Dreams of Prosperity: Inequality and Integration in Southeast Asia

This fresh and unusual collection offers a critical reflection on Southeast Asia as a progressively integrated space of production, exchange, and circulation within and beyond national boundaries. The essays describe the successful or unsuccessful entry of specific individuals or groups into wider markets and networks in their quest for prosperity—in Thailand, by Lua peasant farmers, slum families, the last century’s teak laborers, and ethnic tour hosts; in Indonesia, by communities resisti...