91原创

Scholars take on leadership roles and present insights on India and Southeast Asia

Through an international fellowship and prestigious leadership roles, Asian studies faculty are advancing research on social and political forces shaping India and Southeast Asia. Their findings have been shared across peer-reviewed journals and global forums.  

Vikramaditya Thakur, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, received a research fellowship, 鈥淚ndia鈥檚 Politics in its Vernaculars,鈥� funded by the European Research Council. He conducted fieldwork in rural India in December 2025 with this grant. He joined the Refugee and Migration Lab, an international research collective that draws on diverse academic knowledge and expertise to address the escalating refugee crisis, dynamics of forced displacement and evolving migration challenges.

Thakur published in leading academic outlets: journal articles 鈥淰ernacular Modernity: The Politics of the Project-Affected People in Rural Western India鈥� in World Development and 鈥淏eing Bhil: The Politics of becoming Indigenous in India and Pakistan,鈥� co-authored, in History and Anthropology and one special issue: 鈥淎fter Displacement: Resettlements, People, Policies and Outcomes,鈥� for World Development.

Patricia Sloane-White, chair of the Department of Women and Gender Studies and professor of anthropology, Asian studies, and women and gender studies, has been elected to serve a three-year term with the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Southeast Asia Council (SEAC). Sloane-White gave a roundtable presentation at the AAS on the "State of Malaysian, Singapore, and Brunei Studies in the United States" as the Malaysian, Singapore and Brunei Subcommittee celebrates its 50th anniversary. She is a former chair of this committee.

Alice Ba, the Emma Smith Morris Professor of Political Science & International Relations and professor of Asian studies, delivered the keynote state-of-the-region lecture at the annual meeting of the Southeast Asia Research Group at the University of California, San Diego, Calif.  She will also be presenting her recent research on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its institutional development at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. Earlier this year, she also participated in a policy dialogue with regional stakeholders on the political crisis in Myanmar, organized by the Hollings Center for International Dialogue and the University of Pittsburgh in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.