Asian Smallholders in Comparative Perspective

The book is the first study detailing the character, evolution, functioning and future of the smallholder and smallholdings across nine countries of East and Southeast Asia.

Eric C. Thompson is an anthropologist whose research spans Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. He is the author of Unsettling Absences: Urbanism in Rural Malaysia and co-editor of Southeast Asian Anthropologies: National Traditions and Transnational Practices. Jamie Gillen is a human geographer of Southeast Asia, focusing on Vietnam. He is the author of Entrepreneurialism and Tourism in Contemporary Vietnam and his current work is on the rural dimensions of Southeast Asian cities. Jonathan Rigg is a professor of human geography in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. His work focuses on questions of agrarian, livelihood and environmental change in Southeast and South Asia and he has undertaken fieldwork in Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Jonathan has authored more than 100 papers and ten books and is currently researching extreme weather and outdoor work in Vietnam and completing a book on longitudinal change in rural Thailand.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Placing the Asian Smallholder Chapter 2 Cambodia: Political Strife and Problematic Land Tenure Chapter 3 Indonesia: Whither Involution, Demographics and Development? Chapter 4 Japan: Politically Powerful, yet Precarious Chapter 5 Laos: From Subsistence to Market Integration Chapter 6 Malaysia: The State of/in Village Agriculture Chapter 7 Philippines: Persistent Poverty, Precarity, and Ineffective Policy Chapter 8 Singapore: Persistence and Prosperity on the Urban Fringe Chapter 9 Thailand: The Political Economy of Post-Peasantry Agriculture Chapter 10 Vietnam: Dismantling and Resurgence of Smallholder Agriculture Chapter 11 Conclusion: Asian Smallholder Futures