Southeast Asia has undergone innumerable far-reaching changes and dramatic transformations over the last half-century. This book explores the concept of power in relation to these transformations, and examines its various social, cultural, religious, economic and political forms.

Foreword: In search of power in Southeast Asia Victor T. King 1. Introduction: power and orientation in Southeast Asia Liana Chua, Joanna Cook, Nicholas Long and Lee Wilson 2. The subject of power in Southeast Asia Shelly Errington 3. Power, protection and perfectibility: aspiration and materiality in Thailand Joanna Cook 4. Sakti reconsidered: power and the disenchantment of the world Adrian Vickers 5. Landscape, power and agency in Eastern Indonesia Catherine Allerton 6. The symbolic appropriation of war-related objects by the Jorai of Northeast Cambodia Krisna Uk 7. The anthropology of a necessary mistake: the unsettled dead and the imagined state in contemporary Singapore Ruth E. Toulson 8. Privateers, politicians, prowess and power in Indonesia Loren Ryter 9. Bureaucratic migrants and the potential of prosperity in upland Laos Sarinda Singh 10. Living on the horizon of the everlasting present: power, planning, and the emergence of baroque forms of life in urban Malaysia Richard Baxstrom 11. Apparitions of sapiocracy: Vietnam's emergent welfare state and the restless dead of Thanh Ha Markus Schlecker 12. From the power of prayer to prayer power: on religion and revolt in the modern Philippines Deirdre de la Cruz