Outline

MAKING A LIVING AND ORGANIZING SOCIETY

A.PREHISTORY
Has undergone exceptionally rapid change as a result of archaeological discoveries
made since the 1960s, although the interpretation of these findings has remained the
subject of extensive debate. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the region has been
inhabited from the earliest times. Hominid fossil remains date from approximately
1,500,000 years ago and those of Homo sapiens from approximately 40,000 years ago.

Paleolithic
Anatomically modern human hunter-gatherer migration into Southeast Asia
before50,000 years ago has been confirmed by the combined fossil record of the
region. These immigrants might have, to a certain extent, merged and reproduced with
members of the archaic population of Homo erectus, as the fossil discoveries in the Tam
Pa Ling Cave suggest. Data analysis of stone tool assemblages and fossil discoveries
from Indonesia, Southern China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and more recently
Cambodia and Malaysia has established Homo erectus migration routes and episodes
of presence as early as 120,000 years ago and even older isolated finds date back to
1.8 million years ago.

Neolithic Migrations
The Neolithic was characterized by several migrations into Mainland and Island
Southeast Asia from southern China by Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Kra-Dai, and
Hmong-Mien-speakers. The Austroasiatic migration wave centered around the Mon and
the Khmer, whooriginate in North-Eastern India arrive around 5000 BP and are
identified with the settlement on the broad riverine floodplains of Burma, Indochina and
Malaysia.
Early Agricultural Societies
Characterized as Agrarian kingdoms had by around 500 BCE developed an economy
based on surplus crop cultivation and moderate coastal trade of domestic natural
products. Several states of the Malayan-Indonesian “thalassian” zone shared these
characteristics with Indochinese polities like the Pyu city-states in the Irrawaddy river
valley, Van Lang in the Red River delta and Funan around the lower Mekong. Văn Lang,
founded in the 7th century BCE endured until 258 BCE under the rule of the Hồng Bàng
dynasty, as part of the Đông Sơn culture eventually sustained a dense and organized
population that produced an elaborate Bronze Age industry.

Bronze Age Southeast Asia

Earliest known copper and bronze production in Southeast Asia has been found at the
site of Ban Chiang in North-east Thailand and among the Phung Nguyen culture of
northern Vietnam around 2000 BCE.

Pottery Culture
The Buni culture is the name given to another early independent centre of refined
pottery production that has been well documented on the basis of excavated burial gifts,
deposited between 400 BCE and 100 CE in coastal north-western Java. The objects
and artifacts of the Buni tradition are known for their originality and remarkable quality of
incised and geometric decors. Its resemblance to the Sa Huỳnh culture and the fact that
it represents the earliest Indian Roulettes Ware recorded in Southeast Asia are subject
of ongoing research.

B. THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHEAST ASIA: RACES AND ETHNICITIES

The Aslians and Negrito were believe as one of the earliest inhabitants in the region.
They are genetically related to the Papuans in Eastern Indonesia, East Timor and
Australian Aborigines. In the Modern times, the Javanese are the largest ethnic group in
Southeast Asia, with more than 100 million people, mostly concentrated in Java
Indonesia.

Indonesia is clearly dominated by the Javanese and Sundanese ethnic groups, with
hundred of ethnic minorities inhabited the archipelago including Madurese
Minangkabau, Bugis Ballness, Dayuk, Batak, Malays. Malays are the majority in West
Malaysia and Brunei , while they forming a significant minority in Indonesia Southern
Thailand, East Malaysia and Singapore. In city-state Singapore, Chinese are the
majority, yet the city is multicultural melting pot, Malays Indians and Eurasian also called
the Island their home.
Within the Philippines, the Tagalog Visayan (mainly Cebuanos, Waray, and
Hiligaynons), Ilocano, Bikolano, Moro (mainly Tausug, Maranao, and Maguindana) and
central Luzon ( mainly kapampangan and Pangasinan) groups are significant. The
Philippines is also unique in Southeast Asia, in holding the only Latino founded
communities.

C. SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES
Subsistence means to support life, for example , subsistence farming literally means
farming for the purpose of supporting life. It is easy to imagine that different
geographical and cultural areas will create different strategies to support their own way
of life.

In Southeast Asia it consist of foraging, widden agriculture, traditional wet rice cultivation
and mechanized farming.

1. Foraging – in that process of gathering food from uncultivated plants or

undomesticated animals. You can think of it as a “Hunter/Gatherer” type of
lifestyle. A foraging subsistence strategy requires large amount of edible plant
growth to sustain itself and plentiful prey to hunt for meat.

2. Swidden Agriculture or Shifting Cultivation

- has been practiced in the uplands of Southeast Asia for centuries and is
estimated to support the 500 million people.

3. Traditional Wet Rice Cultivation

- is growing of rice in flooded called padi field in Indonesia
- it’s traditional form is found throughout Southeast Asia Southern China,
Japan, North and South Korea, Indonesia and many other tropical regions.

4. Mechanized Agriculture
- is the process of using agriculture, greatly increasing farm worker
productivity.
D. VARIETIES OF POLITICS

• A polity is an identifialbte political entity-any group of people who have a collective

identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a
capacity to mobilize resources.

•In geopolitics, a polity can be manifiated in different forms such as a state, an empire,
an international organization, a political organization and other identifiable, resource –
manipulating organizational structures.

(BANDS, AUTONOMOUS VILLAGES, CHIEFDOMS).

BANDS have been found primarily among foragers, especially Self-sufficient
pedestinan foragers. The total number of people within these societies rarely exceeds a
few dozen. Bands are essentially associations of families living together.

Autonomous Villags- The village is a powerful unit of analysis is both a material and a
metaphorical sense. The traditional vilage community is often paraded as a paragon of
virtue and the modem village as a corrupted version of the original. Yet the notion of the
traditional village as egalitarian, self-sufficient, autonomous, subsistence oriented,
corporate, peaceful and moral is often at odds with the historic evidence. As such it
presents difficulties when the image is seed to construct visions of what development is
doing, and should be doing, in rural areas of the developing world. This puper looks at
the evidence from Southeast Asia regarding the origins and structure of village
communimes the region, and cxamines some of the implications for development.

Chiefdoms are similar to bands and tribes in locetles. However, chiefdoms differ in
having a more Seing mustly clamless permanent, fulfilme leader or less with real
authority to make major decisions for their societies. These leaders are usually referred
to by anthropolugsts as chiels, Sometimes there is en advisory council as well, but
theme no bureaucracy of profesional administrators. The government is essentially just
the chief.
State
State level political systems first appeared in societies with large-scale intensive
agriculture. They began as chiefdoms and then evolved into more centralized,
authoritarian kingdoms when their populations grew into tens of thousands of people
While chiefdoms are societies in which everyone is ranked relative to the chief, states
are socially stratified into largely distinct classes in terms of wealth, power, and prestige.

Theater state is a political state directed towards the performance of drama and ritual
rather than moreconventional ends such as warfare and welfare. Power in a theatre
state is exercised through spectacle. The term was coined by Clifford Geertz in 1980 in
reference to political practice in the nineteenth-century Balinese Negara, but its usage
has since expanded. Hunik Kwon and Byung-Ho Chung, for example, argue that
contemporary North Korea is a theatre state. In Geertz’s original usage, the concept of
the theatre state contests the notion that precolonial society can be analyzed in the
conventional discourse of Oriental despotism.

Bureaucracies versus Oligarchies

As system the difference between oligarchy and bureaucracy is that oligarchy is a
government run by only a few, often the wealthy while bureaucracy is structure and
regulations in place to control activity usually in large organizations and government
operations. The signal performances of Southeast Asian countries in attaining economic
growth and political stability are frequently explained by cultural and policy factors.
Recent research suggests, however, that the role of the state is extensive and central to
economic and political goals. The present approach to the comparative evaluation of
state capacities attempts to account for the variations and nuances of the performance
of Southeast Asian states. The structure of political support and available means of
social control provide relatively greater capacity to state elites in Singapore and
Malaysia, and less capacity to state elites in the Philippines and Indonesia; Thailand is
an intermediate case.

Democratic States versus Authoritarian States

The word democracy comes from the Greek words ‘demos,’ which refers to the people,
and ‘kratos, which means power. Thus, a democratic state is one in which power
emanates from the people. One might say, then, that authoritarianism is the opposite of
a democracy. In an authoritarian regime, all power is concentrated in one person alone,
often referred to as the dictator.
One of the most basic features of a democracy that sets it apart from authoritarianism is
the process by which leaders are chosen. Because a democracy is meant to uphold the
power of the people, leaders are chosen such that they truly represent the people’s
interests. This is done through fair and honest elections, whereby citizens may
collectively express their choice of leaders through the ballot.

Reporters:
Hazel Mae Lucero
Jovelyn Bagason
Rhina Ann G. Abada
Jeryll Joice dela Rama
Cyrel Rubia
Richelle Ann Floria
Christopher Fabillar