Lunch Talk: Doing Nothing”: The Cultural Production of Inaction in ASEAN with Deepak Nair

In this talk, Dr. Nair will discuss his in-progress book project on the everyday cultural production of ASEAN. At its broadest, the book examines how seemingly bogus, banal, and empty activity can have powerful political effects. It intervenes in a long-running (and inconclusive) debate on whether ASEAN’s diplomacy matters, and whether it “does anything” other than meeting and talking. Drawing on fieldwork in the everyday circuits of ASEAN’s diplomacy in Jakarta, the book offers a thick description of the forms and sociological make-up of ASEAN’s banal practical activity and offers a novel response to this old debate on ASEAN’s cultural production.  

The format is 20-30 minutes presentation followed by discussion.

Deepak Nair is a Lecturer in International Relations at the Australian National University. His research centers on the study of diplomacy, international bureaucracy, and the international politics of Southeast Asia. His research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, the European Journal of International Relations, International Political Sociology, History and Anthropology, among other venues. He is a recipient of the Antony Deos Young Scholar Award from the Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association.