Kelvin E. Y. Low - Böcker

From constructions of rasa (taste) in pre-colonial India and Indonesia, children and sensory discipline within the monastic orders of the Edo period of Japan, to sound expressives among the Semai in Peninsular Malaysia, the sensory soteriology of Tibetan Buddhism, and sensory warscapes of WWII, this book analyses how sensory cultures in Asia frame social order and disorder. Illustrated with a wide range of fascinating examples, it explores key anthropological themes, such as culture and language, food and foodways, morality, transnationalism and violence, and provides granular analyses on sensory relations, sensory pairings, and intersensoriality. By offering rich ethnographic perspectives on inter- and intra-regional sense relations, the book engages with a variety of sensory models, and moves beyond narrower sensory regimes bounded by group, nation or temporality. A pioneering exploration of the senses in and out of Asia, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in social and cultural anthropology.

Bracketed Belonging addresses how nations and their governance of security determine social constellations and shape socio-political and legal assertions of belonging and allegiance. Kelvin E. Y. Low examines the contours and limits of belonging that underlie the complex social contract between mobile migrants and nations in the context of a global military-security market. He explores these core themes through the case of Nepali Gurkhas and their families as military and paramilitary migrants. Recruited to serve in the military or police force, Gurkhas are trained in jungle warfare skills that other police groups do not possess. There is thus the professional link to military training and the formation of a unique paramilitary police force with the backdrop of colonialism. In these contexts, this book offers fresh perspectives on studying global security, migration and diasporic lives. It sets a new agenda by analytically bridging empire, military and security maneuvers, and migratory pathways and options. In doing so, Bracketed Belonging serves as a novel contribution to current scholarship on migration and transnationalism, and on police and security studies.