Douglas Miles and Borneo

Bibliographic Data

ID2174516
AuthorsJennifer Alexander (0000-0001-8565-8394)
Year2008
Volume9
Issue3
Pages189-197
Publication date2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanberra Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0314-9099 • E-ISSN: 1740-9314
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14442210802251639
OpenAlexW2034671760
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

In 1976, Douglas Miles published a book entitled Cutlass and Crescent Moon based on research carried out in South Borneo in the early 1960s. I take up some of the themes of that work to provide a narrative account of trade, barter and exchange across the Indonesian–Malaysian border on the upper Balui River of Sarawak in the last decades of the 20th century. Doug supervised my PhD thesis on rural commodity markets in Java for a short period and the advice he gave at that time was crucial, not only for the development of the thesis, but also for ensuing publications. The gist was that all research detail is important, but that one should not lose track of the main theme. In other words, good ethnographic writing should paint both the big picture and the small

Archaeology · Art · Barter · Commodity · Economics · Economy · Ethnography · Indonesian · Literature · Narrative · Theme (computing) · Asian Studies and History · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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