Despite the proscription of public political debates under colonial rule in Burma, boundary-crossing ventures like the Burma Research Society (founded in 1910) allowed those from different racial and cultural backgrounds to engage in debates about national belonging and identity. At the same time their scholarship generated new historical and cultural knowledge. Such social and intellectual interactions sowed the seeds of nascent nationalism in Burma, not least a unifying Burmano-Buddhist hegemony as promoted by BRS members like J.S. Furnivall and his circle. This was contested by the regional nationalism of San Shwe Bu, with Leslie Fernandes Taylor also warning of the consequences of neglecting the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Burma’s many races. With the rise of Rangoon University and popular culture and militant nationalism coming to dominate the social and political landscape by the mid-1930s, the influence of the BRS began to wane. This detailed study of the BRS and its membership, together with an analysis of its published output, contextualizes the Society within its metropolitan and regional setting, as well as drawing on a broader, transnational intellectual landscape. This timely work on the Society’s intellectual legacy has the potential to inform current debates in Myanmar at a time when the activities of ultra-nationalist groups threaten other religions and ethnicities’ rights as citizens.

Why is it that warfare in Southeast Asian history is depicted so differently in various historical sources and representations? Why have scholars looking at different countries found so many exceptions to regional overviews of warfare? The present volume seeks to present a new approach to the study of warfare in the region by abandoning the generalizations made in the conventional literature. The contributors offer a range of new studies of warfare in local areas within the region, looking at warfare on its own, local terms rather than for what it says about warfare in the region as a whole.   This approach for the first time submits Southeast Asia to comparative analysis in a way that avoids artificial and misleading regional attributes. The varied case studies, researched and written by a number of experts of local warfare within the region include naval warfare eighteenth century Vietnam, civil war in South Sulawesi during the Pénéki War, the art and texts of war in Burmese warfare, modes of warfare in precolonial Bali, war captive taking in Thailand, and kinship, religion, and war in late eighteenth century Maguindanao, and preparations for war in the Pacific rimlands. The volume makes an important contribution to the new literature emerging on the culture of indigenous warfare in North and South America, Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Islands, by offering a new and robust Southeast Asian entry on the one hand while adding to a new approach to the growing literature on early modern Southeast Asia warfare.

This paper explores the challenge of finding common ground between the Finns and the Chinese in the context of co-operation, trade and inward investment facilitation related to general lack of specific interest displayed by the Chinese. The article is ethnographic in nature and is mainly based on data obtained from interviewing individuals working for local governments in Finland and one of the state agencies responsible for attracting foreign investment. The study uses Speech Codes Theory (Philipsen, 1997) when analyzing the cultural aspects of expectations regarding communication between Chinese and Finns. According to interviewees, lack of serious interest, vague government guidelines, the longer time needed to build relationship, and involvement of intermediaries all contribute to the difficulty to move the discussions to a more specific level of focus. Finnish expectations regarding this type of communication are that it should be direct and task-oriented, because they feel pressure to yield real results quickly and efficiently. Suggested strategies to make the co-operation talks more specific are presenting the expertise areas of Finland, clarification regarding too general terms used by the Chinese, and investing into building personal relationships with them.

Hur kan pedagogiska stödmaterial kring bilderböcker vara till hjälp för läsfrämjare som vill ta in böcker på andra nordiska språk i undervisningssituationer och boksamtal med barn? Rapporten "Så upptäcker barnen de nordiska bilderböckerna" presenterar följeforskningsresultat från läsfrämjandeprojektet Den nordiska bokslukaren, som sedan 2021 skapat pedagogiskt stödmaterial till bilderböcker från alla nordiska länder, gratis och på alla nordiska språk. Resultaten visar på att den metod för läsfrämjande som projektet byggt upp tagits emot väl. Läsfrämjarna i referensgruppen uppger att metoden väcker läslust och sporrar analysförmåga hos barnen, att de producerade materialen underlättar användandet av nordiska bilderböcker i lässamtal med barn, att materialet håller hög kvalitet och att projektet som helhet ökat läsfrämjarnas egen kunskap och kännedom om nordiska bilderböcker.