Tropes of Fear: the Impact of Globalization on Batek Religious Landscapes

Abstract: The Batek are a forest and forest-fringe dwelling population numbering around 1,500 located in Peninsular Malaysia. Most Batek groups were mobile forest-dwelling foragers and collectors until the recent past. The Batek imbue the forest with religious significance that they inscribe onto the landscape through movement, everyday activities, storytelling, trancing and shamanic journeying. However, as processes of globalization transform Malaysian landscapes, many Batek groups have been deterritorialized and relocated to the forest fringes where they are often pressured into converting to world religions, particularly Islam. Batek religious beliefs and practices have been re-shaped by their increasing encounters with global flows of ideologies, technologies, objects, capital and people, as landscapes are opened up to development.

This article analyzes the ways these encounters are incorporated into the fabric of the Batek’s religious world and how new objects and ideas have been figuratively and literally assimilated into their taboo systems and cosmology. Particular attention is paid to the impacts of globalization as expressed through tropes of fear.

A Sense of Place short link:  http://wp.me/pISTJ-h8

Full Text: http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/4/2/240

Tacey, Ivan. 2013. “Tropes of Fear: the Impact of Globalization on Batek Religious Landscapes.” Religions 4, no. 2: 240-266.

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The U.S. Content of Made in China

Overview: Goods and services from China accounted for only 2.7% of U.S. personal consumption expenditures in 2010, of which less than half reflected the actual costs of Chinese imports. The rest went to U.S. businesses and workers transporting, selling, and marketing goods carrying the “Made in China” label.  Although the fraction is higher when the imported content of goods made in the United States is considered, Chinese imports still make up only a small share of  total U.S. consumer spending.

A Sense of Place permalink:  http://wp.me/pISTJ-cL

Full Text:  http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html

The U.S. Content of “Made in China”

Galina Hale, Bart Hobij
Frbsf Economic Letter
2011-25
Pacific Basin Notes
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

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