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Posted: September 9, 2024

Call for Papers: ANU Southeast Asia Institute Student Research Symposium

Deadline: Friday 20 September
Symposium date: 26-27 November 2024
Symposium venue: The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

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 welcomes papers containing conceptual, empirical, and methodological interventions to help us approach these questions. The issue areas that are most relevant are those concerning the international/regional dimensions of politics, history, economics, and security (broadly defined) in Southeast Asia.

To apply, please fill out the application form, including submitting a 250 word paper abstract and key words. Accepted applicants will be expected to write and present full-length (5000-word) papers at the Symposium.

Submissions close on Friday 20 September. Successful applicants will be notified by Monday 30 September.

More information for submissions

  • Applications are open to advanced undergraduate (e.g. Honours) and postgraduate students (i.e. Masters and doctoral) currently enrolled in degree programs with a research component.
  • Participation for this Symposium is in-person only. There is no registration fee. However, applicants should ensure that they have the means to travel to Canberra to attend the full two days of activities. 
  • ANU SEAI can offer a limited number of bursaries (subsidies) for students whose applications are accepted (AUD$600 for Australia-based non-ACT students; AUD$2,000 for overseas-based students). Please indicate on the application form if you wish to be considered for these bursaries.
  • Please note that students who do not meet the criteria to submit papers, or whose papers are not selected, can attend the Symposium as audience members. Registration is free, though seating is limited. We will open registration closer to the date. 

Contact

For any further questions please write to: