New Books In Southeast Asian Studies podcast

35:09

Globally, the liberal international order has been under pressure for quite some time, but we often tend to discuss this in relation to big international players such as the United States and China. But how do small states like Singapore navigate and shape this increasingly contested space? Join Petra Alderman as she talks to Dylan Loh about Singapore’s understanding of the liberal international order, its position on liberal democratic values and human rights, its relations with big international players, and the ways in which this small city state seeks to uphold and modify the liberal international order, so it better aligns with its own interests. Read Dylan’s article ‘Singapore's conception of the liberal international order as a small state’ in International Affairs . *** This episode was originally recorded in November 2024. *** Dylan Loh is an Assistant Professor at the Public Policy and Global Affairs programme, at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He studies China’s foreign policy, international diplomacy, and ASEAN regionalism. He is the author of a recently published book ‘China's Rising Foreign Ministry: Practices and Representations of Assertive Diplomacy’ which was published by Stanford University Press (2024). Petra Alderman is a researcher, CEDAR affiliate, and a manager of the LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

1
Wolfram H. Dressler, "For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands" (Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2025) 54:30

4 дні тому54:30

54:30

For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands (Cornell University Press, 2025) examines the impacts of religious and environmental non-governmental actors on the lives of highlanders on Palawan Island, the Philippines. The absence of the state in Palawan's mountainous regions have meant that these non-governmental actors have been able to increasingly assume governmental authority. Wolfram H. Dressler explores these actors' emergence, goals, and practices in Palawan to reveal their influence on regulating agricultural cultivation, forests, customary objects, healthcare, and value systems. Using a relational approach and based on more than two decades of experience in Palawan, Dressler explains the causes and consequences of converging religious and environmental nongovernmental reforms in indigenous upland spaces. The book aims to provoke us to critically reflect on the political consequences non-governmental actors have on upland peoples negotiating challenges of late capitalism, and advocates for indigenous communities to be able to do so on their own terms. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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The May 2025 Mid-Term Elections in the Philippines 47:08

5 днів тому47:08

47:08

Today’s episode focuses on the mid-term elections in the Philippines which were held in May of this year, including all local elected positions, all seats in the House of Representatives, and twelve of the twenty-four seats in the Senate. The elections have been viewed as a reflection on the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. and as especially consequential for the future of Vice-President Sara Duterte. She was impeached by the House of Representatives in February 2025, setting the stage for a trial by the Senate, but with her continuing popularity making her a serious contender for the presidency in 2028. To interpret the mid-term elections, Dialogues on Southeast Asia has turned to Dr. Sharmila Parmanand, an Assistant Professor in Gender, Development and Globalisation in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and also an Associate and member of the Management Committee of the LSE’s Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. Dr. Parmanand’s research focuses on the intersection of gender and politics in the Philippines, ranging from sex work and migration policies to the connections between gender, nationalism, and democracy. She is currently working on her first book, titled Saving Our Sisters: The Politics of Anti-Trafficking and Sex Work in the Philippines , but she is also busy conducting research, writing, and publishing on other fronts, including a new collaborative project on queer activism across Southeast Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Vivian Kong, "Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:07:30

8 днів тому1:07:30

1:07:30

What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 (Cambridge UP, 2023) by Dr. Vivian Kong takes us to an underexplored site of Britishness – the former British colony of Hong Kong. Vivian Kong asks how colonial hierarchies, the racial and cultural diversity of the British Empire, and global ideologies complicate the meaning of being British. Using multi-lingual sources and oral history, Dr. Kong traces the experiences of multiracial residents in 1910-45 Hong Kong. Guiding us through Hong Kong's global networks, and the colony's co-existing exclusive and cosmopolitan social spaces, this book uncovers the long history of multiracial Britishness. Dr. Kong argues that Britishness existed in the colony in multiple, hyphenated forms – as a racial category, but also as privileges, a means of survival, and a form of cultural and national belonging. This book offers us an important reminder that multiracial inhabitants of the British Empire were just as active in the making of Britishness as the British state and white Britons. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Lieba Faier, "The Banality of Good: The UN's Global Fight Against Human Trafficking" (Duke UP, 2024) 58:44

8 днів тому58:44

58:44

In The Banality of Good: The UN’s Global Fight against Human Trafficking (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. Lieba Faier examines why contemporary efforts to curb human trafficking have fallen so spectacularly short of their stated goals despite well-funded campaigns by the United Nations and its member-state governments. Focusing on Japan’s efforts to enact the UN’s counter-trafficking protocol and assist Filipina migrants working in Japan’s sex industry, Dr. Faier draws from interviews with NGO caseworkers and government officials to demonstrate how these efforts disregard the needs and perspectives of those they are designed to help. She finds that these campaigns tend to privilege bureaucracies and institutional compliance, resulting in the compromised quality of life, repatriation, and even criminalization of human trafficking survivors. Dr. Faier expands on Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil” by coining the titular “banality of good” to describe the reality of the UN’s fight against human trafficking. Detailing the protocols that have been put in place and evaluating their enactment, Dr. Faier reveals how the continued failure of humanitarian institutions to address structural inequities and colonial history ultimately reinforces the violent status quo they claim to be working to change. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Kevin Nguyen, "My Documents" (One World, 2025) 48:23

10 днів тому48:23

48:23

Kevin Nguyen, My Documents (One World, 2025) Kevin Nguyen is the author of the novel New Waves , published in 2020. He is the features editor at The Verge , where he publishes award-winning stories about labor, business, and policing, and was previously a senior editor at GQ . He lives in Brooklyn. Recommended Books: Annelise Chen, Clam Down Tash Aw, The South Ian Penman, Eric Satie Three Piece Suite Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature , is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival , a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Geoffrey Wawro, "The Vietnam War: A Military History" (Basic Books, 2024) 1:12:52

24 дні тому1:12:52

1:12:52

The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war. Based on thousands of pages of military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, Geoffrey Wawro's The Vietnam War offers a definitive account of a war of choice that was doomed from its inception. In devastating detail, Wawro narrates campaigns where US troops struggled even to find the enemy in the South Vietnamese wilderness, let alone kill sufficient numbers to turn the tide in their favor. Yet the war dragged on, prolonged by presidents and military leaders who feared the political consequences of accepting defeat. In the end, no number of young lives lost or bombs dropped could prevent America's ally, the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, from collapsing the moment US troops retreated. Broad, definitive, and illuminating, The Vietnam War: A Military History offers an unsettling, resonant story of the limitations of American power. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Sven Trakulhun, "Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 40:54

29 днів тому40:54

40:54

Siam had been dealing with Christian missionaries for centuries, but from the 1830s a new wave of Protestant missionaries began to work in Siam, just as the European imperial powers were encroaching on Southeast Asia. They brought with them modern science and technology, which was of interest to the Siamese elite, but at the same time they challenged Siam’s official Theravada Buddhist religious tradition. Coincidentally, a reform movement in Siamese Buddhism got underway in the 1830s, led by Prince, later King, Mongkut (r.1851-68), then still a monk. The missionaries were largely unsuccessful in converting Thais to Christianity, but to what extent did the new Protestant Christianity influence the Buddhist reform movement? This is the question that Sven Trakulhun seeks to answer in his new book, Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand (U Hawaii Press, 2024). Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Xing Hang, "The Port: Hà Tiên and the Mo Clan in Early Modern Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:05:09

4 weeks тому1:05:09

1:05:09

The Port (present-day Hà Tiên), situated in the Mekong River Delta and Gulf of Siam littoral, was founded and governed by the Chinese creole Mo clan during the eighteenth century and prospered as a free-trade emporium in maritime East Asia. Mo Jiu and his son, Mo Tianci, maintained an independent polity through ambiguous and simultaneous allegiances to the Cochinchinese regime of southern Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam, and the Dutch East India Company. A shared value system was forged among their multiethnic and multi-confessional residents via elite Chinese culture, facilitating closer business ties to Qing China. The story of this remarkable settlement sheds light on a transitional period in East Asian history, when the dominance of the Chinese state, merchants, and immigrants gave way to firmer state boundaries in mainland Southeast Asia and Western dominance on the seas. Xing Hang is Associate Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The Port: Hà Tiên and the Mo Clan in Early Modern Asia Ghassan Moazzin is Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Marine Environment Assessment in Palawan, Philippines 25:47

5 weeks тому25:47

25:47

Dr Billy Haworth is a geographer interested in human-environment interactions, with expertise positioned at the intersection of human geography, critical GIS (geographic information systems), and international disaster studies. Billy’s work tries to better-understand experiences of, and adaptation to, environmental change and disruption, and often includes highlighting inequalities, widening research participation, and knowledge exchange beyond academia, involving community, government and non-government stakeholders. In 2022, they commenced a research and teaching role in the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, primarily working on the Marine Resources Initiative project with Geoscience Australia and SE Asian government partners. They are the lead author on a new report on the State of the Marine Environment in Palawan, an archipelagic province of the Philippines. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Selda Altan, "Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan-Indochina Railway" (Stanford UP, 2024) 55:51

6 weeks тому55:51

55:51

Chinese workers helped build the modern world. They labored on New World plantations, worked in South African mines, and toiled through the construction of the Panama Canal, among many other projects. While most investigations of Chinese workers focus on migrant labor, Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan-Indochina Railway (Stanford UP, 2024) explores Chinese labor under colonial regimes within China through an examination of the Yunnan-Indochina Railway, constructed between 1898-1910. The Yunnan railway--a French investment in imperial China during the age of "railroad colonialism"--connected French-colonized Indochina to Chinese markets with a promise of cross-border trade in tin, silk, tea, and opium. However, this ambitious project resulted in fiasco. Thousands of Chinese workers died during the horrid construction process, and costs exceeded original estimates by 74%. Drawing on Chinese, French, and British archival accounts of day-to-day worker struggles and labor conflicts along the railway, Selda Altan argues that long before the Chinese Communist Party defined Chinese workers as the vanguard of a revolutionary movement in the 1920s, the modern figure of the Chinese worker was born in the crosscurrents of empire and nation in the late nineteenth century. Yunnan railway workers contested the conditions of their employment with the knowledge of a globalizing capitalist market, fundamentally reshaping Chinese ideas of free labor, national sovereignty, and regional leadership in East and Southeast Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Gazi Mizanur Rahman, "In the Malay World: A Spatial History of a Bengali Transnational Community" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 50:53

6 weeks тому50:53

50:53

Gazi Mizanur Rahman’s In the Malay World: A Spatial History of a Bengali Transnational Community (Cambridge University Press, 2024) offers the first sustained historical study of Bengali migration to British Malaya from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth. Drawing on archival research in South and Southeast Asia, as well as oral histories and travel accounts, Rahman reconstructs the formation of a transnational Bengali presence that has been largely overlooked in the broader literature on Indian migration. The book argues that Bengali migrants—across class, religion, and occupation—constituted a distinct group within the South Asian diaspora in the Malay world. Colonial administrators often reduced them to the generic category of “Indian,” but Bengalis in Malaya included plantation workers, lascars, domestic servants, professionals, and traders. They moved through varied migration routes and formed diverse community institutions, including mosques, cultural associations, and legal aid networks. Rahman introduces the concept of “space-making” to show how Bengali migrants created social, institutional, and urban spaces that allowed them to adapt and persist in new settings. These spaces were not only material (homes, neighbourhoods, workplaces) but also relational, sustained by kinship ties, religious practice, and civic engagement. Particularly important are the chapters on Bengali medical professionals and maritime labour, which demonstrate how this group contributed to colonial infrastructure while navigating systemic racial and occupational hierarchies. The book also engages with the postcolonial period, tracing the arrival of Bangladeshi workers in the 1980s and 1990s and the new forms of marginality they encountered. These later migrants, often undocumented or temporary, faced challenges similar to those of their predecessors but within different political and economic regimes. Rahman’s study challenges the dominant focus on Tamil and Sikh diasporas in Southeast Asia and contributes to a growing body of scholarship that disaggregates the “Indian” category in colonial and postcolonial contexts. It is a methodologically rigorous and empirically rich work that will interest historians of migration, labour, and the Indian Ocean world. Soumyadeep Guha is a third-year graduate student in the History Department at the State University of New York, Binghamton, with research interests in Agrarian History, the History of Science and Technology, and Global History, focusing on 19th and 20th century India. His MA dissertation, War, Science and Survival Technologies: The Politics of Nutrition and Agriculture in Late Colonial India , explored how wartime imperatives shaped scientific and agricultural policy during the Second World War in India. Currently, his working on his PhD dissertation on the histories of rice and its production in late colonial and early post-colonial Bengal, examining the entangled trajectories of agrarian change, scientific knowledge, and state-making. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Qingfei Yin, "State Building in Cold War Asia: Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 47:15

6 weeks тому47:15

47:15

Departing from conventional studies of border hostility in inter-Asian relations, Yin Qingfei explores how two revolutionary states - China and Vietnam - each pursued policies that echoed the other and collaborated in extending their authority to the borderlands from 1949 to 1975. Making use of central and local archival sources in both Chinese and Vietnamese, she reveals how the people living on the border responded to such unprecedentedly aggressive state building and especially how they appropriated the language of socialist brotherhood to negotiate with authorities. During the continuous Indochina wars, state expansion thus did not unfold on these postcolonial borderlands in a coherent or linear manner. Weaving together international, national, and transnational-local histories, State Building in Cold War Asia: Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border (Cambridge UP, 2024) presents a new approach to the highly volatile Sino-Vietnamese relations during the Cold War, centering on the two modernising revolutionary powers' competitive and collaborative state building on the borderlands and local responses to it. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Guo Quan Seng, "Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny, and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia" (SAPP, 2023) 55:53

7 weeks тому55:53

55:53

In Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny, and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia (SAPP, 2023), Guo-Quan Seng provides a gendered history of settler Chinese community formation in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period (1816–1942). At the heart of this story lies the creolization of patrilineal Confucian marital and familial norms to the colonial legal, moral, and sexual conditions of urban Java. Departing from male-centered narratives of overseas Chinese communities, Strangers in the Family tells the history of community- formation from the perspective of women who were subordinate to, and alienated from, full Chinese selfhood. From native concubines and mothers, creole Chinese daughters, and wives and matriarchs, to the first generation of colonial-educated feminists, Seng showcases women's moral agency as they negotiated, manipulated, and debated men in positions of authority over their rights in marriage formation and dissolution. In dialogue with critical studies of colonial Eurasian intimacies, this book explores Asian-centered inter-ethnic patterns of intimate encounters. It shows how contestations over women's place in marriage and in society were formative of a Chinese racial identity in colonial Indonesia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies…

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Zev J. Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025) 45:26

8 weeks тому45:26