17. Feb 2023 / 25 min

Challenging the Malayan Nationhood: Imaginations and Activism by the Peranakan Chinese

A conversation with Bernard Keo. Hosted by Mai Van Tran.

Are there viable alternatives to the ethnocentric model of nation-state in post-colonial societies? How did the Peranakan, a non-Malay community, imagine a different Malayan nation and strive to materialize it? How might researchers thoroughly investigate the political history of a marginalised group? And do the historical experiences from Malaya offer relevant lessons for resisting present-day ultra-nationalist developments elsewhere? In this episode, Dr. Bernard Keo, a Lecturer at La Trobe University, joins Dr. Mai Van Tran, a postdoc at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, to discuss his research on nation building, based on an extensive interrogation of Malaya’s complex path to independence.

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk

Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

Other Nordic Asia Podcasts

All podcasts

1. Apr 2022 / 33 min

Masks of Authoritarianism: Hegemony, Power and Public Life in Bangladesh

A discussion with Arild Engelsen Ruud, Mubashar Hasan, Maha Mirza and Asheque Haque. Hosted by Kenneth Bo Nielsen.

Bangladesh has turned into a hybrid regime with an increasingly authoritarian culture that silences critics and oppositions in many brutal ways. How does the increasing authoritarianism of a surveillance state affect people, including society’s outsiders such as rap musicians and homosexuals? How does the edifice of government survive and sustain itself despite the criticism from […]

Go listen

20. May 2022 / 35 min

Ethnographic Perspectives on Change and Continuity in China

A Discussion with Suvi Rautio. Hosted by Ari-Joonas Pitkänen.

The People’s Republic of China has undergone tumultuous and varied sociocultural developments over the course of its history. In this episode, Dr. Suvi Rautio talks about some of the ways in which people and communities have dealt with the resulting change (or lack of it) based on her ethnographic research. Dr. Rautio is currently working […]

Go listen