Decolonisation and photography in Southeast Asia: Histories and legacies. This project aims to investigate the untold history of decolonisation in Southeast Asia through amateur soldier photographs taken on the front line of conflicts. Such photographs constitute a vast yet neglected archive that promises unique insights into encounters between combatants on all sides, and with civilians whose experiences have rarely been accessible, particularly women, children and unfree workers. The expected ....Decolonisation and photography in Southeast Asia: Histories and legacies. This project aims to investigate the untold history of decolonisation in Southeast Asia through amateur soldier photographs taken on the front line of conflicts. Such photographs constitute a vast yet neglected archive that promises unique insights into encounters between combatants on all sides, and with civilians whose experiences have rarely been accessible, particularly women, children and unfree workers. The expected outcomes of this project are to produce new understandings of violence in decolonisation and the long-term legacies of colonialism in Southeast Asia. This project also intends to provide a critical historical framework for understanding the meaning and impact of photographs taken in war.Read moreRead less
Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism. Since the 1990s there has been a boom in memory and in human rights activism relating to historical injustice in Indonesia. Using an innovative framework of the concept of ‘regions of memory’ this project examines how human rights activists located within and outside Indonesia use memory for the purposes of achieving human rights outcomes. Through national and international collaborations this project ....Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism. Since the 1990s there has been a boom in memory and in human rights activism relating to historical injustice in Indonesia. Using an innovative framework of the concept of ‘regions of memory’ this project examines how human rights activists located within and outside Indonesia use memory for the purposes of achieving human rights outcomes. Through national and international collaborations this project will analyse why transnational activism concerning crimes from the Japanese occupation (1942-45), the independence struggle (1945-1949) and the 1965 mass violence escalated at particular points in time and deepen our understanding of the relationship between memory and human rights.Read moreRead less
The Maritime Silk Route as a world system. New archaeological evidence suggests that cultural interaction along the Maritime Silk Route was more complex than previously held. By using new analytical techniques to source artefacts from pre-Oc Eo sites in South Vietnam, this project will provide new insights into the production and distribution of trade goods 2000 years ago.
A Sonic Approach to Anticolonialism in Interwar India . This project aims to apply the methods of Sound Studies to the history of anti-colonialism in India. Extending on earlier work which draws extensively on visual archives to construct historical narratives, this project aims to explicitly trace the reverberations of sound – especially mediated speech, slogans and song – in anti-colonial mobilisation in the interwar period. Orality was a critical element of political communication which, due ....A Sonic Approach to Anticolonialism in Interwar India . This project aims to apply the methods of Sound Studies to the history of anti-colonialism in India. Extending on earlier work which draws extensively on visual archives to construct historical narratives, this project aims to explicitly trace the reverberations of sound – especially mediated speech, slogans and song – in anti-colonial mobilisation in the interwar period. Orality was a critical element of political communication which, due to the difficulties in capturing the spoken word, has not yet been studied in detail; yet the archives are full of sound. The deeply affective qualities inherent in sound, and the growth of technologies to amplify and record them, renders this a rich approach to understanding anti-colonial politics.Read moreRead less
Claiming possession: Asia, Europe and empire. This project aims to reassess the nature of claims to possession across the early modern world. Claiming created the borders we take for granted and its legal artefacts are everywhere evident. Claiming was never only a European enterprise, and Asia was and remains an active site for claiming. The project will examine how Europeans claimed possession over people, lands and resources in the shadow of powerful Asian states and charts the emergence of lo ....Claiming possession: Asia, Europe and empire. This project aims to reassess the nature of claims to possession across the early modern world. Claiming created the borders we take for granted and its legal artefacts are everywhere evident. Claiming was never only a European enterprise, and Asia was and remains an active site for claiming. The project will examine how Europeans claimed possession over people, lands and resources in the shadow of powerful Asian states and charts the emergence of local counterclaims and processes of legal resistance. The research will also analyse Asian polities’ historical claiming practices across borderland areas. This project could show how practices developed in the early modern period influence current sovereignty disputes in the South and East China Seas.Read moreRead less
Understanding Japan's human-centred environmentalism. Japanese environmental activism has influenced attitudes and policymaking on the environment in Japan and worldwide for half a century. This project will demonstrate the strengths and limitations of Japan’s human-centred environmentalism and will encourage us to reconsider the tension between human satisfaction and environmental protection.
Chinese trade and diplomacy in South-East Asia from the 9th to 19th century common era. China’s trade in porcelain to South-East Asia over the past millennium provides the longest, continuous, market record for a product. The contrast between official Chinese control and what the archaeology reveals the traders really did, displays the limits of state power and the role of trade as another path in China’s diplomatic engagement with SE Asia.
Traffic in women and girls in the Asia Pacific region, 1865-1940. This project will offer a critical analysis of historical narratives on the traffic in women within Asia Pacific networks. It will position Australian history at the forefront of international research on transnational history, informed by race and gender studies and considers parallels with today’s human trafficking debates.
From Human Rights to Human Security: Changing Paradigms for Dealing with Inequality in the Asia-Pacific Region. This project is particularly timely as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is clearly aligned with the national research priority goals of Understanding our Region and the World and Strengthening Australia's Social and Economic Fabric. The question of human rights is a pressing issue throughout the Asia-Pacific region and much is to be gai ....From Human Rights to Human Security: Changing Paradigms for Dealing with Inequality in the Asia-Pacific Region. This project is particularly timely as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is clearly aligned with the national research priority goals of Understanding our Region and the World and Strengthening Australia's Social and Economic Fabric. The question of human rights is a pressing issue throughout the Asia-Pacific region and much is to be gained by a comparative approach which considers strategies for embedding human rights practice and principles in particular local contexts and how they may be adapted in other national contexts. Read moreRead less
Unlocking the missing Millennia of mainland Southeast Asia. This project will reveal the prehistoric transition from Neolithic to Bronze Age in South and Southeast Asia, the missing Millennia of the archaeological record. Sophisticated linguistic analyses, facilitated by innovative computational methods and bioinformatics, reconstruct the languages, migrations, and societies of the region’s oldest cultures