Conference

Upcoming: People, planet, peace. ACFID National Conference 2018.

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Earth at night

I’m looking forward to speaking at the 2018 National Conference of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), in my role as ACFID Development Economics Advisor. The overarching theme this year is Human Rights in the 21st Century, the two-day conference will be held 30-31 October in Sydney. You can register your attendance here.

In this timely period, this year’s ACFID National Conference will ask how the Australian international development and humanitarian sector can apply human rights in the light of contemporary challenges.  

Through the overarching themes of “People  Planet  Peace”; the conference will bring forth content on human rights as they relate directly to the wellbeing of people, healthy ecosystems and the environment and in the broader context of peace, civil society and human security.  

From reflections about what is happening out in the world, to deeper explorations of particular focus areas and through the diversity of voices brought to you this year; ACFID National Conference 2018 will inspire and challenge your ways of working – offering critiques and stimulating debate on the integration of human rights with development and humanitarian efforts and what we need to focus on as the world continues to fluctuate around us.  

2018 ASAA Conference: Race, Identity, and Malaysian Politics

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The University of Sydney

I’ve had the pleasure of both chairing and speaking on a panel at the 2018 Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) biennial conference, which was held 2-5 July at the University of Sydney. My talk was titled Race and the ‘Multi-Racial’: Malaysian Opposition Campaigning, 2008-2018, which I presented alongside some other excellent talks on politics and identity.

ANU Malaysia Update 2016

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Image: Book cover for Ibrahim Ali’s The Misunderstood Man.

I’ve spent the day involved with the Malaysia Update, a day of talks hosted by the ANU Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs.

Highlights included a panel on gender and women in politics featuring members of parliament Fuziah Saleh and Alice Lau, which I chaired, and talks by Azrul Mohd Khalid from IDEAS and Ibrahim Ali from PERKASA.

More information, along with a full program, is available from the ANU website.

Australian Libraries and Asian Studies

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Image: National Library of Australia.

The recent conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia featured a roundtable by librarians and library users on Asian Studies collections. I spoke at this roundtable and made the point that Malaysia’s 2013 election generated a vast amount of printed and digital ephemera that could be lost if Australian libraries do not make a point of collecting it. Perhaps if moves are made to develop a national collections strategy for Asian Studies materials, then this situation could be rectified.

I spoke at this roundtable and made the point that Malaysia’s 2013 election generated a vast amount of printed and digital ephemera that could be lost if Australian libraries do not make a point of collecting it. Perhaps if moves are made to develop a national collections strategy for Asian Studies materials, then this situation could be rectified in line with an agreed set of priorities for libraries interested in Asia.

A full report of this discussion is available from the Australian Library and Information Association.

ASAA Conference 2016

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Image: Cover of the ASAA Conference Program for 2016.

I presented some work in progress at the 2016 conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia at the ANU, in a panel called Mobility, Place and Displacement in Histories of the Left in Indonesia and Malaysia, chaired by Dr Vannessa Hearman of the University of Sydney.

I talked about the Tenth Regiment of the Malayan People’s Army and their project to create a new kind of Malay Muslim from their marginal location in hiding during and after the Malayan Emergency.

KITLV Southeast Asia Update

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Today I had the pleasure of speaking at this year’s Southeast Asia Update, organised by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), in the first Round Table session of the day, titled ‘Religious Renewal’. The discussion featured themes such as the continued reality of religious plurality and diversity alongside strong efforts by state and non-state actors to generate new orthodoxies. Picture: KITLV.

Violence, Displacement & Muslim Movements in Southeast Asia

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Today I spent the day with colleagues in a fantastic workshop on Violence, Displacement & Muslim Movements in Southeast Asia, hosted by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies and the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society. The full program is available from the KITLV website.

Asian Engagement Means Talking to Muslims

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Stock photo representing multiculturalism, selected by The Advertiser.

Today, I hosted a large-scale public discussion event called InterculturAdelaide, focused on policy innovation to better equip Australians to engage with our own diversity, along with that of our Asian neighbours. This is the text of an opinion piece that I published today to accompany the event, in which I argue that Islamophobia in the Australian community can hamper not only social cohesion at home, but also our capacity for genuine Asian engagement.

Engagement with Muslims is an inescapable part of our search for a prosperous future in Asia

IN 1994, Indonesian journalist Ratih Hardjono published her book on Australians, who she pithily referred to as the White Tribe of Asia. Her book traced the history of debates about immigration since the White Australia policy was abolished in the late 1970s.

As Hardjono pointed out, Australia was a nation experiencing burgeoning diversity, and the insecurity that sometimes accompanied that diversity was consistently belied by its advantages on the ground.

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ICAS9 Winds up in Adelaide

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Today, the Ninth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS9) closed after 5 huge days of debate and discussion which brought nearly 1,000 Asia scholars from all over the world to Adelaide. The conference has been a great example of how we can all do so much more by creating clever, win-win partnerships, and always building as much community engagement in to our initiatives as possible. Read more

Welcome to InterculturAdelaide @ ICAS9

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Front cover of program brochure for InterculturAdelaide. Picture: Nazia Ejaz.

Today, I hosted a major public event called InterculturAdelaide. The event introduction that I wrote for the brochure is below, along with my welcome to participants.

Introduction

InterculturAdelaide is a major public policy summit and action research project. It aims to bring together scholars, policymakers and other stakeholders to consider the idea of “interculturality”—broadly defined as a set of cultural skills supporting openness and adaptivity. The day’s proceedings will encompass issues related to Australia’s own diverse population, and to Australia’s international relationships across the Asian region.

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