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258Appendix IIIAbstracts of PapersPanel 1: Multiple Modernities: Globalization in the Asian ContextEconomic Boom from the Oil Crisis: Development and Contradictions in the Agro-fuelIndustries in Three Southeast Asian CountriesDianto BachriadiBiofuels are becoming important alternatives to fossil fuels in the world. Pro and con arguments have thusemerged, with those in favor of biofuels claiming that biofuel industries will contribute to rural development,increase the national budget for food, increase job opportunities, and decrease global warming. But are theseclaims accurate? For one, the expansion of agro-fuels, which is one kind of biofuel industry, will increase thenumber of land conversions from forestry areas and/or people’s agricultural lands. It can likewise lead toenvironmental destruction and human exploitation. Notwithstanding these supposedly adverse effects of biofuelindustries and on the basis of their purportedly positive effects like economic growth, coupled with the globalcommitment to address climate change, the governments of Southeast Asian countries are competing with eachother to develop agro-fuel industries. Corporations have been riding these competitions, possibly operating acrossnations and enjoying government facilitations in matters involving their investment, trade, and land allocations.Many rural communities and local governments are also trying to reap certain benefits from this development,especially in those areas involving voluntary land conversion and encroachment. In turn, campaigns against theexpansion of corporate-based agro-fuels industries have been conducted by non-government and civil societyorganizations at the local, national and global levels. This paper, which was based on fieldwork in Malaysia,Thailand, and the Philippines, provides a descriptive and comparative analysis of the following issues: (1) thedevelopment of agro-fuel industries and the increase in land allocations for these industries; the conversion andencroachment on large scale plantations for the production of feedstock, which in this case include palm andjathropa oils in the different contexts of the agrarian structure, policy, and legislation; and (2) the contradictionsin people’s involvement and the campaign against the expansion of the agro-fuels industries in these threeSoutheast Asian countries.Development of Malay Rice Growing Villages under De-AgrarianizationRika TeranoThis project attempted to clarify the future direction of rural development of Malay villages in the Malaysianpeninsula. In the rural sector, these rice farming villages were traditionally impoverished, with the majority of thepeople belonging to the agricultural labor force. However, because Malaysia had been experiencing drasticeconomic growth since the late 1980s, economic inequality also became a more profound problem between themore industrialized and the less industrialized states. Newly built factories brought about by foreign directinvestment gave off-farm income to employed villagers in the surrounding industrial zones. In order to appreciatethe socio-economic situation, particularly the participation of farming households and rural livelihood, ananalysis of household economies in terms of only on-farm income and farm management would not be adequate.In approaching the inequality situation and advancing a better adapted policy for rural development, we thereforeutilized a framework of “de-agrarianization” that dealt with diversifying farm households and livelihood andenabled the generation of off-farm income and employment. The attempt to approach the prevailing economicinequality on the household level creates possibilities for narrowing the income gap and instituting social justicein Malaysia.The Work of the 2010/2011 API Fellows