Asia Institute - Research Publications
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ItemNatural Conversation Reconstruction Tasks: The Language Classroom as a Meeting Place(University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), 2009)This paper, drawing on Pratt’s notion of ‘transculturation’ and Bhabha’s ‘third space’, presents an example of language learning tasks that empower learners’ agency and promote their cross-cultural awareness and sensitivities to a different set of cultural expectations, using a naturally occurred Japanese thanking episodes. The paper discusses the merits of Natural Conversation Reconstruction Tasks (NCRTs) as a practical method for helping L2 learners develop this ‘intercultural competence’. It is based on a qualitative study of the results of one NCRT created for use in the context of teaching Japanese as a L2 in a multicultural society. It suggests the NCRT encourages the learners to explore the intersection where language use, speaker intention and L1 and L2 cultural norms meet. Such a process helps the learners become aware of socially expected patterns of communication in L1 and L2 in terms of the choices of speech act, formulaic expressions, sequential organization and politeness orientation. The learners’ comments suggest that the NCRT helps learners transcend their cultural boundaries by overcoming their narrow understanding of ‘thanking’ as ‘expressions of gratitude and appreciation’ and by cross-culturally widening their views of what counts as thanking. The NCRT with rich contextual information promotes the learners’ intercultural awareness, sensitivity to context and intercultural exploration in the space between L1 and L2, where they have authority and freedom of making sense of conversations, and pragmatics is fully integrated into language pedagogy.
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ItemArriving in the Future: The Utopia of Here and Now in the Work of Modern-Day Mystics From Eric Fromm to Eckhart Tolle(MONASH UNIV, CENTRE COMPARATIVE LITERATURE & CULTURAL STUDIES, 2009-12)
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ItemA replication study of the association between the IL12B promoter allele CTCTAA and susceptibility to cerebral malaria in Thai population.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2009-12-11)BACKGROUND: Interleukin-12 (IL-12), a heterodimeric cytokine composed of p35 and p40 subunits, has been thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of malaria. The IL-12p40 subunit is encoded by the IL12B gene. An IL12B promoter allele, CTCTAA, at rs17860508 has been reported to be associated with susceptibility to cerebral malaria in African populations. However, this association has not so far been replicated in non-African populations. METHODS: To examine whether the CTCTAA allele is associated with susceptibility to cerebral malaria in Asian populations, 303 Thai patients with Plasmodium falciparum malaria (109 cerebral malaria and 194 mild malaria patients) were genotyped for rs17860508 by PCR-direct sequencing. RESULTS: The CTCTAA allele showed a significant association with susceptibility to cerebral malaria in the Thai population (allelic OR = 1.37; one sided P-value = 0.030). CONCLUSIONS: The existence of a significant association between the CTCTAA allele and susceptibility to cerebral malaria was confirmed in Southeast Asian population, which was previously reported in African populations.
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ItemIdentification of a haplotype block in the 5q31 cytokine gene cluster associated with the susceptibility to severe malaria.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2009-10-19)BACKGROUND: It has been previously demonstrated that a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the IL13 promoter region, IL13 -1055T>C (rs1800925), was associated with susceptibility to severe malaria in Thais. In the present study, fine association mapping for a cytokine gene cluster including IL4, IL5, and IL13 on chromosome 5q31 was conducted using the same malaria subjects to refine the region containing a primary variant or a haplotype susceptible to severe malaria. METHODS: A total of 82 SNPs spanning 522 kb of the 5q31 region were analysed in 368 patients with Plasmodium falciparum malaria (203 mild malaria and 165 severe malaria patients). RESULTS: Only rs1881457 located in the promoter region of IL13, which is in linkage disequilibrium with rs1800925 (r2 = 0.73), showed a significant association with severe malaria after adjusting for multiple testing (P = 0.046 by permutation test). This SNP was in a haplotype block spanning 97 kb (from rs2069812 to rs2240032). The detected haplotype block contained the RAD50 gene and the promoter of IL13, but not the other genes. CONCLUSION: A haplotype block in which a primary polymorphism associated with severe malaria is likely to be encoded was identified in Thai malaria patients.
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ItemPopulation diversity and antibody selective pressure to Plasmodium falciparum MSP1 block2 locus in an African malaria-endemic setting.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2009-10-15)BACKGROUND: Genetic evidence for diversifying selection identified the Merozoite Surface Protein1 block2 (PfMSP1 block2) as a putative target of protective immunity against Plasmodium falciparum. The locus displays three family types and one recombinant type, each with multiple allelic forms differing by single nucleotide polymorphism as well as sequence, copy number and arrangement variation of three amino acid repeats. The family-specific antibody responses observed in endemic settings support immune selection operating at the family level. However, the factors contributing to the large intra-family allelic diversity remain unclear. To address this question, population allelic polymorphism and sequence variant-specific antibody responses were studied in a single Senegalese rural community where malaria transmission is intense and perennial. RESULTS: Family distribution showed no significant temporal fluctuation over the 10 y period surveyed. Sequencing of 358 PCR fragments identified 126 distinct alleles, including numerous novel alleles in each family and multiple novel alleles of recombinant types. The parasite population consisted in a large number of low frequency alleles, alongside one high-frequency and three intermediate frequency alleles. Population diversity tests supported positive selection at the family level, but showed no significant departure from neutrality when considering intra-family allelic sequence diversity and all families combined. Seroprevalence, analysed using biotinylated peptides displaying numerous sequence variants, was moderate and increased with age. Reactivity profiles were individual-specific, mapped to the family-specific flanking regions and to repeat sequences shared by numerous allelic forms within a family type. Seroreactivity to K1-, Mad20- and R033 families correlated with the relative family genotype distribution within the village. Antibody specificity remained unchanged with cumulated exposure to an increasingly large number of alleles. CONCLUSION: The Pfmsp1 block2 locus presents a very large population sequence diversity. The lack of stable acquisition of novel antibody specificities despite exposure to novel allelic forms is reminiscent of clonal imprinting. The locus appears under antibody-mediated diversifying selection in a variable environment that maintains a balance between the various family types without selecting for sequence variant allelic forms. There is no evidence of positive selection for intra-family sequence diversity, consistent with the observed characteristics of the antibody response.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableRebuilding Government for the 21st Century: Can China Incrementally Reform the Public Sector?(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2009-12)Abstract After three decades of spectacular economic successes, China is facing a significant challenge. The string of recent scandals – environmental degradation, melamine-tainted milk powder, fake drugs and chemicals – have all pointed to government weakness in protecting public safety, exposing an enormous gap between China's growing economic prowess and its capacity to govern. With the leadership now focused on improving the regulatory regime, will China “catch up” and build the public institutions needed? This article argues that the reactive, incremental retrenchment of government in the 1980s and 1990s, combined with inadequate finance, had broken the intergovernmental fiscal system and created large distortions in the incentive structure facing government agencies and public institutions (shiye danwei事业单位). Until the intergovernmental fiscal system is repaired and incentives are fundamentally reformed for the public sector, the top-down programme to redirect China's development and build a service-oriented government will have limited effect.
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ItemA grammar of Mualang; An Ibanic language of West Kalimantan, Indonesia(KITLV PRESS, 2009)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableStealing Women, Stealing Men: Co-creating cultures of polygamy in a peasantren community in eastern Indonesia(Bridgewater State University, 2009)The article examines how particular elements of Sasak society structurally facilitate a culture of polygamy in a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) which is managed by male Muslim teachers and preachers (Tuan Guru) who maintain a paradoxical position in society that implicates women in the co-creation of polygamy. By culturally situating Muslim women's experiences in wider Indonesian and local Sasak discursive contexts, and based on anthropological field research techniques, the article elucidates how Muslim women draw on a range of magical forces and prayers that they learn from their Muslim teachers in the pesantren in response to customary marriage laws of 'bride stealing' and orthodox Islam that enable the reproduction of polygamy on the island of Lombok in Eastern Indonesia.
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ItemLobbying to stay: The Chinese students’ campaign to stay in Australia(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2009)This paper examines the way in which onshore asylum seekers lobby to stay in the host country permanently, and how they interact with local institutions. This study is based on a multi-method case study of about 45,000 Chinese nationals in Australia, mostly students, who sought to stay after the so-called political disturbance of 1989 in China. The students succeeded in obtaining residence by pursuing intensive lobbying activities over a period of about four years from June 1989 to November 1993, becoming the largest onshore migration intake in Australian history. This paper is concerned with how the students and their organizations negotiated the changing stance of the Australian government towards asylum seekers, and the way in which the students harnessed resources in the campaign. It examines the strategies adopted by the students, the roles of the main local institutions in the issue, and analyses the permissiveness of local polities.
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ItemFuneral Rituals in Eastern Shandong, China: An Anthropological Study(Edwin Mellen Press, 2009)