Volume 5: Abstracts

• “THE CONCEPTS OF DOBAMA (“OUR BURMA”) AND THUDO-BAMA (“THEIR BURMA”)  IN BURMESE NATIONALISM, 1930–1948,” by Kei Nemoto
  This article attempts to demonstrate the interdependent operation of the term dobama (“our Burma”) and its opposite, thudo-bama (“their Burma”), in the minds of members of the Dobama-asiayoun (“Our Burma Party”). From the party’s very beginning in 1930 to the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League’s struggle against Japanese rule and subsequently for independence from the British from 1944 to 1947, Dobama party members, known as “thahkins,” avoided being identified as thudo-bama, meaning “the Burmese of their (the British or Japanese) side” or “the Burmese people who collaborated with the colonial regime.” Instead, they invariably identified themselves as dobama, or “our Burmese.” The thahkins preferred to define themselves in negative rather than positive terms. In other words, they chose to identify themselves by describing what they were not rather than what they were, and by attacking their imagined enemies, the thudo-bama, rather than attempting a clear definition of dobama.
   
• “YENANGYAUNG AND ITS TWINZA:: The Burmese Indigenous “Earth-Oil” Industry Re-examined,” by Marilyn Longmuir
  In the early nineteenth century, the indigenous oil industry at Yenangyaung may have been the largest in the world. The article summarizes and evaluates the descriptions of nineteenth and early twentieth century European observers, with special attention to the pre-colonial uses of the oil, the legends about the site, the local institutions governing ownership of the wells, the indigenous methods of oil extraction, and the Europeans’ estimates of production levels.
   
• “AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ARTICLES ON THE BURMESE PEASANTRY FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE BURMA RESEARCH SOCIETY, 1911–1970,” by Maria Serena I. Diokno
  [No abstract published]
   
• “THE FALL OF AYUTTHAYA: A Reassessment,” by Helen James
  Conventional views of the 1760–1767 Burmese attacks on Ayutthaya contend that the Burmese were taking advantage of an opportunity to attack a politically and economically weak kingdom. This article adduces evidence from the Burmese chronicles, from accounts by contemporary foreign observers, and from economic history to argue that Burma’s campaigns against Ayutthaya were part of an epic struggle between the two polities that began in the 1500s and continued until the Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826. Control of trade was one of the central factors motivating this centuries-long conflict. It was the very strength and wealth of the Siamese kingdom, not its alleged weakness, that motivated the Burmese invaders, who hoped to strike a blow that would knock Ayutthaya out of contention as the trading hub of mainland Southeast Asia.
   

How to contact us:
Southeast Asia Publications
Center for SE Asian Studies
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb IL 60115 U.S.A.
Phone: (815)753-1981
Toll Free (in North America): 1-888-731-9599
Fax: (815)753-1776
E-mail: seap@niu.edu