This article draws upon recently-gathered anthropological and other data from Cambodia to explore how some Cambodians move beyond the constraints of social differentiation and order to access higher realms of meaning. This enables communion, security and liberation from social patterns of misrecognition. Gender is one of the primary principles of social differentiation and in recent years the relationship between gender, security and development has attracted the interest particularly of feminist scholars. Attention is often focused upon the misogynistic aspects of gender differentiation. Proponents of this kind of discourse tend not to concern themselves with how women and men may actually transcend rather than challenge gender order or with how they may commune with one another in ways that generate security. Focusing instead on the notions that are meaningful to the members of a given society may reveal some of the shortcomings of current security, development and feminist discourse. The material presented here is analysed by adapting some of the ideas that Roy Rappaport developed in his study of the ‘cognized models’ and liturgical rituals of the Maring of New Guinea. Rappaport's model helps to reveal how, by navigating multiple and overlapping levels of meaning, Cambodians may negotiate and even invert social order in ways that can be transformative, emancipatory and healing.

Only in a handful of cases in world history has female rule been seen by contemporary observers as desirable and been sustained for long periods of time. Drawing on European, Malay and Chinese sources, this article investigates the reasons for the institutionalisation of female rule in the Malay sultanate of Patani (presently in southern Thailand) for most of the period between c. 1584 and 1711. It is concluded that the results of previous research, in which the Patani queens are characterised as powerless front figures and/or promiscuous, have insufficient support in the contemporary sources. Furthermore, the problems of female rule for dynastic stability are discussed comparatively. Finally, the decline of female rule in Patani after the mid-seventeenth century is explained with reference to the larger political, economic and military changes in maritime Southeast Asia at the time.

Given different socio-economic structures, and acute landlessness among the Dalits of East Punjab, the agendas of conversion to neo-Buddhism and sanskritisation, the two most popular Dalit social mobility models in India, have failed to strike a cord among the Dalits in this border state of northwest India. But that does not imply that Dalits of Punjab have failed in improving their social status. On the contrary, they have been very vocal in their assertions for social justice and dignity, and pressing for a due share in the local structures of power; a clear indication of a significant surge of Dalit social mobility in Punjab. The question that still remains largely unexplored, however, relates to the patterns of Dalit social mobility in Punjab that have emerged independently of the agendas of conversion to neo-Buddhism and sanskritisation. The study aims to map out the contours of an emerging alternative Dalit agenda in Punjab, which is conspicuous by its absence in existing Dalit studies, and examines its catalytic role in enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of increasingly visible Dalit social mobility in the state. The paper concludes by visualising the possibility of an articulation and assertion of a similar alternative Dalit agenda through highly contentious democratic politics in other parts of India, where the archetypical agendas of conversion and sanskritisation have either failed to deliver social justice and dignity or could not simply appeal to the local Dalit population.

On 31 December 1985, Singapore left the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), turning against the ‘New International Information Order’ demanded by UNESCO at that time. In October 2007, after 22 years of absence, Singapore rejoined UNESCO, looking for an intensification of cultural and scientific exchange. Taking this example of reviving co-operation between Singapore and UNESCO, this paper assesses the concept of ‘creative industries’ as a boundary concept that allows for increased co-operation between players with generally opposing knowledge concepts — as manifested in their respective knowledge and cultural politics. The paper starts with a conceptual discussion on the crossing of boundaries. This is followed by an assessment of first, UNESCO's and second, Singapore's gradual repositioning towards culture. While UNESCO turned from distinctly separating ‘culture’ and ‘market’ in the 1970s and 1980s to an increased openness for profit-oriented conceptualisations of culture today, Singapore identified the economic potential of culture, creativity and the arts, and therefore the need to foster these as part of its development into a knowledge-based economy. The underlying differences in interests and the orientation of content, expressed by the traditionally opposing conceptualisations of knowledge and culture, are still valid today, yet the concept of ‘creative industries’, adopted by both sides, seems to offer a common meeting ground. It acts clearly as a bridge, and hence a boundary concept, allowing for an intensification of mutual co-operation. This is discussed in the final part of the paper.