IWP Staff Papers 2011 is the first volume of an annual series showcasing innovative research papers from the staff and associates of the Institute of Water Policy (IWP) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). This volume contains six research papers and four case studies on various water and sanitation related topics, such as national water policy reviews, water utility performances, water and sanitation data evaluation, rural and urban water supply, and business models for sanitation provision.

As Indonesia's leading Muslim politician in the second half of the 20th century, Mohammad atsir (1980-1993) went from heading the country's first post-independence government and largest Islamic political party to spending years in rebellion and in jail under the Soekarno regime. After initially welcoming Soekarno's overthrow in 1965, he became one of the most outspoken critics of the successor Suharto government's increasingly autocratic rule. Natsir's copious writings stretch from his student days in the late colonial period, when his debates with Soekarno over the character of Indonesian nationalism first attracted public attention, to the years immediately preceding his death when his trenchant criticisms brought him the enmity of the Suharto regime. They reveal a man struggling to harmonize his deep Islamic faith with his equally firm belief in national independence and democracy. Drawing from a wide range of materials, including these writings and extensive interviews with the subject, this political biography of Natsir places the important Muslim politician and thinker in the context of a critical period of Indonesia's history, and describes his vision of how a newly independent country could embrace religion without sacrificing its democratic values.

The Javanese -- one of the largest ethnic groups in the Islamic world -- were once mostly "nominal Muslims", with pious believers a minority and the majority seemingly resistant to Islam's call for greater piety. Over the tumultuous period analyzed here -- from colonial rule through japanese occupation and Revolution to the chaotic democracy of the Sukarno period, the Soeharto regime's aspirant totalitarianism and the democratic period since -- the society has changed profundly to become an extraordinary example of the rising religiosity that marks the modern age. Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java draws on a formidable body of sources, including interviews, archival documents and a vast range of published material, to situate the Javanese religious experience from the 1930s to the present day in its local political, social, cultural and religious settings. The concluding part of the author’s monumental three-volume series assessing more than six centuries of the on-going Islamisation of the Javanese, the study has considerable relevance for much wider contexts. Beliefs, or disbeliefs, about the supernatural are important in all societies, and the final section of the book, which considers the significance of Java’s religious history in global contexts, shows how it exemplifies a profound contest of values in the universal human search for a better life.

The Journal of Burma Studies is one of the only scholarly peer-reviewed printed journal exclusively on Burma. The Journal of Burma Studies is jointly sponsored by the Burma Studies Group and the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University. It is published twice a year (June and December) by NUS Press, National University of Singapore. The Journal seeks to publish the best scholarly research focused on Burma/Myanmar and its minority and diasporic cultures from a variety of disciplines, ranging from art history and religious studies, to economics and law. Published since 1997, it draws together research and critical reflection on Burma/Myanmar from scholars across Asia, North America and Europe.

Journal of Chinese Overseas publishes research articles, reports and book reviews dealing with Chinese overseas throughout the world, and the communities from which they trace their origins. Moving across regions and disciplines, the Journal examines Chineseness in its many diverse settings. With a Board of Editors drawn from fields as varied as history, anthropology, sociology, geography, cultural studies and political science, the Journal contributes to transnational studies, as well as the study of Chinese communities in specific national contexts.

This is the first book to look at labor in Malaysia's service sector, and also the first to use the labor market segmentation approach to study Malaysian labor. As in most other countries, the service sector in Malaysia has long accounted for more of the labour force than manufacturing. Studies of those working in the service industry in developing countries have tended to focus on the public sector and, in recent decades, the informal sector.

For a decade, the author followed Cambodian men and women to former wedding and birth sites from the Khmer Rouge period (1975-79), filming their return to these locations. In the process she uncovered evidence of the way severe dislocation, induced starvation and other murderous activities paved the way for reconstructed communes. Group marriages, along with prescriptions for sex, pregnancies and births, were a central feature of the remaking of Cambodian society and contributed to the dissolution of the country's ritual practices. This "ritualcide" caused a massive loss of spirit-protective places, objects,and arbitrators, and had a traumatic impact on Khmer socity. Group marriages did, however, give spouses a reprieve from further dislocation. Approaching the phenomenon as an ethno-psychologist, LeVine argues that suffering was intensified by ritual tampering on the part of the Khmer Rouge. Such disruptions did not end in 1979, however, since Euro-American perspectives on trauma and reconcilation have also failed to accept spirit respect as a normative feature of Cambodian life.

The insurance industry in Malaysia is a large and important sector of the economy in terms of capitalisation, business turnover, assets, and the number of employees. It was integral to early Western economic expansion into Malaya, underwriting shipping, mining, and plantation ventures to protect entrepreneurs from excessive risk. The scope of the insurance business then broadened to cover fire risks, motor insurance, and workmen's compensation, while war risk coverage helped ensure that the economy continued to function during the 1940s and 1950s. After 1957, the social and political environment of independent Malaysia offered new directions for the insurance industry. A Matter of Risk shows how insurance companies established themselves in an unfamiliar environment, marketed new products, responded to diverse demands and safeguarded market share and profit against competition. Local firms faced a major challenge as overseas insurance companies moved from agency offices to the setting up of branches, taking over or collaborating with existing companies, and eventually incorporating themselves as local companies. The study looks at the role of tariff associations and insurance trade organisations such as Persatuan Insuran Am Malaysia (General Insurance Association of Malaysia) in maintaining order in the industry through self-regulation.

People within the Malay world hold strong but diverse opinions about the meaning of the word Melayu, which can be loosely translated as Malayness. Questions over whether Filipinos or Mon-Khmer speaking orang asli in Malaysia are to be properly called "Malay" can generate controversy and heated debate. So too can the question of whether it is appropriate to speak of a kebangsaan Melayu (Malay as nationality) as the basis of membership within an aspiring postcolonial nation-state -- as a political rather than a cultural community embracing all residents of the Malay states, including the immigrant Chinese and Indian population. In Melayu: Politics, Poetics and Paradoxes of Malayness, the contributors examine the checkered, wavering and changeable understanding of the word Melayu by considering hitherto unexplored case studies dealing with use of the term in connection with origins, nations, minority-majority politics, Filipino Malays, Riau Malays, orang asli, Straits Chinese literature, women's veiling, vernacular television, social dissent, literary women, and modern Sufism. Taken as a whole, this volume offers a creative approach to the study of Malayness while providing new perspectives to the studies of identity formation and politics of ethnicity that have wider implications beyond the Southeast Asian region.

Professor K.G. Tregonning's anecdotal memoir of his years as a member of the Department of History in the University of Singapore, culminating as Raffles Professor, captures the mood and milieu of Singapore as the country emerged from colonial rule to become a self-governing independent nation. Arriving at the height of the Cold War, Tregonning was acutely conscious of the ongoing Malayan Emergency and of the political shifts taking place across Southeast Asia. He records meetings with a number of the region's leaders, and encounters with students and colleagues who would later feature in Singapore's politics, or become leading figures in the academic world. The result is an engaging and very personal account of a university and a professional, political and social environment that is quite different from that found in Singapore today.