Episodes

  • Good and Bad Palm Oil: Food Security, Paradigm Shift and Stakeholder Negotiations in Indonesia and the EU

    Good and Bad Palm Oil: Food Security, Paradigm Shift and Stakeholder Negotiations in Indonesia and the EU
    Feb 20 2026
    Entangled in a nexus of commerce, industry, food security, and environmental concerns, palm oil has become a prominent topic of controversy and debate. In this episode, Dr. Ayu Pratiwi illuminates the complicated reality behind the controversy by introducing the University of Turku research project "Good and Bad Palm Oil: Food Security, Paradigm Shift and Stakeholder Negotiations in Indonesia and the EU." What is good and what is bad about palm oil, and what is the recent paradigm shift in its status between Southeast Asia and Europe? Dr. Ayu Pratiwi is a Docent in economic geography at the Department of Marketing and International Business and Senior Researcher at the Department of Biodiversity Sciences at the University of Turku. Ari-Joonas Pitkänen is a Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    31 mins
  • Thailand’s February 2026 Snap Election: A Conversation with Prof Duncan McCargo

    Thailand’s February 2026 Snap Election: A Conversation with Prof Duncan McCargo
    Feb 20 2026
    This episode unpacks the 8 February 2026 snap election and constitutional referendum in Thailand. The results paint a mixed picture: a decisive win for the country’s conservative forces alongside signals of progressive change, particularly regarding the drafting of a new constitution. Dialogues on Southeast Asia sits down with Prof Duncan McCargo, President’s Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a world-leading specialist on Thai politics, to make sense of what the results mean. Prof McCargo focuses on the comparative politics of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, on which he has published widely. He is the author of a dozen books, including Fighting for Virtue: Politics and Justice in Thailand (Cornell, 2019) and Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party (NIAS Press, 2020). Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    46 mins
  • Himanshu Prabha Ray ed., "Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections" (Routledge, 2026)

    Himanshu Prabha Ray ed., "Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections" (Routledge, 2026)
    Feb 15 2026
    Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections (Routledge, 2026) assesses the impact of European colonization in the late 19th and early 20th century in ‘restructuring’ the shared past of India and Southeast Asia. It provides case studies that transcend colonial constructs and adopt newer approaches to understanding the shared past. The authors explore these developments through the lens of political figures like Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) and re-examine themes such as the Greater India Society (1926–1959) established in Calcutta, and the role of Buddhism in post-World War II connections, as the repatriation of the mortal remains of Japanese soldiers killed in Burma (Myanmar) acquired urgency. Drawing on a diverse range of sources including archaeology, Buddhist texts, the afterlives of the Hindu temples, maritime networks, and inscriptions from Vietnam and central India, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, Buddhism, archaeology, heritage studies, cultural studies, and political history as well as South and Southeast Asian history. Guest: Himanshu Prabha Ray Interviewer: Natali Pearson Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Sugata Bose, "Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century" (Harvard UP, 2024)

    Sugata Bose, "Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century" (Harvard UP, 2024)
    Feb 15 2026
    The balance of global power changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century, above all with the economic and political rise of Asia. Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century (Harvard UP, 2024) is a bold new interpretation of the period, focusing on the conflicting and overlapping ways in which Asians have conceived their bonds and their roles in the world. Tracking the circulation of ideas and people across colonial and national borders, Sugata Bose explores developments in Asian thought, art, and politics that defied Euro-American models and defined Asianness as a locus of solidarity for all humanity.Impressive in scale, yet driven by the stories of fascinating and influential individuals, Asia after Europe examines early intimations of Asian solidarity and universalism preceding Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905; the revolutionary collaborations of the First World War and its aftermath, when Asian universalism took shape alongside Wilsonian internationalism and Bolshevism; the impact of the Great Depression and Second World War on the idea of Asia; and the persistence of forms of Asian universalism in the postwar period, despite the consolidation of postcolonial nation-states on a European model.Diverse Asian universalisms were forged and fractured through phases of poverty and prosperity, among elites and common people, throughout the span of the twentieth century. Noting the endurance of nationalist rivalries, often tied to religious exclusion and violence, Bose concludes with reflections on the continuing potential of political thought beyond European definitions of reason, nation, and identity. Sugata Bose is Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University. Lucas Tse is Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Cindy Anh Nguyen, "Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam" (U California Press, 2026)

    Cindy Anh Nguyen, "Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam" (U California Press, 2026)
    Feb 6 2026
    Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. In Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam (U California Press, 2026), Cindy Any Nguyen examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Comprising government bureaucrats, library personnel, journalists, and everyday library readers, this colonial public debated the role of libraries as educational resource, civilizing instrument, and literary heritage. Moving beyond procolonial or anticolonial nationalism framings, Bibliotactics advances a relational theory of power that centers public reading culture contextualized within the library infrastructure of the colonial information order. As the first comprehensive history of the colonial and national library in Asia, this book contributes new insights into publicity, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the histories of Vietnam, libraries, and information. Bibliotactics is available open access from Luminosa. Visit here to download a copy for free. Cindy Anh Nguyen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies and the Digital Humanities program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom (2022) and The Social Movement Archive (2021), and co-editor of Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (2025). Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Wisdom of the Goddess: The Divine Feminine in South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan Art

    Wisdom of the Goddess: The Divine Feminine in South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan Art
    Feb 5 2026
    Hillary Langberg discusses Wisdom of the Goddess, an online exhibition she curated for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art featuring nine goddesses across Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Langberg traces her path from fieldwork at western Deccan cave temples to public humanities, and addresses the curatorial choices, pedagogical design, and theological framing involved in presenting devī traditions to diverse audiences. The conversation explores the Hindu-Buddhist interface in goddess worship, visual texts as evidence, and transmission beyond academic containers. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    50 mins
  • Michael Hurley, "Waterways of Bangkok: Memory, Landscape and Twilight" (NUS Press, 2025)

    Michael Hurley, "Waterways of Bangkok: Memory, Landscape and Twilight" (NUS Press, 2025)
    Feb 1 2026
    Bangkok is one of the world’s great cities, and the central artery of that city is the Chaophraya River. Michael Hurley’s book, Waterways of Bangkok: Memory, Landscape, and Twilight (NUS Press, 2025) just published by National University of Singapore Press, is an evocative reflection on the river’s place in Thai history, society, and culture. The author describes the Chaophraya River as the “binding thread of the Thai heartland”. He uses the river to examine historical legacies, the role of diverse ethnic groups that have contributed in various ways to Bangkok, and the country’s fractious politics. The book is also a meditation on the important, but today barely noticed, shift in Thai social life from a waterborne lifestyle to a land-based one, a shift which is barely a century old. Flooding, water pollution, and Bangkok’s notorious traffic jams, are all related to this movement away from an earlier aquatic culture. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    45 mins
  • Sara Ann Swenson, "Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Sara Ann Swenson, "Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    Jan 15 2026
    Sara Swenson is Assistant Professor of Religion and Affiliated Faculty in Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages at Dartmouth College. Her areas of expertise include Religions of Southeast Asia, Buddhism in Vietnam, Gender and Sexuality, Affect Theory, and Ethnography. She received her Ph.D. in Religion from Syracuse University in 2021. She also holds an M.Phil. in Religion and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Women's and Gender Studies from Syracuse University, an M.A. in Comparative Religion from Iliff School of Theology, and a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She pursues projects that highlight the power and agency of everyday people. Religions are often a vital resource for grassroots social action and community engagement, as exemplified by Buddhism in Vietnam. Her projects have received generous grant support from the American Council of Learned Societies; Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship; Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA); and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies. Swenson’s new book, Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam (Oxford UP, 2025) is one of the first major ethnographic studies on Buddhism in southern Vietnam, featuring new histories and interpretations of this rich subject. It shares new context for how religious practices affect urban migration, development, and humanitarian concerns, and presents theoretical advancements for understanding grassroots charity. Near Light We Shine offers a diversity of perspectives on grassroots Buddhist practices throughout Vietnam, by featuring interviews that have never been published before from marginalized Buddhist practitioners in Vietnam, such as day laborers, queer men, elderly women, and retired communist soldiers. References mentioned in the interview: Le Hoang Anh Thu, "Doing Bodhisattva's Work: Charity, Class, and Selfhood of Petty Traders in Hồ Chí Minh City" here Nhung Lu Rots, "Towards an Alternative Buddhist Modernity: Hòa Hảo Charity Healing and Herbal Medicine in the Mekong Delta" here Elizabeth Perez, Religion in the Kitchen here Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) at the University of Wisconsin here Van Nguyen-Marshall, Between War and the State: Civil Society in South Vietnam, 1954–1975 here Casey R. Collins, Buddhist Contramodernism: Shinnyo-en's Reconfigurations of Tradition for Modernity here Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
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    1 hr and 4 mins