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The aim of producing Bah Luj Production, four folk tales books accompanied by a compact disc of its narration, dialogs and music is to revitalize the folk tales, music and cultural heritage of the indigenous Semai by condensing them into an innovative resource package, tailored to appeal to the current generation’s consumer interests and lifestyles. The targeted audiences for the product are Malaysians, in particular the Semai community, as well as other local and international consumers. The purpose of this paper is to examine a practice-led approach toward considering the empowerment of selected culture bearers assisted by the intervention of researchers from the academia in facilitating the sustainability of indigenous cultural traditions in Malaysia.

This approach is practice-led – Bah Luj Production was developed based on action, reflection, review and revision. This paper provides visibility to the research process, enabling readers to understand the issues, challenges and decision-making processes. The practice-led approach that was used for this project provides a realistic practical guide, bridging the gap between theory and practice. In the conclusion, the authors also bring forth ideas for improvement through reflection, on suggested approaches in ways this research did not manage to pursue.

This paper proposes three approaches in advocating for cultural sustainability through innovation: collaboration between selected culture bearers and researchers in the academia; indigeneity of cultural expressions and illustrations; and adaptability and relevance to current interests of indigenous people and consumers of indigenous music and literature. This paper argues that it is important for the researcher to navigate research with relevance to the context and situation.

While many articles focus on presenting the outcomes of a research project, this paper guides the reader toward understanding the limitations, constraints and negotiations made by the research team during the research and production stages. Transparency in the process of decision making will enlighten readers on realistic, practical approaches as opposed to idealistic theoretical methods.

This paper argues for sustainability through innovation and posits that cultural heritage practices that continue to be performed are those that are adaptable, flexible to change and open to innovation – therefore maintaining relevance to time, context and consumers. This paper posits that researchers should be flexible and practical in their research actions and avoid generalizations that come out of recent and popular critical theories as the most, or only suitable, approaches for diverse communities.

The development of an alternate approach, theory/concept and guidelines toward sustainability through innovation make this study the first of its kind. This approach integrates tradition with creation.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The purpose of this chapter is to identify African financial management practices, highlight their origin and explain how they differ from their Western counterparts. The study identified indigenous African financial practices using literature review, archival sources and library research covering the five areas of Africa comprising Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, Central Africa Western Africa and Southern Africa. The study found out that pre-colonial indigenous African financial management features prevalent use of trade finance, trade credit management, investment management and accounting. While there is also evidence of modification of Western financial management practices to suit African contexts, it is on the whole scarce. This is suggestive of the fact that they were in existence in the first instance. The clear conclusion is that many indigenous African financial management practices pre-dated and foreshadowed their Western counterparts. Yet, it is confounding that this has been largely lost sight of, and both scholars and financial management practitioners depict the former as inferior. There is clearly a need to remedy this situation. Educators need to focus on incorporating ethno-finance concepts into the entire curricula chain from basic to higher education. The anchor point for such curricula is Ubuntu philosophy. Financial management practitioners, on their part, need to shed notions that the indigenous practices are inferior and seek to journalise their day-to-day work experiences to build a body of documented practice.

Through a critical reading of a twentieth-century Bengali artist’s autobiography, this paper aims to attempt to demonstrate how commercial art and the consumption ethos symbolized by that art represented an archetypal bhadralok insignia. A close examination of this insignia reveals how the dynamics of modern liberal values mediating through the colonial capitalist structure in relation to the regional particularities of Bengal opened up a new space of cosmopolitanism, where there is an attempt to reframe cultural practices in the light of a broader global history of interrogation, reason, change and emancipation.

This paper is a historical analysis of primary sources.

It was found that the bhadralok-led Bengal School of Art influenced commercial art of early postcolonial Bengal.

The study is limited to the region of Bengal.

This paper makes contributions to one of the less-researched, but very important areas, of business history in India.

The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.

The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.

The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.

As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.

Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.