An Anthropologist in Communist Romania, 1973-1988
Secret-police surveillance redirected one scholar's research projects in ways that ultimately yielded a changed understanding of cold war Romania and its past.
Anthropological adventures with Romania's Wizard of Oz, 1973-1989
Throughout the Cold War, most people in the US saw the commu- nist party-states of the Soviet bloc as all-powerful regimes imposing their will on their populations. The author, a child of the Cold War, began her fieldwork in Romania in the 1970s in this belief. The present essay describes how her ex- periences in Romania between 1973 and 1989 gradually forced her to see things differently, bringing her to realize that centralization was only one face of a system of rule pervaded by barely controlled anarchy and parasitism on the state. It was not simply that the regime had failed to change people's con- sciousness; rather, the system's operation was actively producing something quite different. These insights contributed to the author's developing a new model of the workings of socialism.
Thailand's Muslim Minorities: Assimilation, Secession, or Coexistence?
THAILAND is a predominantly Buddhist country. For most people its very name conjures up images of saffron-robed monks, temple bells, and statues of the Buddha-images that travel brochures or impressions gained during a fleeting visit do little to dispel. Yet a more careful scrutiny of the Thai scene reveals signs of a very different religious tradition existing side-by-side with the Theravada Buddhist establishment. For Thai Islam, its presence indicated equally by the halal foodstall in a crowded Bangkok market or by the silhouette of a minaret against a rural skyline, continues to flourish throughout much of the country. Today an estimated 1,750,000 people, about 4% of the total population, are Muslims, making Islam the second religion of Thailand.' This article briefly outlines the historical background and geographical distribution of Islam in Thailand, drawing particular attention to the ethnic diversity of the various Thai Muslim peoples, before analyzing the nature of contemporary political relationships between the Thai Buddhist establishment and Thailand's Muslim minority. Even though there can be no precise date for the introduction of Islam to Thailand, it is evident that Arab and Persian Muslims en route to