those that they did not support. The distribution of goods to voters during the election campaign could also have rendered our token gifts less attractive to respondents.

It is important that aid agencies and academics consider the issues listed above as ‘rubbish in’ leads to ‘rubbish out’ for data gathering. Good data on the other hand can help identify real need and craft sustaianble rehabilitation strategies that are guided by the beneficiaries themselves.

Claire L. Berja is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines, Manila. She is currently working on the ESRC/DFID funded project ‘Poverty Alleviation in the Wake of Typhoon Yolanda’. You can follow this project on Facebook as Project_Yolanda and Twitter @Project_Yolanda. Image credit: CC by Dvidshub/Flickr.

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