Connecting Southeast Asian Research: Grounded Empirics, Textured Theory, and Regional Methodologies
Given the diversity of Southeast Asia and the entrenched traditions of country-specific research, how should we develop more explicitly regional approaches and methodologies? Scholarly efforts to conceptualise Southeast Asian politics, society, and security at a regional level are fraught with difficulty. The region’s vibrant diversity poses significant challenges in terms of linguistic competence, social access, and local knowledge required for substantive empirical research. Simultaneously, geopolitical and geoeconomic trends, ecological challenges, and socio-cultural connections often transcend national boundaries, demanding approaches that can account for system effects, contingent spillovers, and zones of exceptions. In addition, the political history behind Southeast Asia’s institutionalisation as an epistemological category compels us to approach critically the idea of ‘the region’.
Responding to these challenges, this Symposium investigates two sets of meeting points: (i) between knowledge grounded in country-specific empirics and explicitly regional methods and theorising; and (ii) between separate research traditions and deliberate attempts to integrate findings. In seeking both theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded research on the region of Southeast Asia, how can scholarly research capture the relationships between continuity and change, and between statist choices and diffused externalities, for example?
This ANU Southeast Asia Institute (SEAI) Student Research Symposium will consist of a mix of student presentations and interactive panels with Southeast Asian experts.
A stellar program alongside student panels include:
- State-of-the-Field Keynote Conversation with Professor Evelyn Goh and Professor Paul Hutchcroft.
- Special Launch of Recorded Resources featuring ANU Scholars on Conducting Research in Southeast Asia —an invaluable guide for researchers.
- Policy Keynote by a pre-eminent policy practitioner from Southeast Asia, offering unique and timely regional expertise.
- Publishing Roundtable with distinguished scholars of Southeast Asia, from ANU and internationally —gain valuable insights on publishing research on the region.
- Professionalisation Workshop on navigating the academic job market, led by mentors and specialists in Southeast Asian International Relations, Political Science, and History in Australia.
This event is supported by the ASEAN-Australia Centre of the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the ANU Southeast Asia Institute, with additional support also from the ANU Indonesia Institute, the ANU Malaysia Institute, the ANU Philippines Institute, and the ANU Myanmar Research Centre.
Image credit: Ratchada Train Night Market, Bangkok by aotaro, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
See full program with paper's abstracts HERE
