Editors’ Note

This issue of SOJOURN launches its twenty-eighth year of publication. It also introduces a number of significant changes that will enhance SOJOURN’s unique role in the promotion of the study of Southeast Asia.

First and foremost, ISEAS has entered into a partnership with Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) to edit SOJOURN. The principal goal of this initiative is to strengthen the journal’s ability to serve as a bridge between scholarship on Southeast Asia undertaken within the region and that undertaken beyond the region’s boundaries. In support of this partnership, Cornell anthropologist Andrew Willford and Cornell political scientist Thomas Pepinsky have joined seven ISEAS colleagues on the SOJOURN Editorial Committee. At the same time, Thak Chaloemtiarana, immediate past director of SEAP, has also joined SOJOURN’s International Advisory Committee. And, starting with the present number, the March issue of SOJOURN will carry emergent scholarship first presented at the Southeast Asian Studies Graduate Conference held at Cornell each spring.

Second, in consideration of the growing research output on Southeast Asia, SOJOURN will now appear three times a year, in March, July and November. This will give the journal the capacity to publish more articles and research notes on this region and to carry more reviews of the burgeoning scholarship on Southeast Asia and its constituent societies.

Third, to ensure the smooth implementation of these changes and manage the increased workload, the Editorial Committee has appointed Michael Montesano as Managing Editor of SOJOURN starting with this number. At the same time, we welcome ISEAS Fellow Benjamin Loh and ISEAS Research Associate Rebecca Ye to the editorial team.

Fourth, we have reconstituted the International Advisory Committee of the journal. The composition of SOJOURN’s new International Advisory Committee reaffirms the journal’s longstanding commitment to publishing scholarship that brings research in anthropology, sociology, history and related disciplines to bear on questions and issues fundamental to understanding contemporary Southeast Asia. The range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical and thematic research foci represented on the committee are indicative of our determination to attract and disseminate important new work in such areas as ethnicity, religion, tourism, urbanization, migration, popular culture, social and cultural change and development.

Finally, to complement all these substantive changes, SOJOURN will adopt a new cover design. We hope that between these covers, we will continue to convey to readers the pulse of Southeast Asia research. To this end, we are committed to surfacing pioneering research of the highest standard from the region and beyond, in order to capture critical developments in a fast-changing Southeast Asia. We are confident that the changes outlined here will position SOJOURN to pursue this mission with success.