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ARInewsMain Story

WORD FROM THE DIRECTORSpecial Feature

NOTES FROM COX’S BAZAROutreach Event

13TH SINGAPORE GRADUATE FORUM ON SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES

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It will probably not be a surprise that I should think

ARI a fine and thriving hub of scholarship on Asia.

The significant question that arises is: what makes it so?

In the next few hundred words, I will lay out what I think

makes ARI tick, and tick so well.

First of all, there is the matter of Geography. Not just

the obvious geographical advantage that we enjoy:

being an Institute of Asia, in Asia. Nor the fact that just

over two years ago we moved back to NUS’s main campus

to enjoy the benefits of being close to allied departments

and the central library. But that we actually have space

—in fact a whole floor of a new building—with rooms

to meet and gather, even a pantry. (Although I dearly

wish that we had also created a common room. Note to

incoming Director: carve out a common room, if you can,

somewhere or other.) ARI is not a virtual research centre

or institute where people who work on Asia are listed,

with the belief that a listing makes a centre. We have staff,

they have offices, pass each other daily in the corridor or,

more likely, are crammed into the pantry. We literally rub

shoulders, exchange ideas and, in the process, turn

a space into a place, and a place into a community.

This highlights the second element in the ARI mix: warm

bodies. While accepting that sometimes people need

to ferret themselves away in some corner to have time

to work, read and write in peace and quiet, a research

institute needs sufficient people around to make a crowd

and raise the intellectual temperature. We generally

manage that—although it is something we could also

work on.

Simply throwing people into the mix, however, is not

enough. Where’s the glue that makes people stop and

chat in the corridor, or share a coffee or lunch? That turns

strangers into colleagues, colleagues into neighbours, and

neighbours into friends? One of the initiatives that

Tony Reid, ARI’s first Director, introduced was our ITB—

or ‘In the Beginning’—sessions. Because we have so many

short-term visitors passing through, finding out who they

are, what they do, and what drives and inspires them, is

essential. Otherwise, they would be gone before anyone

knows that they had ever arrived. And a round-robin email

just does not do the business.

Each person is allocated 30 minutes, and we schedule

two individual ITBs over the lunch hour. New staff

give a 20-minute informal presentation—essentially

an autobiographical vignette, sometimes from birth,

photos allowed. These are informal affairs, but often

surprising in what they reveal. Even the most taciturn

scholars let their guard down, and talk about personal

matters. Occasionally we even have tears. It really is quite

moving—and revealing.

There are also a pair of important institutional matters

worth noting, my fourth and fifth essential ingredients.

To begin with, our clusters and their leaders. Our clusters

give focus and coherence; our cluster leaders give

direction. But they are more different than alike, and I see

that as positive. Some clusters emphasise team working

and co-publishing; others are more individualistic in tone

and approach.

Our clusters have each found their own ways to foster

research and collegiality, and their success in achieving

their research ends is detailed—convincingly

—in each ARI annual report.

Perhaps even more importantly, and second, I have

to mention our support staff—ten in total. They

are individually wonderful, collectively superlative.

I appreciate that it has become common practice to

PROF JONATHAN RIGG

WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR

This is my last ‘Word from the Director’. I step down in December after three years in post. It has been a wonderful 36 months, and my successor is a lucky person.

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thank support staff; I am not doing (just) that here. They

are the heart of ARI. Ask anyone. Truly. In fact they are

the only thread that links the past with the present.

Post-docs come and go, and so do Directors for that

matter. Our support staff are with us for the long term

and their pride in what they—and therefore what we—do,

shines through. Just don’t poach any (more)!

There is a third institutional piece in the puzzle, and my

sixth ingredient, and this will surprise most people: the

latitude that the university gives us just to get on with

things. Singapore is known for its micro-management.

I don’t find that, at least as ARI’s Director. We get a core

grant and we are left to use it as we see fit. We are not

burdened by complex space algorithms or annoying

bench fees like universities in many other places.

Appointment processes, for us, are relatively straight-

forward. We really can be agile. Of course, there are

things I would quite like to change, but the big picture

is just dandy, and not the one you might expect.

That introduces a seventh ingredient: money. Without

money, our grand plans would be gossamer. To be sure,

when I became Director I was given a grant target—a

classic case of carrot and stick. But we have more than

met our targets and winds are set fair. Other research

centres must yearn for the financial stability—and the

sustained institutional commitment—that we enjoy.

My eighth and last magic ingredient is the importance

of tactics over strategy. Of course, I would like to

write that I have put in place a cunningly honed and

carefully implemented ‘strategy’ for ARI. But that would

be delusional. Increasingly, I think tactics are more

important than some high-level strategy that people don’t

understand, rarely read, and with which they (therefore)

don’t engage. It is humanity not technology, and everyday

moments not disembedded plans, that are far more

important in making ARI tick. It is the little things. And

getting the little things right creates the space to shape

the big things, not the other way around.

This is not to say that all is sunshine and roses in the ARI

garden, and there are gripes, to be sure. After all, most of

us are academics.

But as this is my final Word from the Director, I want to focus on the things that make ARI such a good place to work. And those good things far outstrip the gripes. It has been a wonderful 36 months.

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Prof Kenneth Dean gave 2 distinguished lectures:

‘The Transmission of Chinese Civilisational Techniques

to Southeast Asia: Daoist Rites, Spirit Possession,

Networking and Hybrid Ritual Forms’, for the Faculty of

Humanities Distinguished Lecture Series, The Hong Kong

Polytechnic University, 19 June 2018; and ‘Building a New

Jerusalem in the Forests of Borneo: The Migration of

Chinese Methodists from Fuzhou and Xinghua, Fujian to

Sibu, Sarawak’, at the CCK Distinguished Speakers Lecture

Series, CUHK, 19 June 2018. He also gave 3 invited

lectures: ‘Networking the Gods: Chinese Civilisational

Techniques in Southeast Asia’, at the Max Planck Institute

for Religious and Ethnic Diversity Invited Seminar Series,

8 June 2018; ‘Ritual Spatialities and Temporalities in

Chinese Local Religion’, at the workshop on Rendre un

Culte, University of Chicago, 6 May 2018; and ‘Rise of

the Underworld Deities in Singapore’, for the Nelson

Lecture Series on Southeast Asia, University of Virginia,

3 April 2018.

Assoc Prof Elaine Ho Lynn-Ee gave a plenary speech

on ‘Diaspora Diplomacy: In Whose Service, For What

Purpose?’, at the Conference on Diaspora, Diplomacy and

Development, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin,

24-26 May 2018; and a keynote speech on ‘Incongruence

and Multi-directionality: Re-theorising Migration and

Citizenship through the Lens of China’, at the 6th Global

Social Sciences Graduate Student Conference, 20 April

2018, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Dr Stefan Huebner gave a public lecture on ‘The Origins

and Heritage of the Asian Games: Dreams of Asian

Integration during Late Colonialism and Decolonisation’,

at the National Museum of Singapore, 1 September 2018.

He also received a US SSRC Transregional Research Junior

Scholar Fellowship on 27 March 2018.

Dr Michelle Miller gave a keynote address on

‘Transboundary Communities of Commoning in

Environmental Governance’ at the Association for

Borderland Studies 2nd World Conference, University

of Vienna, Vienna and Budapest, 10-14 July 2018.

Prof Jonathan Rigg gave 3 keynote addresses: ‘The

importance of Being Wrong: Reflections on 35 Years of

Methodological Blunders, Empirical Errors, Theoretical

Culs-de-sac, and Historical Misinterpretations’, at the

conference on Changing Research Styles, Methodologies

and Perspectives on Southeast Asia, Universiti Brunei

Darussalam, Brunei, 30-31 July 2018; ‘The Future of Small

Farmers in Asia’s Mekong Region’, at the N8 Agrifood

International Conference 2018, University of Liverpool, UK,

13-14 June 2018; and ‘The Puzzling Asian Farmer: Past,

Present and Possible Futures’, at the workshop on

A Comparative Assessment of Transformations to Agrarian

Livelihoods in the Ayeyarwady, Ganges and Mekong

Deltas, University of Cologne, Institute of Geography,

5-6 April 2018.

He was also appointed Deputy Chair, Faculty Promotion

and Tenure Committee, and to a Provost’s Chair, NUS,

July 2018.

Dr Minna Valjakka was appointed to the international

advisory board of Nuart Journal in May 2018.

Prof Brenda Yeoh gave 2 keynote lectures and a plenary

speech: ‘Diaspora and Diversity: Temporary Migration and

the Spaces of Difference’, at ASEANnale 2018: Capturing

the Spirit of ASEAN in the Digital Times, ‘Diaspora,

Disasters and Democracy’, Asian Center, University of

the Philippines, Philippines, 28 February-2 March 2018;

‘Migration and New Mobilities in Southeast Asia: Spatial

Scales, Moral Geographies and Critical Temporalities’,

at the UC Berkeley/UCLA/University of Toronto

Conference on Southeast Asia Migrations and New

Mobilities in Southeast Asia, UC Berkeley, California, USA,

27- 28 April 2018; and ‘The Well-Being of Left-Behind

Families under a Regime of Temporary Migration: Care

Temporalities and Gender Politics in Southeast Asia’, at

the International Conference on Wellbeing and Migration:

Inter-Asian Perspectives, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey,

7-8 May 2018.

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Susanne Y.P. Choi, Brenda S.A. Yeoh & Theodora Lam (eds)Situated Agency in the Context of Research on Children, Migration, and Family in Asia

Special Section in Population, Space and Place

https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2149

Kenneth Dean & Peter van der Veer (eds)The Secular in South, East, and Southeast Asia

Palgrave Macmillan (Springer), New York, 2018

May Ngo Between Humanitarianism and Evangelism in Faith-based Organisations: A Case from the African Migration Route

Routledge, New York, 2018

Minna Valjakka & Meiqin Wang (eds)Visual Arts, Representations and Interventions in Contemporary China. Urbanized Interface

Asian Cities Series Amsterdam University Press, 2018

Catherine Gomes & Brenda S.A. Yeoh (eds)Transnational Migrations in the Asia-Pacific: Transformative Experiences in the Age of Digital Media

Rowman & Littlefield, London, 2018

Bernardo E. Brown & Brenda S.A. Yeoh (eds)Asian Migrants and Religious Experience: From Missionary Journeys to Labor Mobility

Amsterdam University Press, Croydon, 2018

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NOTES FROM COX’S BAZAR In May and July this year I joined Relief Singapore, a local humanitarian organisation, for a mission to the Rohingya refugees’ camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The main focus was on water and sanitation through the provision of water filters. My role as anthropologist with specialisation in healthcare in Myanmar, was to conduct a preliminary survey on reproductive health and rape cases.

DR CÉLINE CODEREYRESEARCH FELLOW

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The car moves slow, too slowly, the wheels barely turning

in the ground, since the earth has turned into mud with

the chronic rain of the monsoon season. Less than a

year ago this area was the Teknaf reserve, a lush jungle

sanctuary for elephants; now it is deforested land, the

temporary (?) home of almost a million Rohingya who have

fled Myanmar following the persecutions they have been

facing, in particular since August 2017.

All around us is bamboo, tons of bamboo, either in the

form of canes just discharged by the trucks and piled

on the ground ready to be distributed across the camps,

or already weaved to give shape to the shelters of the

refugees; almost as common as the bamboo shelters

are the white tents with the symbol of the UNHCR which

have been given to single women. This beige and white

landscape is spotted here and there with shining pink

cubicles: the latrines built by the local NGO BRAC.

And scattered a bit everywhere are other, bigger

buildings, in wood or in concrete, hosting healthcare

services, education centres, and all kinds of ‘friendly

spaces’ for women, children, and the elderly. Roads are

sprinkled with signboards of the different organisations—

UNICEF, Save the Children, Red Cross, MSF; landmarks

helping people to find their way, but also a strategy to

get one’s presence acknowledged within what looks

like an NGO village coordinated by UNHCR and the

government of Bangladesh.

And everywhere: people, a constant flow of people, naked

boys carrying pots of water; men making their way among

the crowd to get their monthly ration of rice; and women

with children in their arms, queuing at some clinic counter

waiting to see a doctor. They carry with them, in them,

on them, bronchitis, skin disorders, eczema, diarrhoea,

worms, cholera, HIV, and unspeakable traumas.

Interestingly, besides these figures which have become

the stereotypical image of refugees as victims seeking

and receiving help, the road side makes visible also other,

parallel realities, more fluid and dynamic: in particular,

little shops selling everything from snacks, to textiles,

meat, betel nut, medicines. Given that provisions donated

by the Food World Programme consist solely of rice,

oil and vegetables, people often sell parts of these

goods to purchase meat and other necessities. How do

they get their hands on these? Well, the chaotic flow

of tuk-tuks and cars, in and out the camps, make the

borders quite porous; and thus, the access to the local,

Bangladeshi market, easier. Similarly with medicines—

people often resell medicines they received at the clinic

they visited during their last episode—real or otherwise—

of cough or diarrhoea.

In the different centres we visit, some volunteers install

water filters; others invite children and youth to explore

their imagination though drawings and music; and I speak

with nurses, midwives, doctors, and patients. We also visit

some pregnant women—some, really only young girls,

without husbands. Our mind wander, we wonder:

a consumption with a false promise of marriage? a rape?—

this is not unlikely if we believe our assistant who claims

that 80% of Rohingya women have been raped by the

military when still in Myanmar, and that rape cases in the

camps are extremely common too.

We also visit a quarter hosting 35 women, deprived of

their husbands by the violence. One of them tells us,

her story: of how her husband and first child have been

arrested and imprisoned by the police in Myanmar; and

how she fled to Bangladesh bringing along her two other

children, barefoot over ten days. Now, she says, she has

not much to do besides filling her time with memories of

how they used to live back in Myanmar and waiting for the

calls to get their ration that, sometimes, does not even

come since some Majid, the community leaders, happen

to invert the flow according to their will and interests.

The car moves slow, too slowly, the wheels barely turning in the ground, since the earth has turned into mud with the chronic rain of the monsoon season.

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INTERVIEW WITH SUNIL AMRITHDR NISHA MATHEWRESEARCH FELLOW

N.M: Your personal story of migration spans the two arms or sub-oceanic regions of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. You were born in Kenya and yet the East African side of the migration story has eluded focus in your own writing. Can you reflect on that?

S.A: When I was an undergraduate what I loved most was studying African history. For reasons that are perhaps

not even clear to me, I moved away from it for my PhD. In the end I realised that the kinds of questions that

were primary in my mind were those coming out of South and Southeast Asian history. In terms of my own

personal history it is a little bit more complicated because my parents were never settled in East Africa,

and were never part of what we would think as the East African community. They belonged to the 1970s’

generation of professional migrants from South Asia who started to go to other parts of the world, and are

very different from those I write about. So my own connection with East Africa is actually very tenuous. I was

born in Kenya but moved to Singapore when I was a year old. In a sense then, it is a story of loss.

N.M: In October 2017 you won the MacArthur Fellowship. Congratulations. You were at ARI a couple of months before to deliver a keynote lecture at the Graduate Forum. Has the fellowship shaped your decision in any way to return to ARI and take on a more participatory role in the Graduate Forum this year?

S.A: I don’t think the MacArthur Fellowship has directly influenced that decision. I was and continue to be

impressed by the programme itself. I think it is one of the most important initiatives I have ever been

involved in. It is highly commendable that ARI uses its position, resources and prestige to create this

programme which is one of the most meaningful forms of academic engagement that I know of, for

students from the region.

N.M: Do you see your presence here as intellectually seeding some new projects?

Prof Sunil Amrith is Mehra Family

Professor of South Asian Studies

and Professor of History, and a

Director of the Joint Center for

History and Economics, at Harvard

University. He researches on the

trans-regional movement of people,

ideas, and institutions, and has

focused most recently on the Bay

of Bengal as a region connecting

South and Southeast Asia. His most

recent book, Crossing the Bay of

Bengal: The Furies of Nature and

the Fortunes of Migrants (Harvard

University Press, 2013), was

awarded the American Historical

Association’s John F. Richards Prize

in South Asian History in 2014. Photo courtesy of Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

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S.A: Absolutely. The MacArthur Fellowship was very unexpected and generous. It is a sort of no strings attached

fellowship and very wide open in terms of what I can do with it. That is all very well but one needs time and

space to imagine what these projects might look like. That’s where being here has been fantastic. Discussing

ideas with colleagues and students who come from around the region has given me a really great sense of

what I want to do next.

N.M: Do you also see some scope for collaboration with some of these graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at ARI?

S.A: Absolutely. The interests I have developed since Crossing the Bay of Bengal was published have really

been in the direction of environmental history and environmental humanities. I am interested in water,

in air pollution and in what a historical perspective can bring to these issues that are very often discussed

as if they are purely contemporary issues. This can only be done through interdisciplinary collaboration.

I’m working in collaboration with a colleague at Harvard Medical School on the history of science and air

pollution in India, and that gives me a sense of what a bigger project might look like. It’s precisely the kind

of energy that I have found here at ARI in terms of conversations with some of the fellows and visitors that

I hope will turn into something that the project funds.

N.M: Might we see a history of haze come out of it?

S.A: That is not far from my plans. I started thinking about this in the Indian context with the Delhi haze which

we think of as a problem of the past few decades. In fact there are very interesting iterations of this that

go back to the early 20th century and certainly to the 1960s and 70s. I have been trying to gather some

of those histories with David Jones, a colleague at Harvard and who is both a physician and a historian of

science. With my interest in Southeast Asia I have been thinking about Indonesia and how my work on India

might link up with a history of the smoke haze in Indonesia.

N.M: ARI’s location in Singapore has allowed it to give scholars based in and working on themes central to Asia greater preference over those based in the West. At the same time, it builds bridges and promotes scholarly exchange with the western academia through visiting fellows and senior researchers and now with the Graduate Forum itself. How different do you think its impact might be from the traditional way of having Asian scholars trained in the West brought in as teaching faculty?

S.A: Global academia is changing quite dramatically, and this has been felt more so over the last decade.

I really don’t think there is a sense any more that western institutions, American institutions, are in a position

of leadership. There is a sort of multi-centred academic world developing and a place like ARI may well

be in a position of leadership with a lot to teach institutions elsewhere. Both in the US and the UK whose

institutions I know best, there is a feeling of pessimism in the academia, a feeling of retrenchment, a feeling

perhaps of even being left behind. More and more of our students want to come here and learn what they

can from what often feels like a much more dynamic environment. There is a relationship developing in the

academia between Asia and the West on the basis of equality, of what we can learn from each other.

And that is where the old model that you alluded to, no longer really works.

N.M: When is your new project Unruly Waters going to be published?

S.A: In December. It is a book I’ve been working on for several years now. It came out of the Bay of Bengal book.

It is a history of the monsoon in modern times, and by that I mean both the history of monsoon science and

the cultural and political history of what scientists studying the South Asian monsoon as deeply connected

with all sorts of other parts of the global planetary climate system implied for India in the 20th century.

Thanks very much, Sunil.

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ONGOING SEMINAR SERIES AT ARI: ACTIVATE! EMERGENT FORMS OF CIVIC PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIAN CITIESDR SONIA LAM-KNOTTPOSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

Since 2017, Drs Minna Valjakka and Sonia Lam-Knott of the Asian Urbanisms Cluster, together with Assistant Prof Kah Wee Lee and Assoc Prof Im Sik Cho of the Department of Architecture, have jointly organised the Activate! seminar series that showcases the diverse array of civic engagement found within Asian cities.

of civic actions including community movements, online

campaigns involving netizens, street protests, artistic

interventions, and more. The first series focused primarily

on civic actions in Singapore, debuting with a seminar

on grassroots efforts to save the Bukit Brown Cemetery,

followed by a session on urban gardening, then a

comparative presentation on cyber activism in Singapore

and South Korea, before concluding with a talk looking

at the potential of public-government cooperation in

conserving the built environment. The second series

broadened the geographic scope of Activate!, opening

with a seminar on the role of volunteerism in China,

then on community-led urban rejuvenation in Taiwan,

prefigurative spatial experimentations spearheaded by

artists and activists in Hong Kong, before returning to

Singapore with a presentation on citizen deliberation in

the online and offline domains.

Activate! is a timely seminar series, as it examines the

role of the state and the citizenry in mediating the array

of socio-political issues pertaining to environmental

sustainability, urban renewal and development, heritage

conservation, and the reconfiguring of urban governance,

that many cities in Asia now face. The seminars attempt

to articulate who the actors and organisations addressing

these issues are, how they have mobilised, the challenges

they experience and their subsequent response to redress

this, and the interactive dynamics that have been fostered

amongst them.

The series has run for two semesters already, containing

a total of eight seminars thus far. Not only did these

seminars review civic actions from different disciplinary

perspectives ranging from architecture to media studies

to anthropology; but they also featured a broad variety

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These seminars successfully brought together researchers,

practitioners, students, and members of the public whom

are involved or are interested in civic actions. Each session

served as a platform allowing presenters and the audience

to share and discuss their respective insights towards the

civic practices that have emerged across various Asian cities.

We would like to thank everyone who has participated in, contributed towards, or attended the Activate! series over the past months; the series would not be possible without their enthusiastic support and interest.

Activate! will continue for the Fall 2018 semester, this time

with a pedagogical emphasis. Returning our attention

exclusively to the Singaporean context, four new seminars

will look at how civic engagement is actually enacted and

makes an impact, exploring the ways in which people

become involved in civic issues, and how information

about civic issues are disseminated throughout society.

These themes will be approached through looking at the

efforts to improve migrant labour conditions, how online

platforms can foster public participation in civic affairs,

the role of physical spaces in enabling mass gatherings

of people sharing common ideologies, to the significance

of photography as a communicative medium to frame

civic issues.

Details of upcoming Activate! seminars are available here:

https://ari.nus.edu.sg/Cluster/Events/AC

Photo credit: Sonia Lam-Knott

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ACADEMIC RISK AND RESILIENCE FOR CHILDREN IN ASIA

DR HAIBIN LI AND PROF W.J. YEUNG

In Asia, a large section of the population (60%) live in rural or remote locations where adequate food, water, or education opportunities cannot be taken for granted. Despite these changes and challenges, many East Asian countries are placed in the top global education rankings across various subjects and the gap in educational outcomes between Asian and Western countries appears to be growing (OECD, 2014, 2016). Some children seem to be better able to overcome difficulties to do well in school than others. Dr Haibin Li and Prof Jean Yeung have been trying to better understand what makes Asian children who face adversities in life achieve educational success.

The fruits of their labour have appeared in two special journal issues edited by them recently, one in Educational Psychology and the other in Social Indicators Research.

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ReferencesLi, H., Martin, A. J., & Yeung, W.-J. J. (2017). Academic risk and resilience for children and young people in Asia. Educational Psychology 37(8), 921-929. doi: 10.1080/01443410.2017.1331973 Yeung, W.J. & Li, H. (in press). Educational resilience among Asian children in challenging family environment. Social Indicators Research.

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The 15 articles in these two issues expand the existing

literature that is mostly based on Western societies with

Asian socioeconomic and policy contexts. Most of them

were presented at an international conference supported

by ARI and held here on 4-5 February 2015, convened

by Li and Yeung.

These papers attempt to identify factors in multiple levels

of children’s social ecology including individual, peers,

family and school. They report similarities and differences

in academic resilience factors that are found in Asian and

Western countries. Consistent with previous findings,

this collection of papers show that, in general, families

(e.g., support from the family, parental academic

expectation and help) and schools (e.g., having a close

bond to school, and being in a positive school and

classroom learning environment) can facilitate students’

access to individual, relational and contextual resources

that are conducive to better academic performance.

However, the articles illustrate that resilience factors are

influenced by particular social-cultural and policy contexts.

For example, in China, studying in a ‘key school’ plays an

important role in building educational resilience among

Chinese left-behind adolescents and rural students

because key schools are better than other government

or private schools in terms of teacher quality, equipment,

and funds. With a large number of Chinese parents in rural

areas leaving their children to work in the cities, these

schools are particularly important.

According to previous research, when children are in

difficult or problematic family environments (e.g., poor/

rural family), the protective factors from school can be

a form of intervention that buffers some of the stressors

from family to improve children’s resilience. Despite this

potential, in India and Vietnam, schools fail to provide

an environment that can create resources necessary for

fostering resilience in socially excluded groups. This is

because many teachers come from relatively privileged

groups, and they usually have low expectations for

children from socially disadvantaged groups. Moreover,

many socially excluded children live in remote areas

where schools have poor infrastructure, and they face

language barriers because the medium of instruction is

often not their preferred language. In this situation, we

find that students who enjoy school are more motivated to

study hard and this is the most important factor for their

educational resilience.

Some nuanced factors that are rarely mentioned in the

western literature are also identified. For example, a

paper in the collection identifies technology and animals

to be helpful in building children’s resilience. In addition,

how children perceive adversity is also underscored as

important. Disadvantaged Asian adolescents may share

different understandings of the risky/stressful/challenging

circumstances they face. For example, most Chinese left-

behind children understand that their parents leave them

to work in the cities out of love, to give them a better

future, and this understanding propels many of them to

work hard. Some Hong Kong students regard adversities

as normal events that everybody will meet. These findings

suggest that these children are not merely passively

exposed to experiential factors but active agents who

construct their own life chances. Future research should

focus on how children/youth perceive the risk factors that

they encounter and how these perceptions affect their

coping abilities.

Taken together, the Special Issues take stock of and add

to what is known from research and practice to improve

our capacity to promote the resilience of Asian children

facing challenging life circumstances. They showcase

multiple approaches (e.g., prevention and interventions

from family and school) to building academic resilience

and empowering students and their educators and

caregivers across the Asian region. Efforts to promote

resilience should be tailored to the unique risks and the

cultural contexts that a sub-population of children and

youth experiences.

Jean Yeung with a migrant mother and her child in a Beijing school for migrants

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Miss Nika Tay Hui Min has commenced a 1-year appointment as Institute Research Assistant with effect from 17 May 2018. She obtained her B.A. (Hons) with a double major in History and Public Policy and Global Affairs from NTU. Her research interests are diverse and interdisciplinary, ranging from topics in popular culture, cultural heritage and everyday life as well as gender studies.

Dr Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (Mitcho) has commenced a 6-month appointment as Assistant Professor under the FASS Writing Semester Scheme with effect from 1 July 2018.Dr Erlewine (Mitcho) is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in NUS. His research investigates linguistic theory (syntax and semantics) through original fieldwork. His work has involved fieldwork on understudied and endangered languages of the Austronesian, Tibeto-Burman, and Mayan language families, as well as the study of Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and English.

Miss Rohini Anant has commenced a 6-month appointment as Research Assistant in the Asian Migration Cluster with effect from 23 July 2018. She recently completed her BSocSc. in Geography from NUS. Rohini is interested in postcolonial methodologies and socio-political issues focusing on agency, gender, migration, and development. She will be assisting Prof Brenda Yeoh on various migration-related projects.

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Dr Shiori Shakuto has commenced a 2-year appointment as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asian Migration Cluster with effect from 12 June 2018. She has a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University. At ARI, she will be working on young Japanese families who moved to Malaysia after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster.

Assoc Prof Ho Kong Chong has commenced a 3-year joint appointment as Cluster Leader and Associate Professor in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster in ARI and the Department of Sociology with effect from 1 July 2018. Trained as an urban sociologist at the University of Chicago, he has research interests in neighbourhood and community development, heritage and place-making, the political economy of cities as well as a more recent interest in higher education. He will work with cluster members to develop research projects and workshops on urban heritage and the vernacular city; urban politics and civil society; urban environment and well-being; and urban practice and solutions.

Dr Courtney Fu Rong has commenced a 1-year appointment as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Identities Cluster with effect from 2 July 2018. She received her PhD in History & Asian Studies from Pennsylvania State University. At ARI, she plans to work on her project exploring the intersections between cultural identities and fashion within Chinese communities in early 20th century Singapore.

Dr Andrew Ong has commenced a 2-year appointment as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Inter-Asia Engagements Cluster with effect from 20 June 2018. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University. At ARI, he will be working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation research on the political practice of the United Wa State Army in Myanmar.

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Dr Fong Siao Yuong has commenced a 2-year appointment as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Identities Cluster with effect from 2 July 2018. Dr Fong received her PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2016. Her primary research lies in the fields of Critical Cultural Studies, Media Anthropology and Production Studies, focusing on Southeast and East Asia. At ARI, she will work on her book manuscript based on her doctoral thesis preliminarily titled, ‘The Cultural Articulation of Fear in Singapore’.

Miss Grace Chong En Ting has commenced a 1-year appointment as Research Assistant in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster with effect from 2 July 2018. She has a Bachelor in Environmental Studies (Hons) degree specialising in Geography from NUS. She has travelled broadly in Southeast Asia and is interested in bridging and communicating the culture and environmental issues in these areas. At ARI, she will be working on the Mapping the Southern Islands’ Heritage Landscapes: Integrating Culture and Nature in Heritage Conservation project.

Dr Wen-Ching Ting has commenced a 1-year appointment as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asian Migration Cluster with effect from 11 July 2018. She obtained her PhD in Migration Studies from the University of Sussex in 2016. At ARI, she will be involved in the Transnational Relations, Ageing and Care Ethics (TRACE) project and extend her research to examine care migration from Myanmar and the left-behind care chains.

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Dr Trung Dinh Dang has commenced a 3-month appointment as Visiting Research Fellow in the Inter-Asia Engagements Cluster with effect from 6 August 2018. He completed his PhD in Political Science at ANU in 2008. His areas of research interest are development studies, environment policy, governance of land, water and other common property resources and everyday politics in Vietnam and Asia-Pacific countries. At ARI, he will be working on journal articles on Vietnam’s rural industries in global markets and governance of water pollution.

Dr Sylvia Ang has commenced a 2-year appointment as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asian Migration Cluster with effect from 2 July 2018. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Melbourne. At ARI, she will be working on her book entitled Contesting Chinese-ness: Co-ethnic Tensions between Migrants and Locals in Contemporary Singapore. Her book aims to demonstrate through the lens of culture, how migrants and hosts imagine one’s social existence alongside others.

Dr Yun Hae Young has commenced a 2-year appointment as Research Fellow in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster with effect from 2 July 2018. She completed her PhD in Design, Housing, & Apparel with focus on Housing Studies at the University of Minnesota, USA. She is interested in housing, neighbourhood environments, low-income households, and quality of life. At ARI, Dr Yun will be working on socially mixed public housing, neighbourhood walkability and public housing policy.

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Prof Richard Wilk has commenced a 3-month appointment as Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Inter-Asia Engagements Cluster with effect from 15 August 2018. Prof Wilk completed his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona and is currently Distinguished Professor and Provost’s Professor Emeritus at Indiana University. Trained as an economic and ecological anthropologist, his research has covered many different aspects of global consumer culture such as the global history of food and the prospects for sustainable consumption as a means to minimise climate change.

Miss Wu Qifang will be attached to the Asian Migration Cluster as Research Assistant for four months from 3 September to 8 December 2018. She is a B.A. candidate at the University of British Columbia, majoring in Economics and Mathematics. Her research interests span both behavioural economics and economic implications on human capital and labour markets. At ARI, she will be working on the TRACE project with Dr Chiu Tuen Yi and Dr Guo Zhou, Department of Geography.

Miss Nicole Park will be attached to the Asian Migration Cluster as Research Assistant for four months from 17 September to 14 December 2018. She is a fourth year student at the University of British Columbia pursuing a BA in Political Science. She is especially interested in the study of foreign policy and international relations. During her attachment, she will be working with the Asian Migration Cluster on the CHAMPSEA project.

Dr Carola Lorea has commenced a 2-year appointment as Research Fellow in the Religion and Globalisation Cluster with effect from 1 August 2018. She completed her PhD in Asian and African Civilizations, Cultures and Societies from the Institute of Oriental Studies, La Sapienza University of Rome. At ARI, she will work on soundscapes of religion and displacement focusing on a large, yet understudied community of low-caste religious practitioners called Matua, and their flows of preachers, performers, religious items and ideas across the Bay of Bengal.

Miss Dalreena Gupta joined ARI as Senior Executive (Human Resources) on 7 September 2018. She has six years of experience working in human resource positions in the education and private sectors.

Dr Bernhard Schär has commenced a 3-month appointment as Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Inter-Asia Engagements Cluster with effect from 1 August 2018. He is a lecturer and researcher at ETH Zürich’s Institute for History. His research focuses on Central Europe’s entanglements with Southeast Asia during the time of the modern Dutch Empire. At ARI, he will expand the geographical scope of his inquiry to include the role of mercenaries from Germany, Belgium, and France in the 19th century Dutch East Indies.

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19 OCTOBER 2018

PRACTICES OF ALTERNATIVE ART SPACES AND TRANSITIONAL POLITICS IN ASIA

25 – 26 OCTOBER 2018

SHIFTING UNDERGROUNDS IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: TRANSFORMATIONS AND DECLINATIONS OF CULTURAL SELF-EXPRESSIONS AND COMMUNITIES IN CITYSCAPE

1 – 2 NOVEMBER 2018

SUSTAINABLE TRANSBOUNDARY GOVERNANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

8 – 9 NOVEMBER 2018

THE VALUE OF CHILDREN IN ASIA: ECONOMY, FAMILY AND PUBLIC POLICIES

19 – 20 NOVEMBER 2018

OLD BONDS, NEW TIES: UNDERSTANDING FAMILY TRANSITIONS IN RE-PARTNERSHIPS, REMARRIAGES AND STEPFAMILIES IN ASIA

3 – 4 DECEMBER 2018

LOVE’S LABOUR’S COST? ASIAN MIGRATION, INTIMATE LABOUR AND THE POLITICS OF GENDER

15 – 16 JANUARY 2019

DEBT, FREEDOM, AND DEVELOPMENT: INSIGHTS FROM ASIA

24 – 25 JANUARY 2019

FROM ‘PELAGIC EMPIRE’ TO EEZS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF ASIA’S PACIFIC SINCE THE 19TH CENTURY

31 JANUARY – 1 FEBRUARY 2019

MARRIAGE MIGRATION, FAMILY AND CITIZENSHIP IN ASIA

Details of events are available at: https://ari.nus.edu.sg/Event

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The inter-disciplinary research team consists of nine

members: Assoc Prof Elaine Ho (Primary Investigator);

Professor Brenda Yeoh and Assoc Profs Shirlena Huang

and Thang Leng Leng (Co-Investigators); Drs Sylvia Ang,

Chiu Tuen Yi, Ting Wen-Ching and Guo Zhou (Postdoctoral

Fellows); and Mr Liew Jian An (Research Assistant).

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ASSOC PROF ELAINE HO

TRACE – MIGRATION CONNECTIONS AND LOCAL MOBILITIES THROUGH THE LENS OF AGEING

TRACE respondent engaged in Tai Chi at Chinese Gardens

Sample qualitative GIS map based on data collected from TRACE respondents

The Asian Migration Cluster embarked on a new three-

year project in January 2018 titled, Transnational Relations,

Ageing and Care Ethics (TRACE). Supported by a Ministry

of Education Tier 2 grant, the project investigates how

global care circulations mediate ageing and impact

transnational relations and care ethics. The study

approaches Singapore as a hub where migration inflows

and outflows connect the city-state to China through

grandparenting, retirement and/or lifestyle migration, and

to Myanmar through labour migration for eldercare. The

study also compares Singapore with Sydney, a comparable-

size city that experiences analogous care migration trends.

An innovative feature of TRACE is it combines qualitative

research methods (e.g., observation and interviews) with

Geographic Information System (GIS) visualisation and

analyses. Known as qualitative GIS, this methodological

approach develops a grounded understanding of the older

adults’ everyday care routines while keeping in view the

care relations they forge across national borders. Overall,

the project provides a fuller understanding of how older

adults relate to their spatial environments and experience

ageing in the context of transnationalism.

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(Yeung and co-authors, Annual Review of Sociology), ‘Adult Children’s Educational Attainment and the Cognitive Trajectories of Older Parents in South Korea’ (Lee Yeonjin, Social Science and Medicine), ‘Social Exclusion and Cognitive Impairment among the Elderly in China: A Triple Jeopardy for the Rural Female Elderly’ (Yang Yi and co-authors, Journal of Health and Place), ‘Parents’ Migration and Adolescents’ Transition to High School in Rural China: The Role of Parental Divorce’ (Hu Shu, Journal of Family Issues) as well as a forthcoming article ‘Four Decades of Transition to First Marriage in China: Economic Reform and Persisting Marriage Norms’ (Gu Xiaorong, International Journal of Population Studies).

Cluster members have also done their part in contributing to public debates through their Op-ed pieces in the local daily The Straits Times. Jean Yeung and Hu Shu’s editorial (17 May 2018) on issues of marriage and family in Singapore calls for open public discussions and policy reforms around issues of cohabitation, marriage and divorce. Yang Yi’s op-ed piece (2 August 2018) argues that social exclusion in ageing societies can lead to significant mental issues amongst the elderly including cognitive impairment, increasing their risk of dementia.

We are very happy to welcome Professor Sonja Drobnič from the University of Bremen, who commenced a 3-month appointment as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in July 2018. After five years with the Cluster, we bid farewell to Hu Shu who is leaving ARI to join the Singapore University of Social Sciences as Lecturer. We wish her all the very best and thank her for her substantive contributions to the Cluster.

Over the last few months, members of the Changing Family in Asia Cluster have been involved in organising conferences as well as producing publications including special issues and edited books. Trends and Determinants of Retirement and Related Policies in Asia was an international conference hosted at ARI by Lee Yeonjin and Jean Yeung on 8-9 February 2018 that focused on examining the relationship between public old-age support, intergenerational support, elderly labour force participation and retirement processes and policies. Jean Yeung and Hu Shu published an edited volume Family and Population Changes in Singapore where previous and current cluster members and associates (Sharon Quah, Mu Zheng, Hu Shu, Lavanya Balachandran, You Yenn, Thang Leng Leng, Angelique Chan) have contributed chapters to.

The Cluster looks forward to hosting two more conferences in November 2018—The Value of Children and Re-partnerships, Remarriages and Stepfamilies. Four special issues are forthcoming, two on long-term care of elderly by Jean Yeung and Thang Leng Leng in the Journal of Aging and Health and Journal of Cross Cultural Gerontology, and two on educational resilience by Jean Yeung and former cluster member, Li Haibin, in Educational Psychology and Social Indicators Research. Among several published

The Identities Cluster welcomed two new Postdoctoral Fellows, Dr Fong Siao Yuong and Dr Fu Courtney. Dr Fong’s research focuses on the cultural articulation of fear in Singapore while Dr Fu explores the intersections between cultural identities and fashion within the Chinese community in early 20th century Singapore. Besides new arrivals, the Cluster also conducted its first workshop on how to move from interpretivist discourse analysis to focus groups. Having authored eight national identity reports on Singapore for 2010 and 2015 based on English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil sources, the Making Identity Count in Asia or MICA project will use these materials to develop focus groups on Singaporean national identity, and then specify a national survey based on both approaches. Last but not the least, the Identities Cluster congratulates NTU Department of Sociology Assistant Prof Setoh Pei Pei for her appointment as editorial board member of Infant Behaviour and Development.

CHANGING FAMILY IN ASIA

IDENTITIES

DR LAVANYA BALACHANDRAN

MR AMIT JULKA

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Asia Research InstituteNUS Kent Ridge Campus, AS8 #07-01, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260https://ari.nus.edu.sg/

This issue of the ARI Newsletter was compiled by Eric Kerr, Saharah Abubakar, Lavanya Balachandran, Céline Coderey, Nisha Mathew, Chand Somaiah, Minna Valjakka, and Sharon Ong.

13TH SINGAPORE GRADUATE FORUM ON SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES DR MICHIEL BAASRESEARCH FELLOW

This year marked the 13th year that the Asia Research Institute hosted the Asian Graduate Student Fellowship Programme and organised the Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asian Studies.

In total 30 graduate students working on Southeast Asia-related topics joined the fellowship programme. While the majority of these students hailed from the Southeast Asia region, we also had students based in Australia, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and the United States. A selection of these students received a two-week Intensive English Academic Writing Course. All graduate students were with us for six weeks in total.

For the concluding five-day Graduate Forum on Southeast Asian Studies, these students were joined by another 39 from around the world. Besides students from Southeast Asia, we had students join us from Australia, China, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, the UK and the US. The first two days of the Forum consisted of skills-based sessions which focused on academic writing,

various research techniques, how to deal with mixed reviews, and how to apply for a PhD scholarship. The Skills-Based Sessions kicked off with three researchers at various stages of their careers reflecting on how they ended up in academia. A roundtable which focused on the question of how to flourish as an early career academic then finalised the two days. The organisers would like to specifically thank all those who so graciously volunteered to hold workshops on various topics.

The three days of Forum presentations offered a platform to 69 students to

present their on-going research work in and on Southeast Asia. Keynotes were delivered by Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung (Umass Lowell), Sun Sun Lim (SUTD) and Deborah Wong (UC Riverside). The overall programme was furthermore strengthened by four visiting senior research fellows: Sunil Amrith (Harvard University), Nicole Constable (University of Pittsburgh) and Thomas Pepinsky (Cornell), Meredith Weiss (State University of New York, Albany). Again a warm thank you to all those involved, especially the chairpersons of the different sessions who also acted as discussants and made important comments on the graduate students’ papers.

This was the third year that the Programme as well as Forum was made possible by generous funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.

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