Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia (Asia in Transition, 17)

This book addresses the increasingly important subject of ecomedia by critically examining the interconnections between environment, ecology, media forms, and popular culture in the Southeast Asian region, exploring methods such as textual analysis, thematic analysis, content analysis, participatory ethnography, auto ethnography, and semi-structured interviewing. It is divided into four sections: I. Activism, Environment, and Indigeneity; II. Political, Ecologies and Urban Spaces; III. Narratives, Discourses, and Aesthetics; and IV. Imperialism, Nationalism, and Islands, covering topics such as broadcast media (radio and TV) and the environment; green cinema and ecodocumentaries, ecodigital art, digital environmental literature. It is of great interest to researchers, students, practitioners and scholars working in the area of humanities, media, communications, cultural studies, environmental humanities, environmental studies, and sustainability. Contents 6 Contributors 9 1 Introduction: Environment, Media, and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia 11 1.1 Introduction: Toward a Southeast Asian Ecomedia Studies 11 1.2 Ecomedia, Environmental Communications, and Popular Culture: International Contexts 14 1.3 Ecomedia in Southeast Asia: Environmental Film 17 1.4 Eco-communication in Southeast Asia: Environmental Journalism 19 1.5 Overview of Chapters 22 1.6 Conclusion: Avenues for Further Research 29 References 31 Part I Activism, Indigeneity, and the Sacred 38 2 Wild Honey: Caring for Bees in a Divided Land 39 2.1 Making Wild Honey 41 2.2 Colonial Divisions 43 2.3 The People of Koba Lima 45 2.4 Borders and Boundaries 46 2.5 Bees: More-Than-Human Agents 47 2.6 The Role of Laku 48 2.7 Valuing the Harvest 48 2.8 Change and Continuity 50 2.9 Conclusion 51 References 52 3 Reading the Novel Sarongge Through the Eyes of Female Environmental Activists in Indonesia 54 3.1 Introduction 54 3.2 Sarongge and Environmentalism 56 3.3 Cognitive Praxis Perspectives 59 3.4 Activist Narratives 60 3.4.1 Gender Juxtaposition 60 3.4.2 Interpersonal Transformations 62 3.5 Conclusion 64 References 65 4 Nguyễn Trinh Thi’s Letters from Panduranga: Filmmaking as a Practice of Postcolonial Ecocriticism in Vietnam 68 4.1 Introduction 68 4.2 Letters from Panduranga as a Practice of Postcolonial Ecocriticism 70 4.3 Letters from Panduranga as a Film in Search of Its Form 78 References 84 5 The Creaturely Plant? Sumatra’s Titan Arum and the Ethics of Botanical Time-Lapse 87 5.1 Introduction 88 5.2 “To Instill a Love for Them”: Historical Views of Botanical Time-Lapse Ethics 89 5.3 Embracing Plant-Time as Hetero-Temporality: Toward an Intermedial Vegetal Ethics 92 5.4 Imaging Titan Arum Anew: From Anthocentrism to Phytocentrism 95 5.5 Conclusion: Cinematographic Bodies In-Becoming 99 References 101 6 The Littoral Zone as a Guerilla Zone: The Hydroaesthetics of Revolutionary Music for Filipino Fisherfolk 104 6.1 The Politics of the Shore 105 6.2 Listening to the Songs of the Sea 106 6.3 The Fluidity of National Democratic Music 108 6.4 Navigating Aplaya’s Revolutionary Waterscape 112 6.5 Coda 116 References 118 Part II Political Ecologies and Urban Spaces 121 7 Death’s Capital: Urban Poor Political Ecology and the Aesthetics of Salvaging by the Nightcrawlers of Manila 122 7.1 Introduction 122 7.2 Urban Decay 124 7.3 Urban Poor Political Ecology 126 7.4 Salvaging Aesthetics 129 7.5 Humanity in Decay 132 References 133 8 Coal, Oligarchy, and the Indonesian Environment in the Documentary Film Sexy Killers 137 8.1 Introduction 137 8.2 Indonesian Politics and the Environment 139 8.3 Sexy Killers: A Game Changer? 141 8.4 Reading Sexy Killers and Its Contradictions 144 8.5 Conclusion 147 References 148 9 Political Ecology of Mangroves and Fish Farming in an Island Village in Central Philippines 152 9.1 Introduction 152 9.2 The Social Character of Jandayan Norte: An Ecological and Demographic Profile 154 9.3 Fishing: Limited Grounds, Small Catch, Few Markets 157 9.4 Mangrove Forests and Brackish Water Fish Farming: Linked by Politics and Markets 159 9.4.1 Mangrove Forests (Katunggan): Property, Resource Decline, and Politics 159 9.4.2 Brackish Water Fish Farming: Mostly Idle and Abandoned 165 9.5 Conclusion: Toward a Political Ecology of Place 168 References 170 10 The West Philippine Sea Dispute and Meme-fied Fish on Facebook 175 10.1 In the Dead of Night: The Ramming of a Filipino Fishing Vessel 175 10.2 Fish Memes as a Protest Tool in the Philippines 177 10.3 Satirical Anthropomorphism as a Strategy 178 10.4 Humor Through Relatability 182 10.5 Meme-Fied Fish, the Human Gaze, and Objectification of the Non-Human 185 10.6 Concluding Remarks 190 References 190 11 Cinematographic Poetics in Contemporary Indonesian Poetry: Re-envisioning Human-Nature Interconnections in the Digital Age Through Afrizal Malna’s Anxiety Myths 193 11.1 Introduction 193 11.2 Contemporary Poetry and Experimentalism 194 11.3 Cinematic Montage as Ecopoetic Language 195 11.4 Cinematographic Poetics as an Interface Between Poetic Codes and Filmic Montage 198 11.5 Cinematographic Poetics as a Vision of Human-Nature Interconnectedness 200 11.6 Conclusion 203 References 203 Part III Discourses, Narratives, and Aesthetics 205 12 The Reporting of Environmental News in an English Language Newspaper in Brunei Darussalam 206 12.1 Introduction 206 12.2 The Environment and Mass Media: Previous Studies 207 12.3 Research Methods 210 12.4 Understanding the Reporting of Environmental News in Brunei 212 12.4.1 Frequency of Environmental News in Borneo Bulletin 213 12.4.2 Environmental Issues Featured by Borneo Bulletin 214 12.4.3 Manner of Environmental Reportage 215 12.4.4 Linking to and Framing Climate Change 216 12.5 Conclusion 220 References 221 13 Climate Change Reporting in Vietnam’s Online Mainstream News Websites and Beyond 225 13.1 Climate Change Journalism in Vietnam 225 13.2 Framing Climate Change in Vietnam’s Three Popular Mainstream News Websites 228 13.3 Beyond the Mainstream: Climate Change Over Social Media in Vietnam 234 References 237 14 Maps in the Making of the Mekong Delta 241 14.1 Introduction 242 14.1.1 Brief History of the Mekong Delta 242 14.1.2 Maps as Ecomedia 243 14.2 The Map’s Natures 245 14.2.1 Surveyed Nature 245 14.2.2 Engineered Nature 249 14.2.3 Militarized Nature 251 14.2.4 Inherited Nature 253 References 256 15 Against DomiNation: Intersectional Aesthetics in Uruphong Raksasad’s Fictional Documentary Agrarian Utopia 259 15.1 Introduction 260 15.2 A Critical Interrogation of Thailand’s Agrarian Myth 260 15.3 Agrarian Utopia and the Political Situation in 2009 262 15.4 Intersectionality and Utopia 263 15.5 Relational Aesthetics and Holistic Filmmaking 266 15.6 Embedded Technology as Cinematic Ecosystem 268 15.7 Conclusion 270 References 271 Part IV Imperialism, Nationalism, and Islands 273 16 How to Lose an Island: Singapore, Colonialism, and the Environment 274 References 286 17 National Disaster Imaginary: Mediatized Disaster and Filipino Subjectivity 288 17.1 Imagined Community and Mediatization 290 17.2 Historical Relationship between Media, Disaster, and Relief 291 17.3 The Filipino Subject Defined in Relation to Disaster Resilience 294 17.4 Media and the Filipino Disaster Subject 297 17.5 Conclusion 299 References 300 18 Archipelagic Choreography in Komiks: Movement and Intertwining Bodies in Emiliana Kampilan’s Dead Balagtas: Mga Sayaw ng Dagat at Lupa 302 References 318 19 National Ecologies, National Properties: Unframing Human/Nature Divides in Mikhail Red’s Film Birdshot 320 19.1 Introduction 320 19.2 Spatial Organization and Colonial Logics 322 19.3 Nature in the State Imaginary 325 19.4 Conclusion: Maya’s Flight 326 Reference 328 20 Escaping Paradise, Returning This Island: Representations of Siargao and Islandic Space in the Philippines 330 20.1 Siargao: The Island 331 20.2 Returning to the Island: The Traveler as Tourist 332 20.3 Reading Siargao 337 20.4 The Politics of Island Environmentalism 341 20.5 Conclusion 343 References 344