This roundtable discussion brought together Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to discuss the challenges and opportunities of Southeast Asia Research. Discussants brought their recent experiences of fieldwork in Southeast Asia focusing on difference topics and countries. This session particularly targeted ECRs and was be an open space for discussion, sharing experiences and ideas. This event was recorded and the video can be found here.
Speaker and Chair Biographies
Dr Laura Antona is an LSE Fellow in Human Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research is at the intersection of human geography, urban studies/geography, and migration studies, and is particularly concerned with migrants’ experiences of violence, detainment, and forced return in Southeast Asia. Prior to holding this position, Laura worked as an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment. She holds a PhD in Human Geography and Urban Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she was supervised by Professor Hyun Bang Shin and the late Professor Sylvia Chant. Laura’s doctoral research focused on the experiences of migrant domestic workers who were no longer willing/able to work-for/live-with their employers in Singapore, most often having experienced abuse.
Dr Greta Seibel is an LSE Fellow in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She teaches DV400 - Development: History, Theory and Policy. Greta is an economic historian who draws insights from political economy, history, anthropology and sociology. Her wider research interests include industrial policies, state-led development and the Asian growth miracle. Her current research project explores small business credit and bridging the gap towards financial inclusion in Indonesia. This project builds on her doctoral research, which explored the missing middle in Indonesian firm-size distribution and credit gap during the New Order period and the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis (1966-2006). She holds a PhD in Economic History and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development from the London School of Economics, and a BA in European Studies from Maastricht University.
Jiahui Zeng is a PhD student in anthropology at Tsinghua University. Her research is about the nickel belt in East Indonesia.
Lingqi Wang is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Tsinghua University. His doctoral research explores the migrant placemaking processes as well as the dynamics of placemaking among the Burmese communities. Setting out from the migrant public spaces, his research discusses a set of issues including sense of belonging, transnational networking and economic arrangements, trying to reveal the in-between complexities and predicaments of Burmese migrant people. Following his interrupted fieldwork in Myanmar and India, he is now working on his thesis titled, “Interstitial Geography: Migrant Public Spaces along the Bay of Bengal”. His work is supported by the Program in Developing Country Studies (DCS) at Tsinghua University.
Dr Yimin Zhao is Assistant Professor in Urban Planning and Management, School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China. Trained as a Human Geographer, he is interested in spatial politics and urban political economy in China’s urban transformation. After previous investigations on Beijing’s green belts and the Jiehebu area, his current research develops along two lines of inquiry, one focusing on the infrastructural lives of authoritarianism and the other looking into the urban mechanisms of “Global China”.