Work report 2023 for the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies

Overview

During the year, the Centre organised a range of events, including public lectures and workshops. It also hosted seven visiting PhD students and welcomed one Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow. The Centre has further expanded its network in Sweden and internationally through co-ordinating the Graduate School in Asian Studies. 29 new MA students were enrolled and 24 graduated from the programme during the year.

Staff changes and developments

Elizabeth (Izzy) Rhoads got a new one-year vacancy position as lecturer to partly cover for staff who have received research funding. Paulina Kolata ended her postdoctoral position and took up a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at Copenhagen University, and Jinyan Zeng got her postdoctoral position at the Centre extended for six months. Martin Lavicka from Palacký University received a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship and will be with the Centre for two years, starting from September 2023. The Centre received funding from the Korea Foundation and announced a senior associate lecturer in contemporary Korean society. After external reviews and interviews, Dr. Youngeun Koo, currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, was offered the position and will start on 1 August 2024. In addition, Dr Macario Lacbawan who got his PhD at Uppsala University received funding from the Swedish Research Council for an international postdoctoral fellowship and will be with the Centre from 1 February 2024 and for three years. Jinyan Zeng will be working on vacancy lecturer position during the spring semester.

Public lectures, events and workshops/conferences

In 2023, the Centre organised a total of 16 public lectures, including six within the new series Perspective Asia on a variety of topics. Among the topics were transnational repression, Islam in Java, landgrabbing in South-East Asia, and the US-China tech war. The Centre also organised two alumni webinars with previous MA students who talked about their work experiences and careers. In addition, the Centre organised a total of eight public lectures and webinars within the Graduate School in Asian Studies, including on academic freedom in Asia and on culinary nationalism in Asia, as well as one PhD workshop on contemporary Indonesia and one retreat with 13 PhD students. The Centre also organised the annual European Japan Advanced Research Network conference funded by the Toshiba foundation, with over 20 participants from Europe, North America, and Japan. The European Association for Chinese Studies’ bi-annual summer school, which this year was on the topic of Global China and included eight speakers and 14 graduate students from around the world was also organised and held at the Centre.

Networking and participation at other events in Lund

One of the Centre’s staff gave a lecture on Myanmar for the Lund Foreign Policy Association, and one Centre staff gave a presentation on the situation in Xinjiang at the Lund Human Rights Festival. Several of the Centre staff are also part of the recently established Human Rights Profile Area at Lund University.

Visiting researchers at the Centre

During the spring semester, the Centre hosted one visiting PhD student from China, Chen Wenwen from Zhejiang University. In addition, through the Graduate School in Asian Studies mobility programme, six PhD students from different Swedish, Nordic and European universities visited the Centre for between one and two weeks. 

Research projects and outputs

During the year individual researchers were active in different research projects (see www.ace.lu.se). They published a total of 10 journal articles, nine book chapters, one edited volume, five popular science articles and web articles, two reports, and four book reviews.

During the year regular research seminars have been held where staff have presented their current research and new project ideas.

Several staff got smaller grants for fieldwork and conference participation as well as for workshop organization. In addition, the Centre was invited to become member of the Horizon Europe Programme, Twinning Call, EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region (EUVIP). The programme is coordinated by Palacký University, and also includes the University of Helsinki and the Catholic University of Louvain, and will run until December 2025. Nicholas Loubere is a co-PI on the British Academy Global Convening Programme grant titled ‘Chinese Global Orders’, which will run from 2023 to the end of 2025.

Conference participation and participation in university committees, professional associations, and other contributions to the academic community

Staff took part in several conferences such as those organised by the Association of Asian Studies and the International Convention of Asia Scholars. Nicholas Loubere and Martin Lavicka both serves as board members of the European Association of Chinese Studies, and Astrid Norén Nilsson serves as board member of the European Association of South-East Asian Studies. Marina Svensson is a member of the advisory board of the Swedish National China Centre.

Marina Svensson was a member of a PhD committee at the Department of Sociology at Lund University. Nicholas Loubere became a member of a newly-established group on Open Science, which advises the Lund University Research Board.

Education

The fall semester saw 29 new students begin the MA programme in Asian Studies. During the year four BA courses were also given, and funding was received to start a new course on contemporary Korean society and one on Global China, as well as a summer course on social and political movements in East and South-East Asia. The Centre has organised several student ‘fika’, two alumni events, and its annual MA graduation ceremony. A total of 11 MA students spent a semester abroad and in addition eight students attended the fieldwork courses organised by Waseda University and Thammasat University. During the fall semester, a former MA student, Julia Olsson, worked as an intern at the Centre, taking the internship course, and she among other things contributed with organising one alumni event, a workshop on Japan, and a cultural event, Kulturnatten, as well as worked on the Asia in Focus Journal.

Visibility

During the year, the Centre published newsletters and maintained its social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Centre was also visible through Nicholas Loubere’s co-editorship of the Made in China Journal, which was also co-financed by the Centre. The Centre is now in charge of the Asia in Focus Journal, formerly at NIAS, and a first issue was published during the year.

Several of the staff have written or have been interviewed about their research and current affairs in the region in newspapers and on podcasts. Staff from the Centre has also held public talks outside of the university and been invited to give lectures at other universities or for government agencies and other actors.

Financial report

The financial result for 2022 was a planned minus of 738 000 SEK. The total accumulated surplus will then be around 4,8 million SEK. The Centre is estimating to run a planned minus of around 1,5 million SEK in 2024. Part of the surplus capital is used to finance two Ph.D. students.