This edited collection offers a comprehensive introduction to the policies pursued towards minority peoples by the governments of Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Across these diverse Southeast Asian nations, governments have approached their minority populations in much the same way: deriding them as backward and problematic, insisting that they ‘develop’ or make way for development that is intended to assure the progress and prosperity of the nation, and to varying degrees (and with the exception of the Philippines) imposing an agenda of assimilation. The reasons why such an agenda has dominated are varied, and often obscure. As McElwee notes in his discussion of Vietnam ‘there is no easy answer to why policies toward highlanders that seem at best misguided and at worst culturally destructive are pursued by the Vietnamese government’ (p. 204). The contributors discuss underlying motivations around nationalism, ethnocentrism, racism, national security and the inevitable desire of those in power to lay claim to natural resources. Ultimately, questions of equity and social justice for indigenous minorities are low on the agenda whatever rhetoric governments might deploy around the importance of helping minority groups ‘develop’.

While the trend of marginalisation and dispossession is clear, there is also a great deal of complexity in minority–state relations, both between and within countries. This collection also gives a sense of these complexities in each case. The legacy of colonial administrations, postcolonial efforts towards national unity, Cold War security concerns, conflicts over land, and questions of governance, religion and national identity vary across countries.

Added to the complexity is the diverse range of indigenous activism and political engagement across the region. Sadly, not enough account is given of how minority peoples themselves are actively engaging with the state. Any scholarship on the policies of Southeast Asian governments towards minority and indigenous peoples is likely to be depressing reading and this volume is no exception. The overwhelming impression is that there is very little indigenous people can do to shape their own lives against the overwhelming power of the state. Yet there are pockets of hope across the region and these are not given nearly enough airing in the book. In every country there are minority groups working hard to influence state policy, develop their own communities according to their own agenda, and combating the imposition of external agendas. This is most visible in the case of armed insurrection, and Eder and McKenna provide a succinct account of Muslim rebellion in the Philippines. However, there are a great many more groups who are working quietly to negotiate for better conditions within the parameters of state rule. Occasionally, the voices of these leaders and activists come through, as with Duncan's discussion of the emerging indigenous rights movement in Indonesia. It is a shame that the voices of the activists struggling to transform government policy elsewhere in the region were not represented more strongly.

This volume is a revised edition of a collection published by Cornell in 2004 and based upon presentations made at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. The contributors draw on their extensive experience in the region, and the chapters offer a nice balance between discussion of shifting government policy and a sense of how the impacts of these have played out on the ground. Much has changed since the papers were first presented and the new edition includes a short summary of important developments since 2004, providing an update on key policy shifts, new legislative change and the impacts of recent unrest. There is also a reference list of more recent publications on government policies towards ethnic minorities in the region. While the additions are useful, unfortunately some of the material in the unrevised chapters themselves is now rather dated.

Overall, this volume represents an important source for those seeking an introduction to indigenous and minority groups in the region. It should be essential reading for any student of Southeast Asian history and culture as a corrective to textbooks that seldom give more than a brief glance at national minorities. A reading of this volume should not, however, be a complacent reading — there is too much that is left out. While the familiar stories of indigenous dispossession do need to be told, so too do stories of indigenous action and initiative. Without these voices our scholarly accounts risk compounding the effects of the dispossession we seek to critique.