Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Kepelbagaian Biologi & Ekologi Fauna di Malaysia. 2003. ISBN 967-942-641-6 (Paperback). 228hlm. Shukor Md. Nor & Neeta D. Sinnappah-Kang

Kepelbagaian Biologi & Ekologi Fauna di Malaysia. 2003. ISBN 967-942-641-6 (Paperback). 228hlm. Shukor Md. Nor & Neeta D. Sinnappah-Kang

Pembangunan yang pesat secara tidak langsung telah menyebabkan perubahan yang mendadak pada alam sekitar di Malaysia. Penggunaan tanah bagi tujuan pembangunan dan eksploitasi sumber semula jadi menyebabkan banyak spesies fauna kehilangan habitat semula jadi untuk bermandiri. Bagi spesies yang mempunyai populasi yang rendah, kebarangkalian untuk pupus adalah tinggi dalam keadaan seperti ini. Menyedari hakikat ini, kepelbagaian dan spesies fauna yang terdapat di negara ini perlulah dikaji dari masa ke masa dan seterusnya dinilai dan ditaksir statusnya. Penilaian dan penaksiran amat penting bagi tujuan pengurusan untuk mengurangkan kesan kepupusan. Menurunnya kepelbagaian biologi yang disebabkan oleh perubahan habitat semula jadi adalah isu penting yang dihadapi oleh bukan sahaja ahli biologi di Malaysia, malah di seluruh dunia masa kini. Buku ini membincangkan status kepelbagaian dan ekologi fauna yang terdapat di Malaysia, termasuk fauna terestial, akuatik dan marin.

SHUKOR MD. NOR, Ph. D., Profesor Madya di Pusat Pengajian Sains Sekitaran dan Sumber Alam, Fakulti Sains dan Teknologi, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. NEETA D. SINAPPAH-KANG, Ph. D, pensyarah di Pusat Pengajian yang sama.


Monday, September 15, 2008

Whither the Look East Policy. 2003. Penerbit UKM: Bangi. ISBN 967-942-618-1 (paperback). 144 pp. RM 20.00. Khadijah Md Khalid & Lee Poh Ping

Whither the Look East Policy. 2003. Penerbit UKM: Bangi. ISBN 967-942-618-1 (paperback). 144 pp. RM 20.00. Khadijah Md Khalid & Lee Poh Ping

The Look East policy, the Japanese model that was launched in 1982 is now no longer in vogue. Among the primary reasons for this are the Japanese economic malaise and the Asian financial crisis. The past twenty years have seen intense debates on the validity of the model in a country with a different cultural and ethnic make-up from Japan, and have also shown the political and bureaucratic obstacles the policy met with. All these have made Malaysians aware of the difficulties involved in the implementation of this policy and have greatly tempered the enthusiasm the policy initially aroused. Despite all these, Malaysia has not abandoned the Look East policy, as evidenced by recent statements from Malaysian leaders. Malaysia will continue with the dispatch of Malaysian students and trainees to Japan, and Japan will continue to be studied if only to find where it has gone wrong. Given this reaffirmation despite all these developments, and given the long period since the policy was launched, it is appropriate that some evaluation be made of this policy. This book attempts to make such an evaluation by considering the various meanings attached to this policy; its success or otherwise; and where it is heading. The discussion goes beyond the theory of the policy to an examination of the political and economic interests. The impact of the leadership and views of the most important political personality in the formulation and implementation of the policy, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. The development of a loose network of individuals and groups consisting of Japanese and Malaysians that tried to influence the Look East policy and bilateral Malaysian-Japanese relations in the post-1981 period was traced.

KHADIJAH MD. KHALID, Ph. D., a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Administration, Universiti Malaya. LEE POH PING, Ph. D., Professor at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.


Published by:

Penerbit UKM

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

43600, Bangi, Selangor,

Malaysia.

Fax no: 03-89254575



Sunday, September 14, 2008

Resisting Colonialist Discourse (Second Edition)

Resisting Colonialist Discourse (Second Edition). 2003. ISBN 967-942-628-9 (Paperback). 236pgs. RM25.00. Zawiah Yahya

This book proposes a method of resistance as a reading strategy for colonialist discourse. The procedure involves resistance to institutionalised reading conventions that have for so long upheld Eurocentric values as universal and guaranteed textual cohesion, authorial control and make the ideological, historical and cultural specificities of the colonised count in interpretation. This is done through a combined process of inter-textualtiy across disciplines and close reading of the type that concentrated on the uncounscious of the text, its omissions and silences, its ideological inconsistencies and slippages, its conflicting discourses. The first strategy, using Althusser, Foucault and Said aims at dismantling power-structures in colonialist discourse to make readers aware of what they are up against. The second strategy works through the silences of the text to construct the colonised version of the colonalist story in a process of cultural dialogistion adapted from Bakhtin.

Zawiah Yahya, Ph.D is an associate professor and the Dean of the Faculty of Language Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.


Published by:

Penerbit UKM

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

43600, Bangi, Selangor,

Malaysia.

Fax no: 03-89254575



Friday, September 12, 2008

Skill Formation in Malaysia.

Skill Formation in Malaysia. 2003. Penerbit UKM: Bangi. ISBN 967-942-601-7 (paperback). 180 pp. RM 30.00. Yuri Sadoi.

This book examines the auto parts industry in Malaysia in order to understand the difficulties a developing country faces in promoting skill formation. The Malaysian government has promoted automobile production and its supporting industries by giving tax benefits and tariff protection through a national car project. Despite a history of over a decade, the technical capability of workers in the Malaysian auto mobile industry is still low, although there has been an increase in the local content. The increase of the local content is often taken as an indicator of the progress of the Malaysian auto mobile industry, but it has been brought about largely by importing machines that handle difficult production processes for parts production. Auto parts production requires a wide range of skills. Automobile production, which requires over 30 000 parts, depends very much on parts production. Malaysia currently cannot produce all the required parts. By looking at the imported parts, this book asks why their production cannot be localized and pin-points the necessary techniques and skills for their production. The analysis of imported parts highlights the three major problems Malaysia faces, lack of technical competence in such processing techniques as forging and precision machining; the low designing capability of parts makers; and requirement of scale merit.

YURI SADOI, Ph.D. is an affiliat fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden, the Netherlands. She received her Ph.D in Human and Environmental Studies at Kyoto University, Japan in 1999. She has co-edited Production Networks in Asia and Europe: Skill Formation and Technology Transfer in the Automobile Industry London: Routledge (2003).


Published by:

Penerbit UKM

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

43600, Bangi, Selangor,

Malaysia.

Fax no: 03-89254575