This book explores the multifaceted obstacles to social change that India, Myanmar and Thailand face, and ways to overcome them. With a collection of essays that identify common challenges and salient features affecting diverse communities, this volume examines topics from subnational and local perspectives across the peripheries. The book argues that identity-based divisions have created a system of oppression and political contention that have led to conflicts of different kinds, and hence serving as the common cause of different social issues. At the same time, such issues have created space for marginalized groups around the world to call for change. The volume recognizes that social transformation comes into being through an active process of deconstructing and reconstructing shared norms and ideas. The contents in this book are thus centered around two focuses: the impacts of identities and grassroots. Both of these aspects are at the heart of each country's transformations towards democracy, peace, justice, and freedom. Under this framework, the chapters cover a diverse range of common issues, such as, minority grievances, gender inequality, ethnic identity, grassroots power in alliance-making towards community peace, recovery and resilience, digital freedom, democracy assistance and communication, and bridging multiple divides. As identity-based cleavages are daily lived experiences for individuals and communities, it requires grassroots initiatives and alliances as well as democratic communication to tackle obstacles at the root. Ultimately, the book convinces readers that social transformations must begin at the individual to communal level and local to national level.

Approaches societal issues in India, Myanmar and Thailand as a shared phenomenon transcending borders and regions Convinces that social transformations must begin at the individual to communal level and local to national level Offers original scholarship on area studies, social development, identity politics and grassroots mobilisation

Autorentext

Chosein Yamahata is a Professor of Global and Area Studies at the Graduate School of Policy Studies, Aichi Gakuin University in Japan. He also teaches the Master of Arts in Asia-Pacific Studies at Thammasat University, Thailand. Dr. Yamahata is the coordinator of the Academic Diplomacy Project in bridging interdisciplinary engaged studies reaching to locals and compiling thematic volumes to provoke a new feedback and disseminate sharable concerns. He co-edited Rights and security in India, Myanmar and Thailand (2020), and Social Transformations in India, Myanmar and Thailand: Volume I - Social Political and Ecological Perspectives (2021). Dr. Yamahata is also with the Faculty of Mass Communication at Chiang Mai University, Thailand as a Visiting Professor.

Inhalt

Part I: Identity and Equality.- Chapter 1. Challenges Facing India, Myanmar and Thailand: The Future of Democratic Progress (Chosein Yamahata, Yoshikazu Mikami and Terapatt Vannaruemol).- Chapter 2. The Revolution of the Spirit and Beyond: The Role of Social Transformation in Aung San Suu Kyi's Political Philosophy (Michal Lubina).- Chapter 3. Environmental Awareness as a Trigger in Constructing Ethnic Identity among the Tangkhul Nagas, Northeast India (Satoshi Ota).- Chapter 4. Reducing the Level of Ethno-Cultural Tensions in Thailand: Transformation through National Unity with Otherness (Takashi Tsukamoto).- Chapter 5. Muslim Women in Modern India: Public Debates from Identity to Religious Freedom to the Citizenship Amendment Act (Kanupriya Dua).- Chapter 6. Seeking Common Ground and Reconciliation: Islam, Thai Citizenship and Multiculturalism (Takashi Tsukamoto).- Chapter 7. Unfairness to Fairness: The (Im)Possible Way to Promote Gender Equality in Thai Politics ( Pradit Chinudomsud and Thanikun Chantra).- Chapter 8. Social Policies as Vehicles of Transformation for Women in India: Review of the Post-Globalisation Era (Rekha Mistry and Anuj Ghanekar).- Chapter 9. The West Betrayed? Buddhism, the Lady and Xenophobia in Myanmar/Burma (Donald M. Seekins).- Part II: Grassroots Communication.- Chapter 10. Borderland Economies, Service Delivery, Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration: Beyond Myanmar's Moribund Peace Process (Bobby Anderson).- Chapter 11. Grassroots Mobilisation after a Large-Scale Disaster: Examining the Effects of Saving Groups in Myanmar (Naw Thiri May Aye).- Chapter 12. Transforming Differences through Women's Initiatives in Myanmar: Forging an Inter-Ethnic Alliance for Grassroots Peace (Makiko Takeda).- Chapter 13. Education Model Development of Media Health Literacy for Adolescents in Upper Northern Thailand: A Process of Change for Social Upliftment (Kwanfa Sriprapandh).- Chapter 14. Bridging Divides in Northeast India: Rethinking Nationalism and Democratic Communication towards a Common Cause (Malem Ningthouja).- Chapter 15. Media Literacy in Thailand as a Key in Communication to Strengthen Democratic Society (Pimonpan Chainan).- Chapter 16. Turbulence in Thailand? The Thai Digital Civil Rights Movement and a 'Pro-human' Contract for the Web (Michael J. Day and Merisa Skulsuthavong).- Chapter 17. Japan's Democracy Assistance to Myanmar: Few Seeds in Infertile Soil (David M. Potter).- Chapter 18. Strengthening Civic Vision to Bridge Divisions (Chosein Yamahata and Makiko Takeda).